Reasons to Learn More About Your Personality Type

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsOverviewBenefitsLimitations

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Overview

Benefits

Limitations

Personality testsare abundant online. Social media platforms like Pinterest and Facebook offer a variety of quizzes purporting to detectour personality traits, unveiling the “real” us.

While they sometimes reveal nuggets of truth that shed light ondifferent aspects of personality,most personality quizzes are just for fun. In addition, there are plenty of legitimate psychological assessments available both online and through mental health professionals that can help us better understand our personality and the personality of others.

Overview of Personality Tests

There are a few different personality tests one can take. TheMyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)is considered the gold standard.This test was designed to assess a person’s psychological preferences, including how they see and interact with the world, as well as how they make decisions.

A mother-daughter team developed the MBTI test based on the personality theories of psychoanalystCarl Jung.

Benefits of Personality Tests

Can identifying one’s personality type using the MBTI and other personality assessments really help? They may. Here’s an overview of the many benefits of personality tests.

Better Understand Others

After taking a personality test and seeing our results, we can gain a better understanding of all thedifferent perceptionsand reactions that others might have to the same situation. This is important because we all have different ways of seeing and interacting with the world.

No personality type is “better” than any other—just different. Each perspective brings something new and interesting to the table.

People often fall into the trap of mistakenly believing that most others share the same views, opinions, attitudes, and traits that they do, a phenomenon known as thefalse-consensus effect.So, getting a glimpse of some of the traits that other people possess can be an eye-opener for many.

By better knowing each other’s personality traits, we can also better respond to the needs of our loved ones and build stronger partnerships. Understanding some of ourcore personality traitsas well as those of the people we are close to is also helpful in relationships.

For example, one person might be an extrovert but their spouse is more of an introvert. By understanding their spouse’s personality, they can better spot the signs that their partner is getting exhausted and needs to take a break from socializing.

Identify Our Likes and Dislikes

Maybe we’ve always hated talking on the phone but never really understood why. Or perhaps we’ve always needed a little extra time to think about a problem beforemaking a decision.

By using personality tests like the MBTI, we can learn more about where we lie on the extroversion/introversion and thinking/feeling continuum. This helps us better understand why we prefer certain things and dislike others.

This can come in handy when trying to make important decisions that might have an impact on the course of our lives, such aschoosing a college major. Selecting a major and profession that is well-aligned with our personal preferences can help us feel happier and more satisfied, along with having a positive impact on our professional achievements.

Know Which Situations Are Ideal for Us

Learning more about our personality type can also help us discover new ways to approach challenges. If we discover that we tend to be high on introversion, we might take care in the future to give ourselves plenty of time to become comfortable in a situation before we introduce ourselves to a new coworker, for example.

Knowing what might work best for our personality type can give us new ideas on how tosolve problems, deal with stress, cope with conflict, and manage our work habits.

Recognize Our Strengths and Weaknesses

Knowing what we are good at can be important in a wide variety of situations, whether we are picking a college major or thinking about running for a seat on our local school board.

For example, if we know that we are anISTJ (introverted, sensing, thinking, and judging)on the MBTI, we might recognize that certain aspects of our personality might qualify as strengths in some situations and weaknesses in others. While our strong organizational skills and detail-oriented personality can be a major strength in our work, it can sometimes trip us up in situations where we need to let other people take the reins.

Remember Personality Tests Have Limitations

Although there are many benefits of personality tests, including understanding our personality and that of others, knowing our “type” isn’t everything. Even the most serious psychological assessments are never the end-all when it comes to evaluating who we are, what we can accomplish, how we might perform in certain situations, and who we might become in the future.

Here are some reasons why we might not want to take the results of online personality quizzes too seriously.

Excluding certain people from our lives can lead to a restricted social circle that only seems to reinforce the ideas we already hold. It might even put a damper on our love life if we refuse to give people a chance because they don’t like the same things or act the same way as us.

Summary

Personality tests, including real psychological assessments and the just-for-fun quizzes available online, can be thought-provoking, insightful, and even fun. The key is to not get too hung up on our results.

While researchers have found that various aspects of our personalities are surprisingly stable over time,our lives are not static. We grow and change as we learn new things and have new experiences, andour personalities can change too.

