Learn Who You Are With a Personality Test
Taking a personality test to reveal your personality type is a great way to learn who you are, and can empower you to make more informed decisions about how you live.
How would you describe your personality? Do you consider yourself outgoing, ambitious, cheerful? Or shy, blasé, moody? How do others view you? Are you thought of as energetic, logical, dependable? Or do people see you as silly, optimistic, aloof?
Whether by nature or nurture, you likely see yourself as a combination of inherited or developed traits that make you distinct. And though they may or may not align with your perception of self, others also categorize you by assigning traits.
Personality is commonly thought of as all the ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that make an individual unique. However, more and more the field of psychology is revealing that we aren’t as different as we think we are — and even where we differ, gaps can be bridged.
Now it may sound a bit disconcerting at first, but this insight into human behavior is quite liberating. That's because, with the right tools, it means you can understand what makes you tick and make decisions accordingly.
Personality tests are insightful but not perfect. In fact, most personal and professional assessments are limited in their ability to fully explain human behavior or predict potential, and none should be viewed as a holy grail. Still, as supporters of Jungian theory and the psychological concept of archetypes, we do believe personality tests are a great start for learning who you are.
What is a personality test?
Some of the most groundbreaking work in psychology was driven by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his theory of psychological types. First, Jung posed that there are two sets of cognitive functions (i.e. mental processes):
rational or judging functions — thinking and feeling
irrational or perceiving functions — sensation and intuition
Second, he believed that humans expressed these functions in either an introverted or extraverted way. Diving into this further, Jung offered the following definitions of the judging (decision-making) functions, which you can think of as reason-based cognitive processing:
thinking — use of intellectual faculties to form logical conclusions (the head)
feeling — subjective conclusions based on value-driven thought processes (the heart)
He also defined the two perceiving functions (information gathering) which is unconscious, stimuli-driven cognitive processing:
sensation — perception of reality through the five senses (the external)
intuition — gut-level unconscious drives and motivations (the internal)
It's also important to define the two manners of expressions (or attitudes) as their technical meanings are somewhat different from how they are used colloquially:
introverted — inward-focused and thought-oriented; gains energy from self and solitude
extraverted — outward-focused and action-oriented; gains energy from interacting with others
“Sensation is to establish that something exists, thinking tells us what it means, feeling what its value is, and intuition surmises whence it comes and whither it goes.”
— CARL JUNG, PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES
In short, Jung's framework is all about how we collect, process and perceive information about the world. Personality types are psychological classifications based on clinical evaluations of how the functions and attitudes from Jung's framework tend to show up in individuals. A personality test is a method of assessing your dominant cognitive functions and attitudes and how they combine to influence your interests, desires, values and actions.
Learn Who You Are With a Free Personality Test
We recommend taking a free personality test from a reputable company, such as the Truity Typefinder Personality Test. We prefer the sleek platform and quick and easy way to answer questions and obtain results.
Why you need a personality test
If you believe in the notion that knowledge is power, then you can view the personality test as a tool that will lead to a greater understanding of yourself. This self-knowledge will empower you to make more informed personal and professional decisions that may lead to increased productivity and possibly happiness.
Just as important, the outcomes of a personality test help you understand how you perceive and are perceived by others. As a result it is deemed as an excellent means of improving emotional intelligence and interpersonal dynamics. Whatever your reasons for taking a personality test, whether required for school or work or voluntarily, it will uncover insights that will help you navigate the world more efficiently.
How to leverage your personality type
While learning who you are via your personality type is a powerful means of self-discovery that could be potentially life-changing, there are many facets of who you are and this should be just one of many tools you use for self-knowledge. That said, here are a few examples of how you can leverage the results of your personality test.
Manage your energy
Knowing where you draw energy from (either internally or externally) can help you be more mindful of how you expend it.
Understand your emotions
Some personality types are naturally more emotionally expressive than others. With your emotional disposition in mind, you'll become more aware of your feelings and how you tend to exhibit them.
Improve decision-making
Some personality types are more apt to making decisions from their heart while others with their head. Knowing this can help you determine when you need to favor one way of making decisions over another, or bring them back in balance.
Strengthen your relationships
Understanding how you may be perceived by others is one of the greatest benefits of knowing your personality type. Moreover, being aware of another person's personality type helps you identify and bond over similarities while also overcoming any differences.
What is the Myers Briggs personality test?
Taken by over 2 million people annually, The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), named after its creators, is the most popular personality test in the world. Because the MBTI is the most used and its nomenclature most accepted by the mainstream, we deem it or reputable tests based on it, as the best assessments to use for identifying your personality type.
Most of the personality tests available are administered as introspective self-reported questionnaires, the MBTI included. To get the most accurate results, you answer the questions as honestly as possible based on how you are now not how you want to be. There are also no right or wrong answers.
