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How Was the Myers-Briggs Assessment Test Developed?

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Updated November 18, 2023

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a self-assessment questionnaire designed to help define personality types.

It was developed by Isabel Briggs-Myers and her mother Katherine Briggs during World War Two to help place women into employment while men were fighting. The test was based on Carl Jung's theory of personality types, to help women to find roles that were best suited to their strengths and weaknesses.

The Myers-Briggs model took Jung’s archetypal personality descriptions and expanded on them, creating a usable methodology that could reliably assess each test-taker and place them in one of 16 personality brackets.

Jung’s personality theory was based on the four major archetypes; the persona (how we present to the world), the shadow (our repressed ideas and weaknesses); the anima/animus (or masculine/feminine features); and the self (unified conscious and unconscious).

From these major archetypes, there are many 'lesser' archetypes based around a higher focus on one or another, such as the caregiver, the ruler, the rebel, the jester, the hero, and the lover – and Jung said these can be found universally in the collective unconscious.

The model assigns personality traits based on the answers to ‘either/or' questions and each of the sixteen possible results is designated with a 4-letter acronym.

The MBTI is used to assess personality and understand the way that seemingly random variations in behavior are actually quite orderly and consistent. It is not designed to be a screening test for employment or as a decision-making tool in considering an employee for promotion, but rather a tool for self-assessment.

The MBTI results help you to explore and understand your strengths and weaknesses, what your likes and dislikes are and your compatibility with other people. It can help you to understand how others view you and what career paths might be most suited to your talents.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator does not value one type above another; no traits are considered better or worse than others, but it can help you realize what your shortcomings may be so that you can work on self-improvement.

The test is based on four different scales of personality based on how view the world, how you make decisions and how you deal with the world. It also looks at whether you prefer your inner world or the outside world.

Extraversion/Introversion (E/I)

Extraverts tend to be focused outward, enjoying frequent social interaction and are generally energized when they spend time interacting with other people. They are usually action-oriented rather than thought-oriented.

Introverts are inward-turning, and although they may be considered anti-social, it is more that they prefer deep and meaningful social interactions. Introverts are generally recharged when they spend time alone and tend to be thought-oriented.

Although people will have both extroverted and introverted reactions to different situations, you will likely prefer type one over the other.

Sensing/Intuition (S/N)

This part of the assessment describes how you take information from the world.

Those who are considered 'Sensing' take information from their senses and try to mostly base their information on external factors, facts and hands-on experience.

For the Intuitive personality, imagination, abstract theories and possibilities color their experiences and they tend to look for patterns and thoughts in it instead.

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Thinking/Feeling (T/F)

How you make decisions based on the information that you are given depends on whether you mostly use logic or emotion.

People who use objective data and facts to make decisions can be considered Thinkers. They are often impersonal but consistent and logical.

Those who are more Feeling in their decision-making are more likely to consider the emotions of themselves and other people.

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Judging/Perceiving (J/P)

This is about how you deal with the outside world. In this context, Judging does not mean ‘judgmental’.

If you prefer structure, firm decisions, routine and traditions you are likely to score higher for Judging.

People view high Judging scorers as being task-orientated and wanting to finish work before relaxing. Whereas those who are more flexible, open and adaptable are more Perceiving and tend to take longer to make decisions as they are always looking for more information about a situation. They may miss deadlines as they take a long time to finalize projects.

What Is the Myers-Briggs Personality Test Format?

In the official MBTI test, there is no time limit, and you have to answer 93 questions in the North American version and 88 in the European English version. These questions are described as 'forced-choice' – to answer, you must select one of two possibilities and cannot say “no preference”.

The answers are a mixture of word pairs and short statements that are related to each of the four scales; while they may not be literal opposites, they represent either side. If you really cannot choose, you can skip questions, although this will mean there are fewer data to derive your personality type from.

Once the test is complete, you will be presented with your type and some detailed information about what that actually means for you. One piece of this detailed information is called the Preference Clarity Index and indicates how clearly you fall to one side or another in the pairings.

Example Questions:

Choose the statement that best describes you:

a) I am the life of the party b) I prefer small gatherings

a) I think of the future b) I stay in the present

a) I dream of tangible things b) I dream of abstract things

Myers-Briggs Practice Test

Here are thumbnail sketches of the 16 personality types. For each, career options are suggested to best suit the personality's typical traits.

But keep in mind that these are not hard-coded in you – no particular personality type is always and completely the best or worst at any particular job or career. These are suggestions to make the most of the personality’s strengths.

• Prefers own company (I)
• Fact/detail-oriented (S)
• Decisions based on logic/reason (T)
• Structured/Prepared (J)

The ISTJ personality is hardworking and dependable, with excellent time management and an eye for detail. They are reliable and committed but can be stubborn and inflexible and not interested in feelings.

Great careers for the ISTJ personality revolve around accuracy, order, and facts, like engineering, finance, and technology.

• Decisions based on emotions/feelings (F)

ISFJs are natural caregivers as they are supportive and practical. Organized, methodical, dependable and reliable, they offer emotional intelligence and resourcefulness. They can take on too much responsibility, take things too personally and spend too much energy on other people to care for themselves.

Careers that offer structure and stability while allowing the ISFJ to be warm and caring are most appropriate, such as nursing, office management and bookkeeping.

• Pattern/possibility oriented (N)
• Decisions based on facts/data (T)

INTJs combine creativity with logical reasoning. They are intelligent and ambitious introverts, who come across as self-confident and independent. INTJs can struggle to connect with emotions and can be overly critical of others, overthinking and avoiding small talk.

Careers for the INTJ personality are ideal in science, technology and engineering; for example, in accounting, law and computer programming.

• Flexible/Adaptable (P)

The ISTP personality wants to know how something works and loves problem-solving. They are calm, efficient and pragmatic with great common sense and practicality. ISTP personalities may be considered insensitive because of their directness and distance from other’s emotions.

In terms of career options, roles that involve solving problems and hands-on engineering are good, like construction or an electrician.

• Flexible/adaptable (P)

Spontaneous and artistic, the ISFP is curious and fun-loving but also empathetic and loyal. They are naturally observant, picking up on details. They do not enjoy conflict and can be sensitive. They can get bored easily and act unpredictably.

Career choices that are more suitable for the ISFP include being an artist, chef or nurse – anything where they can be hands-on in a fast-paced environment and be organized while developing human connections.

The imaginative and idealistic INFP is spontaneous in action and looks for a compromise to minimize conflict. They are dedicated and work with integrity. Sometimes the INFP’s idealism can become impractical, and they can be too selfless when compromising, developing resentment inside because they cannot stand up for their own needs.

A career that offers moral purpose without unnecessary bureaucracy, such as an artist, professor or psychologist, suits the personality of the INFP.

Creative and inventive, the INTP is an enthusiastic and liberal worker. An analytical thinker, the INTP can develop unique views. They can come across as condescending and intolerant to those who do not hold their views and can also be absent-minded when it comes to the finer details.

Careers that focus on creativity while using that analytical focus, like engineering, computer programming and law, are suited for the INTP.

• Prefer the company of others (E)

Sociable and logical, the passionate ESTP personality does not like structure or routine. In contrast, they thrive on working hard and being adventurous. They tend to be practical, perceptive natural leaders. However, they can push boundaries too far and find it difficult to stay focused, often failing to plan in the thrill of doing.

Careers that offer a challenge and create a tangible result are good for ESTP personalities. They could be entrepreneurs, actors and even detectives.

• Decisions based on feelings/emotions (F)

ESFP personalities are sociable with lots of friends because they are emotionally observant. They have strong people skills but are also practical problem solvers with a creative outlook. Although they are motivated by new experiences, they are poor forward planners and can lack focus. They are not well-suited to conflict and are susceptible to criticism.

A career that is service-oriented like hospitality or sales is great for an ESFP, or a role like a party coordinator, fashion designer or educational experience facilitator.

ENFPs are excellent communicators, making them natural managers. They are outgoing and creative with a strong social conscience, but they can lack follow-through and discipline. They are keen for approval and can be oversensitive, reading too much into the behavior of others.

A career that combines challenge with a less rigid structure such as a brand manager, salesperson or designer is perfect.

• Decisions based on facts/details (T)

The ENTP personality is innovative and curious, questioning everything. Charismatic and confident, they are great at thinking beyond classical restrictions and improvising. On the other hand, they can be unreliable and chaotic, avoiding rules and norms.

A career that is intellectually stimulating and places value on power is good for the ENTP personality, like a stock trader, film producer or PR specialist.

• Structured/prepared (J)

ESTJ personalities tend to make decisions according to reason; they are not impulsive They are charismatic, straight-talking and highly responsible, demonstrating initiative to move situations forward.

Their straight-talking can seem forceful at times, and they are often stubborn and judgmental. They can sometimes find emotions difficult to process and demonstrate.

A traditional environment that involves management and the opportunity to be high-performing is suitable for the ESTJ personality. Roles like a judge or financial officer – or better, CEO or MD – offer the power and responsibility that the ESTJ enjoys.

Conscientious caregivers, the ESFJ personality is sociable and enthusiastic with excellent communication skills. They are practical and reliable, enjoying fulfilling duties with traditional values. They can become emotional and oversensitive, invested in social status, and may try and change the behavior of others around them ‘for their own good’.

Any career that involves organizing people or tasks, like nursing or childcare, or perhaps training others are good choices for the ESFJ personality.

Charismatic, engaging and genuine, the ENFJ personality is altruistic and intuitive. With a genuine desire to help, their finely-tuned people skills and emotional intelligence make them excellent listeners and natural leaders. But they can have low self-esteem and be sensitive to criticism, finding it difficult to say no.

Careers that offer a social environment and offer positive change like teaching, event management or being a PA is suitable for the typical ENFJ.

The ENTJ person is outgoing, logical and thrives under pressure through their strategic vision. They are objective, intellectual and decisive, offering strong leadership. However, they may seem to lack empathy and be intolerant and impatient of others, as well as stubborn and arrogant.

A role that allows them to lead, have a position of authority and offer strategic insight suits the ENTJ personality. Careers in politics, as a management consultant or in the armed forces are good options.

There have been some questions about the validity of the MBTI. Some critics point to the 1983 study by personality researchers McCarley and Carskadon, which demonstrated that 50% of test-takers got a different result five weeks after the original test – demonstrating that it might not be reliable.

Other commentators mention that there is limited validity in the real world – nothing tangible links the types to life outcomes. The black-and-white questions do not allow for the shades of grey that exist in the normal personality scale and do not appear to have any bearing on other personality facets like honesty and patience.

According to the Myers-Briggs Foundation, these are common misconceptions based on outdated information. The study regarding the low reliability of the test came out in 1983 and was based on an older model of the MBTI.

More recent research from 2009 (presented in the MBTI Form M Manual Supplement) by the Foundation shows an average test-retest reliability of 72% over more than a year, comparable or better than DISC or NEO personality tests.

