Self-Critical Perfectionism Predicts Lower Cortisol Response to Experimental Stress in Cfs Patients

[Esther12]

No, they are measuring personality traits.

But the personality traits they are measuring are defined by the questionnaire.

Just as ME/CFS is defined by the CCC questionnaire (because there are no validated biomarkers for ME/CFS, so no other way to diagnose or detect ME/CFS), the personality traits are also defined by their questionnaires.

Of course, psychologists will design a questionnaire to detect what they intuitively perceive as a personality trait present in human beings; but once the questionnaire is set up, it becomes the yardstick of measurement.

I've not consented to them redefining our concepts in this way. Who has? What about the people who think that personality questionnaires fail to reliably and meaningfully measure personality traits?

I don't think that ME/CFS is defined by the CCC questionnaire either.

 

[Hip]

I've not consented to them redefining our concepts in this way.

You weren't a communist autocratic leader in another life, were you? In the West, academics do not need consent to develop their own ideas and concepts. It's known as academic freedom.

What about the people who think that personality questionnaires fail to reliably and meaningfully measure personality traits?

We are starting to go around in circles.

I don't think that ME/CFS is defined by the CCC questionnaire either.

Really? Every ME/CFS study I have ever seen uses some sort of criteria, like the CCC or Fukuda, to define and select their cohort.

 

[Esther12]

You weren't a communist autocratic leader in another life, were you? In the West, academics do not need consent to develop their own ideas and concepts. It's known as academic freedom.

I'm saying that if someone wants their personality questionnaires now define what personality trait are then they need to be able to justify this assertion of power, and that people should not be expected to just fit in with them or respect their claimed authority.

We are starting to go around in circles.

That question should have helped indicate to you that it was not I who was taking an autocratic approach.
You had said:

Of course, psychologists will design a questionnaire to detect what they intuitively perceive as a personality trait present in human beings; but once the questionnaire is set up, it becomes the yardstick of measurement.

Really? Every ME/CFS study I have ever seen uses some sort of criteria, like the CCC or Fukuda, to define and select their cohort.

That's not the same as saying that "ME/CFS is defined by the CCC questionnaire".

 

[Hip]

That question should have helped indicate to you that it was not I who was taking an autocratic approach.

If it has come over that I am taking an autocratic approach, then that's not my intention. I am just trying to discuss the subtle issues around trying to make measurements of mental phenomena and parameters, which is a difficult thing to do. So I am challenging (hopefully in a friendly way) what people are saying, just to open the subject up.

People often criticize psychological questionnaires on this forum, saying that they are deeply flawed or inaccurate, but offer no alternative way to measure the mind.

The mind is a real challenge to try to approach scientifically, because it is so different from the material world which is science's usual domain. This is why psychology is a soft science, because with the mind is much harder to make your observations and measurements rigorous. And even harder to make your cause-and-effect theories rigorous.

So you cannot expect from psychology the same sort of objective precision you get when measuring the physical world. But psychology still provides useful ways to approach, understand and measure the mind, which should not be thrown into the bin in any discussion.

I'm saying that if someone wants their personality questionnaires now define what personality trait are then they need to be able to justify this assertion of power, and that people should not be expected to just fit in with them or respect their claimed authority.

I agree that what some psychologists have done to the field of ME/CFS is appalling, and the way they have taken so much control over how ME/CFS patients are viewed and treated by researchers and doctors is outrageous, all the more so because these psychologists have got it so wrong scientifically and clinically.

Somatoform psychological theories of the cause of ME/CFS are ridiculous, and the scientific laziness of these psychologists in not even bothering to empirically test and critically appraise their own theories is inexcusable. All the very worse aspects of psychology / psychiatry have come together in ME/CFS.


However, this somatoform nonsense aside, in general, I don't see how the concepts used by psychologists and personality theorists are themselves an assertion of power. Their concepts are trying to reflect aspects that are present and intuitively perceptible in the mind.

