Adi Gaskell says... » psychology http://www.adigaskell.org/blog The views and musings of me, myself and I Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:53:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 My strengths according to the Via Survey http://www.adigaskell.org/blog/2008/12/17/my-strengths-according-to-the-via-survey/ http://www.adigaskell.org/blog/2008/12/17/my-strengths-according-to-the-via-survey/#comments Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:16:36 +0000 adi http://www.adigaskell.org/blog/?p=139
Oxford Capacity Analysis - Personality Test
Image by goingchurching via Flickr

Most personality tests provide you with a series of negative traits to describe yourself but I came across one today that gives some positive characteristics of those that take the test.

The test is called ‘Values in Action Inventory of Strengths’ (VIA-IS) and was created by two pyschologists called Peterson and Seligman. ame up with 6 virtues and 24 strengths. The core virtues are those identified by philosophers, religious thinkers and others as being central to a ‘good character’ – these are the six main headings in the list below. The 24 character strengths, meanwhile, are those characteristics of individuals that contribute towards these virtues. These are listed under the virtue to which they contribute.

Take the survey

To take the survey you just need to visit the VIA website.

My results

Your Top Character Strength

Love of learning
You love learning new things, whether in a class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and museums-anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn.

Your Second Character Strength

Perspective (wisdom)
Although you may not think of yourself as wise, your friends hold this view of you. They value your perspective on matters and turn to you for advice. You have a way of looking at the world that makes sense to others and to yourself.

Your Third Character Strength

Bravery and valor
You are a courageous person who does not shrink from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain. You speak up for what is right even if there is opposition. You act on your convictions.

Your Fourth Character Strength

Honesty, authenticity, and genuineness
You are an honest person, not only by speaking the truth but by living your life in a genuine and authentic way. You are down to earth and without pretense; you are a “real” person.

Your Fifth Character Strength

Curiosity and interest in the world
You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.

How does this compare?

Interestingly you can compare your score to those of other people.  The top 5 attributes are:

1.    Curiosity – 43%
2.    Love – 37%
3.    Fairness – 37%
4.    Judgment & Open-Mindedness – 34%
5.    Kindness – 32%

How did you score?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
]]> http://www.adigaskell.org/blog/2008/12/17/my-strengths-according-to-the-via-survey/feed/ 0 What’s in a name? http://www.adigaskell.org/blog/2008/10/19/whats-in-a-name/ http://www.adigaskell.org/blog/2008/10/19/whats-in-a-name/#comments Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:33:28 +0000 adi http://www.adigaskell.org/blog/?p=70 I came across a couple of studies this week that looked into the importance of names for a variety of things.  The first one was conducted by a chap called Brett Pelham.  He looked into whether our names can affect some big decisions in our life, and surprisingly came to an affirmative conclusion.  Let me explain.

Apparently it is the case that we often choose careers (for instance) that have a similarity to our name, be they in the tone of the word or even the first letter.  They tested this by analysing dentists in America to determine whether more Dennis’ were dentists than should be the case under the law of averages.  Lo and behold there were nearly twice as many dentists called Dennis as there were dentists called Walter and Jerry (before and after Dennis in the list of most popular American names).  Likewise he found that George is more likely to work in geographical fields and so on.

I still wasn’t particularly convinced so read on to his study into where people choose to live.  The links here seem a little more tenuous, but people also tend to live in states that resemble their names (Louise in Louisiana etc.), and also streets and even partners.  Who’d have thunk it?

Study 2 – Company naming

Anyway, that was the first study, the second looked into stock performance and the ease with which people could pronounce both the company name and the stock ticker.  This study was done by two Princeton scientists called Adam Alter and Daniel Oppenheimer.  Initially they asked for perceptions of a range of ficticious companies based purely on the names of them.  The study concluded that the easier to pronounce companies were perceived to be better by the survey group.

They then tested this in the markets themselves.  They picked out 89 companies from the New York Stock Exchange that had floated between 1990 and 2004, and analysed their performance a period after flotation.  They found that if $1,000 had been invested in the most fluent sounding companies that they would have outperformed the less fluent sounding companies by around 35% over the year.

So there you go.  It seems that picking the right name is more important than many people realise.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
]]> http://www.adigaskell.org/blog/2008/10/19/whats-in-a-name/feed/ 2