All language subtitles for Persona The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests (2021)

Encoded by Dr. B~

[soft female voice]
Breathe in...

and relax.

Know yourself.

Become your own attention.

[intriguing electronic music]

[electronic beep]

This test
is about your personality.

You must answer,
"strongly agree"

"agree," "neutral",
"disagree", "strongly disagree"

Agree.

[pulsing music]

Our lives are shaped
as profoundly by personality

as they are
by gender and race.

A lot of people say,
it's what makes somebody tick.

To me it's more around how
somebody portrays themselves.

Who we are, what we're good at,
what we are capable of doing.

These are really big questions
and one way of answering them

in our society has become
taking a personality test.

I am somewhat
of a thrill seeker.

I get angry more often
than nervous.

People's feelings are
sometimes hurt by what I say.

Personality testing can be
the key that unlocks the life

that you want to live

or something
that seems against you

in ways that you may not even
be aware of.

Okay, so this is
my first YouTube video.

The first one
with my face in it anyway.

I look like an idiot.
I've got these cherry lips.

My lips are chapped,
I don't know what's going on.

[sighs] So it's...

it's about 4am
on January 1st 2017,

so it's the new year

and I'm already feeling
like depressed about it

I'm an introvert.

If you're in the Myers-Briggs
I'm an INFJ.

For those of you out there
who are introverts

or if you've taken that test

and you're an INFJ,

I'd be interested to hear from
you if you feel the same way.

Are there any other INFJ
women out there?

Are you new to MBTI
or are you just getting started?

Ladies and gentlemen,
greetings

from the other side
of YouTube.

When I first started
making videos on YouTube,

the personality niche
was really small.

But over the past few years
it's gotten really big

it's really exploded.

Hey guys,
it's Lizzie, so today's video,

it's about Myres-Briggs...

...and it's just like a trend
going around.

People keep randomly saying,
"Oh, I'm HIJK..."

The most definitive
personality test of them all

is the Myers-Briggs.

If you don't know
what the Myers-Briggs is,

that's alright, just know
that it is the most well known

personality type quiz
in the world

and it breaks us all down
into 16 distinct types.

The theory is
that your personality

is constructed in such a way

where you are blind
to certain things that you do

and ways that you cause
problems for yourself.

You find it difficult
to introduce yourself

to other people?

-Yeah, disagree.
-Yes.

So typology is a tool for you
to be able to see the things

that your mind
is hiding from you.

"You often find yourself lost in
thought when you

were walking in nature."
Strongly agree.

Often find yourself
lost in thought

when you're walking in
nature?

Does this test think I'm active?
What's walking?

When I first took the test
and I got my results back

I was like, wow,
this thing knows me better

than I know myself.

I am ENTP-T.
Wooo-hoo-hoo!

ENFP-T, a campaigner.

Mediator, no one can stop you
from dreaming.

As a Beta personality type
is ultimately devil's advocate.

That's me!
Hello devil.

Cause when you find out
your personality type

you realize
that you're not alone.

My personality type is INFJ.

So that means
the first letter is I

which stands for introverted
versus extrovert.

The second one is N,

which stands for intuitive
rather than sensing preference.

Then the next letter is F

which stands for feeling
and that's opposed to thinking.

And then the last letter is J,
and the dichotomy there

is J-O-P which is
judging or perceiving.

For an INFJ,
the description is usually

something like their mind
works in a way

that's very different
from everyone else.

They can be disconnected
from the real world

and INFJ's are
the rarest type.

People want
to understand themselves

and the Internet is
a great tool to really dive

into what are the differences
between everybody.

Love is like beauty
and the beast.

Love is what you are looking at
right now.

There is no such thing as love.

Everyone wants to know who's
going to be

their perfect partner,
who they're going to marry.

Want to know
when Prince Charming

is going to walk
through the door

that you have
his personality type.

And you can say there he is,
there is the ENFP

that I'm supposed to
be with, right?

Nothing becomes trendy,

nothing becomes
important in pop culture

if there isn't some aspect
of it working in reality, right?

There's a trend about something
because people like it

and there's value in it.

[upbeat music]

When I was 21,
my first job out of college

was as a management consultant
at a large corporation.

And one of the first things

all new employees
were asked to do

was to take
the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

They whisked us away
to a very luxurious offsite...

...and they brought in
a career counselor

to tell us what our types were

and how we might fit into the
corporation based on our types.

And I remember her
telling me... "You are an ENTJ."

"You are the CEO type...

...and one day
you might even become...

head of this organization."

I was completely taken in by it.

Fast forward six months

I was a terrible
management consultant.

I spent most of my time
reading novels under my desk.

And I quit to become a writer.

And I thought I might write
something on personality.

And I remember
the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

and I started doing
some digging into it.

And I discovered
that the people who invented it

were not two men,
Myers and Briggs...

...but two women,
a mother and a daughter.

And that really moved
and intrigued me.

And I wanted to understand
how these two women

who had no formal training
in psychology

had come to design
the world's most popular

personality test.

I think what's absolutely
essential

to the history of type
is that it begins it's life

as a domestic experiment.

[baby crying]

Katharine Cook Briggs gives
birth to three children.

Only one of whom,
Isabel, survives past infancy.

And after seeing
the incredible fragility

of human life,

Katharine starts to wonder
about what it means

to bring a person
into the world

and what it means
to be a person in the world.

[baby cries]

She cordons off her living room,
into what she calls

the cosmic laboratory
of baby training

and she starts with
what she begins to think of

as a series of experiments
on the personality

of her daughter Isabel.

Years later,
Isabel goes away to college

and Katharine has a complete
crisis of faith

because she's dedicated
her whole life,

not just to her child
but to her child's personality

and she doesn't know
what to do with herself.

But one day she reads
in the New Republic

a review of a new work
by Carl Jung

called "Psychological Types"

and she's entranced
and she orders it immediately.

We need more understanding
of human nature

because the only real danger
that exists is man himself.

He is the great danger

and we are pitifully
unaware of it.

This psyche should be studied

because we are
the origin of all coming evil.

After Katharine read
"Psychological Types" in 1923,

she writes to Isabel and says

that she needs
to burn all of her notes

and she needs
to begin her life anew

as one of Jung's disciples.

