Personality Test

How to pass, fit in, eventually set an example, and ultimately lead the way.
Retiree
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:33 am

Re: Personality Test

Post by Retiree »

Hspencer, thanx for putting this up. (Although been quite a while since you did, I see!)

INTJ, each letter in bold, as expected.

I had no idea this was so easy, so fill-form-press-button. We used to do this at work, and the H R types would sit with you and sort of take you through it ... Anyway, I was under the impression that administering these takes lots of expertise. Apparently not.

Is there *anyone* here who hasn't done this?

I haven't counted (INTJ but not OCD -- I hope) : I guess 60% INTJ here?

Does anyone know, do these things change with time? (Mine hasn't.)

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Personality Test

Post by Dragline »

Mine has changed from a strong INTJ to a middling ENFJ over the course of a few decades. Part life experiences, part conscious effort I would guess.

I wonder if there was ever a person who was right in the middle of everything and what they would be like. (I'm a little overly obsessed with balance, though.)

George the original one
Posts: 5404
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: Personality Test

Post by George the original one »

> Does anyone know, do these things change with time?

They can. It's usually called growth.

Retiree
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:33 am

Re: Personality Test

Post by Retiree »

Dragline : that seems remarkable, an about-turn on two of four variables. No idea myself if that's usual, of course.

I can understand that personality can change. But would conscious choice be allowed? Isn't that gaming? I mean, I know I'm I, and proudly so. But my job called for some serious network-partying, and I'd do it comfortably enough, but only because I had to, and for short spaces. And now I avoid those things like poison. So in answering, I took the questions to mean, what would you rather do, given full free choice?

Can introversion really change to extroversion? I'm fully comfortable amongst people, but my preference is to be with a few friends, or even solitude. Can that ever change?

(i don't know much about the mechanics of these things. Just wondering.)


George, I'm not sure I agree. A change in the letters means this : change in personality. No more and no less.

But perhaps I think that because my letters *haven't* changed? :-)

Retiree
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:33 am

Re: Personality Test

Post by Retiree »

Dragline, that middle-of-everything person sounds intriguing. Your words conjure up the picture of a squarish, bewildered-looking person standing bang in the centre of a very large room! What letters would he get, then, per MBTI? None?

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: Personality Test

Post by Tyler9000 »

Dragline wrote:Mine has changed from a strong INTJ to a middling ENFJ over the course of a few decades. Part life experiences, part conscious effort I would guess.

I wonder if there was ever a person who was right in the middle of everything and what they would be like. (I'm a little overly obsessed with balance, though.)
Funny -- I just re-took the test (I knew I was an INTP before) and going through a few questions I had the distinct feeling I was softening on the INT scale. I'm still INTP, but 44%I, 50%N, 25%T, and 11%P. The biggest change for me is the fall in introversion as I've matured -- I'm a lot more confident these days. I definitely have made effort to become more well-rounded in general.

henrik
Posts: 757
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: EE

Re: Personality Test

Post by henrik »

Tyler9000 wrote:I'm a lot more confident these days.
Do you think confidence is a factor on the I-E scale? If we believe Susan Cain's Quiet (discussed here in a couple of threads), you can learn to be as confident and charming as anyone, but it's the difference between expending vs receiving energy in social interactions that defines introversion. I tend to agree. If the test shows a smaller introvert score over time, it might be because of differing definitions, or because of the proxies used to determine introversion in the tests, or possibly something else... ?

Retiree
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:33 am

Re: Personality Test

Post by Retiree »

Hang on, hang on, what am I missing here? What has confidence got to do with personality type?

Either you've got this wrong Tyler, or I have. (could well be me, i don't know much about this, though I've been taken through this many times, we had a hyper-active hrd with too litte to do really, but pleasant to be around)

any combination of these letters, in my understanding, can be associated with any amount of confidence, or courage, or intelligence, or whatever. An I is not necessarily more intelligent than an E, nor an E more confident than an I. This is just personality, that is, inclination, and not aptitude.

Or am i wrong?

theanimal
Posts: 2628
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:05 pm
Location: AK
Contact:

Re: Personality Test

Post by theanimal »

Funny that this came up again today as I took it again this morning. Still INTJ but my Introversion has become much stronger since last time (6-12 months ago?), moving from about 54% to 76%. I don't remember my other initial percentages so I'm not really sure if they changed.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Personality Test

Post by jacob »

Confidence corresponds to low neuroticism on the Big5 and correlation matrices between Big5 and MBTI do exist. Unfortunately my google-fu is failing me at the moment.

@Retiree - You're slightly wrong/correct. MBTI measures preferences not skill, which makes you correct. However, preferences tend to develop disproportionally which can and probably will turn them into skills, which makes you wrong.

On a side-note as people get older then tend to develop weak areas and as the weak areas get stronger, the preference for being one-dimensional (e.g. "all problems must be solved with my strong T") tend to diminish and people become more neutral. However, this is colored by the problem of mistesting (false positives) when people confuse their doing with their being, e.g. a introverted salesman testing as E because he's really good with people.