 

[Esther12]

People often criticize psychological questionnaires on this forum, saying that they are deeply flawed or inaccurate, but offer no alternative way to measure the mind.

People can criticise things that are bad, without wanting to replace them with anything else. That's not a problem. Lots of people do make exaggerated claims about the value of personality questionnaire scores when there's little evidence that they're reliable and valid measures of the traits that they claim to be assessing. That should be attacked, regardless of whether or not anyone has a better way of measuring peoples' personality traits.

So you cannot expect from psychology the same sort of objective precision you get when measuring the physical world. But psychology still provides useful ways to approach, understand and measure the mind, which should not be thrown into the bin in any discussion.

I don't care what field a claim is coming from, all researchers have a responsibility to try to ensure that the claims they make are reasonable and supported by the evidence. Those studying personality often have a hard job coming anything worthwhile, and they have a responsibility to be honest about that. Lots of personality research is just a hyped waste of money, the only benefit of which could be to help the researcher's careers.

I agree that what some psychologists have done to the field of ME/CFS is appalling, and the way they have taken so much control over how ME/CFS patients are viewed and treated by researchers and doctors is outrageous, all the more so because these psychologists have got it so wrong scientifically and clinically.

Somatoform psychological theories of the cause of ME/CFS are ridiculous, and the scientific laziness of these psychologists in not even bothering to empirically test and critically appraise their own theories is inexcusable. All the very worse aspects of psychology / psychiatry have come together in ME/CFS.

I wasn't referring to any of that, but only to the more general points that you had written about in your posts.

However, this somatoform nonsense aside, in general, I don't see how the concepts used by psychologists and personality theorists are themselves an assertion of power. Their concepts are trying to reflect aspects that are present and intuitively perceptible in the mind.

If you're saying that "once the questionnaire is set up, it becomes the yardstick of measurement", then that is a massive assertion of power. (I don't think that's how things work - too autocratic even for academia!)

Also, we've seen historically how personality research has been used to stigmatise different minority groups. Making claims about different groups' 'personality traits' is an assertion of power, and if those claims are not supported by good evidence, it is an abuse of power. People have a responsibility to try to restrict the claims that they make to those which are supported by good quality evidence. In personality research there often seems to be a worrying willingness for researchers to place their own desire to claim 'expertise' above their ethical responsibilities.

We should not allow researchers to be casual with the truth just because they are working in an area where it seems difficult to be able to achieve much of value.

 

[chipmunk1]

As I mentioned earlier, the measure of scientific truth or fact is not in its utility. There is such a thing as pure research. Why are you assuming that discoveries about the mind should help treat disease, otherwise they are of no value?

I think that even fringe ideas should be studied. We never know if something valuable can come out of it.

The practical value of mind causing illness research is, at least for us, very low i would say.

So far this approach was not very successful.

How are you judging that the evidence obtained by questionnaires is poor quality?

The thing is, questionnaires, as far as I am aware, are the gold standard of measurement of psychological parameters. We don't have any more accurate standards to judge them by. Possibly the only more accurate approach might be for subjects to be given the questionnaires by a trained psychologist, who can try to make sure that the questions and their answers are correctly interpreted. I think this is done in certain studies, but obviously it costs more.

Words like "Gold Standard" do not mean much. I think that it should be pretty obvious that personality tests are not very reliable. The fact that nothing better is available doesn't make them more reliable.

I hear the same about the lack of placebo control groups in psychology research. Somehow the fact that they can not be used makes non-placebo groups reliable. I never figured out how that works.

 

[Hip]

Words like "Gold Standard" do not mean much.

In medical testing, "gold standard" means the best available test. It does not necessarily mean highly accurate; it just means best available.

I don't think anybody here has understood my point about the psychological questionnaires being the gold standard, and why I made this point. You are not understanding my argument.

I think that it should be pretty obvious that personality tests are not very reliable.