And she sees a way of bringing
the language of types

that Jung has developed,
to the United States...

...and use it
to transform American society.

[expectant music]

Can you handle a fast paced
working environment?

I had always really wanted
to do comedy.

The speed at which
you're asking me these questions

makes me question
how fast paced it truly is.

The first one I did was the 16
personalities

at a job
interview.

Okay.
You're hired.

-We're interviewing you.
-Oh.

My Channel started to blow up.

Like... what!

I am killing it.

People just like to see
this format over and over again

because they can learn more
about themselves

and about other people in like
a quick humorous format.

Dating can be a struggle
for introverts.

What with the talking to people

and leaving the house
but fear not.

This is the introverts
survival guide to dating.

Good first date spots
for introverts include

the coffee shop,
the library and the cemetery.

I get comments
and emails all the time

and they range
from things like

what would a relationship
look like

between an ENFP and INTJ?

But then I also
get people saying

"You're the only person
who really understands me."

People who are like going
through like a fresh divorce.

Yeah I'm here
with my INFJ girlfriend.

It is Valentine's Day.

For those of you
who did not know I'm an INFJ...

Even once I had someone
who was feeling suicidal

and posting about it and it's

all these really
deep weighty things

and some people viewing this

form a very strong
emotional bond,

when they know
that they are not a freak,

when they are not alone,
when they're not broken.

When someone else can just say
what they've been thinking

and feeling
and make it seem normal.

[suspenseful electronic music]

Personality testing is
a multibillion dollar industry

and is growing
at at least 15% a year.

What I'm helping my clients do
is to compete and win.

The world is
like a large poker game,

where we're trying
to crunch the numbers

and we're trying
to count the cards

and trying to ascertain

do they have a full hand
or are they bluffing?

[electronic music continues]

Approximately 70% of
an organization's expenditures

is on human capital.

And when there's all kinds
of psychological data available

that can help inform companies

on what kind
of human capital they invest in,

it's going to be very appealing
to organizations,

to use that data,

to try to maximize their return
on investment.

The two most popular
personality assessments

on the market today

are the Myers-Briggs
and the Big 5.

The Coke and Pepsi

of the personality
assessment world.

They have similar categories
and several things in common.

Most of the personality
assessments on the market today

are based on the Myers-Briggs
and or the Big Five.

Sometimes the two
of them together.

Algorithms are everywhere.

They sort and separate
the winners from the losers.

The winners get the job
or good credit card offer.

The losers,
don't even get an interview.

I actually think personality
tests are fun to take.

You know,
in a loose stakes environment

if have you ever taken
a personality test

it's like fun
because you basically get

to think about yourself,

and talk about yourself.

It's not fun
if it's high stakes.

[dog barking]

Good thing
I got my my cold sleeves.

I am set.

We have two different
types of people right here.

We got Barrett.
He's doing the pulling.

And then Danny, he's the one
keeping us in check.

So we couldn't just
have two Barrets

because that'd be too much.

I was already on

to the whole
personality test industry

and I came across Kyle's story

and it just seemed...

...amazing.

But it wasn't just Kyle.

It was anybody
who would have answered

questions like Kyle.

So I guess it starts really

with I was in school
up in Nashville

and I ended up having to take
a leave of absence

during which I was diagnosed
with bipolar disorder.

And then after I graduated

I decided I would get
a part time job.

And one of my friends
that I had made,

he worked at Kroger,
in the pharmacy

and I told him I have to take
my own medication myself.

so I'd really like to be
on the other side

helping people
with their medication.

And he brought my case
before two of his managers there

and he came back to me
and explained

they are both
on board with this,

let's move forward.

All we've got to do now
is you've got to submit

your resume to online
and take a test.

The next day I go upstairs
into my room.

Lock myself in my room
because I'm taking a test.

So, no distractions.

[soft keypad punching]

I start taking this test
and I'm thinking to myself,

"This is easy,
I'm good at this,

I'm good at being honest."

"I'm just going to go right
through this exam,

submit."
And did it.

And then over the next few weeks

I'm kind of still waiting
to hear back.

My friend drops in again
and I asked him,

I said,
"Hey, how's the job going?"

"Like I submitted
the online test."

And he then explained to me
that the manager said

that he could not hire me

because I had scored
a red on the test

and red on a specific area
of the test.

In the specific area
which I scored red

indicated that I was very
likely to ignore customers

if they were either upset,

or if they were making me
upset and frustrated.

And so I heard this news
and I was a little taken aback

because, you know, I've worked
in customer service before

and one of the things
I've learned is

you completely separate
your personal feelings

from the job.

It's not fair
that by answering honestly

about things that were related
to my mental health,

I was excluded from work.

So, in my head I'm thinking,
there's no way

that this can be legal.

I've been an advocate
for disability rights

and disability justice
for over the last decade,

and when I was in high school

I had decided to apply
to several other jobs.

Several of these places
that I applied

had a personality test
as part of the application.

I just remember that
because one of the times

that I was filling one out,
I was with some classmates.

We all crowded around the screen
as a group to be like

"This is a personality test?"
"What the hell!"

"How are you supposed
to answer these questions?"

"What is the correct answer
supposed to be?"

"Does anyone know,
What should we put down?"

"Does it matter?"

I don't remember
what the verdict was,

but I do remember

that I didn't get
a single job that I applied for.

And to this day,
I don't know why.

I have a lot of suspicions
as to why.

Perhaps one of the reasons
that I was not hired was

because I failed
the personality test,

or perhaps one of the reasons
that I was not hired

was that even if people
didn't know affirmatively

that I'm autistic,
I still coded,

I was perceived
as you're kind of weird

we can tell something's
going on,

so we don't really want you,

you're not a good fit.

That phrase that's supposed
to mean

maybe like this won't work
out in particular.

But really is usually code for
you're too Asian,

you're too disabled,
you're too gay.

So for me, when people say

what's used personality tests
to learn

about who would be
a better partner for you,

or who would be
a better student for the school,

or who would be the
best employee for this position.

My instant reaction is,
oh no, fuck that, no.

It's not just a prediction.

If it were just a prediction,
it wouldn't be that important.

