I recently received a fwd mail that had a link to a psychology test on “my true color”. Like most tests, this one gave gratifying descriptions on what kind of person I resemble: serene, mysterious, perfectionist, determined, symbol of success, etc., and a few things to watch out (my color is black by the way). I would feel good if what they said is true, but since my undergraduate thesis involved psychometric methods and research, I doubt the reliability and validity of this test. I used to like doing lots of psychology tests on all sorts of areas like personality, temperament, IQ, careers and talents. Although a few of them are widely tested and appears to be valid and have good theoretical foundations, I’m now skeptical to many of the tests’ results.
But I guess truth is not why we do these tests; many people enjoy them even if they’re not sure whether the results are true or not (horoscope fit this description too; I used to read about it a lot, but I guess I should save my view about this topic for another time). Maybe we want to see what others have to say about us, want to learn more ourselves, or want confirmation about who we think we are. It’s interesting how the classification from the test results can give us a sense of identity. We feel it’s specifically for us even though we know many others are getting the same result. We want to be different but not too different. We want to be similar to people we like but different from the majority. We want to be unique in some ways and want to be above average (it’s shown that most people tend to believe they’re above average compare to people with similar backgrounds, but how can most people be above average if average is indeed average?) Well, I guess there’s little harm in trying out these tests (I just did one), but trying to find some sort of answers, identity, or confirmation through these tests are probably not too sensible.
One of the New Year gifts I just ordered for myself is a book related to intelligence called Flowers for Algernon (also bought another book on political economy by Brittan, but I’ll spare you the detail on that); it’s a science fiction I think would be interesting and insightful to read (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/015603008X/qid=1136486654/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-3857489-3248819?s=books&v=glance&n=283155). What’s intelligence anyway? Is emotional intelligence a kind intelligence? How about musical, athletic, or creative talents? Is there one fundamental intelligence such as those measured by IQ test or are there many different kinds, such as the seven multiple intelligence proposed by psychologist Gardner? Is it innate or can it be improved? Intelligence is not a well-defined concept and is definitely hard to measure (just look at all the different IQ tests exist). Even though some of the tests around show consistency in their predictions (e.g. high IQ correlate with better grade), what they’re really measuring are vague.
Like many things I concern, I want to know more about intelligence so I can improve mine if possible. But why do I want to be smarter anyway? It’s probably not the absolute level of intelligence I care about, but how mine compare with others (in fact IQ is measuring on a relative basis with 100 being the average in most case). Let’s assume that intelligence is how we perceive the world, comprehend what our senses take in, and make use of these information, so the more intelligent people will think about things in more different ways and at different levels, seeing things and relationships other people don’t. That sounds nice, but would that make my life happier? The more I see things differently from others, the less other people will be able to understand me, and the more isolated I’ll be from others. To experience the world in such a way no one else can and see things differently from friends, family, or other loved ones can be scary. But luckily (or sadly), I guess I don’t have to worry about that for now.
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