Further, previous research by Carskadon (from 1977, before the 1983 low-reliability paper) also found test-retest reliability of 72–87%.

In the end, the MBTI is meant to be descriptive, not predictive. It does not diagnose clinical psychopathology. It consolidates all the preferences you give it into a simple-to-understand label. It does not consider your skills, what you are good at through training, only how you prefer to be. The best way to use it is as a tool of self-analysis, reflection and development. Some people find simply answering the questions prompts a fair amount of introspection they can use to better understand themselves.

The Myers-Briggs Foundation generally recommends you take it in conjunction with a certified professional ; however, they also offer an online version for quicker results that can later be discussed further with e.g. a counselor. The official online MBTI can be taken here for $49.95. This gets you lifetime access to retake as many times as you want as well as personalized courses and action guides.

Developed and administered by the Myers-Briggs Foundation, this is the official test and has the most reliable results.

Free versions of the test are available online, but they can only give you the basics and are at best an approximate result. They may be an indicator but are not the legitimate test and actual results may vary.

In a workplace situation, you may find that a certified MBTI consultant will administer the test and provide the results alongside some more detailed information about what each facet of your type means and what you can develop as part of your self-awareness. This can be very in-depth and is always unique to you because you can have a one-on-one conversation to get the answers you need.

If you would like detailed feedback about your MBTI results, several registered MBTI professionals are available so you can find one in your area through the Myers-Briggs Foundation website.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality evaluation instrument that is best suited for use as a self-assessment tool. It can offer insight into your psychological preferences, helping you to explore and understand your strengths and weaknesses, how you communicate and possible career preferences.

The assessment itself is not used in the same way as other psychometric tests and should not be part of a pre-employment screen. But it can be useful in training and development for the workplace to help employees understand more about themselves and how they can be compatible with other people.

You might also be interested in these other Psychometric Success articles:

Or explore the Aptitude Tests / Test Types sections.

Personality Assessments: 10 Best Inventories, Tests, & Methods

Perhaps they respond differently to news or react differently to your feedback. They voice different opinions and values and, as such, behave differently.

If you respond with a resounding yes, we understand the challenges you face.

As more and more organizations diversify their talent, a new challenge emerges of how to get the best out of employees and teams of all personality configurations.

In this article, we embark on a whistle-stop tour of the science of personality, focusing on personality assessments to measure clients’ and employees’ character plus the benefits of doing so, before rounding off with practical tools for those who want to bolster their professional toolkits.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Strengths Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help your clients or employees realize their unique potential and create a life that feels energizing and authentic.

This Article Contains

What are personality assessments in psychology, 4 methods and types of personality assessments, 7 evidence-based inventories, scales, and tests.

• Helpful Tools & Questions

Fascinating Books About Personality Assessments

Resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

Personality is a tricky concept to define in concrete terms, and this is reflected both in the number of personality theories that exist and the lack of consensus among personality psychologists.

However, for this article, we can think of personality as the totality of one’s behavioral patterns and subjective experiences (Kernberg, 2016).

All individuals have a constellation of traits and experiences that make them unique yet simultaneously suggest that there are some generalizable or distinct qualities inherent in all humans.

In psychology, we are interested in understanding how traits and qualities that people possess cluster together and the extent to which these vary across and within individuals.

Now, it’s all very well and good knowing that personality exists as a concept and that your employees and clients differ in their groupings of traits and subjective experiences, but how can you apply this information to your professional work with them?

This is where measuring and assessing personality comes into play. Like most psychological concepts, researchers want to show that theoretical knowledge can be useful for working life and brought to bear in the real world.

For example, knowing a client’s or employee’s personality can be key to setting them up for success at work and pursuing and achieving work-related goals. But we first need to identify or assess personality before we can help others to reap these benefits.

Personality assessments are used for several reasons.

First, they can provide professionals with an opportunity to identify their strengths and reaffirm their sense of self. It is no coincidence that research on strengths is so popular or that strengths have such a prominent place in the working world. People like to know who they are, and they want to capitalize on the qualities and traits they possess.

Second, personality assessments can provide professionals with a social advantage by helping them to understand how they are perceived by others such as colleagues, managers, and stakeholders — the looking glass self (Cooley, 1902).

In the sections below, we will explore different personality assessments and popular evidence-based scales.

1. Self-report assessments

Self-reports are one of the most widely used formats for psychometric testing. They are as they sound: reports or questionnaires that a client or employee completes themselves (and often scores themselves).

Self-report measures can come in many formats. The most common are Likert scales where individuals are asked to rate numerically (from 1 to 7 for example) the extent to which they feel that each question describes their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.

These types of assessments are popular because they are easy to distribute and complete, they are often cost effective, and they can provide helpful insights into behavior.

However, they also have downsides to be wary of, including an increase in unconscious biases such as the social desirability bias (i.e., the desire to answer “correctly”). They can also be prone to individuals not paying attention, not answering truthfully, or not fully understanding the questions asked.

Such issues can lead to an inaccurate assessment of personality. Self-reports can be completed in both personal and professional settings and can be particularly helpful in a coaching practice, for example.

However, if you are a professional working with clients in any capacity, it is advised to first try out any self-report measure before suggesting them to clients. In this way, you can gauge for yourself the usefulness and validity of the measure.

2. Behavioral observation

Another useful method of personality assessment is behavioral observation. This method entails someone observing and documenting a person’s behavior.

While this method is more resource heavy in terms of time and requires an observer (preferably one who is experienced and qualified in observing and coding the behavior), it can be useful as a complementary method employed alongside self-reports because it can provide an external corroboration of behavior.

Alternatively, behavioral observation can fail to corroborate self-report scores, raising the question of how reliably an individual has answered their self-report.

3. Interviews

Interviews are used widely from clinical settings to workplaces to determine an individual’s personality. Even a job interview is a test of behavioral patterns and experiences (i.e., personality).

During such interviews, the primary aim is to gather as much information as possible by using probing questions. Responses should be recorded, and there should be a standardized scoring system to determine the outcome of the interview (for example, whether the candidate is suitable for the role).

While interviews can elicit rich data about a client or employee, they are also subject to the unconscious biases of the interviewers and can be open to interpretation if there is no method for scoring or evaluating the interviewee.

4. Projective tests

These types of tests are unusual in that they present individuals with an abstract or vague object, task, or activity and require them to describe what they see. The idea here is that the unfiltered interpretation can provide insight into the person’s psychology and way of thinking.

A well-known example of a projective test is the Rorschach inkblot test. However, there are limitations to projective tests due to their interpretative nature and the lack of a consistent or quantifiable way of coding or scoring individuals’ responses.

Personality assessments can be used in the workplace during recruitment to gauge whether someone would be a good fit for a job or organization and to help determine job performance, career progression, and development.

Below, we highlight a few commonly used inventories and tests for such career assessments.

1. The Hogan personality inventory (HPI)

The Hogan personality inventory (Hogan & Hogan, 2002) is a self-report personality assessment created by Robert Hogan and Joyce Hogan in the late 1970s.

It was originally based on the California Personality Inventory (Gough, 1975) and also draws upon the five-factor model of personality. The five-factor model of personality suggests there are five key dimensions of personality: openness to experience , conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Digman, 1990).

The Hogan assessment comprises 206 items across seven different scales that measure and predict social behavior and social outcomes rather than traits or qualities , as do other popular personality measures.

These seven scales include:

• Sociability
• Interpersonal sensitivity
• Inquisitiveness
• Learning approach

The HPI’s primary use is within organizations to help with recruitment and the development of leaders . It is a robust scale with over 40 years of evidence to support it, and the scale itself takes roughly 15–20 minutes to complete (Hogan Assessments, n.d.).

2. DISC test

The DISC test of personality developed by Merenda and Clarke (1965) is a very popular personality self-assessment used primarily within the corporate world. It is based on the emotional and behavioral DISC theory (Marston, 1928), which measures individuals on four dimensions of behavior:

The self-report comprises 24 questions and takes roughly 10 minutes to complete. While the test is simpler and quicker to complete than other popular tests (e.g., the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), it has been subject to criticism regarding its psychometric properties.

3. Gallup – CliftonStrengths™ Assessment

Unlike the DISC test, the CliftonStrengths™ assessment , employed by Gallup and based on the work of Marcus Buckingham and Don Clifton (2001), is a questionnaire designed specifically to help individuals identify strengths in the workplace and learn how to use them.

The assessment is a self-report Likert scale comprising 177 questions and takes roughly 30 minutes to complete. Once scored, the assessment provides individuals with 34 strength themes organized into four key domains:

• Strategic thinking
• Influencing
• Relationship building

The scale has a solid theoretical and empirical grounding, making it a popular workplace assessment around the world.

4. NEO-PI-R

The NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 2008) is a highly popular self-report personality assessment based on Allport and Odbert’s (1936) trait theory of personality.

With good reliability, this scale has amassed a large evidence base, making it an appealing inventory for many. The NEO-PI-R assesses an individual’s strengths, talents, and weaknesses and is often used by employers to identify suitable candidates for job openings.

It uses the big five factors of personality (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) and also includes an additional six subcategories within the big five, providing a detailed breakdown of each personality dimension.

The scale itself comprises 240 questions that describe different behaviors and takes roughly 30–40 minutes to complete. Interestingly, this inventory can be administered as a self-report or, alternatively, as an observational report, making it a favored assessment among professionals.

5. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)

The EPQ is a personality assessment developed by personality psychologists Hans Eysenck and Sybil Eysenck (1975).

The scale results from successive revisions and improvements of earlier scales: the Maudsley Personality Inventory (Eysenck 1959) and Eysenck Personality Inventory (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964).

The aim of the EPQ is to measure the three dimensions of personality as espoused by Eysenck’s psychoticism–extraversion–neuroticism theory of personality The scale itself uses a Likert format and was revised and shortened in 1992 to include 48 items (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1992).

This is a generally useful scale; however, some researchers have found that there are reliability issues with the psychoticism subscale, likely because this was a later addition to the scale.

6. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) is one of the most widely used personality inventories in the world and uses a true/false format of questioning.

It was initially designed to assess mental health problems in clinical settings during the 1940s and uses 10 clinical subscales to assess different psychological conditions.

The inventory was revised in the 1980s, resulting in the MMPI-2, which comprised 567 questions, and again in 2020, resulting in the MMPI-3, which comprises a streamlined 338 questions.

While the revised MMPI-3 takes a lengthy 35–50 minutes to complete, it remains popular to this day, particularly in clinical settings, and enables the accurate capture of aspects of psychopathy and mental health disturbance. The test has good reliability but must be administered by a professional.

7. 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF)

The 16PF (Cattell et al., 1970) is another rating scale inventory used primarily in clinical settings to identify psychiatric disorders by measuring “normal” personality traits.

