How Taking a Personality Test Could Change Your Approach to Life
100 Things #015 - Take a Personality Test
I have always enjoyed a good personality test. Especially Myers-Briggs (or MBTI for short). What can I say, it’s simple and it makes me feel good.
Now, there are some personality tests out there that get a lot of flack for not necessarily being rooted in concrete science, but I believe personality tests, despite how complex or simple they may be, do unlock the potential for a form of self-reflection that is often out of reach for many—introspecting.
Introspecting for beginners
To clarify, introspecting can be defined as “the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes,” or as “a reflective looking inward.”
Sometimes, it takes the form of an inner monologue, discussing the ins and outs of our complex psyches, and other times, its simply a good, long look in the mirror, accompanied by some sort of thoughts or conclusions about the person staring back at you.
It’s not something that everybody makes time for, or necessarily sees value in. Likely, the same kinds of people that don’t understand the point of therapy won’t get a heck of a lot out of introspecting in their free time, but I believe it to be one of those things where you get out of it what you put in.
To me, introspection is a chance to check in with myself, set goals, align values, reflect on the past, the present, the future, my wants, my needs, and whatever else feels relevant.
Now, for those who maybe don’t find that they have it in them to sit down and have a full-fledged conversation with themselves (which trust me, I get), there is a bit of a shortcut to introspecting that I believe can be found in personality tests.
The shortcut
Personality tests unlock a part of our brain that forces us to answer questions about ourselves. We have to take a good, honest look inward to assess ourselves in order to answer the questions of the test truthfully. It can be a bit awkward at first for some, but over the course of the 50 questions or so required, the process can often become a bit smoother.
What this is doing is subtly training us to be a bit more comfortable with reflecting, and it’s also moving us a few steps closer to having some sort of a label that we can identify with after the fact—a complexity in itself, but we can come back to that.
For example, after taking a version of the MBTI, which can be found here, I was told that I fall into the category of INFJ. According to their website, INFJs “tend to approach life with deep thoughtfulness and imagination. Their inner vision, personal values, and a quiet, principled version of humanism guide them in all things.”
The crucial step here is not to take everything written about your assessed personality type at face value, but instead, to think about which parts you agree with or disagree with. A more difficult aspect for some involves disagreeing with some of the observations that paint you in a positive light, or agreeing with those that highlight some of your personal “flaws.”
In doing so, we continue to flex the muscles that allow for introspection to occur. We take a look inward at ourselves, discuss what we see, and come to conclusions about our observations. Personality tests simply act as a head start for beginning to develop an honest sense of self.
The conversation around personality tests
As I mentioned earlier, not all personality tests have the best reputations. MBTI is one that, in my experience at least, has gotten some flack for the methods by which it was developed. Some may also say that, much like horoscopes and fortune cookies, personality tests in general fall victim to the Barnum effect, a phenomenon explaining a human tendency “to accept certain information as true [...] even when the information is so vague as to be worthless.”
My thoughts on the matter are that it’s important not to take the results of a test like this too seriously. A 10-minute questionnaire that insists on being able to assign you an accurate label is likely to be able to have a few holes poked through it, but unshakeable accuracy is not what we’re looking for today. In fact, it’s likely a good thing for our attempt at practicing introspection for a few of the details to be off.
Besides, identifying too strongly with a given label in general can, in my opinion, often present a number of issues for an individual, seeing as most things in life are more fluid than many like to give credit for.
Even more rigorous, scientifically validated personality tests admit to experiencing some test-retest reliability issues, implying that those labels we are the most confident in can sometimes be built on shaky grounds.
As far as I’m concerned, the best labels in life are the ones that we assign ourselves, that allow us and those around us a better chance at understanding how we wish to be understood.
And with that, we’ve come full circle to the idea of being able to take a look in the mirror, and learn a thing or two about the person whose reflection is looking back at us.
Hopefully, with some practice, occasional introspection can become a positive and informative part of your regular routine.
I’ll leave you here with a few journaling prompts for those who want to do a bit of guided thinking around this topic:
Reflect on your own experiences with personality tests like the MBTI. How do you feel about the label assigned to you? Do you find that it accurately encapsulates who you are as a person?
Consider the broader implications of relying on personality labels. How might over-identifying with a specific label impact one's self-concept and interactions with others?
Reflect on the idea that life is fluid and ever-changing. How does this perspective influence your approach to understanding yourself and others?
If you’ve ever taken a personality test, from the MBTI to the Enneagram, let me know in the comments or replies how you felt about the label given to you? Agree? Disagree? I’m all ears.
For now, have a good week, and I’ll see you at 100.
MBTI was a good first to the right personality test is OCEAN or the Big 5. Big 5 I found was way more helpful and actually backed by academics in psychology, it's was simpler and I got percentiles for each category which gave me a relative sense of where I was.