Description
SIMON & SCHUSTER The Cult of Personality Testing by Annie Murphy Paul
Millions of people worldwide take personality tests each year to direct their education to decide on a career to determine if theyll be hired to join the armed forces and to settle legal disputes. Yet according to award winning psychology writer Annie Murphy Paul the sheer number of tests administered obscures a simple fact: they dont work. Most personality tests are seriously flawed and sometimes unequivocally wrong. They fail the fields own standards of validity and reliability. They ask intrusive questions. They produce descriptions of people that are nothing like human beings as they actually are: complicated contradictory changeable across time and place. THE CULT OF PERSONALITY TESTING documents for the first time the disturbing consequences of these tests. Children are being labelled in limiting ways. Businesses and the government are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars every year only to make illinformed decisions about hiring and firing. Job seekers are having their privacy invaded and their rights trampled and our judicial system is being undermined by faulty evidence. Pauls eyeopening chronicle reveals the fascinating history behind a lucrative and largely unregulated business. Captivating insightful and sometimes shocking THE CULT OF PERSONALITY TESTING offers an exhilarating trip into the human mind and heart.show more