The Cult of Personality Testing: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves

and is used by 89 of the companies in the Fortune 100.

“I make no apology” for relying on such loosely compiled data, insists Exner.

Yet the Rorschach is still used by eight out of ten clinical psychologists, administered in nearly a third of emotional injury assessments and in almost half of child custody evaluations.

“If psychologists used tea leaves instead of the Rorschach, we’d probably be better off, because then, at least, no one else would take the results seriously,” he says.

Today personality testing is a $400-million industry, one that’s expanding annually by 8 percent to 10 percent.

validity”—that is, when the Rorschach reports that a test taker is depressive, or narcissistic, or overly dependent, that person is quite likely not to exhibit those traits at all.

James Wood, a University of Texas psychology professor who would soon emerge as the Rorschach’s leading detractor, and two coauthors published a highly critical article in the respected journal Psychological Science. “Basic issues regarding the reliability and validity of the Comprehensive System have not been resolved,”

The test’s numerous detractors charge that the Rorschach—originally designed for use with psychiatric patients but now frequently given to normal people—“overpathologizes,”

The Rorschach routinely “overpathologizes” healthy people, Wood and the others maintain, making them seem much more dysfunctional than they really are.