I’ve generally found most of these types of tests to read very much like astrological personality descriptions or examples of coldreading. They’re just too vague and imprecise to derive information from. They appear to me to be not even wrong. Incidentally these types of personality tests were not even mentioned during my psychology degree—I don’t think the psychology department at my university deemed them worthy of serious discussion. Even Freud got more respect, if only out of historical interest and as a case study of how easy it is for people to get things wrong when studying the human mind.
Think of the tests like writing to an advice columnist. The idea is only ostensibly to get advice from the columnist and then obey it. Most people who write to them are just looking for something to react to. The columnist will say “do X”, and then the reader will say either “X is exactly right! I should do X, just like the columnist says!” or “No way! That’s completely wrong for me! I can’t do X—I guess I just have to do Y, then!” But the same reactions would have been possible if Y had been recommended in the first place. The columnist’s exact advice only provides a weak impetus towards the recommended action—mostly, it lets you change “decide on what to do” into “agree or rebel”.
If there’s any truth to the idea of personality types I’m apparently of a type that doesn’t gain anything from the insights of personality tests… I’ve tried a variety of them and I always struggle to answer the questions (I mostly feel like I’m just picking randomly) and I’ve never got anything constructive out of the results. I also can’t imagine myself ever writing to an advice columnist...
I’ve generally found most of these types of tests to read very much like astrological personality descriptions or examples of cold reading. They’re just too vague and imprecise to derive information from. They appear to me to be not even wrong. Incidentally these types of personality tests were not even mentioned during my psychology degree—I don’t think the psychology department at my university deemed them worthy of serious discussion. Even Freud got more respect, if only out of historical interest and as a case study of how easy it is for people to get things wrong when studying the human mind.
Think of the tests like writing to an advice columnist. The idea is only ostensibly to get advice from the columnist and then obey it. Most people who write to them are just looking for something to react to. The columnist will say “do X”, and then the reader will say either “X is exactly right! I should do X, just like the columnist says!” or “No way! That’s completely wrong for me! I can’t do X—I guess I just have to do Y, then!” But the same reactions would have been possible if Y had been recommended in the first place. The columnist’s exact advice only provides a weak impetus towards the recommended action—mostly, it lets you change “decide on what to do” into “agree or rebel”.
If there’s any truth to the idea of personality types I’m apparently of a type that doesn’t gain anything from the insights of personality tests… I’ve tried a variety of them and I always struggle to answer the questions (I mostly feel like I’m just picking randomly) and I’ve never got anything constructive out of the results. I also can’t imagine myself ever writing to an advice columnist...