Most are made up and silly.
The only one I’ve liked was in college I did a “communication style” one. Where it showed a bunch of different like emails, posts, and conversations and asked which you preferred to receive and which you were likely to write.
10 years later I still think about it, cause the goal of the work was to talk about how if you’re a certain communication style what to keep in mind with communicating with others. Like tips to not get frustrated with yellows who don’t care about facts when sending emails and how to write emails that don’t bore and frustrate people if you’re blue. (I’m blue green. I can sometimes write long emails)
I thought about it the other day cause a guy was complaining about all these emails that didn’t seem to say anything, they were just about feeling good, and he just wanted them to spit it out. Which corresponded to firey red getting mad at green.
So with that context, do you have any that actually had an impact on you?
Big 5 personality test
BIG. FIVE.
it’s the only one not named after anyone because it wasn’t just ONE person or duo who came up with it.
IT’S THE ONLY ONE SUPPORTED BY >100 INDEPENDENT STUDIES. All caps here bc it’s kinda important that these things be more than just one researcher reinventing astrology*
*COUGH meyers briggs pile of bullshit COUGH
OCEAN is useful.
For fun but also interesting because it is a piece of history? The four temperaments (Hippocrates).
Agreed!
Also: OCEAN and the Big Five are the same idea
Possibly off topic.
I read and used a book called “Discover What You Are Best At” by Linda Gail. It’s a series of self administered tests and a list of jobs that use those skills.
It aimed me at a career I found I really enjoyed. It was helpful, but I don’t know if you count that as a ‘personality test.’
The brutially honest personality test. Which was your standard MB test (not very useful) except it points out typical weaknesses and thus is something to watch out for. I know what I’m good at.
The ones for autism :•|
Most typological approaches to personality are BS. Take Meyers Briggs as an example. If you are 51% extroverted, you are an extrovert, supposedly having more in common with someone who scored 100% on that same metric than an “introvert” who scored 49% on that metric.
Well yes they are.
That’s why I was asking if any stood out to you as helpful.
Yeah I didn’t have an answer but wanted to contribute to the conversation lol
I don’t think Meyers Briggs claims that magnitude is irrelevant. Most tests I’ve done will tell you a score on each of the four axes.
I must be pretty solidly into my categories on MB as while I agree it is BS, it was also alarmingly accurate for me.
MBTI most definitely takes magnitude into account. It’s bullshit for many other reasons, including not being reliably measurable.
Is anything in psychology reliably measurable?
Yes, very much so, many many things.
Ya not a fan of those ones, they need more room for public vs private introversion like I’d sooner walk on a stage naked and introduce myself than to try and mingle at a party
None really work, generally, but all try to make you think about the various factors involved and how other people might approach things differently from you, which is why they can be helpful:-).
So they’re helpful but they don’t work?
Most personality tests will not tell you anything about yourself that you didn’t already know, it will not give you any insights into the correct way to live your life or what is going to work for you.
However, it can help you frame things about yourself in a new light or to help you come to understand the way that you work inside of a larger social picture.
So they don’t work to tell you who you are, but they help you be who you can be.
The other responder already had some good points, but I will add: not so much directly but yeah, indirectly they can help you especially to relate to other people.
e.g.
let’s say that you are an extrovert(except this is Lemmy so uh…:-P) let’s say that you are an introvert, and wherever you fall on that spectrum, some extrovert sees a confused look on your face and just won’t shut the fuq up about the matter - they are relentless too, and you just want to walk away. THEY need to learn that when talking to an introvert, they need to shut the hell up, and allow the other person to digest what has already been said. Repetition, even using different words/scenarios/analogies/etc. makes the matter worse, not better.While YOU as the introvert here may benefit from knowing that they legit were trying to help - that’s how they are, when they get confused, they talk MORE, rather than less (insert Unix CLI pun here:-D). It’s just their natural bent, reinforced over time in however they were raised, and not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, b/c when directed at another fellow extrovert it could be fantastic. This may give you the freedom to say SHUT UP AND LET ME THINK - which ironically the other person, being an extrovert, may likely love how you are thus being so open about your needs.
Either way, it’s good to know about this dynamic of how relationships work, across the varying spectrums of the different aspects of personality traits. Knowledge is Power - use it wisely:-).
That is just understanding the different types of personalities, personallity tests claim to detect what type of a personallity a person has, quite different.
The former is very useful, the latter is just plain crap
MBTI, DISC, and love languages work well together. Even if there’s no hard proof, it at least gets your thinking about the fact that other people think differently. It’s very easy to live in your own head and make assumptions, so getting exposed to these concepts in a formal way can be really effective in building relationships of all kinds.
The gold standard in personality tests is the NEO PI-R.
I’d recommend the book Me Myself and Us by Dr. Brian Little. Or even just search YouTube for lectures he’s given.
All personallity tests are idiotic and unscientific.
I really got a lot out of the Myres Briggs when I was younger. I know its not scientifically valid, and it’s stupid of folks take it too seriously, but it really helped young me understand that other people weren’t wrong/dumb/weird for approaching things differently. And it helped me understand some of the axis on which difference can lie in a helpful way.
I think in the post internet age people are very aware of different categories and identities, but growing up in the previous millenium it wasn’t something that we talked about much. The introvert / extrovert division is overblown and overly simplistic nowadays, but before people use to just criticise each other for being “too shy” or “too loud” like there was a “normal” way to be that everyone should get.
The big five is certainly more reliable and scientifically supported, but I never found that it helped me understand a coworker or friend better. Partly I think conscientiousness and neuroticism sound a little too value laden. People can happily self describe as “detail orientated” (Sensing) or “big picture types” (Intuitive) but nobody really wants to say “I’m closed-off and unconscientious”. And I think that’s why MB has been popular in business / organisation worlds, because it’s a useful way to get people discussing themselves and how they approach problems. It doesn’t matter that in reality my level of extraversion varies depending on the context, or I’m Judging in certain tasks but Perceiving in others.
The love language test in part because it was a great way to start a conversation about our romantic needs with my spouse.
Oh that makes a ton of sense!
Even if the categories are iffy, both people getting different results is probably enough to go “hey maybe we need to talk about what makes is feel loved”
All personality tests are silly.
Codifying human behavior into distinct categories is reductive and stupid.
So why not see which ninja turtle you are the most alike?
I’ll add the test name if I come across it, but I did one for an employer (everyone had to). It was shocking how much it nailed my personality.
The one that confirmed I should talk to a psychiatrist about a possible ADHD diagnosis.
