Personality and Personality Tests
I took a Personality Psychology course my senior year of undergrad and since then Iâve been meaning to write a blog post about it! My Social Psychology professor always said that people LOVE learning more about themselves! So here are my thoughts + a couple of links about the main personality/career tests!
There are many different personality tests; however, it is important to keep in mind that not all of them are reliable and valid! These tests can give you an insight into the main components of your personality, for example, are you extroverted/introverted, agreeable/disagreeable, neurotic, open to new experiences or not..? They will also help you understand who you are and highlight certain behaviours (why you do what you do). They can also help you learn about how you interact with other people, such as family members, friends or co-workers.Â
Iâd say that my friends and I enjoyed our time in Psychology classes because we often got to fill out different questionnaires and analyse our results! Iâm still into taking tests and Buzzfeed quizzes to find out what kind of cheese I am, even though those are not reliable nor valid!
However, I wanted to make this post because thereâs a whole MBTI culture here on Tumblr (which can often get crazy) and people like to categorise themselves into groups according to their personality types, so I hope this will help you either learn more about the different tests/results and chill out when it comes to the MBTI personality types⌠The tests that I and my Psychology professors would recommend are The Big Five Personality Trait Test, The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Sokanu Career Test.Â
The most popular personality test on Tumblr (and everywhere else online) is The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Thereâs a free, short form version of it on 16Personalities, which you can find HERE. If you would like to read more about MBTI, check out their foundation website HERE. The purpose of this personality test is to make accessible insights into personality based on psychological types described by Carl Jung. This test is particularly great for careers and is usually used in Industrial and Organisational Psychology research; however, according to my professor it is not the most reliable because personality is qualitative (so itâs not the best test for research although it is used). Additionally, some may find that they fit more than one type or are in between a couple of types, which is OK. That happens. Personally, I am an ENTJ although Iâve also gotten an ESTJ before too. The internet is full of fun articles about MBTI personality types and although itâs strength is matching peopleâs personalities to career options, you can read THIS FUN ARTICLE from Man Repeller about MBTI compatibility for friends.Â
The second personality test that is less known on Tumblr but widely used in research is The Big Five personality test. The big five personality traits are the best accepted and most commonly used model of personality in academic psychology. You can take the test and read more about it HERE. The test is comprised of five main domains: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism (OCEAN). Each domain has different facets, for example, extroversion is comprised of friendliness, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity level, excitement-seeking and cheerfulness facets. When you take the test you get an overall score for each domain; however, each facet is also scored separately.Â
To illustrate, my extroversion score was high, indicating that I am sociable, outgoing, energetic and lively. When looking at my score breakdown, I scored the highest on assertiveness and activity level and the lowest on cheerfulness. If you take this personality test using the provided link you will receive your test results with explanations of each domain and facets and your scores!Â
Lastly, I recently shared on Instagram stories my results from a career test called Sokanu. Except for the MBTI, I havenât taken many career tests before so when I found it on YouTube I decided to take it! The results were interesting too! The Sokanu career test is a comprehensive interest, personality, and preference assessment that measures you against over 140 traits and uses that data to accurately match you to over 800 careers. You can read more about it and take the test HERE.
My results were interesting, as the top careers suggested by Sokanu for me were Psychologist, Counseling Psychologist, Clinical Psychologist, Neuropsychologist, Professor, Psychiatrist, etc. which all match my undergraduate studies in Psychology (confirming that I made the right decision when choosing my major!). When I recommended the test to my friends they received interesting results that fit their qualities too!
I hope you found this post somewhat useful! I hope that it inspired you to take the MBTI personality types less seriously and discover other tests to look into! There are many more than just the 3 that I discussed above; however, please keep in mind that validity+reliability are important for any test! Although Buzzfeed quizzes are fun they will not let you learn more about yourself!
If you would like to read more from me, click HERE to see other blog posts! You can also follow my studygram HEREÂ for some inspiration!Â