But it's a prediction
that's being used

to make decisions about who is
worthy and who's unworthy.

We need to know what's going on.

We need to stop trusting it.

We need to look into it.

See what is it really doing?

I can only indirectly infer
because I know a lot about this,

but I imagine that
there's just so many

hundreds and thousands of other
people that have been harmed

that just don't know it, yet.

I tell you all the time

that it's survival
of the fittest, isn't it?

[students] Yes.

Cos there's a million people
in New York

fighting, scratching,
fighting for these jobs.

And a lot of employers are just
looking for one mistake.

-We got to be mistake free.
-[students] Yes.

I think a lot of people
of our community

are not afforded many mistakes
as other people, right?

We have to go to extremes
to show them,

"I am the best candidate,"

because in a lot
of people's minds,

I hate to say unfortunately,

they have an L on your forehead
as soon as you come in.

We're going to show them
what's really what?

-[all] W.
-W for winner.

And that's why we got...

For over a decade now, my
job has been

to help New Yorkers
find employment.

I service different students
from different populations.

Some are long term out of work.

Some are freshly incarcerated.

But you'll be surprised,
some have master's degrees

and still can't find work.

You apply for
that doorman job?

-Yeah.
-Right, that's a good job.

Many students aren't aware

of how technology plays
an important part

in this job process.

A lot of my students are still
used to the one ads

in the Sunday paper
and thinking,

"Oh, I see a job opening.
I'm going to walk

to that physical brick
and mortar store

and I'm going
to apply in person."

When those days are dead
as the dinosaurs.

When I was in prison,

I was working
with computers that...

the software was in the 1980s.

So being introduced
to the Google world now is like

what's the Google world?

A couple of years ago,

we started to see
that job applications

started to become
longer and longer.

When we looked at them closer
the questions in the application

were not actually about the job.

These are questions
about who you are.

Psychological evaluations.

Tends to dislike a person who
has sold his payment forcefully?

[sighs]

Daily, I see frustration.

These students,
they are filling out tens,

maybe hundreds of applications.

A lot of times,
my students will tell me,

"Oh, Mr E. I applied to this job

and I never heard
anything back."

It really sinks my heart
because I've seen them trained,

I've seen them wake up early,

I've seen them
get into a whole new routine

and I've seen them
get to the edge of,

"Is this even worth it?"

So me and my colleague David
decided

we needed to do
something about this

in order to give
our guys a chance

I often say
"Is this a psych test?"

And they would often say,
"That's what it feels like."

And so that's where they go.

And so the personality profile
is designed to distract you.

It's designed to bring you
into the personal,

because what are
they trying to do?

They're trying
to filter people out.

Once you hit "apply now",
you're in,

you're committed,

now what?

You might be there
for two hours.

So when they give you
these questionnaires

psychologically
how it messes with me,

is sometimes it, it finds
a way to try to trick you.

[rumbling machine]

Whereas Katharine was

the more spiritual partner
of the two

Isabel was the more commercial,
the more entrepreneurial.

I think this had a lot to do
with her own personality.

She was a woman
who had started her life

as her mother's experiment.

And once she had broken free
from her mother.

she seemed to have
no real interest

in her mother's obsession.

But then World War II
comes along

and that changes
everything for her.

[thunderous explosion]

December 7th 1941,

a date which will live
in infamy.

The United States of America

was suddenly
and deliberately attacked.

She says that, you know,
she was sitting at home

and she thought,
"Well, what is it that I can do

that would be helpful
to humankind?"

[Carl Jung]
We need more understanding

of human nature

because the only real danger
that exists... is man himself.

"What if I took
all of this knowledge,

that my mother
has been sitting on

and I somehow
operationalized it?"

"What if I made it
immediately usable for people?"

[interview with Katharine Myers]

So she gets her daughter

and her daughter's
three best friends

to come to the house
after school

and to sit around
the kitchen table.

And she gets them to answer
these forced choice questions

about how they would behave

in all sorts of different
and ordinary scenarios.

So, for instance,
if you were at a party

would you wait for somebody
to talk to you

or would you approach
somebody to talk to them first?

Or if you were walking down
the street

and the fire truck
blazed by you

would you follow it
to see where it was going

or would you just keep going
about your day?

And using her children
and their friends

and her husband's answers
to these questions

she started building up
these profiles of people

who were different types.

[Katharine Myers]

Many many many people find
the language of type

that Myers-Briggs offers
extraordinarily seductive.

And I think for me
the interesting question is

why are they so seduced by it?

[Myers voice]

What is it about these words

and the way in which
they're grouped together

that really commands
people's imagination?

[Myers voice]

And why is it that the moment
they have access to those words

they actually start using them

not just to describe
their personalities

but to kind of re-conceive
the idea of personality itself.

[Myers voice]

And the most powerful rule
of type is that you were born

with essential personality type

and you would die with that
same essential personality type.

The most important part
of personality,

the North and South of it all,

is the introvert-extrovert
spectrum.

-Hi, how are you?
-I'm good.

One really easy way to ask
yourself who you are

is to think about how you feel
when you go to a party

that you're truly enjoying,
with company that you truly like

and think about how you feel
after about two or three hours.

Because if you're an extrovert,
it's as if you have

an internal battery
that's being charged.

Check me out, ladies

your boy is
under the fake mistletoe.

And if you're an introvert

no matter how socially skilled
you might be

or how much
you're enjoying it,

it's as if your battery
is being drained.

What? No, I wasn't going off
to be by myself again.

I was just checking out
your laundry room, yeah

American culture really
does prefer it's extroverts.

This is a culture
that comes from a kind

of veneration
of the man of action.

You should be the doer,
not the thinker.

You often hear a preference
for hiring of extroverts.

Increasingly now
offices are designed

as these big
open social spaces.

Do you have
any questions for us?

Hey, forget the questions.

I brought brownies.
Let's just dig in.

Also I was wondering

do you have a kombucha bar
for employees?

We also know that introverts
tend to get passed over

and overlooked
for leadership positions.

So it's like there's
this colossal waste of talent,

because of these preconceptions
we have.

My message to fellow
introverts in the world is

to love being the way you are,

there's a lot to love.

I'm applying for more jobs
and I'm finding more and more

of these personality tests.