Cattell identified 16 primary personality traits, with five secondary or global traits underneath that map onto the big five factors of personality.

These include such traits as warmth, reasoning, and emotional stability, to name a few. The most recent version of the questionnaire (the fifth edition) comprises 185 multiple-choice questions that ask about routine behaviors on a 10-point scale and takes roughly 35–50 minutes to complete.

The scale is easy to administer and well validated but must be administered by a professional.

Helpful Tools & Questions

We share two informative videos on this topic and then move on to a short collection of questions that can be used for career development.

1. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Many of us have heard of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Myers & McCaulley, 1985), and for good reason. It is one of the most popular and widely used personality assessments out there.

A mother and daughter team developed the MBTI in the 1940s during the Second World War. The MBTI comprises 93 questions that aim to measure an individual on four different dimensions of personality:

• Introversion/extraversion
• Sensing/ intuition
• Thinking/feeling
• Judging/perceiving

The test provides individuals with a type of personality out of a possible 16 combinations. Whilst this test is a favorite in workplaces, there are serious criticisms leveled at how the scale was developed and the lack of rigorous evidence to support its use.

For more information on the MBTI, you might enjoy the below videos:

We recommend that if you employ MBTI, be mindful of its scientific deficiencies and support your personality testing further by completing an additional validated scale.

10 Career development questions

• Tell me about what inspires you. What gets you out of bed in the morning?
• Tell me about your vision for your career/life.
• What aspects of your role do you love? What aspects do you struggle with?
• Tell me about a time where you used your strengths to achieve a positive outcome.
• Are there any healthy habits you want to build into your work life?
• Describe your perfect working day. What would it look like?
• Tell me about your fears.
• What do you value most about your job?
• What goals are you currently working toward?
• How would your work colleagues describe you?

If you are interested in learning more about personality and personality assessments, the following three books are an excellent place to start.

These books were chosen because they give an excellent overview of what personality is and how it can be measured. They also illuminate some issues with personality assessments. They provide a good grounding for any professional looking to implement personality assessments in the workplace.

1. Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential – Carol Dweck

Enter Dr. Carol Dweck and several decades of psychological research she has conducted on motivation and personality.

The main thesis of the book is to explore the idea that people can have either a fixed or growth mindset (i.e., beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world around us). Adopting a growth mindset can be a critical determinant of outcomes such as performance and academic success.

Find the book on Amazon .

2. The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing – Merve Emre

If you are interested in the dark side of psychology assessments, this is the book for you.

This book explores how the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was developed and discusses the questionable validity of the scale despite its widespread popularity in the corporate world.

While many assessments can be helpful for self-reflecting on your own behavior, The Personality Brokers delve into the murky side of how psychological concepts can be used for monetary gains, even when evidence is lacking or disputed.

3. Psychological Types – Carl Jung

This is an excellent book from one of history’s most influential psychologists: Carl Jung.

The book focuses most on extraversion and introversion as the two key types of personality and also discusses the limitations of categorizing individuals into “types” of personality.

For those interested in the science of personality and who prefer a slightly heavier, academic read, this book is for you.

Interested in supplementing your professional life by exploring personality types? Here at PositivePsychology.com, we have several highly useful resources.

Maximizing Strengths Masterclass©

While strengths finding is a distinct and popular topic within positive psychology, we can draw parallels between strengths research and some conceptualizations of personality.

The Maximizing Strengths Masterclass© is designed to help clients reach their potential by looking at their strengths and what energizes them and helping them delve into their authentic selves. As a six-module coaching package, it includes 19 videos, a practitioner handbook, slide presentations, and much more.

Recommended Reading

For more information on personality psychology and personality assessments, check out the following related articles.

• Big Five Personality Traits: The OCEAN Model Explained
• Personality Psychology Explained: 7 Theories and Assessments
• Personality & Character Traits: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
• Personal Strengths Defined (+ List of 92 Personal Strengths)

17 Career exercises

Designed to help people use their personality and strengths at work, this collection of 17 work and career coaching exercises is grounded in scientific evidence. The exercises help individuals and clients identify areas for career growth and development. Some of these exercises include:

• Achievement Story Chart your successes at work, take time to reflect on your achievements, and identify how to use your strengths for growth.
• Job Analysis Through a Strengths Lens Identify your strengths and opportunities to use them when encountering challenges at work.
• Job Satisfaction Wheel Complete the job satisfaction wheel, which measures your current levels of happiness at work across seven different dimensions.
• What Work Means to You Identify how meaningful your work is to you by assessing your motivational orientation toward work (i.e., whether it is something you are called to and that aligns with your sense of self).

When managing people, it is always helpful to have insight into why they behave the way they do. The same applies to assisting someone on their career path. Having an understanding of the qualities that influence behavioral responses can improve relationships, parenting, how people work, and even goal setting.

But there are some caveats to be mindful of:

• When using self-reports, take the scores with a pinch of salt, particularly as we all operate with unconscious biases that can skew results.
• Remain open minded about our personality traits; if we are resigned to the idea that they are inherited at birth, fixed, and unchanging, we are unlikely to gain any real discernment into our own evolving identity.
• Labels can oftentimes be limiting. Trying to condense the myriad aspects of an individual into a neat “personality” category could backfire.

In the right hands, validated personality assessments are valuable tools for guiding clients on the right career path, ensuring a good job fit and building strong teams.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Strengths Exercises for free .

• Allport, G. W., & Odbert, H. S. (1936). Trait-names: A psycho-lexical study. Psychological Monographs , 47 (1), i–171.
• Buckingham, M., & Clifton, D. O. (2001). Now, discover your strengths . Simon and Schuster.
• Cattell, R. B., Eber, H. W., & Tatsuoka, M. M. (1970). Handbook for the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire . Institute for Personality and Ability Testing.
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• Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model. Annual Review of Psychology , 41 (1), 417–440.
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• Hathaway, S. R., & McKinley, J. C. (1943). The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (Rev. ed., 2nd printing). University of Minnesota Press.
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• Myers, I. B., & McCaulley, M. H. (1985). Manual: A guide to the development and use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator . Palo Alto Consulting Psychologists Press.

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Resources: Discussions and Assignments

Assignment: personality.

STEP 1: Take at least two of the personality tests mentioned in this module and listed below (or other legitimate tests).

• Big Five personality test
• Kiersey Temperament Sorter . This test is very similar to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
• Another Myers-Briggs type test .
• Cattell’s 16PF questionnaire .
• Basic version of the color personality test .

STEP 2: Analyze your results. Discuss the results with at least one other person who knows you (preferably someone who knows you well) and decide if you believe the results accurately describe who you are. Write a short essay (150-250 words) describing the tests and analyzing both their validity and reliability.

• Assessing Personality Assignment. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

Personality

Personality Assessment

Learning objectives.

• Describe different types of personality tests, including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and common projective tests

Roberto, Mikhail, and Nat are college friends and all want to be police officers. Roberto is quiet and shy, lacks self-confidence, and usually follows others. He is a kind person, but lacks motivation. Mikhail is loud and boisterous, a leader. He works hard, but is impulsive and drinks too much on the weekends. Nat is thoughtful and well liked. He is trustworthy, but sometimes he has difficulty making quick decisions. Of these three men, who would make the best police officer? What qualities and personality factors make someone a good police officer? What makes someone a bad or dangerous police officer?

A police officer’s job is very high in stress, and law enforcement agencies want to make sure they hire the right people. Personality testing is often used for this purpose—to screen applicants for employment and job training. Personality tests are also used in criminal cases and custody battles, and to assess psychological disorders. This section explores the best known among the many different types of personality tests.

Self-Report Inventories

Self-report inventories are a kind of objective test used to assess personality. They typically use multiple-choice items or numbered scales, which represent a range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). They often are called Likert scales after their developer, Rensis Likert (1932) (Figure 1).

One of the most widely used personality inventories is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) , first published in 1943, with 504 true/false questions, and updated to the MMPI-2 in 1989, with 567 questions. The original MMPI was based on a small, limited sample, composed mostly of Minnesota farmers and psychiatric patients; the revised inventory was based on a more representative, national sample to allow for better standardization. The MMPI-2 takes 1–2 hours to complete. Responses are scored to produce a clinical profile composed of 10 scales: hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, psychopathic deviance (social deviance), masculinity versus femininity, paranoia, psychasthenia (obsessive/compulsive qualities), schizophrenia, hypomania, and social introversion. There is also a scale to ascertain risk factors for alcohol abuse. In 2008, the test was again revised, using more advanced methods, to the MMPI-2-RF. This version takes about one-half the time to complete and has only 338 questions (Figure 2). Despite the new test’s advantages, the MMPI-2 is more established and is still more widely used. Typically, the tests are administered by computer. Although the MMPI was originally developed to assist in the clinical diagnosis of psychological disorders, it is now also used for occupational screening, such as in law enforcement, and in college, career, and marital counseling (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008).

In addition to clinical scales, the tests also have validity and reliability scales. (Recall the concepts of reliability and validity from your study of psychological research.) One of the validity scales, the Lie Scale (or “L” Scale), consists of 15 items and is used to ascertain whether the respondent is “faking good” (underreporting psychological problems to appear healthier). For example, if someone responds “yes” to a number of unrealistically positive items such as “I have never told a lie,” they may be trying to “fake good” or appear better than they actually are.

Reliability scales test an instrument’s consistency over time, assuring that if you take the MMPI-2-RF today and then again 5 years later, your two scores will be similar. Beutler, Nussbaum, and Meredith (1988) gave the MMPI to newly recruited police officers and then to the same police officers 2 years later. After 2 years on the job, police officers’ responses indicated an increased vulnerability to alcoholism, somatic symptoms (vague, unexplained physical complaints), and anxiety. When the test was given an additional 2 years later (4 years after starting on the job), the results suggested high risk for alcohol-related difficulties.

Projective Tests

Another method for assessment of personality is projective testing . This kind of test relies on one of the defense mechanisms proposed by Freud—projection—as a way to assess unconscious processes. During this type of testing, a series of ambiguous cards is shown to the person being tested, who then is encouraged to project his feelings, impulses, and desires onto the cards—by telling a story, interpreting an image, or completing a sentence. Many projective tests have undergone standardization procedures (for example, Exner, 2002) and can be used to access whether someone has unusual thoughts or a high level of anxiety, or is likely to become volatile. Some examples of projective tests are the Rorschach Inkblot Test, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the Contemporized-Themes Concerning Blacks test, the TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story), and the Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB).

The Rorschach Inkblot Test was developed in 1921 by a Swiss psychologist named Hermann Rorschach (pronounced “ROAR-shock”). It is a series of symmetrical inkblot cards that are presented to a client by a psychologist. Upon presentation of each card, the psychologist asks the client, “What might this be?” What the test-taker sees reveals unconscious feelings and struggles (Piotrowski, 1987; Weiner, 2003). The Rorschach has been standardized using the Exner system and is effective in measuring depression, psychosis, and anxiety.

