What makes us who we are? Are other people like this, too? Am I normal? Can I change? What do other people like this do? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my coworkers? What kind of person is the best match for me? These (and many, many, many more) are the kinds of questions folks are asking when they do online personality tests.

Humans have wanted to better understand ourselves and each other for as long as we’ve existed. Humanity is a puzzle that we’re all collectively trying to solve – and some tools are better at doing that than others. Personality testing is one approach to solving this possible, and within that category there is a vast ocean of options, some more reliable than others.

The History of Personality Psychology

The history of personality psychology dates all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Modern personality theory was first founded by Freud in 1923. Research-based personality testing began in 1917 with Woodworth’s Personal Data sheet[1] and became popularized with the invention and publication of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) in 1962[2]. As pop psychology developed, we started seeing quick quizzes in magazines. Answer a few questions and Good Housekeeping or Cosmopolitan will predict your future husband, the best job for you, and what kind of pet will make you happiest. There’s a rich history of science and speculation that laid the foundation for what is now so pervasive it’s become daily, global online gameplay. For example: Buzzfeed’s 50 Personality Quizzes To Help You Figure Out Who You *Really* Are: At this point, how could you NOT know which Disney princess you are??[3] (I’m a Belle/Ariel hybrid, in case you were wondering).

How legitimate are Personality Tests?

These are fun, but how legit are they? There are two kinds of people in the world: People who think personality tests are totally great and people who don’t. Even in scientific and academic circles, there’s discord and ambivalence. Some scholars believe these tests (even the scientific ones) are horoscope-esque nonsense and others dedicate their entire careers to understanding, creating, and fine-tuning these assessments (this field of research is called Psychometry). Maybe I’m biased (I’m a personality and psychometrics researcher), but I believe that these tests can be extremely useful. Yep, I even think there’s usefulness to the ones you take at 3 am when you should be sleeping because you have a meeting at 9 (what kind of pizza are you? I’m a four-cheese, stuffed-crust).

Whether you take these assessments alone or with the help of a professional can make a lot of difference in how you internalize and apply their outcomes. Taking a psychometrically valid and reliable (this means it’s been scientifically tested) personality assessment with the guidance of a mental health or personality assessment professional can be an extremely useful tool for helping you understand yourself and the ways you relate to the world around you. On the flip side, regardless of how valid and reliable the test is or isn’t, essentially any personality (or other “diagnostic”) test you take online, by yourself, without a pro, is a little bit akin to having your palm read at a carnival. Take it with a grain (or giant block) of salt.

I am profoundly in favor of the scientific importance of personality psychology. For the field of psychology and mental health, how “legit” a test is, matters quite a lot. To you, the individual, though, it’s less about the actual outcome of the test or how valid and reliable it is, and more about how the test makes you feel and what it makes you think. Those thoughts and feelings can be very useful tools for helping you communicate with the people around you. If you take a test and you agree with the outcome, it can provide you with helpful language to explain important parts of yourself to friends, family, colleagues, and more. If you take a test and you disagree with the outcome, that can be just as helpful. If your experience of taking the assessment has given you new insight, understanding, and self-awareness, that’s useful.

So, take that Myers-Briggs or the Buzzfeed quiz. See how you feel about it. Take those thoughts to your therapist, your partner, your coworker and have a discussion. That discussion will lead each of you to better understanding of each other. Congrats, you have a useful assessment.

Courtesy: Angel Russell, CSE

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