Psychodiagnostic Roulette

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Man has always tried to organize and structure the world around him. To do this, he used various tools and standards: a ruler, scales, hours, meters, minutes, kilograms … Having successfully coped with the units of measurement of physical quantities, scientists began to quantitatively measure individual qualities and human capabilities.

The slogan of the founder of biometrics, Francis Galton, "Measure everything you can!" firmly entered our life. Modern society is absolutely natural and tolerant of various kinds of tests, since we are accustomed to passing them from early childhood. Scientifically based and validated tests written by trained professionals promise to measure everything from IQ to anxiety levels. Usually the test consists of a number of tasks that serve to identify the severity of a person's certain mental characteristics. The results of the test test are translated into normalized values and are indicators of the properties and states of the individual. To what extent the obtained data correspond to reality, no one will undertake to determine precisely. With the accumulation of psychological knowledge, doubts grow, both in the reliability of even globally recognized methods (let alone "home-grown" or developed "for show"), and about the appropriateness of their use in practice. And how to relate height, weight, blood group, reaction speed, communication skills, IQ, etc. with the success and failure of a person in life or as an employee of an organization?

Life shows that there is no direct relationship between IQ and a person's real achievements. Everyone can remember a reliable fact when one of the former classmates, an "impassable troyesnik", achieved significant social success, and the diligence and diligence of an excellent student - "the pride of the school" - did not find application and demand. This also applies to other human abilities: a talented musician will forever remain promising, and those who have dubious data for music by the method of persistent practice becomes world-wide recognized. Examples can be continued and confirmed by well-known names. A logical conclusion suggests itself: people are a weak link in the system of total measurement of parameters. The plurality, which determines the range of psychological ideas about a person, casts doubt on the very possibility of measuring and comparing people with each other. Thus, some psychologists define three types of thinking: visual-figurative, verbal-logical, abstract; others postulate at least five: visual-effective, visual-figurative, verbal-logical, verbal-abstract, abstract-creative. The question naturally arises: who is right and how many types can be distinguished? If they are so different, do they have something in common so that we can measure them by a common unit? After all, we do not measure kilograms in volts, but kilometers in seconds

Some modern psychologists argue that psychodiagnostics, as a field of knowledge, does not exist at all. The accumulated practical experience shows that it is impossible, on the basis of the individual result of the implementation of a particular psychometric technique, to proceed to a psychological diagnosis or forecast of the behavior of a particular person in the future. Any quantitative measurement is debatable. A bucket of water holds as many liters as ten liter cans, but that doesn't show where it is cleaner. A person with IQ-140 solves a problem that two people with IQ-70 will never solve, but he, closed by nature, will find it more difficult to fit into a team of ingenious programmers, compared to two sociable jokes who, after practicing, will solve similar problems during hours.

Practically the same is the case with personality tests, which make it possible to characterize various traits of a person. Some psychologists identify 16 personality types, others - 3, and still others consider a set of individual psychological indicators. Different schools scientifically substantiate their own theory. Who is closer to the truth: cognitivists, analysts, dynamics, etc.? Perhaps no one or everyone, as in the parable of the peasant, who used a kind of test to determine the professional aptitude of his son. He gave his son an apple, a book and a coin, deciding for himself that if the son took the apple, he would be engaged in agriculture; if he reads a book, he becomes a scientist; if he is interested in a coin, be a merchant for him. However, in fact, the son began to eat an apple, playing with a coin and reading a book at the same time. The peasant, on reflection, sent his son to study the art of diplomacy. Rather, the use of psychodiagnostic methods is justified when there is a massive recruitment of personnel. The small probability of error pays off by saving time and resources: a mistakenly hired employee can be fired during the probationary period, and no one will know about the one who was eliminated in vain. But when forming a personnel reserve and promoting a person to a higher position, the price of a mistake can be too expensive for the organization. Therefore, trusting the globally recognized methods, it must be remembered that the test result is always of an average statistical nature and is not able to evaluate a unique exception. Any testing is preliminary information, from which a specialist can start working with another person: a client, a candidate, etc. This is more a way to get a general idea of the personality in order to start a more meaningful conversation in the future. No state-of-the-art technique can replace the experience of personal communication.

Still, I would like to avoid the false impression that tests do not provide particularly useful information. This is as far from the truth as the belief in their omnipotence. “The beginning of all wisdom is the recognition of facts,” says Chinese wisdom. Psychodiagnostics exists for the sake of diagnosis and prognosis, that is, it determines, by a number of signs, a mental property that is the cause of a particular behavior. Extracting real data and drawing final conclusions from the information collected is the prerogative of a specialist psychologist. A real professional is able to carry out a synthetic analysis of the external manifestations of behavior, human actions, its average statistical results and draw a conclusion based on the final psychological diagnosis.

Interestingly, the historical fact that the word "diagnosis" came from the military environment. In ancient times, warriors who carried the dead and wounded from the battlefield were called diagnosticians. And only then it entered medicine and through it into psychology. Literally, the psychological diagnosis determines the differences between the individual and personal characteristics of a particular person from the currently set standard.

Today, a psychodiagnostician selects the most suitable employees, putting into practice the principle: the success of an organization is the right people in the right place. Problems do not arise at the moment of psychodigantic selection, but when the employer wants to combine the incompatible. For example, trying to create a team of people who are even less suited to each other than a cat is a partner to a mouse, or implies, for obvious reasons, the worker has a universal creature that is capable of "milk, and live, and carry eggs" when required circumstances. There is a widespread belief among employers that for decent money an employee can work with anyone or learn any skill the organization needs. If this does not happen, then the reason is seen in the unwillingness or inability of the employee. In this case, psychodiagnostics comes to the rescue, giving an idea of how compatible the people united in a group are, what a particular person can do, and what is not worth asking. Wherever understanding oneself and another person significantly affects the result, psychodiagnostics is able to suggest effective decisions, on the one hand, providing the manager with the necessary information on working with personnel, on the other hand, helping in the distribution of work and responsibilities.

The description of psychological types has been known to mankind since 1920, but for some reason the simple consideration that job requirements should correspond to the individual and personal potential of the employee is just beginning to make its way. No patronage, salary, harmonious system of rewards and punishments will help to avoid failure or nervous breakdown if the work does not bring a person spiritual satisfaction, does not cause a desire to improve his qualifications, but serves, say, only the need to somehow earn a living. In order for the leaders and employees of the organization to work productively, without nervous overload, things go forward, the organization develops, it is necessary not only to determine what kind of work a particular person or group can perform, but also to use this information in practice.