Help science, and discover your personality!

Hi,

I'm a research psychologist. One of the things I study is personality.

Together with a student of mine, I am doing a project on a questionnaire called the Oxford Capacity Test. This is the questionnaire that Scientologists use to recruit people to their Church, and to measure their alleged progress towards mental health.

Amazingly, for an oft-administered scale, it hasn't been scientifically validated in the way that questionnaires normally are, even by curious external parties. So I want to see what happens when you try to do this.

Basically, I want to systematically analyze whether the items on the questionnaire hang together in the way that is claimed, and whether the clusters of items that emerge correlate sensibly with scores from already validated questionnaires.

So, I looking for people to fill out the questionnanire. One of the reasons is that it contains 200 items, requiring more than a few minutes to complete.

Given this, here are two incentives:

First. you will be entered into a free draw for £30. Just email psychosurvey@hotmail.co.uk anonymously. No link to your results is made (which leaves the system open to abuse; but I am trusting you! Even you engine users!).

Second, you will get feedback from the proper (and shorter) questionnaires I use about your personality. This will be delivered, once the results are complete, by having you go online, and type into an automated feedback program the same anonymous password you inputted before filling out the questionnanire. You'll get some comparative statistics, and some verbal explanation.

Of course, psychological science will also the beneficiary here, in case altruism is your thing!

There are two links to access. Both are on this page:

http://www.psychology.soton.ac.uk/psychosurvey/

Scroll down and click, in order:

Discover your Personality! Part 1
Discover your Personality! Part 2

Any questions? Email: psychosurvey@hotmail.co.uk

Thanks a lot! I'll provide details on my findings at RHP at all events. Maybe you can even ask a friend if they would like to take part too.

Aiden

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
Hi,

I'm a research psychologist. One of the things I study is personality.

Together with a student of mine, I am doing a project on a questionnaire called the Oxford Capacity Test. This is the questionnaire that Scientologists use to recruit people to their Church, and to measure their alleged progress towards mental health.

Amazingly, for an at all events. Maybe you can even ask a friend if they would like to take part too.

Aiden

I completed the tests. Are you against my posting any general impressions I may have formed about the OCT during the process?

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
Hi,

I'm a research psychologist. One of the things I study is personality.

Together with a student of mine, I am doing a project on a questionnaire called the Oxford Capacity Test. This is the questionnaire that Scientologists use to recruit people to their Church, and to measure their alleged progress towards mental health.

Amazingly, for an ...[text shortened]... at all events. Maybe you can even ask a friend if they would like to take part too.

Aiden

I took it, too. Be forewarned: in the studies I participated in back when I was an undergrad for the
students at my school, I tended to be that lone little dot way off of the median line, or that
one on the far end of the bell curve, or whatever. I hope I didn't screw up your test. 🙁

Nemesio

Originally posted by LemonJello
Are you against my posting any general impressions I may have formed about the OCT during the process?

Ditto.

Note: Duplicate of general forum thread.

i took a personality test. and the woman that gave me the test said i was either lying or i am really messed up

anyway i will take the test, i like tests 🙂

Originally posted by LemonJello
I completed the tests. Are you against my posting any general impressions I may have formed about the OCT during the process?

Of course not! I would value your comments, and have some things to say myself.

However, I would ask you to wait a week or two before commenting, so that other test takers are not biased by your (likely insightful) percections. However, as this is a discussion forum, I doubt everyone will keep mum; so I guess I'll just have to tolerate any bias therefore generated as the price of advertising to a possibly interested audience.

I appreciate your taking the time to fill out the test!

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Note: Duplicate of general forum thread.

Well, this will be the lifetime limit of my spamming. It's in science too. We'll keep discussion to this thread.

Originally posted by Nemesio
I took it, too. Be forewarned: in the studies I participated in back when I was an undergrad for the
students at my school, I tended to be that lone little dot way off of the median line, or that
one on the far end of the bell curve, or whatever. I hope I didn't screw up your test. 🙁

Nemesio

I'm sure you overestimate your oddity, Nemesio. If not, you'll be rinsed clean when we statistically scrub our dataset 🙂

Originally posted by Nemesio
I took it, too. Be forewarned: in the studies I participated in back when I was an undergrad for the
students at my school, I tended to be that lone little dot way off of the median line, or that
one on the far end of the bell curve, or whatever. I hope I didn't screw up your test. 🙁

Nemesio

Of that I have no doubt.

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
Hi,

I'm a research psychologist. One of the things I study is personality.

Together with a student of mine, I am doing a project on a questionnaire called the Oxford Capacity Test. This is the questionnaire that Scientologists use to recruit people to their Church, and to measure their alleged progress towards mental health.

Amazingly, for an ...[text shortened]... at all events. Maybe you can even ask a friend if they would like to take part too.

Aiden

I took the test. Some of the questions were poorly phrased. imo

After I see the results I'll let you know if it is valid or not. If you know what I mean. 😉

Originally posted by josephw
I took the test. Some of the questions were poorly phrased. imo

After I see the results I'll let you know if it is valid or not. If you know what I mean. 😉

These are the same as those on the Oxford Capacity Test aren't they?

I've actually done the test and spoken about it with Scientologists in the past. Never had any intention of joining, but not surprised at all to find out that it showed up a problem which would be helped by joining their church - and by buying the book (of which many copies were available to buy).

I suspect that most people would be judged as having a problem 'identified' by this, though I can't recall what mine actually was. Will be interesting to see what the findings actually are.

Originally posted by Peakite
These are the same as those on the Oxford Capacity Test aren't they?

I've actually done the test and spoken about it with Scientologists in the past. Never had any intention of joining, but not surprised at all to find out that it showed up a problem which would be helped by joining their church - and by buying the book (of which many copies were availabl ...[text shortened]... t recall what mine actually was. Will be interesting to see what the findings actually are.

Great avatar! Nice and friendly.

I don't know about the Oxford Capacity test. But I am thinking that the range of questions on such tests must be quite limited. I don't really know for sure.

Originally posted by josephw
I took the test. Some of the questions were poorly phrased. imo

After I see the results I'll let you know if it is valid or not. If you know what I mean. 😉

I agree. And some are just plain weird.

Originally posted by Peakite
These are the same as those on the Oxford Capacity Test aren't they?

I've actually done the test and spoken about it with Scientologists in the past. Never had any intention of joining, but not surprised at all to find out that it showed up a problem which would be helped by joining their church - and by buying the book (of which many copies were availabl t recall what mine actually was. Will be interesting to see what the findings actually are.

They are the same items.

The feedback on OCA performance provided by Scientologists is skewed in an unfavorable direction to attract recruits.

I'm not giving any feedback on the basis of the OCA, whose validity is unproven and highly questionable, but rather on the basis of the shorter validated personality tests, who validity has been scientifically demonstrated.