Historically, I tested XNTJ at age 15. This became INTJ in my twenties and it's turning into INTX. Rather than identifying with one type, I see people as a blend of different types with different aspects being dominant. For example, I have traits from types in the following order, more or less, INTJ, INTP, ISTJ, INFJ, ENTJ.

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Personality Test

Post by Dragline »

Retiree wrote:Dragline : that seems remarkable, an about-turn on two of four variables. No idea myself if that's usual, of course.

I can understand that personality can change. But would conscious choice be allowed? Isn't that gaming? I mean, I know I'm I, and proudly so. But my job called for some serious network-partying, and I'd do it comfortably enough, but only because I had to, and for short spaces. And now I avoid those things like poison. So in answering, I took the questions to mean, what would you rather do, given full free choice?

Can introversion really change to extroversion? I'm fully comfortable amongst people, but my preference is to be with a few friends, or even solitude. Can that ever change?

(i don't know much about the mechanics of these things. Just wondering.)
Well, as I said (or meant to say) my E/I and T/Fs are right on the borderline. I think part of it was that I was only 20 when I took it the first time and I wasn't fully formed (mentally).

But what I mean by conscious choice is making an effort to experience and get better at the traits you know you are bad at. For example, on the E/I side I was a horrible public speaker as a child and young adult, but decided I wanted to be able to do it and now I get paid to ask people questions and teach other people how to do it. Similarly, my F side improved in a effort to be a better husband and father (and dealing with a lot of Boy Scouts). After some years of practicing what the opposite traits do and how they think for part of the time, you can develop an appreciation for them and it does become part of your preferences. Your needles may not move all the way over, but they can move based on the inputs into your mind over time, many or most of which you get to choose.

I suppose this all goes back to that age-old nature/nurture debate. There was an excellent model presented in that Jonathan Haidt "Righteous Mind" book that jacob recommended, which was essentially that the mind is neither completely hard-coded nor devoid of coding, but is really somewhat plastic (i.e., BOTH), with some code partially written through our DNA, but subject to having that code improved and revised through subsequent input.

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: Personality Test

Post by Tyler9000 »

Retiree wrote:Hang on, hang on, what am I missing here? What has confidence got to do with personality type?
I certainly didn't mean to imply that introverted people lack confidence. I just meant to say that I've definitely become more extroverted over time relative to my peers, and I personally attribute some of that to increased confidence (especially in public/social settings). I used to be particularly neurotic about over-analyzing what others may think of me, which contributed to keeping to myself. I'm over that. As GeorgeTOO said, it's a matter of personal growth.

Interestingly, I've also found that the introvert/extrovert label is often relative rather than absolute. So some of the change may also be due to who I choose to surround myself with these days. A general introvert who is comfortable turning on the E when needed (like in a business meeting) looks like a rockstar compared to all the hardened I's taking notes in the back corner.

Along those lines, when answering the survey questions I sometimes find myself debating what context I should assume when replying. How I'd answer may differ when considering talking to a client rather than to my wife. Perhaps I've developed more than one comfortable persona depending on the context -- that seems perfectly plausible and in fact quite reasonable considering how work truly becomes a second life for most people.

BTW, these tests are nice but IMHO there's a lot more to personalities and motivations than MBTI scores. I understand there's a bit of science behind them and appreciate them as a reasonable social barometer, but too often the various interpretations read like horoscopes to me. Interpreter beware.

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Personality Test

Post by Dragline »

Yes, to a certain extent it becomes its own branding exercise. But did you say horoscope? Here's a horoscope for everyone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCATUMIKd58

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: Personality Test

Post by Tyler9000 »

Lol. nice. :)

As a test, I just re-took the personality survey twice. For the first, I answered how I act at home. In the second, I answered how I act at work.

Home: ISFP
Work: INTP

Notably, most percentages were under 25%.

Maybe that means I'm somewhat well-balanced overall. Or a social chameleon. Or a bad test taker.

henrik
Posts: 757
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: EE

Re: Personality Test

Post by henrik »

Tyler9000 wrote:Along those lines, when answering the survey questions I sometimes find myself debating what context I should assume when replying.
I have that problem too. With most multiple choice tests actually, even the traffic exam:) That's what I meant above by the question-proxy being a potential problem. Many of the questions seem to answer the question "what would you do?", which is sometimes a very roundabout way to approach "who are you?". Or, like Jacob said:
Jacob wrote:when people confuse their doing with their being

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Personality Test

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

What about people who are almost completely lacking in one letter? I am an almost neutral 51% on the E/I and moderate in my T vs. F and my P vs. J but I am consistently in the high 90's on the N versus S. I believe that the way this manifests in behavior is that I am extremely absent-minded. My daughter once said "Mom, you are not extroverted or introverted, you just don't notice whether there are any other people in the room." The funny thing is this tendency can sometimes lend me an air of false confidence even though I am actually fairly shy because I am not enough "present" to feel self-conscious until I am suddenly snapped back into attention to the real world. One of my sisters who has much more S and J than me says that I suffer from an anti-anxiety disorder because I do things like get into the right lane of traffic and then just stay behind a slow moving truck for 15 minutes.

