Behind Our Obsession With Personality Tests | by Akasby Pante

If you had the unfortunate pleasure of talking to me long enough, you probably already know that I have a small obsession with personality tests. And by small, if you did not get my sarcasm, I mean big. 

I am the type of person who has made it somewhat my  regular routine to go on that 16Personalies website every so often to check if my MBTI personality type has changed. So as time went by, I began to ask myself: Why are we all so caught up with these personality tests anyway? And this, dear reader, is the very question we are going to answer in this article.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, I am an ISTJ-A.)

Where It All Began

         Compared to the recreational ways we commonly use personality tests today; the roots of these quizzes actually stem from much darker times. More specifically, they were born in the arduous years of the First World War. During this period, numerous soldiers were suffering from trauma due to what they experienced in battle. This illness came to be known as “shell shock” or “war neuroses”. However, because of the lack of scientific knowledge regarding human psychology at that time, the cause of shell shock was thought to be literal, meaning experts believed that the concussive impact of bombs on soldiers had left them mentally disabled. Other diagnoses, on the other hand also included “maligning” or the falsification of symptoms to be able to leave the military early and “weak constitutions”. 

          This soon escalated into a critical concern, one that needed to be addressed by the government. As a result, screening done through assessments were implemented. Among these evaluations, a particular group of draftees at Camp Upton answered the questionnaire of the man who would later on create first of all the personality tests we see today: Robert Sessions Woodworth. He deemed that the cause of the afflictions soldiers experienced in the War was the “early symptoms of neurotic tendency”. Convinced by this theory, he began to examine the medical histories of troops with war neuroses and created the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet. This concept of psychological testing would then continue to be used in World War II and in the Vietnam War. And although their initial outlooks regarding the causes of these illnesses were patriarchal and flawed, it would help push and shape psychology to what we know of it today. 

Common Types of Personality Tests

         Since then, personality tests have expanded to what we know now: ranging from ones made by medical experts to those made by people like you and me. That being said, here are three common personality tests that you may or may not know about.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

         Arguably the most popular personality quiz, this examination was created by Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers. Fascinated by the difference in the way Isabel’s husband viewed the world, they decided to delve into personality type theory and formulate a test that measures just that. Furthermore, they wished to help women who were entering the workforce during World War II and needed to figure out which kind of jobs would fit them best. The different preferences found in the test were greatly influenced by the studies of Carl G. Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist who proposed that individuals are inclined to a certain “left or right” way of thinking. Hence, the MBTI divides these differences into four opposing pairs, resulting in 16 personality types.

Enneagram

Unlike the MBTI, the exact origin of the Enneagram remains unknown. However, some speculate that it traces its roots 4,500 years ago in Babylon or classical Greek philosophy dating 2,500 years back. Essentially, this system divides personality into nine types determined by the central belief an individual has about the world. These different categories are illustrated in the nine different points that surround the symbol. The types found on either side of one’s core personality style are the kinds of dispositions that we may find similar to our own. Finally, the two types that are connected through the two lines that extend from our core temperaments are said to be the person we were before and the person that we may develop into in the future. 

OCEAN / Big 5

         The Big 5 or OCEAN which stands for “Openness to experience”, “Conscientiousness”, “Extraversion”, “Agreeableness”, and “Neuroticism” is regarded as the most vigorous and accurate psychometric test, primarily due to the years of research that have gone into its development. To put it simply, the ideology behind this examination originated from trait theory — “the idea that a person’s behavior could be understood in terms of individual traits, like positivity or low self-esteem”. Consequently, the evolution of this test began through the search of adjectives in the dictionary and overtime, researchers began narrowing down this list until they found five general categories that make up the acronym we use in present times.

What Now?

          Regardless of the type of personality test, the values they focus on, and the methods they use to determine the results, we can reduce personality quizzes to one general definition: a tool to help us understand ourselves better. And I think that is exactly why we are so “obsessed” with them in the first place. As humans, we are complicated and as a result, being able to put this intricacy into words is perhaps one of the most difficult things to do. Personality tests help us do just that. However, we must remember that that is all that it is. And all that it will be. A tool. It is not the essence of who we are. 

Hence, if the MBTI test tells you that you are an INFJ and certain careers would suit you best, you do not have to give up your dream in pursuing one that is on a completely different path. Because we are so much more than a bunch of random letters that these automated questionnaires give us. We are human. Complex, flawed, and beautiful. We are also capable of making our choices, whether that be stereotypical of our personality style or not. And confining ourselves within these classifications alone robs us of that beauty. Therefore, if anything, we should define ourselves not by our “type”, but rather the little actions that make up our everyday lives. Because what think, say, and do is the best definition of who we truly are. 

Images courtesy of Getty Images and NBC News

References:

Elizabeth T. (2020, January 10). History of the Big 5: this online psychometric test packs a punch. https://www.retorio.com/blog/big-5-history-psychometric-test

MentalHelp.net. (2020). Psychological testing: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. https://www.mentalhelp.net/psychological-testing/myers-briggs-type-indicator/

Owens, M. (2020). What is the Enneagram of personality? https://www.truity.com/enneagram/what-is-enneagram

The Myers-Briggs Company. (n.d.). The history of the MBTI assessment. https://eu.themyersbriggs.com/en/tools/MBTI/Myers-Briggs-history

Thulin, L. (2019, September 23). The first personality test was developed during World War I. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-personality-test-was-developed-during-world-war-i-180973192/