The Cult of Personality
Subtitle: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves
Publisher: Free Press
Published: September 14, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780743243568
Subjects: Psychology; Social, group or collective psychology; Psychological testing; Personality tests; United States; Assessment, Testing & Measurement; Personality; Philosophy & Social Aspects; Social Science / Sociology / General; Social Psychology; Employees; Personality tests for children
First sentence: On July 16, 1849, a young man arrived at the offices of Fowler &amp; Wells on Nassau Street in Lower Manhattan.
Description: "Millions of Americans take personality tests each year: to get a job, to pursue an education, to settle a legal dispute, to better understand themselves and others." "Combining cutting-edge research, engaging reporting, and absorbing history, Paul uncovers the way these allegedly neutral instruments are in fact shaped by the agendas of industry and government. She documents the dangers of their intrusive questions, biased assumptions, and limiting labels. And she exposes the flawed theories and faulty methods that render their results unreliable and invalid. Personality tests, she contends, produce descriptions of people that are nothing like human beings as they actually are: complicated, contradictory, changeable across time and place."--BOOK JACKET.