On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:45:28 -0500, Stephen Black wrote: > I hope no one minds if I return to this now-concluded thread with a > belated thought I've been mulling over.
I have been otherwise occupied and could not respond to the thread though I more or less followed it. However, I was somewhat surprised that no one raised one rather obvious point: One reason why personality mesures of any form has deminished in importance, no matter what the adherrents/fanboys for such measures may say, has been the prevalant viewpoint in social psychology of the "power of the situation". Stanley Milgram, Darley and Larane, and Zimbardo's Prison experiment and other studies have shown that, regardless of personality, the situation will cause a person to behave in certain ways. Indeed, one can discount virtually discount personality and simply ask what are the situational factors at work. I personally think that there may be a "main effect" for situation variables but there is also a "situation by personality" interaction where individuals who are the extreme on a personality dimension (however one defines it) will behave more extremely than most people. In the Stanford Prison Experiment, the "John Wayne" guard is an example of this. I wonder where he would score on authoritaritianism and social dominance measures. I would imagine that he would score high, at least on social dominance, and given power over others, would abuse it. Similarly, in the movie "Cool Hand Luke", the Paul Newman character is anticonfomist in the extreme and only serves as a "bad example" to the other prisoners. Such extreme characters are unusual. As Philip Zimbardo says in the "Human Behavior Experiments" documentary, we all think of ourselves as being heros but the truth is that we behave much like the majority and it is the minority that behaves differently. I would assert that these individuals represent some extreme on a personality dimension which leads them to react in ways that most people would not. Of course, people with personality disorders by definition are extreme on certain dimensions but in a dysfunctional way. > I see the problem with using the Myers-Briggs as a guide to pairing dorm > roommates is not so much its uncertain scientific status (although that > doesn't help). It's that using it to promote dorm room harmony buys into > the unfortunately widespread belief that a non-specific psychological > test is better than one specifically designed for a particular problem. > > In this case, the belief is that an alleged personality test can provide > better guidance to pairing roommates that a test which simply asks > students how they match up on potential areas of conflict. If I may, what you provide are differences in behavioral patterns. Though these can result in conflict, one has to take in account what options one might have available. > I've been amusing myself with the possibilities. Some sample questions: > Do you think: > 1. a sensible bedtime is 10 pm or 3 am? > 2. a sensible waking time is 6 am or noon? > 3. you and your roommate should bathe or shower at least once a day or > once a month? > 4. dirty clothing and dishes should be stored on the floor and in the > sink, or washed and put neatly away in drawers and cupboards? > 5. a dorm room is a place where you can study alone in silence, or a > place where you can party loudly with as many as possible? > 6. the body is a temple which should be protected from chemical harm, or > a conduit for the receipt of chemicals such as alcohol, amphetamines, > hallucinogens, ecstasy and, of course, weed? > and the obligatory unredeemable bigot question: > 7. Do you hate (Gays, Catholics, Jews, Moslems, Blacks, Whites, > Canadians...)? Some additional questions: 8. Does your roommate mind if you have a "guest" overnight or does it depend upon how noise you make? 9. Is your roommate on psychotropic medication (my first dorm mate in graduate school was on heavy doses of thorazine; it resulted in him sleeping most of the time and making me wonder how he was doing in his graduate program in physics) 10. Does your roommate practice sports in the dorm room (friend of mine also had a physics grad student who was into archery and on occasion would shoot arrows into the furniture -- he preferred to drive to the beach at night with a case of beer and shoot arrows at sharks -- he really hated sharks). 11. Given the weird experiences I and other people I have known with physics grad students, an appropriate question might be "Are you are physics graduate student?" > Of course, a little research by interviewing students who confess to > either dorm heaven or dorm hell with their roommate and why would not be > amiss either. That would be real psychological science. I don't know if it would be "real psychological science", at least until we got to randomly assigning people to different combinations of the factors that people report as causing dorm hell or dorm heaven. > And a final question from me: Which source of information for matching > students do you think would be more useful in arranging roommate harmony-- > my proposed questionnaire to determine critical living habits, or the > MBTI to determine personality "type"? Well, I don't think that the MBTI would be very helpful but if possible I'd like to have them given a screen for psychiatric disorders (or their tendency toward studying physics). I think matching of behavioral patterns is probably a good start but I think some background questions might be useful, such as "are you used to having your own room?" I think that people who answer "Yes" might have problems in dealing with a roommate Another question to consider is "Are you in the habit of shooting arrows into the furniture". By the way, the archery oriented physics grad student wound up with a single. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
