Nadezhda Moroshkina: “You are not picking a team for the signs of the zodiac?”

The fact that the success of teamwork depends, among other things, on the atmosphere in the team and the compatibility of the project participants, is believed by most managers. Someone forms a team based on personal experience, someone tries to find a theoretical basis for his decisions, dividing people into categories, and sometimes even turning to testing.

We’ve talked with Nadezhda Moroshkina, a scientist and a candidate of psychological sciences, about how to predict whether colleagues work together, whether it makes sense in psychological tests for hiring and whether people can be classified according to personality types.
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- Does the idea itself about the existence of psychological types of people is associated with a deep need for classification?

- This tradition is really very old. Attempts to classify people in order to understand how to behave with them can be found in antiquity - it suffices to recall the separation according to the types of temperament. In clinical psychology, more or less successful attempts have also been made, for example, to associate, for example, a somatotype with a specific psychotype. The general idea is that a person has a set of permanent personal characteristics, traits or dispositions, beliefs, attitudes, thanks to which he will behave in a similar way in a variety of situations. And if we are able to measure these constant characteristics in any way, this will allow us to predict human behavior and, in principle, will explain to us why people can behave differently. Attempts to describe a person and define a set of his properties were based on a variety of bases.

In the first half of the twentieth century, statistics develops — a mathematical apparatus appears that allows quantitative measurements. Following this, the development of a variety of tests begins. Many have probably heard about the 16-factor personal questionnaire Cattell, the Minnesota MMPI questionnaire, the Freiburg FPI, etc. All of them are built on the subjects' self-reports. That is, you give the participants a questionnaire, they answer the questions in the series “how sociable you are” or “how sociable do other people consider you”. Further, using statistical methods, one can try to identify some deep variables, the value of which affects individual groups of answers. These variables are, perhaps, the very personality traits we are looking for. Actually, the 16-factor questionnaire is so called because it implies the presence of 16 such deep factors.

- Is the number 16 not related to the four types of temperament in the ancient tradition?

- The factor structure implies orthogonality - it is important that these deep variables are not interconnected. Their number is derived inductively. First, you collect a huge amount of empirical data, then you look for internal connections and correlations in them, then you try to describe this structure. At the same time, it is clear that one and the same data set can be described using different models, taking as a basis any number: at least four, at least 16, at least five. Today the big five is just more popular - the Big Five, about which everyone who is interested in psychology must have heard.

The concept of socionics is also quite popular, including for some reason among engineers. It is often correlated with the Myers-Briggs questionnaire, also based on the Jungian classification. It is less recognized in scientific circles and is not very much favored, although I know the works where it is used. There are many things untested and unproven in it, that is, this theory of personality types is intended more for the average man than for a serious specialist.

- Is there the most correct method of psychological testing? And can a test passed by a candidate help direct him to the most suitable area of ​​work?

- In the first half of the last century, such questionnaires did a lot, and verification shows that they can be quite reliable. A person answers questions, makes a self-report and independently determines his belonging to a certain type. After a while, you again give him a test created using the same method - and the percentage of coincidence of the results of the two surveys will be quite large. Authors and strive to create a methodology with the highest test reliability and internal consistency.

But we are more interested in another aspect - the predictive capabilities of the technique: can we use it to predict human behavior, for example, whether it will work well. Here everything was not so optimistic. For example, we measured a person by a psychodiagnostic method and found out that he is honest or kind, or, say, an extrovert. How far can we predict that in a particular situation he will be more sociable than another subject who turned out to be an introvert by the method? It turned out not particularly successful. The correlations we achieve are 0.16, 0.2, maximum 0.3. This means that the coefficient of determination (explanatory power) does not exceed 0.3 squared. That is, only 9% of the variance can be explained using this psychodiagnostic tool.

- So, the tests do not explain anything at all?

- Very little. If you show two correlation clouds, one of which corresponds to zero correlation, and the other correlation is 0.3, you can hardly distinguish between them. The connection is very unsteady.

