The cult of personality testing : how personality tests are leading us to miseducate our children, mismanage our companies, and misunderstand ourselves

"Millions of Americans take personality tests each year: to get a job, to pursue an education, to settle a legal dispute, to better understand themselves and others." "Combining cutting-edge research, engaging reporting, and absorbing history, Paul uncovers the way these allegedly neutral instruments are in fact shaped by the agendas of industry and government. She documents the dangers of their intrusive questions, biased assumptions, and limiting labels. And she exposes the flawed theories and faulty methods that render their results unreliable and invalid. Personality tests, she contends, produce descriptions of people that are nothing like human beings as they actually are: complicated, contradictory, changeable across time and place."--BOOK JACKET. This Book Tells The Surprising And Disturbing Story Of The Tests That Claim To Capture Human Nature. It Goes Behind The Scenes To Discover How Personality Tests Are Used In America's Companies, Its Courts, Its Schools, And In Organizations From Churches To Community Centers To Dating Services. It Exposes The Serious Flaws Of Personality Tests, Explaining Why Their Results Are Often Invalid, Unreliable, And Unfair. A Most Typical American -- Rorschach's Dream -- Minnesota Normals -- Deep Diving -- First Love -- Child's Play -- The Stranger -- Uncharted Waters. Annie Murphy Paul. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [229]-291) And Index. A cautionary account of the history and misuse of personality tests argues that most personality tests are flawed or altogether wrong, citing the consequences of erroneous test results when applied to education, careers, and legal disputes. 30,000 first printing. On July 16, 1849, a young man arrived at the offices of Fowler & Wells on Nassau Street in Lower Manhattan.