can we "profile" bushfire firelighters?

In a recent edition of "Psychiatry, Psychology and Law" researchers looked at whether fire lighters are psychologically different from non fire lighters. They wanted to know if it is possible to identify characteristics of a fire lighter that can predict if they will re-offend.

There has been research previously published categorising fire setters in a urban setting in other countries but there does not seem to be any clear previously published look at Australian bush fire lighters. In urban setting there has been a few categories identified. There are the people who light fires for financial gain or to cover a another crime. There are people who light fires because they are angry with the world and want the world to know. There are a disproportionate number of fire setters who are mentally ill or disordered. They might have schizophrenia or have alcohol or drug problems. There are a small number who are known as pyromaniacs, those people who are unable to resist the urge for fire setting and have increased tension before the act.

when risk factors for fire setting is looked at a list of characteristics are roughly agreed on. The offenders tend to be young males with interpersonal difficulties and alcohol or drug addictions, show evidence of unstable childhoods and some form of mental health problems. In other words they are pretty much the same as all offenders.

So far, then, the research says that fire lighters are just like all other offenders and that fire lighting is to some degree just another criminal activity. Mmmmm.......

why the Myers-Briggs is crap

i was reminded today of why i get so angry about the Myers-Briggs "type indicator." The Myers; Briggs is a pseudo psychological test often used in work places to help individuals discover their strengths and their personality "type." Wikipaedia reports it was first developed around the second world war to help newly employed women identify their strengths and interests. It was first published to be used publicly in the 60's, so despite over fifty years of psychological development it has no changed.

The main idea of the test (from what i remember from uni) is that personalities can be measured on four different qualities of personality. These qualities are assumed to be dichotomies; that is individuals are assumed to be either introverted or extroverted, sensing or intuitive, thinking or feeling, judging or perceptive.

These are opposite qualities, at either end of a continuum. Now here is the problem. The scoring. If an individual scores (say) fourteen on one of the qualities. they fall into one end of the quality but if they score (say) sixteen they fall into the other. so for example, if someone scores fourteen they are introverted, but if sixteen they are extroverted. that might only be a difference of two questions and yet the test identifies the individual as completely different, actually opposite. I know that is complicated but hang in there with me.

So to the example i was reminded of. a young man who i had been treated went to a "consultant" for career advice. She gave him the MBTI. He dutifully filled it out and brought me the results. The report he was given identified him as perceptive along with other categories. The other three were reasonably accurate but the "perceptive" was clearly at odds with his personality. I asked him about this because it was directing him to a whole raft of jobs that just would have driven him mad. he explained that he answered a few of the questions the way he thought he should have answered him rather than how he truly felt. We changed two questions and he then moved into the "judging" category. Remember they are opposite categories with only a single score between them. When he changed two answers the outcome was totally different.

The upshot is that psychologists understand that qualities are not two opposite categories. People are, for example more or less introverted with a million shades between totally introverted to totally extroverted. in fact most people are somewhere in the middle. so splitting people down the middle where one side is extroverted and the other is introverted is totally simplistic and frankly highly inaccurate. But people still pay lots of money for the privilege.