I'm very outgoing.

I am generally hopeful
and optimistic person.

And this is one
that I see a lot,

how would you describe
your personal energy level?

If you're someone
who's suffering from depression

if you're being honest,
you're going to say

I have less energy
than most people

that's part
of what the illness is.

But that's the type of person
who is also forcing themselves

to get out there and do things.

While I'm doing this
and finding that out

my dad is doing
all this research

because he's sort
of the type of dad

that obsesses over things.

We started with just Kyle
applying to additional companies

and when he applied
for him to take screenshots

of the questions that
were asked.

When we were
looking back at screenshots

we realized that you were being
sent to other websites.

When you go one level deeper

you get
to third party test providers.

The second part of that was then
to sort of take those names

people I'd never heard before,

Unicru or Kronos or some others,

and just start
doing research on them.

This goes deeper
than we thought.

There's a whole
industry of companies.

They've infected
the whole system.

-[dog barks]
-[birds chirping]

[Isabel's granddaughter]
We all, of course, knew type

of everyone in the family
and we all took the indicator

at an early age.

My grandmother was introverted
and my great grandmother was

introverted and my mother
was introverted.

So at first,
I was a little concerned

because I was extroverted

but she was very reassuring.

And when I went
over the type description,

I really liked
my own type description

which was extroverted, intuitive
feeling with perception.

I knew I wanted to be a reporter
and she had done massive amounts

of research on type and career
and when I looked at the careers

of reporters, there was a great
concentration of ENFPs

so, I felt like
I had made the right choice.

What I remember about her is
that she spent most of her life

in a big overstuffed chair in
the corner of a living room

where she worked,
pretty much around the clock

on type research.

She had long gray hair
which she braided every morning

and put in
a very complicated bun

that really used
to fascinate me.

She was not
remotely materialistic.

I never saw her shop.

I don't know
where the clothes came from

or where
the furniture came from

but it was a very warm house.

She would come up
and sing every night

before we went to sleep.

She made a cinnamon sugar
toast in the morning.

She had a special way
of making scrambled eggs.

She was always very much driven,

and sometimes even watching her
make scrambled eggs

she was kind of like
rocking back and forth,

and then she was gonna get back
to her desk.

She would say that her dad
always said

that if a child asks you
a question,

no matter how many
questions they ask you

you have to answer
their questions right away.

So I think all of us
grandchildren knew

that the one way
we could get her attention

is if we'd ask her questions
and then she would,

she'd stop whatever
she was doing

and she would patiently
answer our questions.

I think she really felt
that if you could help people

understand themselves better

and ways
that other people are different

that were not better or worse,

that would be a better way

of creating empathy
towards others.

[Myers' voice]

She believes that what type
can do is help manage

the now growing labor force
of the US.

She says
"If men came like shoes,

with the number
on the outside of the box

then we could avoid
a painful fit."

It's about the idea
that working at something

that's not good for you,

pursuing a profession
that you're not suited to,

and even marrying a person

who is not suited
to your personality type

results in a great deal of pain.

And so she's very interested
in trying to mitigate the pain

that these bad fits of people
to their social roles

might cause.

And so
it really started out small.

Initially, when you look at
the register of her accounts

she was selling a couple
of booklets here,

a couple
of questionnaires there.

But then these accounts
really through the 50s

start to grow
and grow and grow.

Some of her biggest clients
were places like Standard Oil

or GE or the Home Life
Insurance Company.

And they were really intent

on having her test
their executives

to figure out
what made a good executive.

There were companies
like the

Washington Gas
and Light Company

that had her come in
to figure out

whether extroverts or introverts

were better at meter reading
versus clerical work.

She was being asked
by hospitals

to come in and type
their nurses,

to type their stenographers,

to try to figure out
what types were best

for particular kinds of jobs.

For Isabel, it was about
imagining a better world.

A world in which everybody
was doing the thing

that made them happy.

One of the criticisms
of the MBTI

is that it's all positive,
makes people feel good.

I don't know why it's a problem
but she purposely didn't include

some of those negative things.

Her whole point was,
look, all types have value

all types are good,
we just approach

the world in different ways.

At the end of the day
people find it useful,

they find it very valuable.

Even if it's not
a perfect model.

There's no personality model
that captures every element

of a human condition,
they just don't.

They're models,
that's what they're for, right?

To help us simplify
the complex world we live in.

We know that about 80
of the Fortune 100

make use of the MBTI
in some form or fashion

from Ivy League schools
down to community colleges

in the US use it.

We know that most
of the branches of the military

in the US and in England use it.

To me that's what's so
extraordinary about type.

It's not the question of whether
it's scientifically valid

or reliable or not but rather
how it is that these two women

manage to create a language
that would latch on to you

and just never,
ever ever let you go.

A language you would never
be able to shake loose.

Since I've been
in the Myers-Briggs company

the admonition has been
to not use it for hiring

because
there's no reason to assume

that a person with one
particular type preference

can do a job better than someone
who has a different type.

We had a couple of organizations
that we're using it for hiring.

We knew
they were using for hiring.

We called them and say,
hey you can't do that

and they said,
"Well we're going to,"

and so we stopped
selling to them.

In the United States
copyright laws are particularly

challenging to enforce.

The four letters
were never copyrighted.

Terrible mistake
by some lawyers somewhere.

So they are in the public domain

and anybody can use
those combinations of letters.

Many of these personality tests
have now been copied, reworked,

reformatted, reformulated,
so it's hard to even know

where they are
or where they come from.

There's been not a big increase
in the number of competitors,

as we call them knock-offs
of the MBTI.

One of our biggest challenge is
that there's people out there

who say they're doing MBTI
and they're not.

Or who say they're using
our products

and they're not using
our products.

The creators of the Myers-Briggs
may have had a vision

of simply helping people
understand themselves

and one another.

But now that the genie
is out of the bottle

they can't necessarily control

how it's being used
and by whom.

Just like
pharmaceutical companies

sometimes get in trouble
for off label use

of pharmaceutical drugs

for an off label use
to select people into jobs

when they shouldn't be
doing that.

My job, of course,
was to find evidence of harm.

Show me the blood, right?