Likely this has something to do with the fact that I am good at not spending money but not good at earning money. No matter how slow my spending gets, my earning gets right in the right lane behind it and stays there. (sigh)

henrik
Posts: 757
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: EE

Re: Personality Test

Post by henrik »

7Wannabe5 wrote:Likely this has something to do with the fact that I am good at not spending money but not good at earning money. No matter how slow my spending gets, my earning gets right in the right lane behind it and stays there. (sigh)
Hehe, I have the exact same problem. I recently realised that my income has shrunk more than three times since I started consciously optimising spending. Fortunately there has also been a corresponding improvement in work-life quality.

Retiree
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:33 am

Re: Personality Test

Post by Retiree »

Ah, I see we’ve come again to that common confusion between being and doing.

Quite a few here seem to be confusing the two. Unless I’m mistaken Jacob seems to be saying that this is indeed a confusion and a mistake.

Irrespective, this is what I myself say : What you do is NOT who you are. Not by a long shot.

We humans are very multi-faceted beings. One's identity can be seen as an aggregation of very many things. What one does is only a small subset of who one is. And what is more, what one does for a living is further only a small subset of all that one does.

So no, what you do is certainly not who you are.

Of course, in specific cases this can indeed be so. If you yourself choose to limit yourself, and channelize yourself (either deliberately, or unthinkingly) into one single stream so to say, then you may well end up being just a small part of what you can be. In that sense certainly you can be what you do. But that is only a specific case, and an extremely limited case at that.

If I may take a very crude analogy that comes to mind. (I don’t know if the analogy will hold up to rigorous examination, but let me say it anyway.) Say for whatever reason you play the part of a dog to earn your living. Could be you’re a poor kennel-food mannequin in a hot itchy dog-suit ; or could be you are a superstar who is paid a zillion dollars per movie to play a very popular and leading dog character in a series of movies, in action-animation mode. Whatever the explanation, what you do is play a dog. Now if you were asked (in a personality test or otherwise) : Do you walk on four legs? Do you have a tail? Do you do always do your stuff outdoors? Do you feel comfortable wearing clothes, or do you itch to throw them off? Did you forget to wear your collar today? Questions like that. I guess you would feel insulted if I suggested you may end up answering Yes to those questions—if you were that dog actor/mannequin, that is. Well, that is the difference between who you are and what you do. One is not the other, not unless your method acting extends to psychotic limits.

Which is why I said that I assumed that the question ‘Would you rather be alone or perhaps with one or two people close to you at the end of a long day, or would you spend your leisure partying with a room full of boisterous strangers’ (or equivalent words) meant this : ‘Given full and entire freedom, which would you rather do, which would give you more pleasure, which of those two choices represents the real you?’ (And not : Which might you end up actually doing, with a whip—any kind of whip—on your back?)

This kind of talk is more my more outspoken doppelganger’s style than mine own! But this absurd self-limiting that is so pervasive today, and of which careerism is such a stark symptom, is something I feel strongly about.

Coming back to what I just said about how the tests should be taken (by mentally appending to the question the words, “What would be your choice and preference if you were absolutely free of all kinds of external compulsion”?) : I have said earlier that I don’t know much about the actual mechanics of MBTI, although I’m familiar with the product itself and its output. Perhaps those who do have actual and more intimate knowledge of MBTI can tell me if I’m right?

User avatar
GandK
Posts: 2059
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 1:00 pm

Re: Personality Test

Post by GandK »

@Retiree: You make a point... identity is much more complex than "what you do." Plus, I'd argue, it's an extraverted answer. :-) Between sleeping, thinking and fantasies, most people spend most of their lives inside their own minds, NOT in motion or speaking. And does the absence of visible external movement constitute idleness? (No it doesn't, as anyone with a quadriplegic friend can attest.) Identity is way more than achievement/utility or the lack thereof.

In its most basic sense, MBTI is a test that determines your preferred method of gathering information (perception) and your preferred method of classifying it (judgment). Example: a person who is scored as an INTJ gathers information via introverted intuition, and classifies it by using extraverted thinking. It does NOT mean that person is/has "introverted intuitive thinking judging," which is what most online tests spit out, unfortunately... that adds to the confusion.

The official test wasn't prepared to test people's preferences in a physical, mental or emotional vacuum. It just asks whether you prefer one thing or another, and calculates the number of times your preferences tend in one direction as opposed to another.

Tyler9000
Posts: 1758
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:45 pm

Re: Personality Test

Post by Tyler9000 »

Retiree wrote: ‘Given full and entire freedom, which would you rather do, which would give you more pleasure, which of those two choices represents the real you?’ (And not : Which might you end up actually doing, with a whip—any kind of whip—on your back?)

Good point about who you are vs what you do. The trick is knowing which one is the "real you" and which is the construction, especially as you grow and change over time. As GandK mentions, you can't evaluate yourself in a vacuum. I guess I most relate to Jacob's example of having aspects of different personalities that express themselves in different ways. Or perhaps I just want to believe the human spirit is not so static.

Question #45: You think that almost everything can be analyzed

Perhaps the strength of one's belief in MBTI categorization comes down to this preference? ;)

Post Reply