Are Personality Tests Accurate?
Have you ever been so bored that you start taking personality tests? Some of the more well-known surveys include 16Personalities, Truity, and Strengthsfinder. There’s a lot of debate behind these tests on whether or not they’re accurate.
If you haven’t heard of MBTI, it stands for Myers Briggs Type Indicator. Some people really enjoy this survey and think it’s fun to look into. Or you might think these kinds of tests are a bunch of bullshit. I thought I’d do a little research myself. In this post, I’ll discuss Myers-Briggs personality types, and I’ll compare this popular survey to Truity and CliftonStrengths from Gallup.
16Personalities
Founded by The Myers-Briggs Company, it started with Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers in the U.S. in the early-mid-20th century. It’s said that:
“Briggs was inspired to research personality type theory when she met Isabel’s future husband, Clarence Myers. She noticed he had a different way of seeing the world. This intrigued her enough to start a literature review to understand different temperaments.”
There are a total of 16 different personality types that you could get when taking this survey. The survey itself is divided into four different scales: Extraversion (E) — Introversion (I), Sensing (S) — Intuition (N), Thinking (T) — Feeling (F), and Judging (J) — Perceiving (P). Depending on how you answer the survey, your score will be totaled by how far you lean one way or the other in each of these categories.
Here are all the types:
- ISTJ — The Logistician
- ISTP — The Virtuoso
- ISFJ — The Defender
- ISFP — The Adventurer
- INFJ — The Advocate
- INFP — The Mediator
- INTJ — The Architect
- INTP — The Logician
- ESTP — The Entrepreneur
- ESTJ — The Executive
- ESFP — The Entertainer
- ESFJ — The Consul
- ENFP — The Campaigner
- ENFJ — The Protagonist
- ENTP — The Debater
- ENTJ — The Commander
My Score
My MBTI score is ENFJ-T. It stands for Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging. I was going through my email not too long ago and actually found that I took this test about a year ago. It turns out that I got the same results as the most recent time I took it. Crazy!
The ENFJ personality type represents 2% of the population, with extrovert tendencies. ENFJ individuals feel energized by time spent with others, focus on ideas and concepts, make decisions based on feelings and values, and who prefer to be planned and organized. This personality type is also referred to as a teacher personality because of their interest in helping others.
Facts about ENFJ:
- On personality trait scales, scored as Active, Pleasant, Sociable, Demanding, Impatient, Appreciative, and Compromising
- Most likely of all types to cope with stress by exercising
- Most likely of all types to believe in a higher spiritual power
- Ranked by psychologists as among least likely to have trouble in school
- Personal values include Friendships, Education & Learning, Creativity, and Community Service
- Among types highest in job satisfaction, but also among most likely to report plans to leave their jobs
- Commonly found in careers in religion, teaching, and the arts
When you receive your score you’re able to read how your personality relates to other areas of your life. This includes strengths & weaknesses, relationships, friendships, parenthood, career paths, and workplace habits.
For instance, it said that my top strengths were tolerance, reliability, charisma, altruism, and being a natural leader. My weaknesses were overly idealistic, too selfless, too sensitive, fluctuating self-esteem, and struggles to make tough decisions. Take these tests with a grain of salt. Some of the results you read will seem kind of off or you won’t relate to these answers. It’s purely for fun and you shouldn’t base your entire personality on these results.
MBTI and Truity
Truity is a website where you can see what other personality Types would work best with yours, as well as personality types you wouldn’t get along with. If you click on the yellow highlighted personality with yours, you can get a full review/comparison of those two personalities together. I enjoyed reading this part mainly because it was interesting to see how I’d get along with some personalities versus others.
It goes along with 16Personalities but it gives an in-depth view of how these MBTI scores relate to one another. This website primarily focuses on the different communication styles of each personality.
CliftonStrengths
Another survey I’ve taken is called CliftonStrengths. Based on Gallup’s 40-year study of human strengths, CliftonStrengths assessment was created to survey 34 of the most common talents to help people discover their strengths. What’s different about this survey is that it measures strengths and talents rather than giving you a specific personality type.
This is a popular survey among companies for employees to be able to see where they excel, and this is a test I took right when I started working at the company I’m currently with. The themes, which sort into four domains (strategic thinking, relationship building, influencing, executing) are a culmination of decades of research by Don Clifton to study and categorize talents.
On the website, you’re able to read into the strengths to better understand them in-depth as well as learn how to apply that strength. For instance, my top strengths are Woo (Influencing), Arranger (Executing), Individualization (Relationship Building), Responsibility (Executing), and Focus (Executing).
The Report
You’re probably wondering how accurate this survey is in generating your skills. From the overview, you get a review but when you pay for the full report it really goes into detail with what you’re skilled at and why. As an example, the skill I found to be the most accurate was Focus. From the report it mentions:
“Driven by your talents, you might have an intense desire to deliver the best performance in specific areas. Sometimes you use every bit of the knowledge, skill, talent, and/or energy you possess to snag the top prize. Perhaps little, if anything, distracts you from your goal. Because of your strengths, you may channel some of your mental and physical energies toward what you might accomplish in the coming months, years, or decades. Sometimes you may ask yourself, “How far into the future can I think before some of my ideas start becoming vague or uninspiring?” Instinctively, you attempt to regulate what happens in your life. Perhaps you sense you have the power to determine what you will and will not do.”
I highlighted the question I ask myself all the time. I was surprised this showed up in my results. It’s actually one of my pet peeves and fears to go too far into something and realize it’s not what I feel inspired by. Losing that excitement for something is really hard for me to process and I always feel upset/mad when I feel like I put a lot of effort and energy into something that eventually becomes irrelevant.
This is a service you have to pay for to get a full analysis, but I would say it’s worth it if you’re truly intrigued by these kinds of things. Luckily I was able to get access to the full report since my company paid for this service.
Overall
All in all, these kinds of surveys are fun but they don’t dictate every facet of your personality. Take it with a grain of salt and have fun comparing your score to your friends and family! I believe there are surveys out there like CliftonStrengths that are actually useful, but most of them are just for fun. Let me know if you know your MBTI or plan on taking the survey yourself!