You are complaining that psychological research is unreliable and the evidence is poor, but your own arguments and criticisms are completely lacking in evidence.

You use uses phrases like "it should be pretty obvious" that personality trait tests are not very reliable, but that phrase is mealiness, unless you provide evidence to back up your claims.

Similarly, Esther12 has said that personality trait questionnaires provide "poor quality evidence". But where is the evidence for this?

Conversely, if someone says personality trait tests are "highly accurate", that is also meaningless unless they provide evidence.



The point I was trying to make with the "gold standard", which I don't think got through, is how can you even judge that a personality trait questionnaire is inaccurate and unreliable (or accurate and reliable, for that matter), given that these questionnaire tests themselves are the gold standard, the best available test in terms of accuracy. To judge whether a test is accurate or inaccurate, you have to compare it to a more accurate test, to a gold standard test. But we cannot do that, because the questionnaires are the gold standard.



I am not defending psychology here. I am just saying that your criticisms have no evidence to back them up.

 

[Esther12]

Similarly, Esther12 has said that personality trait questionnaires provide "poor quality evidence". But where is the evidence for this?

I linked to a review on Myers-Briggs that mentioned poor test-retest... but it's hard to show absence of evidence, and you may think that lots of personality tests are rubbish too, but some are worthwhile. If there's a personality test which you think has good evidence of being a valid and reliable measure of personality traits, I'd be interested to know which one and what evidence. Also, as I think that so much of the evidence for anything in this area is weak, there's little that I think is worth directing you to. Your defence of personality questionnaires has so far been too vague to allow more detailed criticism. There's no point other people here posting a detailed critique of a particular questionnaire that you may not support.

 

[chipmunk1]

I don't think anybody here has understood my point about the psychological questionnaires being the gold standard, and why I made this point. You are not understanding my argument.

Then explain your point in detail and i will try to understand what you mean.

You use uses phrases like "it should be pretty obvious" that personality trait tests are not very reliable, but that phrase is mealiness, unless you provide evidence to back up your claims.

I think there is so much stuff on the subject that i won't provide any evidence. Show me a personality test that is not controversial.

Myers-Briggs is based on Jungian theory of archetypes. Jung was a psychoanalyst and a disciple of Freud. Freud was a cokehead and Jung heard voices(hallucinations) throughout his career.

The Rorschach test which is also based on psychoanalytic theory, was believed to be reliable and was even used in court. It turned out to be complete nonsense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator

Criticism[edit]
The validity (statistical validityandtest validity) of the MBTI as a psychometric instrument has been the subject of much criticism.
It has been estimated that between a third and a half of the published material on the MBTI has been produced for the special conferences of the Center for the Application of Psychological Type (which provide the training in the MBTI, and are funded by sales of the MBTI) or as papers in theJournal of Psychological Type(which is edited and supported by Myers–Briggs advocates and by sales of the indicator).[43]It has been argued that this reflects a lack of critical scrutiny.[43]Many of the studies that endorse MBTI are methodologically weak or unscientific.[9]A 1996 review by Gardner and Martinko concluded: "It is clear that efforts to detect simplistic linkages between type preferences and managerial effectiveness have been disappointing. Indeed, given the mixed quality of research and the inconsistent findings, no definitive conclusion regarding these relationships can be drawn."[44][9]

Psychometric specialist Robert Hoganwrote that "Most personality psychologists regard the MBTI as little more than an elaborate Chinese fortune Cookie.

 

[Hip]

I linked to a review on Myers-Briggs that mentioned poor test-retest

Yes, as far as I can see, when you are examining any gold standard test, the only way you can check it is by test-retest results, ie, check the consistency/reliability. (You cannot check the gold standard test for accuracy, because there is no test with greater accuracy to judge it against).

If we assume that that (except in the case of neurological diseases that affect the brain), personality traits do not change (which is what psychologists usually assume), then your personality trait test should show roughly the same result when retested.

