The similarminds.

com Personality Test is trying to measure a person’s personality based on the Big Five
personality model in fifty-five questions. The test scores individuals on extroversion, orderliness
(conscientious), emotional stability (neuroticism), accommodation (agreeableness), and inquisitiveness
(openness) each out of 100. The test states a statement (i.e. “I have many fears”) and asks the test taker
to rate how accurate the statement is on a scale of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%. A scalar test like this
one should generally yield the same results to the same individual if taken multiple times. The degree to
which how strongly one feels about a particular statement (75% accurate may turn into 100% accurate
or 50% accurate) could change but on average the person’s results should be relatively similar time after
time. A downside to using a scale to measure results is that it might provide lower reliability that one
using a “Yes,” “No,” or “Uncertain” scale like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
does. The “Yes,” “No,” or “Uncertain” scale forces the test taker to pick a side and doesn’t care about
the degree to which they agree or disagree with a statement. A test like this is more likely to yield the
same results over time since there is no degree of agreeableness or disagreeableness to the answer. The
similarminds.com test mitigates this by asking respondents to “maybe [take] the test on more than one
occasion” (simpleminds.com) and averaging the scores in order to get a more accurate result.

The test does ask valid questions relating to the Big Five traits. Each question pertains to one of the
traits. For example, a respondent answering “Very Accurate” to the question “I am outgoing” obviously
will score high on the Extraversion trait. Likewise, someone answering “Very Inaccurate” to “I keep my
emotions under control” will score low on neuroticism. This validity may be called into question
however when it is administered to non-western countries or groups. A group of researchers studied the
Tsimané people of Boliva and “failed to find robust support for the [Big Five], based on tests of (a)
internal consistency of items expected to segregate into the Big Five factors, (b) response stability of the
Big Five, (c) external validity of the Big Five with respect to observed behavior…” (Gurven, von Rueden,
Massenkoff,, Kaplan, Lero Vie 2013). it might not be as valid in non-western cultures due to the fact that
the Big Five traits were found by doing factor analysis of Western countries.

A big problem for personality test in general as well as this test is respondents answering questions
dishonestly. The similarminds.com test can mitigate that risk by asking questions like “I am talkative”
and “I say little” and then comparing the test takers answers. If the respondent answers “very
inaccurate” to one and “very accurate” to the other, the test takers results should probably be thrown
out. When this happens with the similarminds.com test however, nothing happens. Also, the test only
consists of fifty-five questions. Compared to the MMPI where people have actually “[objected] to the
length of the MMPI and the repetition of questions” (Gallucci 1986), the similarminds.com test is
lacking. The length of the MMPI is meant to induce tiredness and make people pick the first answer that
come to mind faster in order to get the test over with. This leads to truer answers.

Works Cited

Similarminds.com

Gurven, M., von Rueden, C., Massenkoff, M., Kaplan, H., & Lero Vie, M. (2013). How universal is the big
five? testing the five-factor model of personality variation among forager–farmers in the bolivian
amazon. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(2), 354-370.
http://dx.doi.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1037/a0030841
Gallucci, N. T. (1986). General and specific objections to the MMPI. Educational and Psychological
Measurement, 46(4), 985-988.
http://dx.doi.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1177/001316448604600418