A second projective test is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) , created in the 1930s by Henry Murray, an American psychologist, and a psychoanalyst named Christiana Morgan. A person taking the TAT is shown 8–12 ambiguous pictures and is asked to tell a story about each picture. The stories give insight into their social world, revealing hopes, fears, interests, and goals. The storytelling format helps to lower a person’s resistance divulging unconscious personal details (Cramer, 2004). The TAT has been used in clinical settings to evaluate psychological disorders; more recently, it has been used in counseling settings to help clients gain a better understanding of themselves and achieve personal growth. Standardization of test administration is virtually nonexistent among clinicians, and the test tends to be modest to low on validity and reliability (Aronow, Weiss, & Rezinkoff, 2001; Lilienfeld, Wood, & Garb, 2000). Despite these shortcomings, the TAT has been one of the most widely used projective tests.

A third projective test is the Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB) developed by Julian Rotter in 1950 (recall his theory of locus of control, covered earlier in this chapter). There are three forms of this test for use with different age groups: the school form, the college form, and the adult form. The tests include 40 incomplete sentences that people are asked to complete as quickly as possible (Figure 3). The average time for completing the test is approximately 20 minutes, as responses are only 1–2 words in length. This test is similar to a word association test, and like other types of projective tests, it is presumed that responses will reveal desires, fears, and struggles. The RISB is used in screening college students for adjustment problems and in career counseling (Holaday, Smith, & Sherry, 2010; Rotter & Rafferty 1950).

For many decades, these traditional projective tests have been used in cross-cultural personality assessments. However, it was found that test bias limited their usefulness (Hoy-Watkins & Jenkins-Moore, 2008). It is difficult to assess the personalities and lifestyles of members of widely divergent ethnic/cultural groups using personality instruments based on data from a single culture or race (Hoy-Watkins & Jenkins-Moore, 2008). For example, when the TAT was used with African-American test takers, the result was often shorter story length and low levels of cultural identification (Duzant, 2005). Therefore, it was vital to develop other personality assessments that explored factors such as race, language, and level of acculturation (Hoy-Watkins & Jenkins-Moore, 2008). To address this need, Robert Williams developed the first culturally specific projective test designed to reflect the everyday life experiences of African Americans (Hoy-Watkins & Jenkins-Moore, 2008). The updated version of the instrument is the Contemporized-Themes Concerning Blacks Test (C-TCB) (Williams, 1972). The C-TCB contains 20 color images that show scenes of African-American lifestyles. When the C-TCB was compared with the TAT for African Americans, it was found that use of the C-TCB led to increased story length, higher degrees of positive feelings, and stronger identification with the C-TCB (Hoy, 1997; Hoy-Watkins & Jenkins-Moore, 2008).

The TEMAS Multicultural Thematic Apperception Test is another tool designed to be culturally relevant to minority groups, especially Hispanic youths. TEMAS—standing for “Tell Me a Story” but also a play on the Spanish word temas (themes)—uses images and storytelling cues that relate to minority culture (Constantino, 1982).

You can view the transcript for “Measuring Personality: Crash Course Psychology #22” here (opens in new window) .

Think It Over

• How objective do you think you can be about yourself in answering questions on self-report personality assessment measures? What implications might this have for the validity of the personality test?

CC licensed content, Shared previously

• Personality Assessment. Authored by : OpenStax College. Located at : https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/11-9-personality-assessment . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

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• Measuring Personality: Crash Course Psychology #22. Provided by : CrashCourse. Located at : https://youtu.be/sUrV6oZ3zsk?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtOPRKzVLY0jJY-uHOH9KVU6 . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

personality test composed of a series of true/false questions in order to establish a clinical profile of an individual

personality assessment in which a person responds to ambiguous stimuli, revealing hidden feelings, impulses, and desires

projective test that employs a series of symmetrical inkblot cards that are presented to a client by a psychologist in an effort to reveal the person’s unconscious desires, fears, and struggles

projective test in which people are presented with ambiguous images, and they then make up stories to go with the images in an effort to uncover their unconscious desires, fears, and struggles

projective test that is similar to a word association test in which a person completes sentences in order to reveal their unconscious desires, fears, and struggles

projective test designed to be culturally relevant to African Americans, using images that relate to African-American culture

projective test designed to be culturally relevant to minority groups, especially Hispanic youths, using images and storytelling that relate to minority culture

General Psychology Copyright © by OpenStax and Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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3.1: Personality Assessment

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University of Notre Dame

This module provides a basic overview to the assessment of personality. It discusses objective personality tests (based on both self-report and informant ratings), projective and implicit tests, and behavioral/performance measures. It describes the basic features of each method, as well as reviewing the strengths, weaknesses, and overall validity of each approach.

learning objectives

• Appreciate the diversity of methods that are used to measure personality characteristics.
• Understand the logic, strengths and weaknesses of each approach.
• Gain a better sense of the overall validity and range of applications of personality tests.

Introduction

Personality is the field within psychology that studies the thoughts, feelings, behaviors, goals, and interests of normal individuals. It therefore covers a very wide range of important psychological characteristics. Moreover, different theoretical models have generated very different strategies for measuring these characteristics. For example, humanistically oriented models argue that people have clear, well-defined goals and are actively striving to achieve them (McGregor, McAdams, & Little, 2006). It, therefore, makes sense to ask them directly about themselves and their goals. In contrast, psychodynamically oriented theories propose that people lack insight into their feelings and motives, such that their behavior is influenced by processes that operate outside of their awareness (e.g., McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989; Meyer & Kurtz, 2006). Given that people are unaware of these processes, it does not make sense to ask directly about them. One, therefore, needs to adopt an entirely different approach to identify these nonconscious factors. Not surprisingly, researchers have adopted a wide range of approaches to measure important personality characteristics. The most widely used strategies will be summarized in the following sections.

Objective Tests

Objective tests (Loevinger, 1957; Meyer & Kurtz, 2006) represent the most familiar and widely used approach to assessing personality. Objective tests involve administering a standard set of items, each of which is answered using a limited set of response options (e.g., true or false; strongly disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, strongly agree). Responses to these items then are scored in a standardized, predetermined way. For example, self-ratings on items assessing talkativeness, assertiveness, sociability, adventurousness, and energy can be summed up to create an overall score on the personality trait of extraversion.

It must be emphasized that the term “objective” refers to the method that is used to score a person’s responses, rather than to the responses themselves. As noted by Meyer and Kurtz (2006, p. 233), “What is objective about such a procedure is that the psychologist administering the test does not need to rely on judgment to classify or interpret the test-taker’s response; the intended response is clearly indicated and scored according to a pre-existing key.” In fact, as we will see, a person’s test responses may be highly subjective and can be influenced by a number of different rating biases.

Basic Types of Objective Tests

Self-report measures.

Objective personality tests can be further subdivided into two basic types. The first type—which easily is the most widely used in modern personality research—asks people to describe themselves. This approach offers two key advantages. First, self-raters have access to an unparalleled wealth of information: After all, who knows more about you than you yourself? In particular, self-raters have direct access to their own thoughts, feelings, and motives, which may not be readily available to others (Oh, Wang, & Mount, 2011; Watson, Hubbard, & Weise, 2000). Second, asking people to describe themselves is the simplest, easiest, and most cost-effective approach to assessing personality. Countless studies, for instance, have involved administering self-report measures to college students, who are provided some relatively simple incentive (e.g., extra course credit) to participate.

The items included in self-report measures may consist of single words (e.g., assertive ), short phrases (e.g., am full of energy ), or complete sentences (e.g., I like to spend time with others ). Table 1 presents a sample self-report measure assessing the general traits comprising the influential five-factor model (FFM) of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (John & Srivastava, 1999; McCrae, Costa, & Martin, 2005). The sentences shown in Table 1 are modified versions of items included in the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) (Goldberg et al., 2006), which is a rich source of personality-related content in the public domain (for more information about IPIP, go to: http://ipip.ori.org/ ).

Self-report personality tests show impressive validity in relation to a wide range of important outcomes. For example, self-ratings of conscientiousness are significant predictors of both overall academic performance (e.g., cumulative grade point average; Poropat, 2009) and job performance (Oh, Wang, and Mount, 2011). Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, and Goldberg (2007) reported that self-rated personality predicted occupational attainment, divorce, and mortality. Similarly, Friedman, Kern, and Reynolds (2010) showed that personality ratings collected early in life were related to happiness/well-being, physical health, and mortality risk assessed several decades later. Finally, self-reported personality has important and pervasive links to psychopathology. Most notably, self-ratings of neuroticism are associated with a wide array of clinical syndromes, including anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, substance use disorders, somatoform disorders, eating disorders, personality and conduct disorders, and schizophrenia/schizotypy (Kotov, Gamez, Schmidt, & Watson, 2010; Mineka, Watson, & Clark, 1998).

At the same time, however, it is clear that this method is limited in a number of ways. First, raters may be motivated to present themselves in an overly favorable, socially desirable way (Paunonen & LeBel, 2012). This is a particular concern in “ high-stakes testing ,” that is, situations in which test scores are used to make important decisions about individuals (e.g., when applying for a job). Second, personality ratings reflect a self-enhancement bias (Vazire & Carlson, 2011); in other words, people are motivated to ignore (or at least downplay) some of their less desirable characteristics and to focus instead on their more positive attributes. Third, self-ratings are subject to the reference group effect (Heine, Buchtel, & Norenzayan, 2008); that is, we base our self-perceptions, in part, on how we compare to others in our sociocultural reference group. For instance, if you tend to work harder than most of your friends, you will see yourself as someone who is relatively conscientious, even if you are not particularly conscientious in any absolute sense.

Informant ratings

Another approach is to ask someone who knows a person well to describe his or her personality characteristics. In the case of children or adolescents, the informant is most likely to be a parent or teacher. In studies of older participants, informants may be friends, roommates, dating partners, spouses, children, or bosses (Oh et al., 2011; Vazire & Carlson, 2011; Watson et al., 2000).

Generally speaking, informant ratings are similar in format to self-ratings. As was the case with self-report, items may consist of single words, short phrases, or complete sentences. Indeed, many popular instruments include parallel self- and informant-rating versions, and it often is relatively easy to convert a self-report measure so that it can be used to obtain informant ratings. Table 2 illustrates how the self-report instrument shown in Table 1 can be converted to obtain spouse-ratings (in this case, having a husband describe the personality characteristics of his wife).

Informant ratings are particularly valuable when self-ratings are impossible to collect (e.g., when studying young children or cognitively impaired adults) or when their validity is suspect (e.g., as noted earlier, people may not be entirely honest in high-stakes testing situations). They also may be combined with self-ratings of the same characteristics to produce more reliable and valid measures of these attributes (McCrae, 1994).