If there is poor test-retest, then at least for an individual person, the test results may need to be take with a pinch of salt, because there is noise in the signal (although when test results are averaged over the entire cohort of a study, then poor test-retest reliability may be less of an issue).


It may also be that some personality traits and their corresponding questionnaires are more consistent and reliable than others.

Then explain your point in detail and i will try to understand what you mean.

Have a look at this post and my one just below it.

Freud was a cokehead and Jung heard voices(hallucinations) throughout his career.

Given that cocaine has dopaminergic effects and boosts libido and erotic imagination, I have always thought that Freud's cocaine habit likely explains why he developed these psychosexual theories, and why the sex drive played such a central role in his models of human personality. Had he not been a cokehead, I think his work would have been a lot better, and a lot less libido-centered. The psychosexual theories are the most discredited area of his work. Other areas are still considered insightful and relevant, such as his work on defense mechanisms.

Jung's mindset did seem to contain a touch of schizophrenia / psychosis, which is why I think he had a lot of interest in schizophrenia. Jung also experienced an extended psychotic episode himself.

I think that those touched with a degree of mental symptoms, but not a full mental illness, can make the most insightful psychologists, because they have personal experience. Just like articulate ME/CFS patients can provide good insight into the nature of ME/CFS.

Jung was my favorite personality theorist. He is definitely on the softer science side of personality theory, but his writings are warm, spiritual, and seem full of a love of humanity. Reading his writings raise your spirits. Whereas when you read Freud, you get the distinct impression that he does not like human beings, and is a cynic. I developed an instant dislike of Freud as soon as I read him. That is why I have read very little of Freud's original writing. But undeniably Freud's popularization of the concept of the unconscious (he did not invent this concept, though) changed the way we look at and understand the mind.

Eysenck was probably the personality theorist with the most scientific and rigorous approach. He was the one who came up with the lemon juice test to measure the physiological correlates of his introversion-extraversion personality trait scale.

 

[Hip]

There is some data which indicates that Myers-Briggs isn't impressive for test-retest.

Quick google found:

http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/Articles/develop/mbti.pdf

I found this study on the reliability (test-retest results consistency) of the Eysenck personality questionnaire (EPQ).

The EPQ has three dimensions of measurement: extraversion (E), neuroticism (N), psychoticism (P), plus a fourth dimension called the lie scale (L), which tries to control for subjects deliberately attempting to manipulate their scores.

The study abstract says:

The reliability of the scores varied considerably between scales, with P scores tending to have the lowest reliability.

This paper criticized the psychoticism scale in the EPQ as having relatively low reliability.

This study found that the EPQ has good test-retest reliability.



Note that different personality theorists choose different aspects of the mind to study and measure. So Eysenck's scales of extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism do not by any means capture all there is to capture about personality. They are Eysenck's way of looking at personality.

Raymond Cattell's theory of personailty uses 16 different traits.

But not all theories of personality are based on traits; Abraham Maslow's theory is based on human needs and aspirations.

 

[Snow Leopard]

All of the personality questionnaires reflect the biases of the creators (including the Big/Neo-5...)

The re-test validity of MBTI is pretty good given what it is trying to do (and it does correlate with four of the five factors from the Big 5). The fact is that personality is hard to nail down with a questionnaire.

Questionnaires just aren't that wonderful...

 

[Esther12]

It seems to me that Eysenck was a pretty shitty human being, and not someone whose claims about how peoples personalities should be assessed should be assumed to be worthwhile, regardless of test-retest results. He long promoted the 'treatment' of homosexual's deviance, and his personality questionnaire was used to help stigmatise them as a group.

I realise that different people have proposed lots of different ways of assessing people's personality, but so far, I've not found one that I think is deserving of respect. I cannot think of a worthwhile way of measuring peoples' personality in a questionnaire. It takes me years of watching how people respond in a range of circumstances before before I feel like I have a sense of their personalities, and even then they will still often surprise me. Unless there have been amazing advances I'm oblivious too, I think that we'd be best off just being honest about our inability to meaningfully measure people's personalities.