The creators of the MBTI extensively researched Jung's work to determine how personal preferences on each of the dimensions in his framework would combine to create predictable patterns in thinking, feeling and behaving. Myers and Briggs then assigned letters to the core elements of Jung's framework and combined these letters into 16 different personality types.
The Introversion (I) or Extraversion (E) dimension describes how a person manages their energy.
The Sensing (S) or Intuition (I) dimension describes how a person processes information.
The Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) dimension describes how a person make decisions.
The Judging (J) or Perceiving (P) dimension describes how a person approaches structure.
As mentioned, no personality test is without flaws that have been uncovered as the field of psychology has advanced, however to-date the MBTI has been the most thoroughly tested for reliability and validity.
What are the Myers Briggs types?
There are 16 MBTI personality types and all types are equal. The goal of knowing about your personality type is to understand yourself but also appreciate how people differ (though in predictable ways).
Don't go into into this thinking that certain types are better than others as you'll miss the point of the exercise. Moreover, the personality types are not indicators of character or competency and should not be treated as such.
The excerpts below were pulled directly from Introduction to Type® by Isabel Briggs Myers and published by The Myers-Briggs Company. Be careful not to just read a summary and think you have a certain personality type because it resonates. You must take a written or online assessment from a reliable provider to ensure the results are accurate.
ISTJ
Quiet, serious, earn success by thoroughness and dependability. Practical, matter-of-fact, realistic, and responsible. Decide logically what should be done and work toward it steadily, regardless of distractions. Take pleasure in making everything orderly and organized - their work, their home, their life. Value traditions and loyalty.
ISFJ
Quiet, friendly, responsible, and conscientious. Committed and steady in meeting their obligations. Thorough, painstaking, and accurate. Loyal, considerate, notice and remember specifics about people who are important to them, concerned with how others feel. Strive to create an orderly and harmonious environment at work and at home.
INFJ
Seek meaning and connection in ideas, relationships, and material possessions. Want to understand what motivates people and are insightful about others. Conscientious and committed to their firm values. Develop a clear vision about how best to serve the common good. Organized and decisive in implementing their vision.
INTJ
Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance - for themselves and others.
ISTP
Tolerant and flexible, quiet observers until a problem appears, then act quickly to find workable solutions. Analyze what makes things work and readily get through large amounts of data to isolate the core of practical problems. Interested in cause and effect, organize facts using logical principles, value efficiency.
ISFP
Quiet, friendly, sensitive, and kind. Enjoy the present moment, what's going on around them. Like to have their own space and to work within their own time frame. Loyal and committed to their values and to people who are important to them. Dislike disagreements and conflicts, do not force their opinions or values on others.
INFP
Idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want an external life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened.
INTP
Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.
ESTP
Flexible and tolerant, they take a pragmatic approach focused on immediate results. Theories and conceptual explanations bore them - they want to act energetically to solve the problem. Focus on the here-and-now, spontaneous, enjoy each moment that they can be active with others. Enjoy material comforts and style. Learn best through doing.
ESFP
Outgoing, friendly, and accepting. Exuberant lovers of life, people, and material comforts. Enjoy working with others to make things happen. Bring common sense and a realistic approach to their work, and make work fun. Flexible and spontaneous, adapt readily to new people and environments. Learns best by trying a new skill with other people.
ENFP
Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency.
ENTP
Quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert, and outspoken. Resourceful in solving new and challenging problems. Adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analyzing them strategically. Good at reading other people. Bored by routine, will seldom do the same thing the same way, apt to turn to one new interest after another.
ESTJ
Practical, realistic, matter-of-fact. Decisive, quickly move to implement decisions. Organize projects and people to get things done, focus on getting results in the most efficient way possible. Take care of routine details. Have a clear set of logical standards, systematically follow them and want others to also. Forceful in implementing their plans.
ESFJ
Warmhearted, conscientious, and cooperative. Want harmony in their environment, work with determination to establish it. Like to work with others to complete tasks accurately and on time. Loyal, follow through even in small matters. Notice what others need in their day-by-day lives and try to provide it. Want to be appreciated for who they are and for what they contribute.
ENFJ
Warm, empathetic, responsive, and responsible. Highly attuned to the emotions, needs, and motivations of others. Find potential in everyone, want to help others fulfill their potential. May act as catalysts for individual and group growth. Loyal, responsive to praise and criticism. Sociable, facilitate others in a group, and provide inspiring leadership.
ENTJ
Frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well informed, well read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas.
How to take a personality test
For user-friendly purposes, we recommend taking your personality test from a reputable online psychometric company, such as the Truity Typefinder Personality Test. We prefer the sleek platform and easy way to answer questions and obtain results. You can take the test free and get a fairly detailed report. Note that we have an affiliate partnership with Truity and may receive a small referral fee at no cost to you.