Informant ratings offer several advantages in comparison to other approaches to assessing personality. A well-acquainted informant presumably has had the opportunity to observe large samples of behavior in the person he or she is rating. Moreover, these judgments presumably are not subject to the types of defensiveness that potentially can distort self-ratings (Vazire & Carlson, 2011). Indeed, informants typically have strong incentives for being accurate in their judgments. As Funder and Dobroth (1987, p. 409), put it, “Evaluations of the people in our social environment are central to our decisions about who to befriend and avoid, trust and distrust, hire and fire, and so on.”

Informant personality ratings have demonstrated a level of validity in relation to important life outcomes that is comparable to that discussed earlier for self-ratings. Indeed, they outperform self-ratings in certain circumstances, particularly when the assessed traits are highly evaluative in nature (e.g., intelligence, charm, creativity; see Vazire & Carlson, 2011). For example, Oh et al. (2011) found that informant ratings were more strongly related to job performance than were self-ratings. Similarly, Oltmanns and Turkheimer (2009) summarized evidence indicating that informant ratings of Air Force cadets predicted early, involuntary discharge from the military better than self-ratings.

Nevertheless, informant ratings also are subject to certain problems and limitations. One general issue is the level of relevant information that is available to the rater (Funder, 2012). For instance, even under the best of circumstances, informants lack full access to the thoughts, feelings, and motives of the person they are rating. This problem is magnified when the informant does not know the person particularly well and/or only sees him or her in a limited range of situations (Funder, 2012; Beer & Watson, 2010).

Informant ratings also are subject to some of the same response biases noted earlier for self-ratings. For instance, they are not immune to the reference group effect. Indeed, it is well-established that parent ratings often are subject to a sibling contrast effect , such that parents exaggerate the true magnitude of differences between their children (Pinto, Rijsdijk, Frazier-Wood, Asherson, & Kuntsi, 2012). Furthermore, in many studies, individuals are allowed to nominate (or even recruit) the informants who will rate them. Because of this, it most often is the case that informants (who, as noted earlier, may be friends, relatives, or romantic partners) like the people they are rating. This, in turn, means that informants may produce overly favorable personality ratings. Indeed, their ratings actually can be more favorable than the corresponding self-ratings (Watson & Humrichouse, 2006). This tendency for informants to produce unrealistically positive ratings has been termed the letter of recommendation effect (Leising, Erbs, & Fritz, 2010) and the honeymoon effect when applied to newlyweds (Watson & Humrichouse, 2006).

Other Ways of Classifying Objective Tests

Comprehensiveness.

In addition to the source of the scores, there are at least two other important dimensions on which personality tests differ. The first such dimension concerns the extent to which an instrument seeks to assess personality in a reasonably comprehensive manner. At one extreme, many widely used measures are designed to assess a single core attribute. Examples of these types of measures include the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965), and the Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (Gamez, Chmielewski, Kotov, Ruggero, & Watson, 2011). At the other extreme, a number of omnibus inventories contain a large number of specific scales and purport to measure personality in a reasonably comprehensive manner. These instruments include the California Psychological Inventory (Gough, 1987), the Revised HEXACO Personality Inventory (HEXACO-PI-R) (Lee & Ashton, 2006), the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (Patrick, Curtin, & Tellegen, 2002), the NEO Personality Inventory-3 (NEO-PI-3) (McCrae et al., 2005), the Personality Research Form (Jackson, 1984), and the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (Cattell, Eber, & Tatsuoka, 1980).

Breadth of the target characteristics

Second, personality characteristics can be classified at different levels of breadth or generality. For example, many models emphasize broad, “big” traits such as neuroticism and extraversion. These general dimensions can be divided up into several distinct yet empirically correlated component traits. For example, the broad dimension of extraversion contains such specific component traits as dominance (extraverts are assertive, persuasive, and exhibitionistic), sociability (extraverts seek out and enjoy the company of others), positive emotionality (extraverts are active, energetic, cheerful, and enthusiastic), and adventurousness (extraverts enjoy intense, exciting experiences).

Some popular personality instruments are designed to assess only the broad, general traits. For example, similar to the sample instrument displayed in Table 1, the Big Five Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999) contains brief scales assessing the broad traits of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. In contrast, many instruments—including several of the omnibus inventories mentioned earlier—were designed primarily to assess a large number of more specific characteristics. Finally, some inventories—including the HEXACO-PI-R and the NEO-PI-3—were explicitly designed to provide coverage of both general and specific trait characteristics. For instance, the NEO-PI-3 contains six specific facet scales (e.g., Gregariousness, Assertiveness, Positive Emotions, Excitement Seeking) that then can be combined to assess the broad trait of extraversion.

Projective and Implicit Tests

Projective tests.

As noted earlier, some approaches to personality assessment are based on the belief that important thoughts, feelings, and motives operate outside of conscious awareness. Projective tests represent influential early examples of this approach. Projective tests originally were based on the projective hypothesis (Frank, 1939; Lilienfeld, Wood, & Garb, 2000): If a person is asked to describe or interpret ambiguous stimuli—that is, things that can be understood in a number of different ways—their responses will be influenced by nonconscious needs, feelings, and experiences (note, however, that the theoretical rationale underlying these measures has evolved over time) (see, for example, Spangler, 1992). Two prominent examples of projective tests are the Rorschach Inkblot Test (Rorschach, 1921) and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (Morgan & Murray, 1935). The former asks respondents to interpret symmetrical blots of ink, whereas the latter asks them to generate stories about a series of pictures.

For instance, one TAT picture depicts an elderly woman with her back turned to a young man; the latter looks downward with a somewhat perplexed expression. Another picture displays a man clutched from behind by three mysterious hands. What stories could you generate in response to these pictures?

In comparison to objective tests, projective tests tend to be somewhat cumbersome and labor intensive to administer. The biggest challenge, however, has been to develop a reliable and valid scheme to score the extensive set of responses generated by each respondent. The most widely used Rorschach scoring scheme is the Comprehensive System developed by Exner (2003). The most influential TAT scoring system was developed by McClelland, Atkinson and colleagues between 1947 and 1953 (McClelland et al., 1989; see also Winter, 1998), which can be used to assess motives such as the need for achievement.

The validity of the Rorschach has been a matter of considerable controversy (Lilienfeld et al., 2000; Mihura, Meyer, Dumitrascu, & Bombel, 2012; Society for Personality Assessment, 2005). Most reviews acknowledge that Rorschach scores do show some ability to predict important outcomes. Its critics, however, argue that it fails to provide important incremental information beyond other, more easily acquired information, such as that obtained from standard self-report measures (Lilienfeld et al., 2000).

Validity evidence is more impressive for the TAT. In particular, reviews have concluded that TAT-based measures of the need for achievement (a) show significant validity to predict important criteria and (b) provide important information beyond that obtained from objective measures of this motive (McClelland et al., 1989; Spangler, 1992). Furthermore, given the relatively weak associations between objective and projective measures of motives, McClelland et al. (1989) argue that they tap somewhat different processes, with the latter assessing implicit motives (Schultheiss, 2008).

Implicit Tests

In recent years, researchers have begun to use implicit measures of personality (Back, Schmuckle, & Egloff, 2009; Vazire & Carlson, 2011). These tests are based on the assumption that people form automatic or implicit associations between certain concepts based on their previous experience and behavior. If two concepts (e.g., me and assertive ) are strongly associated with each other, then they should be sorted together more quickly and easily than two concepts (e.g., me and shy ) that are less strongly associated. Although validity evidence for these measures still is relatively sparse, the results to date are encouraging: Back et al. (2009), for example, showed that implicit measures of the FFM personality traits predicted behavior even after controlling for scores on objective measures of these same characteristics.

Behavioral and Performance Measures

A final approach is to infer important personality characteristics from direct samples of behavior. For example, Funder and Colvin (1988) brought opposite-sex pairs of participants into the laboratory and had them engage in a five-minute “getting acquainted” conversation; raters watched videotapes of these interactions and then scored the participants on various personality characteristics. Mehl, Gosling, and Pennebaker (2006) used the electronically activated recorder (EAR) to obtain samples of ambient sounds in participants’ natural environments over a period of two days; EAR-based scores then were related to self- and observer-rated measures of personality. For instance, more frequent talking over this two-day period was significantly related to both self- and observer-ratings of extraversion. As a final example, Gosling, Ko, Mannarelli, and Morris (2002) sent observers into college students’ bedrooms and then had them rate the students’ personality characteristics on the Big Five traits. The averaged observer ratings correlated significantly with participants’ self-ratings on all five traits. Follow-up analyses indicated that conscientious students had neater rooms, whereas those who were high in openness to experience had a wider variety of books and magazines.

Behavioral measures offer several advantages over other approaches to assessing personality. First, because behavior is sampled directly, this approach is not subject to the types of response biases (e.g., self-enhancement bias, reference group effect) that can distort scores on objective tests. Second, as is illustrated by the Mehl et al. (2006) and Gosling et al. (2002) studies, this approach allows people to be studied in their daily lives and in their natural environments, thereby avoiding the artificiality of other methods (Mehl et al., 2006). Finally, this is the only approach that actually assesses what people do, as opposed to what they think or feel (see Baumeister, Vohs, & Funder, 2007).

At the same time, however, this approach also has some disadvantages. This assessment strategy clearly is much more cumbersome and labor intensive than using objective tests, particularly self-report. Moreover, similar to projective tests, behavioral measures generate a rich set of data that then need to be scored in a reliable and valid way. Finally, even the most ambitious study only obtains relatively small samples of behavior that may provide a somewhat distorted view of a person’s true characteristics. For example, your behavior during a “getting acquainted” conversation on a single given day inevitably will reflect a number of transient influences (e.g., level of stress, quality of sleep the previous night) that are idiosyncratic to that day.

No single method of assessing personality is perfect or infallible; each of the major methods has both strengths and limitations. By using a diversity of approaches, researchers can overcome the limitations of any single method and develop a more complete and integrative view of personality.

