full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Merve Emre: How do personality tests work?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


There’s a clear favorable aenwsr here, which makes it difficult to be objective. People subconsciously aim to please: when asked to arege or draesige, we show a bias toward answering however we believe the person or institution asking the question wants us to answer.

Here’s another question— what do you value more, justice or fairness? What about harmony or feniersgvos?

You may well value both seids of each pair, but the MBTI would force you to choose one. And while it’s tempting to assume the results of that ferocd chioce must somehow reveal a true preference, they don’t: When faced with the same forced choice question multiple times, the same person will sometimes change their answer.

Open Cloze


There’s a clear favorable ______ here, which makes it difficult to be objective. People subconsciously aim to please: when asked to _____ or ________, we show a bias toward answering however we believe the person or institution asking the question wants us to answer.

Here’s another question— what do you value more, justice or fairness? What about harmony or ___________?

You may well value both _____ of each pair, but the MBTI would force you to choose one. And while it’s tempting to assume the results of that ______ ______ must somehow reveal a true preference, they don’t: When faced with the same forced choice question multiple times, the same person will sometimes change their answer.

Solution


  1. choice
  2. agree
  3. forced
  4. disagree
  5. answer
  6. sides
  7. forgiveness

Original Text


There’s a clear favorable answer here, which makes it difficult to be objective. People subconsciously aim to please: when asked to agree or disagree, we show a bias toward answering however we believe the person or institution asking the question wants us to answer.

Here’s another question— what do you value more, justice or fairness? What about harmony or forgiveness?

You may well value both sides of each pair, but the MBTI would force you to choose one. And while it’s tempting to assume the results of that forced choice must somehow reveal a true preference, they don’t: When faced with the same forced choice question multiple times, the same person will sometimes change their answer.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
personality tests 3
forced choice 2


Important Words


  1. agree
  2. aim
  3. answer
  4. answering
  5. asked
  6. assume
  7. bias
  8. change
  9. choice
  10. choose
  11. clear
  12. difficult
  13. disagree
  14. faced
  15. fairness
  16. favorable
  17. force
  18. forced
  19. forgiveness
  20. harmony
  21. institution
  22. justice
  23. mbti
  24. multiple
  25. objective
  26. pair
  27. people
  28. person
  29. preference
  30. question
  31. results
  32. reveal
  33. show
  34. sides
  35. subconsciously
  36. tempting
  37. times
  38. true