Well, how do you find blood
when they're these algorithms

that are secretly
harming people?

Most people who get red-lighted

with personality tests never
find out they get red-lighted.

But Kyle knew somebody,

who told him,
"You got red-lighted."

So that was
the first miracle for Kyle.

The second thing is
that his father is a lawyer.

Kyle said, "I don't know
what to do, dad."

He asked, "How broken am I?"

-[tense music]
-[soft emotional breath]

And...

that statement really...

...hurt.

Can we afford to slip
in this room?

-[all] No.
-No, we can't.

That's the problem.

Because these things
will add up quickly.

We're all human beings

but there's
a computer behind this

and it adds it up
super fast in nanoseconds

and if you have too much wing
in the wrong category

you are out of the running.

Between 2012 and 2014,

I was doing
a very in-depth two year project

where we looked at
online job applications

from every aspect.

We found that a company
named Unicru was marketing

most of these tests
to each company

as being uniquely suited
to identify the workers

that that company wanted.

So, presumably
every company wouldn't want

the same type of person

because they're different
kinds of companies

and they're different
kinds of jobs.

Every single test we looked at
evaluated mental state.

And I would say
a good third of the questions

actually evaluated mental
states of applicants.

And it's unfair
and wrong to not hire someone

based on a mental disability.

You can screen them out

if you are unable to make
an accommodation to them

after you've already hired them.

But you can't pre-screen
and disqualify somebody

based on a perceived disability.

Every one of the tests
was administered nationwide.

You went on a national website
to take this test.

These were not
New York City employers.

We're talking about Macy's,
Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's...

and they all had some variant
of this inappropriate test.

They don't really understand
personality testing.

They don't understand
what they're dealing with

and you have vendors
who are telling them

this is going to save you
oodles of bucks.

It sounds like the magic bullet.

It's a process by which
technologists hide ugly truths

inside blackbox algorithms
and called them objective.

Call them meritocratic.

When they're secret,
important and destructive

I coined a term
for these algorithms,

weapons of mass destruction.

[audience applauds and cheers]

That's when you realized,
it's not just me,

it's not just Kyle,

it's much broader than that.

And that led us to talk
with people

who are more qualified lawyers

and then turn that
hopefully into change.

The concern I have is
that people seem okay

with kind of innovating
and testing out things

where there isn't a lot
of scientific support

to really document
that it works.

Whereas you wouldn't do that

if you were testing out
a new drug, right?

You would actually develop
the science to support it.

Somehow people think
this is like a low risk area.

So let's just test
on all these humans

before we know exactly
what the consequences are.

What came to my mind
is job applicants

are crash test dummies, right?

Because we don't know
if it's going to work, but...

how could it hurt?

But unlike
the crash test dummies

the people are there like
the dummies don't have feelings.

The crash test dummy
does not have

economic survival needs
or feelings.

Correct.

Personality tests are by a
large constructed to be ableist,

to be racist, to be sexist
and to be classist.

That's what happens
when you have a test

that decides whether you're
friendly or not based on norms

devised from college educated
straight white men

who don't have
any known disabilities.

Personality tests are useful
for individual people

sometimes on journeys
of self discovery.

But when they're used
to make decisions

by other people,
affecting somebody's life,

they become dangerous tools.

My dad was just
pushing forward with this

and we started getting
some more publicity.

There was
a Wall Street Journal article

that was written about
us.

Being on the Wall Street Journal
cover page, this is important.

Kyle is having an impact.

And so now he's obsessed
with this idea.

And he keeps digging,
and he keeps talking to people

and he would go with third
party like test providers

and ask
how they made their tests.

We found that many of them
used something called

the five factor model
of personality.

They look at five major factors
in the context of hiring.

The way the Big Five theory
developed was over decades.

Academic researchers
took thousands of attributes

adjectives that you might use
to describe people.

They found
that five attributes explain

most of the variants
in human personality.

Conscientiousness,
agreeableness, neuroticism,

openness to experience
and extroversion.

With a Unicru
reading their statements

and marketing materials,

what it read was
Unicru allows you to clone

your best performers.

Cloning your best employee

sort of led me down the path of,
"Who is that employee?"

There's actually medical papers
out there explaining

how you can generally
diagnose mental illnesses

using the five factor model.

So under the Americans
with Disabilities Act,

it's illegal to ask
prospective employees

for medical information
or about anything

about their physical
or mental health.

You can't ask somebody
about a mental condition,

but perhaps the technology
can tell whether somebody

has a medical condition.

You might not even know
you have a mental illness

and taking
these personality tests

you might keep getting denied
and just have no idea.

I just cheated on Myers-Briggs
with another personality test.

That's right,
I took the Big Five test.

What I wanted to do is go
through the results live.

We'll see how much
of a loser I am.

All right, so first up
is agreeableness.

Agreeableness?
I scored 77 which probably means

I'm a big doormat.

So now we move on
to the next one.

Conscientiousness,
which I think

basically translates
to how hard you work.

Conscientiousness.

Oh, I'm in the 4th percentile
of conscientiousness.

Dang!

Oh, now we're getting
to the stuff I'm good at.

Neuroticism.

Neuroticism,
I scored in the 97th percentile.

No surprise there.

People with exceptionally high
levels of neuroticism like me

tend to think that everything in
life has always been going wrong

and always will.

[electronic music]

When you steer
someone away from a job

that they're not as
likely to do well in,

you've done them a favor

even though
it doesn't feel like a favor.

If you help someone land
in a job

that they're likely
to enjoy and do well

it's a win for everybody.

And, of course, companies
have a vested interest

in picking the best people.

The problem of why are some
people more interested

and capable in specific types
of work?

That's an interesting question.

And I just fell in love
with it early on.

We use Big Five.

It's certainly not the only
theory of personality

but it's got
a strong research basis.

And I built some
of the earliest examples

of automated psychological
testing that employers use

to pick better employees.

One of my first companies
that I worked for

was trying to validate
an honesty test.

Did you write number one?

No.

When I was in college,
you couldn't get a job

at a convenience store or a gas
station

without taking a polygraph.

It was a very common practice.

It wasn't reliable.
It wasn't scientifically valid.

