Profiling Shocks
“I scored 8 out of 10 today” I told Lulu, my parrot, who was perched on the mango tree. I was speaking about a recent workshop where I had delivered a talk. “You know – I have never scored more than 8.5”. I removed my specs and rubbed my eyes.
“That’s interesting”
“What’s interesting?” I put on my specs again and gave Lulu a good curious look, the kind which a prof gives a student asking a question.
“That you are evaluating yourself. People usually evaluate others!”
“That is so true. We HR professionals feel that we can read people well.”
“Oh! That’s interesting.”
“We have MBTI, Belbin, Firo-B and a host of psychological tests which do profiling. They are so accurate.”
“Accurate?”
“When you show the result to the persons profiled, they say “Oh, that’s me!””
“Really? Hmmm ….”
“Why, you seem to be doubting this ….”
“Have you read ‘Goodbye to MBTI, the Fad That Won’t Die’?
“Nope! Who’s the author?”
“Really? Adam Grant?”
“Yes. I want you to read about the Barnum Effect.” In a nutshell, the message is ‘Profiling is pseudoscience.’ This is also called the Forer Effect.”
“That’s shocking. I can’t believe this ….”
“Let me read out from this Eric Barker book ‘Plays Well With Others’. ‘In 1948, Bertram Forer, a college professor, gave a written personality test to his students. A week later he gave them each a custom profile describing their unique personality based on the results. Forer asked them to rate the profile between 0 and 5, 5 being most accurate. The class average was a 4.3, with only one student giving it less than a 4.’”
“Okay”
“And then Forer told them the truth . . . they had all received the exact same profile. Yet every one of them had looked at the dossier and said, “Yup, that’s uniquely true of me.” Know where Forer got the profile from? An astrology book!!”
“This is shocking. We do so much work on profiling. I have done mine too. I am an INTJ. Same as Adam Grant!”
“Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Nietzsche and Issac Newton are also INTJs! But take a good look at the Forer experiment. Many experiments have repeatedly shown that profiling does not work.”
“I mean… You have shaken me and my beliefs. People say the profiling is accurate, right?”
“The Barnum effect refers to the tendency for people to accept as uncannily descriptive of themselves the same generally worded assessment as long as they believe it was written specifically for them on the basis of some ‘diagnostic’ instrument such as a horoscope or personality inventory.”
“Oh!”
“People turn to crystal balls and tarot cards not for hard answers but for a story that gives them a feeling of control over their lives.”
“I don’t know what to say”
“That’s simple”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t focus on profiling. There is a simple and effective tool to understand people.”
“Tell me ….”
“Just listen empathetically to those with whom you are interacting. It does wonders. Instead of using profiling to understand people, why not try this method of empathetic listening which works without fail?”
Lulu fluttered his wings, perched on my shoulder, and lightly bit my ear.
PS: Feature photo: Courtesy Wikipedia
Vivek S Patwardhan
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” / Read more Lulu blogs in my book ‘The Lulu Duologues’
Good Earthy wisdom !
I just loved this!
Refreshing look at profiling.
Very true. I guess same is true for DISC assessment.
I liked the comment on picking the profile from astrology book.
I randomly pick the weekly astrology of any zodiac sign and ask people to read. At the end most come back with a response the prediction is correct.
You can try it yourself. Read all the predictions of 12 Zodiac signs and you will feel at least 10 out of 12 applies to you.
Always a fresh perspective Vivek thank you
In coaching just asking the right questions gives one an incredible insight to the profile
Great thoughts Vivek 🙏
Yes profiling is quite simple since one does not have to stick his neck out( no accountability ) Just put the mumbo/jumbo out – name a test/guru and many fall for the yarn
I agree – the profiling/stereotyping is not the ultimate and our biases add to it
Let me share a quick example – when the current RBI governor was appointed …many remarked how a History MA was appointed n even predicted his failure‼️
Well, he has delivered better than many acclaimed global gurus n economists is what we have seen
Once again thanks for your eye opener 🙃
Vivek
once again you have hit the nail on the head
As a psychology student I have always looked at Profiles with a healthy disrespect. To illustrate, if you take the horoscope signs, they categorise 7 Bn+ people into 12 types: are people so similar? Situations are different, responses are different so how can 7 billion divided by 12….xxx people have the same future?
Same applies to all the Psycho tests and profiles
Let me share an interesting personal example. When we were in IIMC every 3 months we used to travel Howrah Mail Cal to Bom for 36 hours. How to spend the time? one friend came out with a briliant idea. After train leaves kalyan, he would ask one of his IIMC friends to show their hand and he will tell their future. Palm Reading. The friend had to play along and in between say wow so true…this is so correct….etc. Soon the others in the cubicle would be interested and start showing their hands, My friends reputation would spread in the bogie and people from other cubicles joined. As it was a corridor train soon other compartment people would make a beeline to hear their future.
When we asked our friend where he learnt palm reading, he said it is all gas. I say whatever the other person wants to hear. “You are sincere but do not get the reward you deserve”. Who will say no to this? or “You do a lot for your family and dear ones but they do not respond in same way”. Again a universal truth.
Due to this palmistry , we got free food and tea cups galore from everyone around. And my friend confessed this was good time pass for him, with the added advantage of holding a girl or lady’s hand for a while and looking deep in her eyes!!
such is prediction.
Profiling not “PERSON”ablity has always been my Belief SIR right or wrong dont know as cant claim any expertise. Definitely found it futile to critique when corporates use such tools to determine significant decisions like career planning by Leadership profiling. Take a template mandated Global/HO HR and apply Tom, Dick, Hari and Sue. Your article touched my raw nerve sorry if it ruffle’s from feather in the HR parrot’s domains. But you given my BELIEF a inch more more faith…..
Candid and unapologetic commentary on the established Psychometric Tools. Very honest perspective and pretty convincingly presented.
My own feeling is that these Instruments provide some perspective for us to introspect. The flaw may lie in our assumption that they describe or unravel our personality completely and comprehensively. The truth is none of the Instruments can ever hope to do so as we human beings are far too complicated to be analysed, much less fully, by a couple of questions. In fact, most good Instruments have such a rider and even if they don’t, I guess we as rational persons should know what to extract and what not to blindly accept.
To my small brain, discretion is for us to apply and sift out what we should like to use and rely on and what to filter out, like the best advise we have received from our superb well-wishers, which we evaluate before following.
If I have struck a discordant note and joined my respected professional leaders, I seek to be excused.
Eye- opener and insightful learning into the myth of personality profiling.