Prior to the distribution of tests, the investigators did not require self-reports from the subjects, but observed their behavior, trying to find cross-situational consistency. For example, in the 20s, Newcomb in the summer camp watched teens to determine how strong personal characteristics they have. Suppose there is such a characteristic - sociability, extroversion. If we consider a person to be sociable, we think that he will talk a lot in the canteen, during a quiet hour, and on a walk. That is, we assume the manifestation of quality in different situations. But, according to observations, the consistency was just at the level of 0.14 - very low at the level of real behavior. That is, at the level of real behavior is very low.

At the same time, the consistency of behavior within the same situation can be great - for example, if someone is talking at dinner today, he will most likely be at dinner and tomorrow. But whether he wants to talk after a meal, we are actually unable to predict. And the presence of a stable personality trait implies its manifestation in a variety of circumstances.

- Does the problem rest on the quality of measurements?

- Poor quality measurement procedures have long tried to improve. But today it is assumed that situational variables are much more important for understanding behaviors than personal ones. If we know something about the situation, we can better predict the behavior of people than if we know something about the people themselves.

- But after all, the Big Five and various theories of personality classification are not recognized as 100% erroneous?

- Head over to the other side. Let us ask ourselves: what idea about human nature lies beyond the theory of personal dispositions? For example, trying to understand the behavior of a person who showed aggression, we think: "Probably, this is because aggressiveness is one of his personal characteristics." Does this sound strange? Instead of explaining the behavior, we simply postulated the existence of some entity that supposedly is responsible for this behavior. It is like thinking about some physical or chemical reality that is popular in certain epochs. Why does opium put to sleep? Because there is a "sleeping force" in it. Why is a man aggressive? Because he has "the essence of aggressiveness." But, in essence, this is only the introduction of certain entities against which, as you remember, Ockham protested. Strictly speaking, the theory of personal dispositions does not explain anything. At some stage of psychology, it was useful, because it allowed to describe some kind of phenomenology. But by and large, the theory itself is based on ordinary ideas.

- Like “well-fed” - means “good”?

- Yes, this is just an idea of ​​the connection between the somatotype and the psycho type. The postulation of entities does not make it easier for us to predict behavior. This is all very much like phrenology: this woman has a bump of amorousness - so she is engaged in prostitution. And this man has a bump of genius - so he makes scientific discoveries. Today we will only smile, having heard similar. But at the same time, phrenology sites can still be found.

- If the application of the exotic theory - the same phrenology - happens to be successful by chance, will it only remain to finally believe in it? Is this the secret of the popularity of psychological tests?

- With this, too, need to understand. If the dispositional approach is so weak, where do people have such powerful expectations about intrapersonal consistency of behavior? At the same time, it is confirmed that people expect very high cross-situational consistency in the behavior of others, although it is not observed in the experiments themselves. But if we constantly saw that the surrounding people were behaving unpredictably, they would hardly have labeled certain features on them. So, perhaps, this internal consistency is really present in life, although its nature is not at all connected with the false idea of ​​a constant set of human personality characteristics.

The low predictive ability of personality tests provoked research in this area, and the results suggest that consistency is higher in life than in experiments. The point is that in the experiments, the variables are isolated from each other, because we are trying to simulate a “clean” situation. But in life such situations do not happen, situational and personal factors are constantly mixed here. The same person more often finds himself in the same circumstances, but not because he is such, but because this is the reality surrounding him. For example, familiar people we usually observe in the framework of a standard set of situations in which there are a lot of imperceptible factors.

For example, at work there is a status factor - who is the boss and who is the subordinate; there is a demographic - whether there are more men or women around, etc. You regularly observe a colleague in some recurring situation, and, seeing that he behaves in concert, attribute some features to his character. In fact, only the constant coincidence of the same situational factors may be important. But the person for you is a figure, and the situation is just a background. Therefore, there is a feeling that dispositional theories of personality are confirmed, which reinforces the further expectation of high consistency.

- But after all, two people in similar conditions may behave completely differently?

- Most likely, in this case the situation for them is not the same. In addition, situational factors are not presented in pure form. A person’s personal history, past experience, upbringing, scenarios adopted in those companies where he had to communicate - all this influences the interpretation of circumstances. But it is likely that a well-known person in an unexpected situation will surprise you - expectations based on personal dispositions, in this case, will be inadequate. Another thing is that with familiar people, we rarely find ourselves in unusual situations.