And so Congress passed
the Polygraph Protection Act

which forbade
the use of the polygraph

for employee selection
in most of the jobs.

In the late 80s there were
a few influential developments

in machine learning
and pattern recognition

one of the major branches
of artificial intelligence.

I was all about trying
to implement that research.

And finally,
a group of entrepreneurs

from the West Coast
called me and said,

"We'd like to talk to you
about your research."

And so I moved out to Portland

and we put together
a little company

that grew quite quickly.

Six or seven years passed.

We were estimated
to have about half

of the domestic hourly hiring
market in the United States.

So we were processing

between 70 and 90 million
applications a year.

Hotel, customer service,
waiters.

Our little system's here

influencing the lives
of millions of people.

Even though I had
so many positive things

going on in my life
I just couldn't stop revisiting,

Why me, why am I un-hireable?
What's wrong with me?

Is my personality wrong?

Is there something
wrong with me?

Am I broken?

We could actually be explicitly
making sure that hiring systems

are inclusive and creating
diverse workforces.

That's not what we're doing,
though.

What we're doing
is propagating past practices.

We are repeating the past.

[Kyle] Is this platform new?

People constantly have to
perform their personalities.

They are always on the clock.

And they not only have
to perform their personalities

but they have
to be happy to do it.

They have to do it willingly.

I think one
of the extraordinary things

about the Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator

is that that's there from
its very inception,

almost incidentally.

But of course
it's not an accident

because Isabel herself is
a product of this ideology.

[Myers voice]

When I started
researching the book,

I thought it would be a fairly
simple research process.

But the more I got into it,
the more I realized

that there were things
people didn't want me to find.

So I would go up to archives
and the files that I needed

would have been removed.

I would go to archives
and there would be people

assigned to watch me
as I was doing my work.

That does start making you
a little bit paranoid.

What is it that the people

who have a vested interest
in the indicator

don't want disclosed
about it's origins.

I was completely stunned
to realize that Isabel

was a successful
mystery novelist

before she designed
the type indicator.

And in the late 1920s
she had written a mystery novel

in about five weeks.

She had done it
while her children

were asleep at night.

And she had entered it
into a competition

and it had won
and was published.

And then I realized

that she had written
a second novel,

but that novel wasn't advertised
anywhere on the website.

It was very, very difficult
to track down

in any sort
of mainstream library.

And when I finally found it
and I read it, I understood why.

Because that novel features
the same team of detectives.

Only this time
they're investigating

a series of suicides that take
place among an old aristocratic

Southern family.

And it turns out that the reason
the members of this family

are committing suicide is
because they believe

that they have a single drop

of African American blood
in their veins.

[ominous music]

And so it's a really
horrifyingly racist novel.

Reading it I felt betrayed,

because you have this woman
who on the one hand

is committed to a certain set
of progressive ideals,

particularly for her time.

And on the other hand,
everything she's doing

is weighed down by a very, very
troubling set of ideologies.

So, for instance when Isabel
is first administering

the indicator to people
who work at a factory

she wouldn't test anybody
she said with an IQ under 100

because she didn't believe

that they have the cognitive
capabilities

to differentiate
their personalities.

And she argues that the people

who have the clearest
personality preferences are

research scientists and CEOs.

When the type indicator
was first designed

there were separate answer keys
for men and for women,

under the assumption that women

were simply biologically
predisposed to feeling

and so you couldn't actually
evaluate

men's and women's answers
on the same scale.

They had to have different
scales.

All of these little moments
in the history

of the type indicator
contain these traces

of Isabel's classicism
and her racism and her sexism

and her ableism.

It's primarily
the white managerial class,

around which the idea
of personality,

as Isabel understands it
and articulates it

through the type indicator,
is constructed.

The way the indicator
was designed

and the way that any
personality test

really is designed is
to perpetuate the language

of individuality
and of the self

for people who already
have access to it.

If people create something
they bring into that something

all of their preexisting values.

There is no way
to preemptively excise

those values from the creation.

Problem is what does it mean
when those biases are tied

to systems of power that harm
whole communities of people.

It was really telling to me
how Isabel's prejudices

which it would be very easy
to dismiss as being of her time,

were not of her time,
they're of our present

and they continue
to be used today

to sustain the powers
of the dominant classes.

Merve Emre came out with a book
of the personality brokers.

She made some assumptions
and implied some things

I don't even want to repeat
because I found them

so profoundly offensive.

Isabel did care deeply
about preventing another Hitler

about intolerance.

And I think that her really
primary focus was to appreciate

your own uniqueness

and be able to appreciate
people who are different,

which has never seemed more
relevant to me than it does now.

I think there are ways
that it's being used

that she would want to get
in there and correct.

I don't think she ever wanted
to see it used to discriminate

in hiring, for example.

Increasing the speed

and memory
capability of computers.

Like most sociologists
I'd learned about bias,

in terms of human bias,
and I never really thought

about the fact that bias
could also be encoded

in computer programming.

With new technologies
we're actually encountering

new forms of discrimination,

that were not really
conceived of

when we created
the antidiscrimination laws

that we have now.

Is there really evidence

that employment personality
tests can be racially biased?

So, I would say yes.

The whole idea of people beating
the system has definitely been

an idea that has it has existed
for quite some time.

You know,
people react to programs

that they feel are exclusionary
and they resist.

Alright, so superstars,
I've introduced you to a concept

about how to handle personality
assessments, right?

This training is a follow up.

We call this the results show.

So that you'll see
the results of your actions.

Whether your clicks,
whether your answers

would have either proved
valuable for you

or would have drained
your access to the job, right?

Okay, so we start
with number 14.

For the most part,
all of you love yourself.

You're happy,
you're happy with yourself.

All of you.
For the most part...

You have to be able
to be like water

as Bruce Lee said, you know,
to be flexible

and the person that's the most
flexible is going to be

the person that gets the job.

All right,
here's another question.

It's hard to be optimistic
about the future?

Adrian said yes, and Clyde,

I feel bad for you.

Not to get personal.
This is not personal.

I mean, the click says maybe

what you felt at the moment,
right?

And I agree,

sometimes it is hard

to be optimistic
about the future.

But would you
in the interview say, yeah.

now, that you mentioned it?

Future.

