A Pseudo Science. Why Stop Here?

by Anonymous

Why stop at this cocktail party pseudo science? Is this real psychology? Handwriting analysis is big in France, lets employ more of it. Maybe more body language analysis. How about aura reading? Primary school IQ tests anybody?

Employing these measures is just a return to the 1970's when most of this junk science was initially debunked. Many Human Resource professionals (it's a profession?) grow increasingly enamored of such tools in times of economic downturn, when they can rub their hands together in glee that "recruiting and retention," challenges are a thing of the past.

Personnel managers with a new title, drunk with power, playing with junk science they aren't able to understand.

Such testing is supposed to be a relative measure, not an absolute measure, yet they are typically only administered to select employees only according to the slant prescribed by personnel manager.

It is all rubbish!

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by: Anonymous

Really impressive post. I read it whole and going to share it with my social circules. I enjoyed your article and planning to rewrite it on my own blog.
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by: Anonymous

I am not much aware about pseudo science. Here you have told that primary school IQ test is a relative measure and not an absolute measure. Then why all the schools are testing the IQ. I don’t understand the importance.
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by: Anonymous

I am a human resource professional with a degree in psychology and one in education. This means I have studied and understand testing. Having taken (and "failed") the Caliper twice, I can attest to the fact it is junk science at its worst. If you read their site carefully, you will find that the test is reliable, but has NEVER been validated in a double blind study of any nature. That is to say people tend to answer the test the same way on repeat takes (reliable). No one has determined if the results of the test actually result in picking the best candidate by measuring what they claim to measure(validity).

The problem is that they rely strictly on anecdotal evidence to support validity. In order to determine if the test results actually predict success, you would have to do a very elegant study where random results were compared with actual ones and you would need a consistent measure for job success. The problem is that the decisions to use and rely on tests like this are made by people with business degrees or policy makers. They like quick, easily countable answers and since most human resource types are now part of the business world, you can see why the things proliferate.

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