 

[Hip]

All of the personality questionnaires reflect the biases of the creators (including the Big/Neo-5...)

Without doubt. Each personality theorist takes a very individual approach, as individual as say the way different novelists will view life.

The Eysenck EPQ really caters for abnormal psychology / mental health, because both the neuroticism and psychoticism scales are kind of a measure of mental illhealth. High neuroticism is associated with various conditions like anxiety disorder, bipolar and schizophrenia. Only the introvert-extravert scale is not linked to mental health, as of course both complete introverts and complete extraverts are considered mentally normal.

Because of this strong link to mental health, it is an unpleasant experience taking the EPQ. Getting your EPQ result is a bit like getting a medical test that determines whether you have cancer or not.

I remember taking the EPQ decades ago (as part of a diploma evening course I undertook on personality psychology). I was a bit nervous about getting my results, and when I saw I scored higher on the neuroticism scale than I would have liked, it was not a nice feeling. Fortunately my psychoticism score was very low.


I think if you wanted to approach psychology for your own personal development, or to help better understand your fellow human beings, you would not read Eysenck's work. You would be better off reading the more uplifting personality theorists like Abraham Maslow or Jung.

It seems to me that Eysenck was a pretty shitty human being, and not someone whose claims about how peoples personalities should be assessed should be assumed to be worthwhile, regardless of test-retest results. He long promoted the 'treatment' of homosexual's deviance, and his personality questionnaire was used to help stigmatise them as a group.

His view of homosexuality sounds awful by today's standards; but I think we should judge people by the values of their time. At that time, homosexual acts were still illegal in the UK.

 

[Esther12]

His view of homosexuality sounds awful by today's standards; but I think we should judge people by the values of their time. At that time, homosexual acts were still illegal in the UK.

There were plenty of people at the time campaigning against Eysenck's quackery and mistreatment of gay people. There are plenty of people today who think that people with CFS deserve quackery and mistreatment - I think that they deserve to be condemned for this, regardless of what contemporary values happen to be.

I find that when people talk of judging people by the values of their time, they tend to mean the values of the bastards of the time. In societies that allow slavery, it's not like the slaves are okay with it, insisting "by our values, this is A-okay." We should not think more favourably of those who abuse their power over others just because they happened to be living in a society that endorsed their abuses.

Because of this strong link to mental health, it is an unpleasant experience taking the EPQ. Getting your EPQ result is a bit like getting a medical test that determines whether you have cancer or not.

I remember taking the EPQ decades ago (as part of a diploma evening course I undertook on personality psychology). I was a bit nervous about getting my results, and when I saw I scored higher on the neuroticism scale than I would have liked, it was not a nice feeling. Fortunately my psychoticism score was very low.

I think this reflects a misguided respect for the questionnaire. It's not like finding out whether you have cancer of not. Finding out how Eysenck happens to rate your answers to his questionnaire, when he has no understanding of your personal experiences or situation, is about as significant as your score in an 'Are you a Natural Winner' quiz from the back of a magazine.

 

[Hip]

There are plenty of people today who think that people with CFS deserve quackery and mistreatment - I think that they deserve to be condemned for this, regardless of what contemporary values happen to be.

I find that when people talk of judging people by the values of their time, they tend to mean the values of the bastards of the time.

I know plenty of well meaning people who wouldn't hurt a fly, yet they believe that ME/CFS is all in the mind. Should I condemn those people as bastards, or I should I take into account that their views are probably reflection of the beliefs that much of society holds at this present time?

Finding out how Eysenck happens to rate your answers to his questionnaire, when he has no understanding of your personal experiences or situation, is about as significant as your score in an 'Are you a Natural Winner' quiz from the back of a magazine.