Can we talk about,
can we talk about this?

These questions
are coming from a person

with a distinctive difference
from the people

that are receiving these
applications or assessments.

You can have questions worded
in a way that a person

has never heard before

and it could throw them
totally off.

So people...
I love that word, people.

People may have to suffer
some criticism

in order to achieve a goal.

And everybody said "yes"
except Adrian said "no".

No criticism from me.

I can achieve my goal
my own way.

It depends how you feel
because I don't have no--

You have to just ask yourself

why they're asking me
this question, right?

And so they just asking you,
I think,

Can you take some criticism?

Would you agree you could take
some critic-- you might need.

Has Mr E ever criticized you?

-Yeah.
-Ah, alright, so your answer

actually is yes
if you think about it, right?

Oh, I love this one.

I do not recall...
can't remember,

telling a lie in recent years.

And look at these angels.

Right down.

Now, that's very admirable.

They design these things
very carefully

and I cannot get
into the algorithms

of how they figure
this stuff out,

but I do think
it could be a trick question.

Obviously, it's very painful,
it's discouraging.

See now, Adrian,
you're getting consistent.

And now they're feeling
where you're at, right?

That's right in the numbers.

The software is now saying,
flashing red light.

I'm pleased to know
that we believe we have a way

to train to it,
but that's a very small portion

of the population.

You know, I have anywhere

from 10 to 25 students
at a time.

We might get to 200, 250,
300 students a year.

It's New York City,
that's not a lot of people.

Most people have no access
to this kind of training

or this kind of framing.

I have suffered many times

before I even had this
opportunity of coming to Hope.

But when I came here,
it gave me hope.

It gave me a passion.

It gave me everything
that I've been dreaming of,

when I couldn't get it
nowhere else.

One day someone will take
an interest in me.

Let's face it,
most psychological tests

are written by middle aged,
white guys like me

and we can't possibly assimilate
all the complexity, cultural

and individual variation
that our systems

are going to capture.

Therefore, we have to anticipate
that our data sets themselves

could be the source
of contamination

and we have to analyze that,

and in my own working life
I've done research

with companies where patterns
of discrimination were observed.

But I do also understand
that if these algorithms

are configured properly,
they're going to make far more

correct decisions than
they're going to make errors.

[interviewer]

Of course, oh yeah.

I would say you may have applied
for the wrong job.

Who wants a job
you're going to hate?

Having work that is...
makes us happy,

is the best, it's just the best

and it's a natural
for human beings to actualize

as it is for a tree
to put leaves out.

It's what we're designed to do.

And any time
that doesn't happen,

that's a tragic loss.

Almost eight weeks ago,

my wife and I went over
to Kyle's house.

We got there and saw
that his car was in the garage.

The house was locked up.

We were able to open
the garage door.

Went in the house

and went up to his bedroom

and found Kyle dead there.

He had taken his life and...

everything since then
has been adjusting.

[sad music]

[child's voice]

[Kyle shouting cheerfully]

[sad music continues]

[indistinct chatter]

[slide projector clicking]

Kyle, had 29 years
of wonderful life

that I am...

ever grateful for having had him
for those 29 years.

For him having been
a part of my life for that.

I would have liked it had
been much much longer...

...and it's not.

But while he's physically
not with us,

he still connects.

You know, you go a lot of places
where we used to go.

You do things that we used to do
or you continue on in this case

you know, fighting the fights

that he thought
were important to fight.

I never met Kyle
and I don't want to presume

to know what did Kyle feel

what was Kyle thinking.

When I hear about
what happened in Kyle's life

with facing persistent ableism
and cynicism in his attempt

just to find
a little bit of work to do

and when I hear about
his ultimate...

the ultimate end of his life,
that he died by suicide,

I think of dozens
of other community members

that I know and anytime
that I learn that somebody

from our community
is no longer here,

it is deeply sobering,
it is deeply upsetting

and it is a further indictment
of the society that we live in

of just how profoundly
fucked it all is.

[interviewer speaking
indistinctly]

So my name is
Dr Nathan Mondragon.

I'm the chief industrial
and organizational psychologist

with a company called HireVue.

HireVue is, in a nutshell
a video interview platform.

We're growing
significantly year over year.

Dr Scarborough's tests were kind
of multiple choice questions.

You then roll answers to

those questions up
into a score of some sort.

Savvy applicants
start to figure out

what the answer key might be.

The next level of research
that we're doing is

we look at the words.

We also look at
the audio patterns

and then we're starting
to look at

what's called
the facial action units,

the movement of the face.

So an example.
Do you like your boss?

And you say,
"I like my boss."

Alright, good,
but "I like my boss,"

has a different connotation
to it when you layer

the video and the audio
and the facial movement

on top of the text.

That's what we're researching.

That is unproven at this point.

When I first learned
about HireVue

my reaction was,
"I'm sorry, what?

Employers are trying to do
what exactly?

How do you purport to be able
to look at a video

of a person's speech
and movement and say

"Oh, now, we know
from this video,

whether or not you are going
to be successful at this job."

What the hell does that have
to actually do with anything?

Perception of emotions
is very subjective, right?

And it's also
very culturally specific.

So for example, somebody
from Russia will have

different body movements
or body language to express

even the same emotion
as somebody from North America.

Humans are biased, yes.

But one biased human manager
can only impact

maybe a hundred resumes
at a time.

But one biased
automated hiring system,

that is deployed throughout a
corporation can actually impact

hundreds of thousands
of resumes.

I think that very much goes
against our Constitution.

It goes against
who we are as Americans.

I mean what I'm saying
we're doing is in accordance

with what's called
the uniform guidelines

and professional standards
and practices and principles.

Have we been sued? No.

There's stuff out there
people are looking.

David Scarborough,
he came under fire at Unicru

for some stuff as well
years ago

and it's just part
of the business

but if you do things correctly

you're maximizing
that defendability.

One worry is the idea
that automated hiring platforms

could actually create
an underclass of people

who are permanently
unemployable.

Once someone gets rejected
from several jobs

that actually does create
a gap in employment.

And then that gap in employment
just gets bigger and bigger

each time they get rejected
and that kind of puts them

in a position
where they're now

no longer a preferred worker.