Quizzes to Determine Personality Type

8 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Azucar D, Marengo D, Settanni M.Predicting the Big 5 personality traits from digital footprints on social media: A meta-analysis.Personal Individ Diff. 2018;124:150-159. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.12.018Johnson J.5 alternatives to the Myers-Briggs personality test. U.S. Chamber of Commerce.Myers & Briggs Foundation.Our legacy.University of Nebraska Omaha.MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment).American Psychological Association.False-consensus effect.Ahmed KA, Sharif N, Ahmad N.Factors influencing students' career choices: Empirical evidence from business students.J Southeast Asian Res. 2017;718849:1-15. doi:10.5171/2017.718849Hampson SE, Goldberg LR.Personality stability and change over time. In:Wiley Encyclop Personal Indiv Diff Models Theor. 2020. doi:10.1002/9781118970843.ch53Harris MA, Brett CE, Johnson W, Deary IJ.Personality stability from age 14 to age 77 years.Psychol Aging. 2016;31(8):862-874. doi:10.1037/pag0000133

8 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Azucar D, Marengo D, Settanni M.Predicting the Big 5 personality traits from digital footprints on social media: A meta-analysis.Personal Individ Diff. 2018;124:150-159. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.12.018Johnson J.5 alternatives to the Myers-Briggs personality test. U.S. Chamber of Commerce.Myers & Briggs Foundation.Our legacy.University of Nebraska Omaha.MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment).American Psychological Association.False-consensus effect.Ahmed KA, Sharif N, Ahmad N.Factors influencing students' career choices: Empirical evidence from business students.J Southeast Asian Res. 2017;718849:1-15. doi:10.5171/2017.718849Hampson SE, Goldberg LR.Personality stability and change over time. In:Wiley Encyclop Personal Indiv Diff Models Theor. 2020. doi:10.1002/9781118970843.ch53Harris MA, Brett CE, Johnson W, Deary IJ.Personality stability from age 14 to age 77 years.Psychol Aging. 2016;31(8):862-874. doi:10.1037/pag0000133

Azucar D, Marengo D, Settanni M.Predicting the Big 5 personality traits from digital footprints on social media: A meta-analysis.Personal Individ Diff. 2018;124:150-159. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.12.018Johnson J.5 alternatives to the Myers-Briggs personality test. U.S. Chamber of Commerce.Myers & Briggs Foundation.Our legacy.University of Nebraska Omaha.MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment).American Psychological Association.False-consensus effect.Ahmed KA, Sharif N, Ahmad N.Factors influencing students' career choices: Empirical evidence from business students.J Southeast Asian Res. 2017;718849:1-15. doi:10.5171/2017.718849Hampson SE, Goldberg LR.Personality stability and change over time. In:Wiley Encyclop Personal Indiv Diff Models Theor. 2020. doi:10.1002/9781118970843.ch53Harris MA, Brett CE, Johnson W, Deary IJ.Personality stability from age 14 to age 77 years.Psychol Aging. 2016;31(8):862-874. doi:10.1037/pag0000133

Johnson J.5 alternatives to the Myers-Briggs personality test. U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Myers & Briggs Foundation.Our legacy.

University of Nebraska Omaha.MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment).

American Psychological Association.False-consensus effect.

Ahmed KA, Sharif N, Ahmad N.Factors influencing students' career choices: Empirical evidence from business students.J Southeast Asian Res. 2017;718849:1-15. doi:10.5171/2017.718849

Hampson SE, Goldberg LR.Personality stability and change over time. In:Wiley Encyclop Personal Indiv Diff Models Theor. 2020. doi:10.1002/9781118970843.ch53

Harris MA, Brett CE, Johnson W, Deary IJ.Personality stability from age 14 to age 77 years.Psychol Aging. 2016;31(8):862-874. doi:10.1037/pag0000133

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Overview of Personality Tests#

Benefits of Personality Tests#

Better Understand Others#

Identify Our Likes and Dislikes#

Know Which Situations Are Ideal for Us#

Recognize Our Strengths and Weaknesses#

Remember Personality Tests Have Limitations#

Summary#