If you look at the Wikipedia page on neuroticism, you'll see that studies have correlated a high neuroticism score to various mental health disorders, as well as to various neurological and genetic factors.

 

[Esther12]

I know plenty of well meaning people who wouldn't hurt a fly, yet they believe that ME/CFS is all in the mind. Should I condemn those people as bastards, or I should I take into account that their views are probably reflection of the beliefs that much of society holds at this present time?

If they're engaging so thoughtlessly with reality, then it's very likely that they are hurting people, and they should be condemned for that.

If you look at the Wikipedia page on neuroticism, you'll see that studies have correlated a high neuroticism score to various mental health disorders, as well as to various neurological and genetic factors.

And scoring poorly on even a really incompetent 'Are you a natural winner' quiz would be likely to correlate with a number of bad outcomes too. They're just scoring things that you've said about yourself.

 

[Hip]

If they're engaging so thoughtlessly with reality, then it's very likely that they are hurting people, and they should be condemned for that.

Educated perhaps, not condemned.

You were saying it was wrong for Eysenck to condemn gays as deviants; but now you are condemning a group of people yourself.

And scoring poorly on even a really incompetent 'Are you a natural winner' quiz would be likely to correlate with a number of bad outcomes too.

If you look at the Wikipedia page on psychoticism, there is no mention of it correlating with anything. Whereas neuroticism correlated with many mental disorders and physical factors. Thus it looks like Eysenck was on to something with neuroticism, but not with psychoticism.

You cannot take it for granted that any set of questions will have correlates; I doubt an "are you a natural winner" quiz would correlate to anything.

 

[Esther12]

Educated perhaps, not condemned.

You were saying it was wrong for Eysenck to condemn gays as deviants; but now you are condemning a group of people yourself.

I'm opposed to condemning gays as deviants and happy to condemn those who do so.

I doubt an "are you a natural winner" quiz would correlate to anything.

Surely those who answer questions which tell you that they're natural losers are likely, as a group, to be doing less well in some important areas than those who tell you that they are natural winners? Equally, those who tell you that they often feel anxious are more likely to suffer from anxiety. Even if 'psychoticism' is a totally misguided concept, it still seems likely that the group of those with high scores here are likely to have some significant differences to those with low scores. You can use questionnaires to sort people into lots of different groups, and often those groups will have different experiences, rates of mental illness, etc. That doesn't show that these questionnaires are useful measures of people's personalities.

 

[TiredSam]

You were saying it was wrong for Eysenck to condemn gays as deviants; but now you are condemning a group of people yourself.

Sorry but didn't you introduce the words "bastards" and "condemn" into the conversation? And then condemn Esther for not bothering to change the vocabulary when describing her reaction to thoughtless and hurtful behaviour? I feel compelled to publicly condemn such fallacious rhetorical techniques.

I know plenty of well meaning people who wouldn't hurt a fly, yet they believe that ME/CFS is all in the mind. Should I condemn those people as bastards, or I should I take into account that their views are probably reflection of the beliefs that much of society holds at this present time?

Presenting an "either or" where someone is forced to take an unreasonable position or agree with you is another fallacious rhetorical device, but whatever. I agree the first step is to try to educate. If that fails, the non-fly hurter should at least accept that there are different opinions, and if they don't have any more evidence for their opinion than "everyone else seems to think so too these days", then they should be prepared to accept that the patient has the right to manage their own illness without being blamed, stigmatised, denied help and benefits, forced to make themselves more ill with inappropriate treatments etc.

If someone can't be bothered to take a break from patting themselves on the back for not hurting a fly to examine where else their attitudes and behaviour might be causing unintended but great harm, even when it is pointed out to them, then it is time to start challenging, opposing, protesting, condemning if you like, otherwise how does anything ever change? How did slavery get abolished? Certainly not by accepting that "that slave owner seems like a nice helpful chap who wouldn't hurt a fly and no-one else round here has a problem with slavery".