Discussion Questions

• Under what conditions would you expect self-ratings to be most similar to informant ratings? When would you expect these two sets of ratings to be most different from each other?
• The findings of Gosling, et al. (2002) demonstrate that we can obtain important clues about students’ personalities from their dorm rooms. What other aspects of people’s lives might give us important information about their personalities?
• Suppose that you were planning to conduct a study examining the personality trait of honesty. What method or methods might you use to measure it?
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• Gosling, S. D., Ko, S. J., Mannarelli, T., & Morris, M. E. (2002). A room with a cue: Personality judgments based on offices and bedrooms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82 , 379–388.
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• Kotov, R., Gamez, W., Schmidt, F., & Watson, D. (2010). Linking “big” personality traits to anxiety, depressive, and substance use disorders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136 , 768–821.
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• McClelland, D. C., Koestner, R., & Weinberger, J. (1989). How do self-attributed and implicit motives differ? Psychological Review, 96 , 690–702.
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• McCrae, R. R., Costa, P. T., Jr., & Martin, T. A. (2005). The NEO-PI-3: A more readable Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 84 , 261–270.
• McGregor, I., McAdams, D. P., & Little, B. R. (2006). Personal projects, life stories, and happiness: On being true to traits. Journal of Research in Personality, 40 , 551–572.
• Mehl, M. R., Gosling, S. D., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2006). Personality in its natural habitat: Manifestations and implicit folk theories of personality in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90 , 862–877.
• Meyer, G. J., & Kurtz, J. E. (2006). Advancing personality assessment terminology: Time to retire “objective” and “projective” as personality test descriptors. Journal of Personality Assessment, 87 , 223–225.
• Mihura, J. L., Meyer, G. J., Dumitrascu, N., & Bombel, G. (2012). The validity of individual Rorschach variables: Systematic Reviews and meta-analyses of the Comprehensive System. Psychological Bulletin . (Advance online publication.) doi:10.1037/a0029406
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Personality Tests

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

The psychology of personality promises to help people better understand themselves and those they know in relation to others. Personality tests, which typically take the form of questionnaires, are the tools for doing that. These measures of personality are also used in scientific research to explore how individual differences in various traits correspond with other aspects of people’s lives.

Personality tests are only “tests” in a loose sense: There is no right or wrong answer to their questions. And the best personality measures are not “pass/fail”—they don’t sort individuals into one category or another, but instead place them on a series of trait continuums depending on how they compare to other people.

On This Page

• How Valid Personality Tests Work
• Widely Used Personality Tests

There are countless personality tests. Even a well-established set of traits like the Big Five can be assessed using a number of different questionnaires. Still, scientifically validated personality tests tend to have some features in common.

Test-takers typically read a series of items that describe a person and indicate the degree to which the description applies to them—or another person, if they are rating someone else’s personality. These lists can be as short as 10 items and as long as a couple of hundred (longer tests tend to provide more reliable results), and the items can be single adjectives or full statements about one’s nature.

For example, the second version of the Big Five Inventory includes the following statements, along with several dozen others, each of which is used to assess one of the Big Five traits:

• Is complex, a deep thinker. ( openness )
• Is reliable, can always be counted on. ( conscientiousness )
• Is talkative. ( extroversion )
• Is compassionate, has a soft heart. ( agreeableness )
• Keeps their emotions under control. ( emotional stability/neuroticism )

When the ratings for the various items are totaled, the scores allow for comparisons between the individual and average scores based on samples of other test-takers. In this way, one can find out that they rate above average on openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, low on extroversion, and high on neuroticism—or any other mixture of trait evaluations.

While Big Five tests like the BFI-2 are relatively comprehensive, providing a broad picture of a person’s personality, there are many other questionnaires, some of which (such as the Narcissistic Personality Inventory) focus on a specific trait. Other personality measures, like the Hare Psychopathy Checklist , are administered through an interview with a trained professional, rather than with a self-test.

Take an online Big Five personality test.

Below are some of the most well-known and commonly used tools for assessing personality. Many are referred to as “inventories,” reflecting a collection of items to which a person responds, each one tied to different dimensions of personality. These measurement instruments are used in a range of contexts, from psychology studies to employee evaluation, and—importantly—some are better supported than others by scientific research.

• Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2) is the latest version of a tool for assessing the Big Five personality traits, which it labels as Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Negative Emotionality, and Open-Mindedness, as well as facets of each. It is employed in psychological research and can be used for personal assessment.
• The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) is a revised version of a tool originally named after the Big Five trait factors of Neuroticism, Extroversion, and Openness to Experience, though the current tool assesses Agreeableness and Conscientiousness as well, plus 30 more specific traits within each factor. It is used in psychological research.
• The HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) is used to measure six dimensions of personality, based on the HEXACO model. They include factors that correspond to the Big Five, as well as the factor of Honesty–Humility. It is employed in psychological research and can be used for personal assessment.
• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is used primarily to assess symptoms of mental illness and maladaptive personality traits. The latest version (MMPI-2-RF) includes scales related to aggression, social avoidance, self-doubt, and other specific problems, as well as scales for broader, overarching factors. The MMPI is used for research and in applications such as mental health care, forensic evaluation, and candidate assessment for public safety jobs.
• The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) is an instrument designed to measure psychopathic traits, such as impulsivity and lack of remorse or guilt, in criminal offenders or others in forensic settings. Unlike personality tests that involve self-report questionnaires, it is meant to be administered through an interview and evaluation of the individual by a clinical professional.
• Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) , like the Hare checklist, is designed to assess a person’s levels of psychopathic traits, but it was developed for use with non-criminals and its results are based on responses to questionnaire items.
• The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) is used to specifically assess an individual’s level of narcissism, often in a research context, though it can also be used for self-evaluation. It is not used for diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is based on criteria in the DSM-V.
• The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) is based on the five-factor model and intended for predicting work performance, including in job candidates. Its scales are organized based on work-relevant characteristics such as ambition, sociability, and interpersonal sensitivity.
• The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assigns individuals a psychological “type” summarized in four of eight possible letters: Extroversion (E) or Introversion (I); Sensing (S) or Intuiting (N); Thinking (T) or Feeling (F); and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P). The results combine into one of 16 types, such as ENTJ or ISFP. The MBTI is widely used in business—such as for employee evaluation or during seminars—and unofficial versions are available for personal use, though scientists often cite its limitations, including that its separate “types” oversimplify personality differences.
• DISC or DiSC is the name given to a collection of personality assessments that assign individuals one of four types, or a blend of the types: Dominance (D), Influence (I), Steadiness (S), and Conscientiousness (C). Like the Myers-Briggs, it is promoted for use in learning about individual differences within organizations, but is generally not favored by contemporary personality scientists.
• Enneagram-related tests are based on the concept of the Enneagram of Personality and assign personality descriptions based on nine primary types and often secondary types called “wings.” While the Enneagram has been promoted in business and spiritual contexts, it lacks empirical support and is infrequently used by personality scientists.

Any personality test can be fun and intriguing. But from a scientific perspective, tools such as the Big Five Inventory (and others based on the five-factor model) and those used by psychological scientists, such as the MMPI, are likely to provide the most reliable and valid results. One thing that sets many of these tests apart is more nuanced scoring. The Myers-Briggs and other tests are used to assign people personality “types,” but traits are not black-or-white: the research suggests that they are more like a spectrum, with high and low ends.

While measures of the five (or six) proposed personality factors offer a relatively comprehensive and nuanced view of personality, they have limitations, too. Research suggests they may provide less reliable results outside of Western, industrialized countries—and that the major factors may not manifest in the same way everywhere in the world.

That depends on the test. Some, like the Big Five Inventory, can be taken online. Others, like the NEO Personality Inventory or the Myers-Briggs, must be acquired from a publisher for a fee—though brief or adapted versions of such tests may be available online.

In addition to the above descriptions of each kind of test, consider the source of any online test. A test provided directly by a scientist at a well-known university may be more empirically supported and informative than one offered by someone with no scientific credentials. Tests that provided nuanced scores (in terms of percentiles, for example) are likely to be more valid than those that give you a specific “type.”

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Types of Personality Tests

There's more to personality tests than quirky online quizzes

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Amy Morin, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and international bestselling author. Her books, including "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," have been translated into more than 40 languages. Her TEDx talk,  "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong," is one of the most viewed talks of all time.

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• Basic Types
• Limitations

There are many different types of personality tests that can help clarify a clinical diagnosis, guide therapeutic interventions, and help predict how people may respond in different situations. Some commonly used types of personality tests include the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), and the HEXACO Personality Inventory.

We informally assess and describe personality every day. When we talk about ourselves and others, we frequently refer to different characteristics of an individual's personality. For example, we might refer to someone as adventurous, kind, or moody.

Psychologists do much the same thing when they assess personality but on a more systematic and scientific level. They use different types of personality tests to make these assessments. Personality testing and assessment refer to techniques designed to measure the characteristic patterns of traits that people exhibit across various situations.

At a Glance

Personality tests are about much more than silly online quizzes that tell you which "Friends" character you are. They can also be serious tools in diagnostics, therapy, job recruiting and training, and self-reflection. Keep reading to learn more about the different types of personality tests available and how they are used in fields like mental health, psychology research, law, education, and human resources.

Two Basic Types of Personality Tests

How do personality tests work? Personality testing is designed to elicit responses from participants about their behaviors, preferences, emotional responses, interactions, and motivations in order to evaluate personality characteristics and patterns.

There are two basic types of personality tests: self-report inventories and projective tests:

• Self-report inventories involve having test-takers read questions and then rate how well the question or statement applies to them. One of the most common self-report inventories is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) .
• Projective tests involve presenting the test-taker with a vague scene, object, or scenario and then asking them to give their interpretation of the test item. One well-known example of a projective test is the Rorschach Inkblot Test .

The greatest benefit of self-report inventories is that they can be standardized and use established norms. Self-inventories are relatively easy to administer and have much higher reliability and validity than projective tests. Projective tests, on the other hand, are most often used in psychotherapy settings and allow therapists to gather a great deal of information about a client quickly.

For example, a therapist can look not only at a person's response to a particular test item, but they can also take into account other qualitative information such as tone of voice and body language . All of this can be explored in greater depth as people progress through therapy sessions.

How Different Types of Personality Tests Are Used

There are a number of reasons why a person might take a personality test. Personality tests are administered for a number of different purposes, including:

• Assessing theories
• Evaluating the effectiveness of therapy
• Diagnosing psychological problems
• Looking at changes in personality
• Screening job candidates

Personality tests are also sometimes used in forensic settings to conduct risk assessments, establish competence, and in child custody disputes. Other settings where personality testing may be used are school psychology, career and occupational counseling, relationship counseling, clinical psychology, and employment testing.

Examples of Different Types of Personality Tests

Today, a wide variety of personality tests have become popular and are often based upon specific theories of systems of personality. Commonly used personality tests include:

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a self-report inventory that categorizes a person's personality into one of 16 different types. It is based on Carl Jung's approach to personality and has become one of the most popular types of personality tests in the world.

The test contains four different scales: extraversion (E)-introversion (I), sensing (S)-intuition (N), thinking (T)-feeling (f), and judging (J)-perceiving (P). Based on a person's responses, they are identified by a four-letter acronym (such as INFP or ESFJ) that describes their specific type.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is one of the most widely used and well-researched types of personality tests. It is used in professional settings to diagnose mental health conditions and evaluate treatment programs' effectiveness. It is also frequently used in business and forensic settings.

The HEXACO Personality Inventory

The HEXACO Personality Inventory measures six key areas of personality: honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. The test originates from research on the Big Five personality types.

Other Five-Factor Personality Tests

Various personality tests assess these traits, including The NEO Personality Inventory, the Big Five Inventory, the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), and the Five Item Personality Inventory (FIPI). Research suggests the test can help predict behavior.

