In the 3rd grade I brought a pamphlet home to my parents endorsing the Gifted Program, a Toronto District School Board (TDSB) program for students in grade 4 to 12. In the…
— — do you identify with the Big Five traits?
Do exams really paint an accurate picture of our progress in a given class and our progress in school overall? Or are exam results better markers of something else, such as our ability to work under pressure or how well…
Have you ever thought if your head is normal? If the shape and intricacies specific to the uppermost area of your body is different from your peers? Imagine if these idiosyncrasies branded us as slow learners or prone to commit crime in the future.
In a desperate attempt to understand who I was and what I wanted to be — I decided to surrender myself to the scrutiny of a personality test; well, it was more like I threw myself at it hoping that something from the test would guide me and…
“the study of handwriting especially for the purpose of character analysis”
I see the appeal. It’s rather intuitive that our handwriting style should act as a tangible representation of our personalities. That…
This is hardly the first time I have heard of the Myers-Briggs personality test. As someone with a keen interests in all things psychology from a young age, I first discovered the test when I was but twelve years old and sifting through my mother’s career-guiding self-help books. At twelve I…
Searching for Snakes in Suits
Psychopathy is considered to be one of the most enjoyable mental disorders in clinical psychology. It’s a personality disorder characterized by traits such as lack of empathy, superficial charm, antisocial or impulsive acts, and pathological lying. Their lack of disregard for society and the…
Diagnosing ADHD via Tests
In the past few years, the number of children diagnosed with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has increased…
Earlier last semester, I experienced a series of unexplained symptoms. I had just returned from a gap year and while I was not entirely in the groove of juggling multiple readings and assignments yet, that still could not explain the puzzling difficulties I…
In my relatively short time as an adult, I found myself questioning what it is I really wanted to study. Like most people my age, I was lost; I wondered if I even knew what I wanted. Now, you can imagine that after 22 years of deliberation, simply hearing the words “What do you want to…
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life — Confucius
I have been intrigued by the notion of positivity ever since I heard a Ted Talk from Martin…
Magic is a trading card game that blends the strategy of Chess with the randomness of Poker. The cards…
Psychological tests for hiring purposes — what do they really measure?
You’re down one in the fourth quarter with 20 seconds left on the game clock, everyone’s looking at you to make that final shot but suddenly all you can think about is your psychological test results: does not perform well under pressure. You take the…
I had always been interested solving tests that revealed something about myself. When you are a teenager you go through magazines and try to see what grown-ups are up to. I loved solving the tests in the back of those magazines. It would most often not apply to me, of course, but I…
Do We Know the Personalities of Our Doctors?
In 2015, it was reported that 6,847 individuals applied to a Medical School in Ontario. 957 people were…
On the weekends, I referee in a recreational basketball league in the West Island of Montreal. The league’s focus is concentrated on skill development, sportsmanship and love of the game. In no way is this league set up to be…
Lies, lies, and more lies: what is the IAT measuring anyway?
In our age of political correctness, it is uncommon to hear someone endorse an openly racist…
What Do Tests in School Actually Measure?
The Importance of Having a Clearly Defined Psychological Construct
I have always enjoyed being a part of experiments and psychological tests because I look forward to learning something new about myself that I had overlooked or never tackled head-on. I heard of the Myers-Briggs Personality Test and the 16PF Questionnaire when I was seventeen. The 16PF website seemed more…
It has recently become more popular to subscribe to online brain-training websites rather…
Who we chose as a participant, is more important than what we think!
One thing that almost all psychology students have experienced in McGill University is the class presentations on participation in psychological studies and earning 2% bonus. In my second year, I participated in a study where they grouped 12 psychology…
If we watch enough of a sport, we can all ballpark an athlete’s physical or technical skills. We all know what a great shot looks like in soccer (it goes into the goal!), a beautiful jumper in basketball or a perfect drive down the fairway. However, there is a nebulous area in sport…
