Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: tired

Fooling Around With Personality

For me, personality tests are almost never accurate enough to be more than "fooling around." Either I find that I'm equally balanced on the answers within a single question, or the questions and/or answers bear no resemblance to me, or some combination thereof. I was, however, intrigued with this one:

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant.

Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all men
You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.


It's right in that I have a rare personality. It also seems to have noticed that I lean masculine. But since it cleaves between emotional and rational, it can't process the fact that I use both of those approaches about equally. I cut through emotional tangles with logic, and logical tangles with emotion. They're like a pair of scissors; only one blade just doesn't cut it. I'm too complex to fit most quizzes. Some people are all of a piece ... I'm not one of them.

I guess when you hold universes inside, you stretch, and the different colors show through.
Tags: personal, survey
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  • 8 comments
yotogi

yotogi

February 2 2008, 05:51:22 UTC 13 years ago

I got INFP, which comes out at... 5 percent of people. You win.
the_7th_guest

the_7th_guest

February 4 2008, 19:10:11 UTC 13 years ago

I always end up with the INFP score as well ;)

Deleted comment

stryck

stryck

February 2 2008, 16:31:09 UTC 13 years ago

I'm an INTP as well, though I always score close to even on the F/T scale.

My husband, on the other hand, is EFXP ('X' used when you score precisely even).

We collaborate well. Each of us fills in gaps the other misses.
veronica_milvus

veronica_milvus

February 2 2008, 11:53:02 UTC 13 years ago

That is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality scale, it is based on Jungian thinking, is awesomely correct and used extensively in buinesses for team building and better communication. I think it is the most accurate horoscope I ever read. I'm a big old noisy, engage-brain-before-operating-mouth ENTJ. I'be done the test several times over the years and it always comes out the same, although as I get older the scores are more towards the centre of the scale. I love it. I think everyone should know their type.

I got....

Anonymous

February 2 2008, 16:46:10 UTC 13 years ago

INTP as well. I'm with you, I think the things are silly and only partially accurate. Have to admit that the Myers-Briggs model is better than most though.
ysabetwordsmith

Re: I got....

ysabetwordsmith

February 2 2008, 18:46:02 UTC 13 years ago

Myers-Briggs is partially accurate with me. (I do get different answers at different times.)

The most accurate mundane personality test I've found is the Color Code -- if one ignores the insistent rule about how someone can only be one color, and instead look at the percentage scores as revealing what proportion of your personality each color is. That way it indicates what your predominant and subsidiary approaches are, in what order. With that little change, it's a bullseye.

The most accurate non-mundane one is astrology. I was startled by just how accurate it can be.
beckyzoole

beckyzoole

February 7 2008, 18:42:59 UTC 13 years ago

Businesses and internet memes tend to use the Myers-Briggs analysis to just obtain a snapshot of what your personality is like right now.

The book I read some twenty years ago that first explained the Myers-Briggs personality survey to me, Please Understand Me, was written by a therapist. As I recall, the healthiest and most effective people are the ones who are balanced, who can use various aspects of personality to fit various situations as appropriate. Thus, it's really a Very Good Thing to sometimes come up "F" and sometimes "T", for example. It shows that you are able to use both emotional and rational approaches to life.

When I first tested myself using the lengthy process in that book, I came up as an INTP. But there have been times when I've been very strongly INFP, maybe even too much so (to the point where I wonder What Was I Thinking -- and realize that I just wasn't thinking at all). I've become more "E" over time, too.

I'm still just as strongly "N" as ever. I have difficulty with situations that require that "S" touch.
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

February 7 2008, 19:09:19 UTC 13 years ago

The part that bothers me the most is the disjunction between the instructions and human nature. People seem to have a hard time thinking of those tests as "a snapshot" and instead think of them as "The Truth." Humans are complicated and messy; it's tempting to simplify that. And for every problem, there is a solution that is obvious, simple ... and wrong.
It's like mistaking not just a map for the territory, but a map sketched in ballpoint on a cocktail napkin. If you behave as if the information is The Truth, and it's incomplete, then you will be doing the wrong thing a percentage of time equal to the missing portion of the information.

That's why I liked the Color Code test so much, once I threw out the stupid "you can only be one color" rule: by indicating the percentage of each trait, it clues you *what to try next* if the usual approach fails, or what to try first if the person is obviously doing something different than usual. It also had a discussion of priorities, what kinds of things are most likely to be considered important by people of each color. I found *that* very illuminating, in the sense of "remember that X considers this thing very important, even though I don't."