Monday, January 27, 2014

Unnecessary! exclamation! points!

Another day, another time for a self-assessment. Today I took the VIA Me! assessment. It's much like the Clifton Strengths Finder in that it is intended to identify a set of strengths. The test itself is a series of questions with no time limit. Questions can be answered using two options each for agreement or disagreement. There is also a neutral option. Unlike the Clifton assessment, the VIA assessment places all its questions right next to each other so it's rather obvious when intentionally redundant questions arise (i.e., "I often seek vengeance" and "I seldom hold grudges").*

The assessment itself is free. The results are not, unless you just want a list of strengths. I'm not going to fork over any cash for this stuff if I can avoid it, so the list is all I got.

Here are my results:
Character Strength # 1
Creativity
Thinking of new ways to do things is a crucial part of who you are. You are never content with doing something the conventional way if a better way is possible.

Character Strength # 2
Humor
You like to laugh and tease. Bringing smiles to other people is important to you. You try to see the light side of all situations.

Character Strength # 3
Judgment
Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are. You do not jump to conclusions, and you rely only on solid evidence to make your decisions. You are able to change your mind.

Character Strength # 4
Curiosity
You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.

Character Strength # 5
Love
You value close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated. The people to whom you feel most close are the same people who feel most close to you.

These results appear to correlate very well with those from the Clifton assessment. The terminology differs, but Creativity and Ideation are more or less identical while Judgment/Curiosity appear to match with Analytical/Input. These results are quite interesting in that they also include humor and love. I'd like to think that one or both of those strengths are essential to everyone to some degree, but it's interesting that the other assessments I've taken appear to completely disregard them.

Overall: Free and fairly helpful for the time it demands (roughly 10 minutes, or maybe less if you're really focused). Including humor as a strength is a critical distinction!

*I don't know if folks who design psychological assessments intend to obfuscate redundancy. The redundancy is essential to reducing error, I think, but does it impact the results if the test subject is aware of the redundancy? Do they ensure that their answers are more consistent than they would be otherwise?

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