Personality Testing

I have not done too many personality tests previously, and I do not really like them anyway. I can see their place in some areas, like where the number of participants is very large, but I believe in a face-to-face approach to learning about others.

This class was not the first time I filled out a test like this. I have taken general and sport psychology classes before, where the same concept came up. I do not remember taking any personality tests before college. Most of the tests I have taken yielded results that were close to what I expected. I think tests results are matching up to what we think about ourselves, because we might be already thinking about the outcome of the test during taking it and try to influence it that direction. It might only be true for me, but I have felt this way before, when I was working on one of these tests.

Mostly because I believe we consciously and subconsciously manipulate our answers, I only see their importance as supplementary sources, and not primary ones to depict a person. I would not solely rely on personality tests to hire or learn about people if I were working as a supervisor. They could be useful in a situation, where many people participate and the outcome will not have any serous effect on them (employment-wise).

On another note, I did have an interesting experience with a personality test before. I filled out one of those Type A versus Type B personality tests. I viewed myself as a Type B, and my results also showed that I was one also. After I did the test, I have thought about it for a long time, realizing that I have many traits of Type A personality, too. I kept recognizing and seeing it in myself during everyday activities. After all, I settled with being a mixed A and B personality, but I found it fascinating that this question stayed in my mind for a relatively long time. I guess these test might have an even more important role in learning about ourselves rather than employers learning about us. Maybe there is also more truth in these tests that I give credit for.