Are you sure you’re not talking about the MMPI? I haven’t heard of PPMI. But MMPI is a solid test. Some of the dimensions are a bit questionable, but they’re not used the same way as they were historically.
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I know a lot more than you think I know.
Then I’m sure you can say something more informative next time.
@anon9798425. Do you know whether any of the good, thoroughly-developed personality tests are available for free online?
Yes, there are research versions of The Big Five available online. I’m not sure how well-normed and developed they are, but they are without a doubt much more informative than this one. Here’s one with 300 questions:
http://www.personalityassessor.com/ipip300/
The MMPI is supposed to be administered by a trained professional. You could probably find some kind of version of it online, though.
If you want answers on normal personality, not abnormal/pathological, The Big Five is the way to go.
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I believe personality tests are pseudoscience. I also believe that psychology is in some ways a science, but in other ways not a science:
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There’s no point in comparing it to maths and physics. By that standard, even biology and medicine are psuedosciences. This criticism of psychology and psychometrics comes from a primitive understanding of how these fields work. The bottom line is that they are both very useful and provide us with better knowledge than any other ways of exploring the mind.
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True, but even the ‘Big 5’ are based on anecdotal evidence. They compare you to all other people who have taken the test. Thus people will fall on a spectrum.
The Big 5 does use direct questions instead of vague questions, and the results are consistent (even across cultures).
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Factor analysis. They base it on which answers correlate with each other, then draw out a desired number of factors that explain as much of the difference between the way people answer as possible as succinctly as possible. Then they use item analysis to choose only the questions that explain as much of the individual differences as possible in as few questions as possible. They norm the test to a group of randomly selected people who are similar to the overall population in all the relevant, measurable ways.
And yes, they compare you to others. What else would you have them do? Compare you to objects?
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I’ve taken this test a few times and I used to get INTP, though after repeated times I began to register as INFP. I guess it makes sense. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I take it if you do enough analyses you can arrive at any result. Sounds like p hacking.
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I have no idea what you’re on about now. The analyses are for choosing dimensions and questions that make sense. That explain something more than just what’s already obvious. That are objective and based on real differences between people, not what the test creator thought was relevant. It is not guided by what you want to find, but by what is objectively there. The norms are there to make sure you are actually being compared to most people, not just the people who take the tests.
When these analyses are done properly, there is not much room for subjective bias. You will have to choose a number of factors, since you could obviously split this up as much as you wanted, and you will have to choose a subject for the test. In this case, normal personality differences.
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Here’s the problem with psychology: we can’t just crack open people’s brains and experiment on them directly like you can directly deal with the other sciences. We are forced to study the brain mostly indirectly through survey research and experiments that don’t quite replicate the real world because we can’t directly manipulate the real world. This inability to directly study the brain also often means using animals as proxies and trying to draw conclusions about human behavior based on these animal proxies. Sometimes the proxies lead us to incorrect conclusions. What may have worked to reduce symptoms in mice does not always work to reduce symptoms in humans, for example.
Ethics are what prevent certain kinds of psychological research from occurring. People scream it’s bad science because of these things, but we are working with what we can and doing the best we can to try to accurately understand the complexities of the brain and mind.
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My type switches every once in a while from INFP to INTJ and back again. Kind of interesting. It seems I’m back to being INTJ.
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It’s because you score close to the middle in both of the last two. It’s an unreliable test.
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It’s funny, actually. I swapped INTJ to INFJ reliably due to my cycle. Really hilarious to see that happen like clockwork. That’s how I can tell it’s a silly test.
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Normally, I’m an ISTP, but I’m an ENFP when psychotic. 
Yeah the test is kinda garbage lol.
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Hey redanne I’m an ISTJ too.
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I took this test when I was well and was an ENTP but I am sure I would get an I something now but I don’t really care.
How about that Rosaarch Ink blot test? Some psychologist wrote about 5 pages of negative crap about me and being in a crisis because I said something looked like a bat. That test was a load of horse sh*t.
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