Then there's a worry
that you're designating

certain groups of people
as unfit for employment

and this really goes back
to notions of eugenics.

Eugenics was this major movement
at the turn of the 20th century

that gained enormous traction

to the point
where several cities

in the United States founded
their own societies

for the public hygiene.

Eugenics was the science
of the future

of forward thinking people.

Eugenics was the science
of devising a better society

by creating better humans.

But eugenics itself is,
of course,

deeply white supremacist
and deeply ableist,

because eugenics
was the science of deciding

which kinds of people

deserve to reproduce
and to be reproduced.

Which kinds of people
deserve to exist

which kinds of people did not.
Which kinds of people

would be counted as productive

and contributing members
of society,

and in turn,
which kinds of people

would instead be cast off
as burdens.

And that's why we got to go
the extra mile to show them

"No, I'm superior
in so many different ways."

Eugenics continues to be
mainstream science

in the United States,
just not under that name.

We think that you're worthy
because your personality is

the appropriate
personality here.

Your personality is
the one that matches those

of previously successful
performers of this company.

And they want to see
that you are the best person.

Not because you said it,
because I demonstrated it.

Employers or other people
who are using things

like personality tests to decide

who they want
to offer opportunities to...

that is... let us be very clear
about this and not mince words.

Who they want to make sure

and a roof over their head

fuck you, sucks to be you.

Then they're relying on the same
type of pseudoscience

that you are doing when you were
measuring people's skulls

to decide which person
is intelligent or not.

[car engine]

Meeting today is
an important step

because we're looking
to change the law

to be able to more effectively
protect those who are

discriminated against.

[plaintive music]

I don't think that there is
an end to the quest

there's an end to this
particular part of the quest.

He would have loved being part
of today's meeting

up on the hill.

Yeah, he was there.

Just not as vocal as
I would have liked him to be.

I mean, in my worst fears

of the future
of hiring algorithms

it doesn't even just start
at the moment of application.

We already have a system
to get us to applying

that is problematic.

I would call it the pipeline,
and that's now.

So the dystopian future
that I worry about is this

but it goes backwards in time

in the sense that it starts
in childhood.

These big tech companies
are collecting data

about how our children learn.

At the age of seven,
they are already pinned down

into their future job prospect

and as they go through junior
high school and high school

they're just confirming,

"Oh, yeah, this is
an unlucky person,"

they don't deserve a good job.

I know people are like,
"Well I'm not Kyle,

why should I worry about Kyle?"

Sorry.

That... it is their story.

This is happening to everyone...

...all the time.

It's happening
to literally everyone.

And the longer
we let this... system,

the predictive AI system

the longer we let it remain
completely unaccountable,

the more it defines us

the more it defines
our futures.

I'd like to start by sharing
a story of Kyle Behm

a bright college
engineering student

who applied for an hourly job
at Kroger.

He has held similar positions
in the past.

Yet after taking a personality
assessment,

he was scored red and rejected.

Sadly, Kyle is no longer
with us today.

But his father Roland continues
to abdicate to ensure people

with disabilities are not
systematically excluded

by hiring assessment.

Breathe deeply with me
and recite these mantras.

I am enough.
I am capable.

That mean thing
that my mom said on the phone

this morning is not accurate.

I don't know if I want
to think about

what my life
would have been like

if I hadn't come across
typology.

It's like totally
transformed everything.

It makes you realize that there
are other people out there

who are functioning in the same
way that you are

and that you're not alone

and you're not just
some random weirdo.

[techno music]

The language of type

and the vision of the self
that it encodes,

those are treated as
naturally occurring phenomenon.

Just part of what it means
to be a human being.

But they have histories
and they have histories

that have all kinds
of ideologies embedded in them

and that's why it's so important
to understand,

where these instruments
come from.

They wouldn't exist
without corporations

and they wouldn't exist

without organizational
psychology

whose whole purpose
is to figure out

how to use the human psyche

to make corporations run better
to run more profitably.

And to me,
the most interesting response

to personality testing

would be to walk away
from the individual

as a thing that we really,
really need to understand

and think about
what it might look like

to live in a world
where was a sense of community

that we were invested
in understanding.

To imagine a world
where desires and needs

are more collective.

New generation
of AI driven screens

are transforming the lives
of America's workers

with profound implications
for civil rights.

Employers are being bombarded

with thousands
of applications sometimes.

And in its simplest form
AI tools are capable

of simply scanning
those applications or resumes

to screen out those
who don't even have

the minimum qualifications
for the job.

When video interviewing systems

are trained on white male voices
and faces

this disadvantages both racial
minorities and white women,

whose facial expressions
and tone of voice

might be misinterpreted.

-[laughter]
-Are you serious?

[people laughing and
chatting]

Wow, I did not expect this
right here.

I want to ask the whole panel

if there was one thing
Congress could do right now

what would it be?

I believe a workers bill
of rights is needed.

so that workers understand how
algorithms are making decisions

and how that might impact them.

The person that I selected

for this week's employee
of the week is...

[students cheer and yell]

The struggle for people is
not merely one of insufficient

or inadequate laws
and policies

but it is also one fundamentally
of justice in society

to accomplish the kind of change
that we want in the world.

[birds chirping]

Imagine you're looking out
into your yard.

You can look in a magazine
and see the perfect garden.

But what's going to happen
over the years is,

as you put this garden together
each time you add something

to the garden
it's going to look

a little different
from perfect.

And each time you add
one more thing

it's not going to be perfect,
it's not going to be perfect.

But then at the end of the day

after years of this imperfection
you look out the window

and what you'll see
is more beautiful

than you ever could have
thought to put together

in the first place.

[friendly chattering]
[uplifting music]

The white beads symbolize
the loss of a child.

If you're wearing a white bead
at this moment,

please take them off
and hold them up high.

[triumphant music]

[cell phone rings]

- Hello.
-Hello, this is Lashawn.

You get me Mr E?

Yes, Lashawn
How are you doing, man?

I'm all right,
about yourself?

I have some great news
to tell you.

- What's that?
-I got a job.

- You got a job?
-Yeah, yeah.

- Oh, get outta here.
-Seriously.

I am a superintendent
for a building...

Oh wow, that's great...
[fades]