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Psychometrics

Limitations of the Big 5

I talk a lot about the Big 5 personality factors, and how useful they are. So now it is time to discuss the problems with the Big 5. As in so many things, I am indebted to Steve Sailer for bringing these up first. Problem 1 is cheating. A person

People who bust ass almost always do well

I was emailed an article a while by back by a friend, all about the big 5 factors of personality and success in med school. That spurred quite a discussion about the relative values of smarts and hard work, and the kinds of personalities that do well in various professions,

More detailed Big 5 test

Courtesy of Steve Hsu, I found a more detailed online Big 5 personality assessment. This one takes much longer, but it has subdomain scores that can help people delve more deeply into their personality, and stave off objections that "I'm not really like that". The Out

Steve Hsu: Information Processing

Steve Hsu is a physics professor at the University of Oregon. I stumbled across some fun things on his blog. Among my favorites: * Learning how to fight [Our interests converge already] * Thinking in terms of probability distributions [the most important skill in science and engineering, and life] * Psychometrics works [I&

Holmes is a Mess Part 2

The Family Social Scientist informs me in the comments to the last Holmes post that Doyle's Holmes really is much like Downey's Holmes. I stand corrected. That is what I get for going off of memory. I was reflecting on the Magistra's comment that

Holmes is a Mess

Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes is a bit of a mess. 221B Baker St. is a complete disaster with him living there. Doyle's Holmes seemed more like a dapper, reserved, proper gentleman, while Downey's Holmes is disagreeable and a bit of a mad scientist.

Laws of Human Nature: The Map is not the Territory

The first article I read about the laws of human nature today was about a numerical simulation of the Peter Principle, which states that employees keep getting promoted until the point where they can no longer perform their jobs well. This simulation is pretty clever, but I don't