Monthly Archives: January 2010

WTF?!

Your Survey Methods May Predict Your Personality (a science-based WTF?!)

I was just going to link to this on Facebook – it seemed cute, until I read the following section:

Your Pet May Predict Your Personality 

The 44-question survey delved into the five dimensions of personality thought to encompass the spectrum of personality types:

  • Conscientiousness. Common behaviors include self-discipline, sense of duty, and a tendency toward planned vs. spontaneous behavior. 
  • Extraversion. Tendency toward being gregarious, enthusiastic, positive, and energetic. 
  • Agreeableness. Includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and sociability. 
  • Openness. Includes traits such as appreciation for the arts, curiosity, creativity, and nontraditional thinking and behavior. 
  • Neuroticism. Includes characteristics such as being easily stressed, anxious, or easily worried.

"In terms of personalities I would say Woody Allen is at one end of this spectrum and the "Dude" from the Big Lebowski is at the other," Gosling says.

Forty-six percent of those who took the survey identified themselves as dog people, while 12% said they were cat people. Twenty-eight percent said they were both and 15% said they were neither.

Cat People vs. Dog People

According to the findings, self-identified dog people were 15% more extroverted, 13% more agreeable, and 11% more conscientious than cat people.

Cat people were about 12% more neurotic and 11% more open than dog people.

"These are not huge differences," Gosling says. "There are certainly many, many cat people who are extroverts and many, many dog people who aren’t."

Your Pet May Predict Your Personality

Puh-lease. THE five dimensions of personality? I used to joke that “multiple personalities” were classified as a disorder by people who didn’t have one. I’ve always disliked the need people in social sciences feel to pretend they are physicists or mathematicians working with laws and certainties. Come on: 5 dimensions?

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that 6 billion people fit into 5 boxes – or one box with 5 corners. Is everyone ready to sign-off on these five? Hell, there’s only one negative attribute in the bunch. I wish only one in five people exhibited a negative dimension 20% of the time.

Look at the list again. How is it ordered? Is the “spectrum of personality types” – I like the suggestion that maybe personalities are analog, not digital, but I bet the proponents don’t believe in gradations – between Neuroticism (Woody Allen) to Conscientiousness – not the Dude, man. Does the Dude represent Extraversion or Agreeableness or Openness. Try to arrange those 5 traits in a spectrum. (OK, now I’m playing physicist.)

What about all these very precise – not the same as accurate – percentages? Doesn’t 13% sound more scientific than “a little more than one in ten”? Yeah, precise numbers are the “big boy pants” of the social sciences. Try to reach any conclusion based on the numbers presented.

I won’t blame Gosling for the intellectual sloppiness of the writer and/or editors in using the word “predict” when they mean reveal or indicate. In the end, I’m most irritated by this article and study ignoring one underlying question: Are you drawn to things/people/animals that are like you or to things/people/animals that are unlike you?

If you are open, aren’t you open to a pet that says nothing about your personality? Likewise, if you are agreeable? What’s more neurotic than having a pet that contradicts the predictive powers of one’s pet? Perhaps, only the conscientious take pains to find the right predictive pet.

I’ve had 3 dogs and numerous cats (to which I am allergic – what does that say about my personality, that I choose to live with irritation?). And, given the “spectrum” (hear the sneer) above, by process of elimination, I am neurotic.

Remember: There are 3 kinds of people – those who are good with math and those who are not. Or, there are two kinds of people – those who think there are two kinds of people and those who don’t.

dreams

Now, *That’s* Entertainment (a dream)

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I was in a movie theater. Some seats were vacant, but there were people in every row. No one was with me, but a woman sat a couple of seats over, on the aisle, with me against the upholstered wall. The crowd was a little rowdy. Someone in front of me passed back a sandwich wrapped in plain paper. I didn’t take it, so the woman grabbed it, giving me a “are you kidding?” look. The previews started and seemed to go on forever. One preview didn’t seem to be a preview – it seemed like a movie had started, but not the one I expected. Abruptly, the preview/movie stopped, the curtains closed and the lights went up. The hubbub around me didn’t change to indicate any outrage that we hadn’t seen our movie. I decided to leave, gathering up my jacket and camera bag.

On the way out, I stopped at the office, which was large and surrounded by plexiglass. A crude slot was cut into the plastic near one of the half dozen office denizens. I leaned toward the slot and the worker did as well (unconsciously bowing to each other). I said, “I feel sick. Can I get a refund?” (Why not just tell the truth, I wondered.) “Sure,” he said, “it’ll just take some time.” I looked at him and he looked back very meaningfully: “Seriously, it’ll take a while.” He produced a half-sheet form which required the signature of a supervisor. He mentioned an odd amount that was less than I had paid, but better than nothing.

As I waited, I noticed other people standing nearby. I reached into my pocket and pulled out two lens caps, one much smaller than the other. I dropped the smaller lens cap and started looking for it on the floor, which had several lens caps of various sizes. Somebody held up a much-too-large cap and cracked a cryptic joke. Not my lens cap.

A group of athletic men in suits appeared, raving about Windows 7. (I guessed they had just seen the movie I wanted to see.)

I decided to give up on my refund. When I went back to the window slot, there was now an area several feet across between my side of the glass and the office. This area was like a terrarium. A small tree leaned up and over the glass, into the office. Near the edge where the tree hung over the glass, a half dozen or more turtles were climbing the tree, trying to get into the office. A small turtle slipped and fell back into the terrarium.

As I made my way towards the street, I thought Merri might be worried, so I used my cell phone to call her. She was fine. We talked for a moment before I woke up.

The Atheist's Pulpit

Walking Without a Dog

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Lucky Dog died 5 months ago this afternoon. We still miss him terribly and always will.

Lucky taught me patience and forgiveness. I used to call him “the nicest person I know.” Toward the end of his life, he taught me to question my assumption that “a little more time” is always a good thing. (A lesson emphatically underlined in 2009.)

While Lucky lived, we walked him twice each day. One of us would walk him in the morning and both of us walked with him in the evening. Most walks were about two miles. (We hiked 6-10 miles when we camped.) The pace slowed and the distance shrank those last few months. Eventually, we left him at home to walk alone, feeling guilty, at first.

Since Lucky died, Merri and I both walk more and faster than before. We usually walk twice each day, about an hour each time. We’ve been averaging more than 6 miles a day, most of that aerobic (100 steps per minute or more). Walking has been somewhat therapeutic, if not in the same way as the companionship of a dog.