The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

The 16PF Personality Questionnaire identifies personality traits based on Raymond Cattell's trait theory of personality. The test is still widely used today in a variety of settings, including in employee selection, couples therapy, and career counseling.

DISC Assessment

The DISC assessment identifies four main personality categories: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. It is frequently utilized in workplace settings because it focuses more on actions. The test contains 28 statements, each containing four options for the test-taker to choose. Respondents are then identified as one of 12 different personality types based on their results.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

The Rorschach inkblot test is a type of projective personality test that involves giving a subjective interpretation of an ambiguous inkblot. A therapist then interprets the results based on a scoring system, of which several exist. While the test is well-known, it lacks validity, reliability, and diagnostic value.

Keirsey Temperament Sorter

The Keirsey Temperament Sorter was developed in the late 1970s by psychologist David Keirsey. It is a self-report inventory that categorizes personality into four main temperaments. Each temperament is then further subdivided into four different character types.

History of Personality Tests

One of the earliest forms of personality testing, known as phrenology , emerged during the late 18th century and was popularized during the 19th century. This approach involved the measurement of bumps on the human skull, which were then attributed to specific personality characteristics.

Later, psychologists began attempting to determine how many different personality traits there were. Gordon Allport, for example, proposed that there were more than 4,000. Psychologist Raymond Cattell used a statistical technique known as factor analysis to whittle this list down to 16 different personality factors, while Hans Eysenck narrowed the list down to just three.

One of the most popular approaches to personality today is known as the " Big Five" theory of personality . This theory suggests that personality is composed of five broad dimensions: extraversion , agreeableness , conscientiousness , neuroticism , and openness .

Impact of Different Types of Personality Tests

Personality tests can be useful for a number of reasons. These tests can help you learn more about yourself and better understand both your strengths and weaknesses. And while all personality tests are different, learning that you might be high on a specific trait can help you gain greater insight into your own behavioral patterns.

For example, your results on a personality test might indicate that you rate high on introversion . This result suggests that you have to expend energy in social situations, so you need to find time alone to recharge your energy. Knowing that you have this tendency can help you recognize when you are getting drained from socializing and set aside quiet moments to regain your equilibrium.

Tips for Taking Different Types of Personality Tests

There is no way to prepare for a personality test, but there are some things that you can do to make sure that your results are the best reflection of your personality:

• Be honest. Don't try to present an "ideal" version of yourself. Instead, try to just answer in a way that reflects who you are and how you feel.
• Read the instructions. Your results might not be an accurate reflection of you if you don't understand the guidelines or questions.
• Don't try to "beat the test." Avoid trying to guess what you think might be seen as the "ideal" answer. Just respond honestly.

As you start looking at all of the different personality assessments that are available, you will probably notice one thing quite quickly: There are a lot of "informal" tests out there! Just a simple online search will turn up an enormous range of quizzes and tests designed to tell you something about your personality.

The vast majority of quizzes that you'll encounter online are just for fun. They can be entertaining and they might even give you a little insight into your personality, but they are in no way formal, scientific assessments of personality.

Our fast and free personality test can help give you an idea of your dominant personality traits and how they may influence your behaviors:

Potential Pitfalls of Various Types of Personality Tests

While personality tests may be useful at times, this does not mean that they are not without drawbacks and possible pitfalls. The specific pitfalls and limitations for each of the many types of personality tests depend on the specific tests, how it is used, and how the results are applied. The following are just a few things you should consider:

Deception Is Possible

One of the biggest disadvantages of self-report inventories is that it is possible for people to engage in deception when answering questions. Even though techniques can be used to detect deception, people can still successfully provide false answers often in an effort to "fake good" or appear more socially acceptable and desirable.

Introspection Is Needed

Another potential problem is that people are not always good at accurately describing their own behavior. People tend to overestimate certain tendencies (especially ones that are viewed as socially desirable) while underestimating other characteristics. This can have a serious impact on the accuracy of a personality test.

Tests Can Be Long

Self-report personality tests can also be quite long, in some cases taking several hours to complete. Not surprisingly, respondents can quickly become bored and frustrated. When this happens, test-takers will often answer questions as quickly as possible, often without even reading the test items.

Scoring Can Be Subjective

Projective tests also have a number of disadvantages and limitations. The first problem lies in the interpretation of the responses. Scoring test items are highly subjective and different raters might provide entirely different viewpoints of the responses.

Results May Be Inconsistent

Not all personality tests are reliable or valid. Reliability refers to the consistency of a test while validity involves whether the test is really measuring what it claims to measure.

There are many types of personality tests with many different uses. Some are informal, "just for fun" type tests that might give you a laugh or even a little insight into different aspects of your personality. There are also types of personality tests that have been specifically developed for specific purposes and to evaluate key aspects of personality. In such cases, these tests have been standardized and empirically evaluate to help assess the validity and reliability of their results.

Knowing which type of personality test you are taking and recognizing how the results can be interpreted can give you a better idea of what your own results might mean. If you are interested in taking a personality test to learn more about yourself, talk to a licensed mental health professional to learn more.

Schröder VS, Heimann AL, Ingold PV, Kleinmann M. Enhancing personality assessment in the selection context: A study protocol on alternative measures and an extended bandwidth of criteria .  Front Psychol . 2021;12:643690. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.643690

Moyle P, Hackston J. Personality assessment for employee development: Ivory tower or real world? .  J Pers Assess . 2018;100(5):507–517. doi:10.1080/00223891.2018.1481078

Iudici A, Salvini A, Faccio E, Castelnuovo G. The clinical assessment in the legal field: An empirical study of bias and limitations in forensic expertise .  Front Psychol . 2015;6:1831. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01831

Cattell HEP, Mead AD.  The sixteen personality factor questionnaire (16PF) . In: Boyle GJ, Matthews G, Saklofske DH, eds.  The Sage Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment: Volume 2 - Personality Measurement and Testing . Sage, 2016. doi:10.4135/9781849200479.n7

Monaro M, Mazza C, Colasanti M, et al. Detecting faking-good response style in personality questionnaires with four choice alternatives .  Psychol Res . 2021;85(8):3094-3107. doi:10.1007/s00426-020-01473-3

Hofer G, Langmann L, Burkart R, Neubauer AC. Who knows what we are good at? Unique insights of the self, knowledgeable informants, and strangers into a person’s abilities . Journal of Research in Personality . 2022;98:104226. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2022.104226

Ferrando PJ, Navarro-González D. Reliability and external validity of personality test scores: The role of person and item error .  Psicothema . 2021;33(2):259-267. doi:10.7334/psicothema2020.346

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Mbti basics: what is the myers-briggs personality test.

Of all the personality assessments out there, one reigns supreme as perhaps the most popular and well known: the MBTI. "MBTI" stands for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and the nearly 100-year-old questionnaire has become a standby among all the tests out there.

Here's what to know about the MBTI, what research and personality experts think about the test, and how you can work with your results.

What is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)? 

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality assessment that groups people into one of 16 categories. To do this, the MBTI asks questions based on four categories of preferences: extroverted versus introverted, sensing versus intuiting, thinking versus feeling, and judging versus perceiving. Virtually everyone will fall toward one end of the spectrum for each of the four categories, resulting in a four-letter combination, or "type" (e.g., ESTP, INFJ, etc.).

According to John Hackston, the head of thought leadership at The Myers-Briggs Company , it's important to note that while the MBTI is often called a test, there are no right or wrong answers, with each type having its own strengths and weaknesses. So, "test" really isn't an accurate word.

"The MBTI isn't just a test or assessment. It's a process," he tells mbg. "So we don't say, 'Here are the results, good luck.' We say, 'Here are the results; now let's talk that through to help make the results more relevant to your reality.'"

Today, the MBTI has become one of the most popular, well-researched, and well-known personality assessments of our time—but it does receive its fair share of criticism (which we'll get into later on).

How the Myers-Briggs assessment works.

The MBTI questionnaire looks to identify where among each of four preference categories you fall, in order to come up with your four-letter type.

According to Dario Nardi, Ph.D. , personality expert and author of Neuroscience of Personality , the word "preference" here is key. "As in, what is it you prefer to do in various situations?" he notes. For example, someone who's introverted may typically prefer to spend time alone, but that doesn't mean they never enjoy the company of others.

You can take the assessment online, though Hackston says you can also work with someone who's trained in the MBTI, to find out your type and how to work with it.

All of the questions in the assessment, Nardi adds, will relate to the four preference categories. Here's a breakdown of each of those categories:

Extroversion (E) – Introversion (I)

Extroversion versus introversion refers to how you get your energy. Extroverts feel energized by spending time with others, while introverts prefer to recharge on their own. As psychologist Kristina Hallett, Ph.D., ABPP , previously explained to mbg, extroverts are "enlivened by crowds, parties, and spending time with others," while introverts "prefer to re-energize through quiet time and solitary pursuits."

She adds that most of us are likely a mix of both (aka an " ambivert "), though "your type depends on which one you tend to gravitate toward more."

Sensing (S) – Intuition (N)

Sensing versus intuition is all about thought processes and how you gather information. "I think of sensing as information gathering through the here-and-now physical senses and generally more grounded in practicality. Intuition is information gathering from a broader, more 'big-picture' perspective, making links between patterns that may not be as easily seen from the specific in-the-moment view," Hallett explains.

Thinking (T) – Feeling (F)

Thinking versus feeling is about how you prefer to make decisions. Think of it as the competition between "head versus heart." Those with a preference for feeling prefer to follow their values, emotions, and relationships, while those who prefer thinking make decisions based on logic and facts.

Judging (J) – Perceiving (P)

Lastly, judging versus perceiving relates to how you approach your life, especially when it comes to planning for things to come. Someone with a preference for judging will feel supported and secure with the help of things like schedules, structure, and clearly defined expectations. A preference for perceiving, meanwhile, likes flexibility and spontaneity, and may actually be turned off by too much structure and routine.

The 16 MBTI personality types. 

The development of the MBTI. 

According to both Hackston and Nardi, the MBTI was first inspired by the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. In 1921, he published a book called Psychological Type, where he first introduced his therapeutic framework for understanding "forms of consciousness—the ways people make decisions and gather information and in general, how they think about things internally," Nardi explains.

His ideas were then picked up by Katharine Cook Briggs and, later on, her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. "Isabel developed the first version of the MBTI, so that's why it's called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator—because it was Isabel and her mother who were ultimately behind it," Hackston explains.

From there, the first commercial version of the MBTI came out in 1977, he says. And since then, a lot of research has been done to modify and improve it. The most recent development of what Hackston calls the "new global version" of the MBTI is just over a few years old, having been updated in 2018.

Research on the MBTI. 

