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Ethan Zuckerman of GeekCorps fame, has a overview of Helen Fisher’s talk at TED. Helen created the personality test for Chemistry.com, Match.com answer to eHarmony.
TED videos are what you watch to obliterate that box you’ve been thinking inside of for so long. Hundreds of video presentations of people who abandoned the box long ago, and are changing the world because of it. Attending TED costs 6 grand, and it’s nice of them to post the presentations online for free.
At eHarmony Labs, they ask people lots of questions and watch their body language.
Helen sticks people, both in love or recently heartbroken, into an MRI machine to find out how love, and the loss of it affects the brain.
She’s studied people who are happily in love, people who’ve been dumped recently and people who are still in love, twenty years into marriage - she puts them into functional MRI machines and studies their brain structure, trying to understand what parts of the brain are triggered by love.
Chemistry and eHarmony are going after the same grail, love prediction, they just go about it differently.
Most of eHarmony Labs is like science lite. Articles about volunteering at soup kitchens, diabetes and the US economy had me scratching my head. Their blog is updated frequently and has some interesting articles.
I would love to see Helen and some of the eHarmony Labs people in a thoughtful discussion about their research and how it translates into improved matchmaking systems.
Never happen though, too many lawyers to answers to and reputations to uphold.
Online dating is all about marketing, regardless of the amazing work being done at sites like eHarmony and Chemistry. It’s a shame that consumers have to pay the price (literally and figuratively).
Category:Personality TestingBlog reactions
4 responses so far ↓
1
Neuroboy (Check me out!)
// Mar 2, 2008 at 2:01 am
Calling Helen Fisher a scientist is like calling a evolution random. This woman claims to match people based on dopamine, estrogen, testosterone and serotonin. Sure these are neuroactive but they are in no way independent or even definitive in their actions. Yet she claims to be able to classify your status on these by self-report questions. Wow–love to see the validity of those questions.
Admittedly eHarmony has their own wingnut Orville Redenbaker, but at least he is an old school psychologist. What he claims to do is based on the statistics every test every psychologist uses to decide if someone is depressed or anxious or a freaking wife beater.
So take your pick–a wacko who claims to be validating her instrument on the fly (while her customers pay her) or a FLOG (funny looking old guy) who uses a method that has been used in psychology for decades?
2
James Houran (Check me out!)
// Mar 3, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Actually, it is not a compliment to say that eharmony uses methods that have been used in psychology for decades. They use Classical Test Theory, which has been outdated since 1960. No serious assessment — such as the GRE, MCAT or LSAT — would ever use such statistics.
Most compatibility tests, unfortunately, do not meet professional testing standards when it comes to their reliability or validity.
Thanks,
James Houran, Ph.D.
Online Dating Magazine
3
Psychometrician (Check me out!)
// Mar 4, 2008 at 2:42 pm
James Houran is sadly out of his depth when attacking the use of statistics and Classical Test Theory in psychometric assessments. The GRE, MCAT and LSAT are tests of ability which can be hierarchically structured, and analyzed. This makes them appropriate for IRT or Rasch analysis. The same has not been demonstrated for many factors, not to mention tests of, personality factors such as the Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness and Extroversion (i.e, the ‘Big 5′).
More importantly, no body of research has indicated that personality scales developed via Item Response Theory have been developed which are BETTER than those developed via Classical Test Theory. Dr. Houran, apparently eager to sell his services now that he has been fired by True.com, appears eager to create a need for his special expertise in IRT. He should perhaps begin by actually publishing research that demonstrates the value that he is so eager to presume.
4
David Evans (Check me out!)
// Mar 4, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Perhaps you could begin by telling us who you are, which could perhaps lend some credibility to your attack.
I find the contention between experts regarding various tests fascinating, but sign your name, please.
I’d like to hear about how various personality tests perform when the database in millions of people. I’ve been told many tests are better for small groups, is there any truth to this?
Let’s agree with my layman’s observation that no matching test at any online dating site works as well as they could, and take it from there.
I wish someone would publish an article specifically about online dating that explains the testing systems used at popular dating sites, their pros and cons. Links to relevant content are always good.
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