realitygrill comments on On Enjoying Disagreeable Company - Less Wrong

49 Post author: Alicorn 26 May 2010 01:47AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (243)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: realitygrill 27 May 2010 05:02:35PM *  2 points [-]

It may be useful to catalogue our responses by our respective big 5 factor psychological profiles. I have some tentative hypotheses in mind, particularly that Openness mitigates dislike of a person. (I'm off to retake the test)

EDIT: Thanks all. Do you mind adding your individual reactions to the top-level post in your replies?

Comment author: Cyan 07 June 2010 12:44:16AM 1 point [-]

O0 C6 E5 A63 N37

My low Openness score is probably due to the fact that I feel like I haven't generated any truly original thoughts in a long time.

Comment author: simplicio 30 May 2010 05:22:05PM *  1 point [-]

Ditto for me as for RobinZ.

Openness: 84

Conscientiousness: 41

Extraversion: 31

Agreeableness: 90

Neuroticism: 27

I would seem to support realitygrill's idea, as I have a hard time disliking even people whom I know I ought to dislike.

Comment author: realitygrill 30 May 2010 08:15:58PM 0 points [-]

This is encouraging (I have the same feeling), but I have no idea what I am supposed to do with the idea. Obviously, first try to find people who would falsify it, but then what?

I still want to know where the disagreeable LW-ers are. Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Comment author: pjeby 06 June 2010 10:11:54PM 4 points [-]

I still want to know where the disagreeable LW-ers are. Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Apparently, I'm one: O59-C0-E37-A0-N80 - i.e. I have zero agreeability and conscientiousness.

But, being such a disagreeable person, I'm inclined to dispute the validity of the test. ;-)

After all, it directly asks you about traits, with questions that are pretty obviously correlated with the results. It therefore seems to be a test of your opinions about yourself, rather than being an actual test of yourself.

Comment author: Blueberry 07 June 2010 12:53:50AM 1 point [-]

After all, it directly asks you about traits, with questions that are pretty obviously correlated with the results. It therefore seems to be a test of your opinions about yourself, rather than being an actual test of yourself.

I've yet to see a test that avoids this problem. I really don't understand why tests like this and the Aspergers one, which will obviously vary dramatically with your moods, are considered to have any meaning at all.

Comment author: cupholder 07 June 2010 02:43:55AM *  2 points [-]

Psychologists tend to treat a test as having meaning when it has some form of 'validity', 'validity' being the catch-all name for the different ways a psychologist might assess if a test looks meaningful. For example, some Big Five personality scores correlate with things like job performance, suggesting predictive validity. Whether this kind of validation can prove that a test has meaning will hinge on what you feel it means for a test to have meaning.

Comment author: ata 07 June 2010 04:42:33AM 2 points [-]

Whether this kind of validation can prove that a test has meaning will hinge on what you feel it means for a test to have meaning.

In that case we should probably taboo "meaning" (in this context) and talk directly about whatever it is we want a test to do — make clinically useful predictions, carve reality along its natural joints, etc.

Comment author: realitygrill 17 June 2010 02:01:30AM 0 points [-]

Strangely enough, I'd only considered the 'validity' side - basically are the categories used universal? Somehow missed how biased self-reporting might be.

Comment author: simplicio 30 May 2010 08:17:48PM 1 point [-]

I still want to know where the disagreeable LW-ers are.

Come out, come out, wherever you are... you wankers!

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 31 May 2010 01:04:34AM *  3 points [-]

It occurs to me that disagreeable folks might be less inclined to do the work of finding the test when there's no apparent benefit to them in doing so.

Here it is.

Oh, and:

  • Openness: 76

  • Conscientiousness: 8

  • Extraversion: 2

  • Agreeableness: 32

  • Neuroticism: 11

EDIT: Thanks all. Do you mind adding your individual reactions to the top-level post in your replies?

I doubt I'll actually ever use this advice, though it sounds like it would work if I did. It's pretty rare for me to actually dislike people (though it is common for me to think that interacting with people wouldn't be worth the effort), and when I do find myself disliking someone, it's usually a pretty reliable sign that I should limit my contact with them. (E.g., the only co-worker that I disliked at my last job - on the basis that she seemed to be near-sociopathicly self-centered - was caught stealing from another co-worker when invited to a party that co-worker was hosting, and was fired from the job for stealing money from one of our volunteers' pocketbooks.)

It may be noteworthy that my method of socializing is based more on openness - learning where the other person is coming from, having conversations about mutually interesting topics - rather than agreeableness, and I neither like nor dislike most of the people I consider friends.

Comment author: arundelo 31 May 2010 04:57:25AM *  0 points [-]

Thanks!

  • Openness to Experience/Intellect 53
  • Conscientiousness 58
  • Extraversion 5
  • Agreeableness 32
  • Neuroticism 9

(Some of these results surprised me [to the extent that I put stock in this particular test].)

Comment author: RobinZ 28 May 2010 11:51:24PM *  0 points [-]

According to the first test I found (which was short, so big error bars):

Openness: 35
Conscientiousness: 1
Extraversion: 83
Agreeableness: 79
Neuroticism: 84

...it is weird seeing how extraverted I appear, knowing I was homeschooled with few social outlets growing up.

Comment author: realitygrill 28 May 2010 09:36:27PM 0 points [-]

Openness: 80 Conscientiousness: 1 Extraversion: 12 Agreeableness: 14 Neuroticism: 32

Hm, I remember my Openness, Conscientiousness, and (especially) Neuroticism being higher... bit distracted this time around.

Anybody else disagreeable on LW?

Comment author: Vive-ut-Vivas 28 May 2010 07:32:19PM 0 points [-]

I think your hypothesis is right. I just took the test now:

Openness: 84 Conscientiousness: 13 Extraversion: 95 Agreeableness: 63 Neuroticism: 93

Not that I thought the test I took was particularly accurate, but as ballpark figures they mostly make sense.

Comment author: [deleted] 27 May 2010 05:38:26PM 0 points [-]

me: Openness: 84 Conscientiousness: 41 Extraversion: 15 Agreeableness: 74 Neuroticism: 84