Another aspect is that it is convenient for us when people around us - those with whom we work or live - act predictably. Therefore, we encourage consistent behavior and do not encourage inconsistent. Agree, "you behave inconsistently" is a reproach. That is, the sequence is more important than whether you are doing well, from the point of view of the interlocutor, or bad.

Therefore, the problem of shortcuts is so acute. For example, if at school a guy once fell into the category of hooligans, the entourage starts working so that he hooligans all the time, this is what they expect from him. Nobody will allow him to easily jump to another category. In turn, a person, possessing free will, can himself choose an environment that will contribute to his internal coherence. It turns out that in reality, consistency is quite high, although its causes are not at all in the type of person.

- But does a person's personality traits still exist?

- A person has common abilities - for example, intelligence - and special abilities - for example, for music or sports. By testing them, you can fairly reliably predict academic performance, possible success in singing or athletics. Abilities are more defined by biological factors: behind this are hormonal features, features of the nervous system, etc.

- Unless, for example, reaction to a stress cannot be defined by biological factors?

- The contribution of individual features here will be quite small. Take some trait — for example, courage — and observe all situations in a person’s life where it could manifest itself. We will see that man does not behave everywhere equally bravely. In principle, we can build a distribution of courage and even calculate its conditional average value. The problem is that the variance will be so great that it does not help us to predict the behavior of the subject. Somewhere he may behave like a coward, somewhere - as a desperate brave man, and on average will seem like an ordinary person.

Plus it is not entirely correct to say that such an entity as “courage” exists in principle. It is more correct to consider human behavior in typical circumstances. Because his behavioral scenarios are strongly tied to situations that a person has encountered or has not encountered in the past.

- That is, a person’s biography will tell us about his potential aggression or determination much more than any test?

- Of course. This is the trend of modern organizational psychology - to rely on biographical methods more than on personal ones.

“But quite serious and technically savvy people even believe in color tests.”

- Color tests or tests with Rorschach stains in principle are the least reliable, there is almost no evidence of their validity. Because there is no replication of their results — they are not consistent with each other if the tests are conducted by different people.

That is, the use of, say, the Rorschach test will allow you to justify the earlier decision about hiring a person to work. But the question of the effectiveness of this decision remains open. And reinforcement with dough does not bring us closer to the answer.

- Maybe the benefits of studying tests and reading literature on psychological types are simply that they help to understand: people are different?

- And from this point of view, it’s probably not worth reading about tests and types, much more useful would be, say, the book by Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett “Man and the Situation”. Now in psychology a qualitative analysis of human behavior is gaining momentum. There is an idea behind this: people comprehend the world in different categories, and if we manage to pull out these categories, we will come closer to understanding how a person perceives this or that situation. At the same time, he really appreciates her as we do. The ideographic approach basically assumes that each person is unique, and pushing people on the shelves is a hopeless task. I have always been touched, for example, 12 zodiac signs. Returning to the forecasts, you can ask - you do not figure out who is Aries, and who is Leo, when applying for a job?

- Surely you can find a manager who admits that he scored his team that way. And it worked.

- If someone uses such schemes to substantiate their decisions ... Well, if only the person himself would like it. Our psychological culture is such that there are many para- and pseudoscientific representations in people’s ideas that are mixed together. In the same way, a variety of tests may be involved, precisely to bring the supposedly theoretical basis under someone's authoritative opinion. And here there is a danger to overestimate the reliability of their predictions. After all, it is sometimes impossible to check in a real situation whether you made a good decision. Suppose you did not invite a candidate to work - what do you now know about him? Maybe he would be an excellent colleague for you and bring your company a serious profit. But if the one whom you chose instead of him is more likely to cope with the tasks, you will again support the hypothesis of the correct selection algorithm. Who do you compare it with?

There are a lot of such traps in life that allow you to gain a foothold in the initially erroneous decision. Psychological experiments beautifully show how strongly the attitude to the confirmation of one's own hypothesis is developed. People tend to see only what corresponds to it, and not to notice facts that do not fit into it. You can, on the contrary, see facts that actually exist only in imagination. A classic example of a false correlation - you remember your friend, and at this moment he calls you. You think: telepathy! , , , , , , , . , , — . , , .

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