Personality tests are perennially popular - good ones and bad ones alike. In this episode we talk about personality testing in the public sphere. What do we think accounts for their popularity. What do people get out of taking them? What distinguishes good ones from bad ones? And we spend a little time trying to guess each other's Big Five profiles. Plus: A letter about raising open science when you're applying to graduate school.

The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at [email protected]. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.

Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.

This is episode 45. It was recorded on October 16, 2018.