According to Nardi, the MBTI is the most researched personality assessment in the world. That said, the jury is still out on to whether the test is accurate. Some research and personality experts question the MBTI's validity . According to one study published in the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass in 2019, "the MBTI theory falters on rigorous theoretical criteria in that it lacks agreement with known facts and data, lacks testability, and possesses internal contradictions."

It's also worth noting that some of the research in support of the MBTI's validity is funded by companies that sell the assessment and follow-up materials, calling conflicts of interest into question.

But some studies have indeed found the MBTI to be a good measure of personality. In a 2002 study 1 published in the journal Educational and Psychological Measurement , the authors write, "The MBTI and its scales yielded scores with strong internal consistency and test-retest reliability estimates."

The MBTI also has research-backed implications for romantic compatibility . One study 2 , for example, found that if two people are the same in sensing/judging (ESTJ, ESFJ, ISTJ, ISFJ) or intuition/feeling (ENFP, INFP, ENFJ, INFJ), there's a greater than 70% chance of being compatible in a relationship.

Importantly, even proponents of the MBTI admit that your type won't determine everything about you. "Research says that about half of what you do and who you are is ultimately about your type. It'll also be affected by your upbringing, your environment, all sorts of things," Hackston notes.

Criticisms of the MBTI. 

Being what's probably the most popular personality assessment in the world today, the MBTI has, of course, come up against some criticism. In addition to the research's mixed results when it comes to the assessment's reliability, Hallett explains some of the main criticisms also include that people's results can change, or that people can feel "boxed-in" by the results.

In a 1993 paper titled " Measuring the MBTI and Coming Up Short ," David Pittenger, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Marshall University, reviews the research on the Myers-Briggs test and raises questions about its underlying concepts. "The MBTI reminds us of the obvious truth that all people are not alike, but then claims that every person can be fit neatly into one of 16 boxes," he writes. "I believe that MBTI attempts to force the complexities of human personality into an artificial and limiting classification scheme. The focus on the 'typing' of people reduces the attention paid to the unique qualities and potential of each individual."

To that, Hackston and Nardi explain that these types are about preferences, and your type doesn't suggest you can't move outside your own preferences. Nardi says you can think of it like whether you're left or right-handed. "If I'm right-handed, that doesn't mean I don't use my left hand, or I don't use my hands together," he explains.

Hackston notes the results are meant to be more of a "springboard" for understanding your preferences so you can recognize your own patterns and actively choose to "go against your type" when situations call for it.

Some experts also do not respect the work of Carl Jung, Katharine Cook Briggs, or Isabel Briggs Myers. Jung, for one thing, has received plenty of criticism, given how much of his theories were based on his own dreams and ideas as opposed to scientific fact. Cook Briggs and Briggs Myers were also not trained psychologists or mental health professionals, though Nardi points out that this particular criticism is "actually incredibly sexist because, at the time, it was very difficult for women to become psychologists or even get into college."

Another criticism of the MBTI is using it to assess or predict performance in the workplace, which Hackston, Hallett, and Nardi all agree is not what this assessment is intended for. "It's not about performance—it's about preference. No personality assessment should be used for hiring, and in some states, it's actually illegal to use it that way," Nardi notes.

How the MBTI compares to other personality tests. 

There are plenty of personality tests out there that focus on different things. The Big 5 personality test, for example, measures your degree of five traits: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Or take the Fisherman Temperament Inventory , which groups everyone into one of four types—Explorer, Builder, Negotiator, or Director—based on brain imaging.

And then you have your more abstract, less scientifically sound ways to understand your personality, such as astrology or human design , which have no real evidence to support them but nevertheless receive plenty of attention from people curious to understand themselves. And those two, of course, are not based on a self-reported questionnaire but on your birth date, birth time, and birth location.

The key to understanding the MBTI in relation to other personality assessments , according to Hackston, is to recognize that the MBTI is simply intended to work with the four preference categories and give you one of the 16 types. He adds that comparing these different tests is like comparing a screwdriver to a hammer; they're not meant for the same purpose.

How to make the most of your results: 

Dig deeper..

If you've taken the Myers-Briggs assessment and are wondering how you can apply it to make the most of your results, the last thing you want to do is read your results once and forget about them. As Nardi notes, you can look at your results and ask yourself questions like:

• What is my shadow?
• What am I more or less conscious of?
• Where am I projecting onto others?
• Where are my own needs not being met?
• Where am I expecting people to be like me when that's not who they are?

As Hackston adds, there are a lot of guides available for applying your results, from websites to apps, so you can learn more about how to work with your type on an ongoing basis.

Get to know yourself.

Self-reflection is a valuable tool, and that's one thing the MBTI can offer, according to Hallett. With the help of your results, start to look for behaviors and thoughts (both positive and negative) that you regularly experience. "Useful self-reflection relies, in part, on being able to determine and start to separate out your 'true' or 'most accurate at present' attitudes and beliefs," Hallett notes.

Identify your strengths—and weaknesses.

Hallett explains that the MBTI is a great springboard for "being willing to look in the mirror and both own some of your strengths and also look at where perhaps you may be able to make some shift in attitude and behavior."

Each type comes with its set of strengths and weaknesses, so identifying yours can help you make decisions. "Knowing your type is like having a shorthand description of common challenges or areas of success. Often, people find this to be more affirming than a source of 'new' information about themselves," Hallett adds.

Improve your relationships.

Another excellent application of the MBTI is to use it for improving your relationships , from romantic ones to platonic ones, and yes, even in the workplace. "Using this in the context of work or relationships, this is perhaps a slightly more helpful means of planning areas of personal growth or advocating for needed support," Hallett explains, adding, "It's a great way to begin to develop a different perspective of self and others, in a positive, problem-solving manner."

And as Nardi notes, when you understand someone else's type, you also understand why they do the things they do, so in times of conflict, you can meet them halfway.

Adjust accordingly.

Lastly, Nardi says your MBTI results never mean you always have to behave in a certain way. In fact, it's quite the opposite, with the MBTI showing you where you can make adjustments as necessary. The different preferences can be expressed in different ways, he says, "and it's up to the person to decide how they're going to express that."

That's right—"We actually have choice about how we can express ourselves, and a lot of it is about perspective shifting," Nardi explains. "So, once I know what my type is and learn that people are different types, that gives us room to not be thinking, 'My way is the best way,'" for example.

The takeaway.

While it has received criticism, the MBTI holds a strong spot as one of the most popular and most well-researched personality assessments out there. All personality assessments should be taken with a grain of salt, but if it helps you understand yourself better and you feel you're getting some benefit out of it, that's ultimately the most important thing.

Like any personality assessment, the key to understanding and working with your MBTI type lies not in putting yourself in a box but in developing a greater understanding of your patterns and making changes where you see fit. As Nardi puts it, "We are not a type; we have a type—and we have choices."

• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013164402062004004
• https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1994-45012-001

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Personality Tests: What Your Results Actually Mean

Do you ever wonder what makes you unique? Or why some of your friends are so outgoing while others are more introspective? Have you ever taken a personality test and wanted to know how to interpret the results?

Personality tests can help us gain insight into our strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. Employers or universities can also use them to assess applicants' suitability for certain roles or courses. By understanding the meaning behind your results, you may have a better idea of where your true passions lie and which career paths could be most fulfilling for you in the long run.

In this article, we'll explain exactly what it means when an employer looks at your personality test results — and how knowing this information can help you succeed.

Understanding personality

Personality is the unique set of individual characteristics defining who we are. It encompasses many traits, including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and attitudes. But how do personalities develop, and can they change over time?

In terms of brain function, several brain areas are involved in shaping our personalities. The prefrontal cortex controls emotions, while the amygdala plays a role in our sense of fear and aggression. The striatum and thalamus are involved in reward processing and motivation, respectively.

But can our personalities change over time? The answer is yes, to an extent. While genetic makeup plays a significant role in shaping our personalities, research has shown that environmental factors can influence our personalities throughout our lives.

For example, experiences such as trauma or significant life changes can lead to changes in personality traits such as neuroticism and openness. Similarly, engaging in activities such as meditation, therapy, and self-reflection can also lead to positive changes in personality traits such as emotional stability and agreeableness.

If you are experiencing trauma, support is available. Please see our Get Help Now page for more resources.

Understanding the different facets of your personality is an important first step in gaining insight into yourself and how you interact with others. Whether you've taken a personality test or are just wondering what makes you unique, learning about the various aspects of your identity can help provide greater understanding and clarity.

Most common types of personality tests

Personality tests can be a powerful tool for understanding ourselves and our behaviors. They can help us gain insight into our strengths, weaknesses, and preferences and give employers or universities an idea of what kind of team participant or student we might be. But with so many personality tests, it can be hard to know which one is right for you — or how to interpret the results when they return.

The most widely used personality tests are based on the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits — openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These models measure how much each trait influences our behavior in different areas of life, such as relationships, work, and decision-making.

Other popular tests are based on Jungian theory or psychological types like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator . Jungian theory focuses on understanding inner motivations and archetypes, while the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assesses how your preferences in different areas (e.g., thinking vs. feeling) shape your decision-making.

Interpreting personality test results

Personality tests can be incredibly helpful in gaining insight into yourself and others — but only if their results are interpreted correctly. It's important to remember that these tests measure tendencies rather than absolutes, so try not to take them too literally or use them as a definitive source of truth about who you are.

When you look at the results of a personality test, pay special attention to any extreme scores — either very low or very high — as they may indicate areas of strength or weakness. For example, scoring very low on agreeableness could mean you have a harder time compromising or working well with others. On the other hand, scoring high on extraversion could indicate your ability to thrive in social environments and be a natural leader.

It's also important to remember that personality tests are just one tool for understanding ourselves — they shouldn't replace self-reflection or honest conversations with those close to us. By combining the results of a personality test with our observations and understanding, we can get an even clearer picture of who we are — and use this information to make better decisions about our lives.

Employers and universities use personality tests to assess applicants' suitability for certain roles or courses. They can also help understand team dynamics, develop better communication strategies, and identify individual strengths that can be leveraged for the benefit of the whole organization.

For example, an employer might use a personality test to identify applicants with good problem-solving skills or excellent customer service capabilities — traits they may not be able to glean from a resume alone. A university might use a personality test to determine which students are most likely to excel in their program or decide which career path may best suit a particular individual.

Personality tests are also becoming increasingly popular amongst individuals looking for self-improvement. By understanding our traits and how they affect our behavior, we can make more informed decisions about coping with difficult situations or taking advantage of our natural strengths. We can also use them as a tool for self-reflection, helping us better understand why we do what we do and what we need to do to become the best version of ourselves.

Tips for taking personality tests

When taking a personality test, being honest and open-minded is important. Don't try to guess the "right" answer — instead, answer honestly and from your perspective. It can also be helpful to take more than one test to compare the results and better understand who you are.

You should remember that these tests are just tools — they don't define who we are or what our futures will look like. Instead, they provide insight into our personalities that can help us make better decisions about which paths to pursue.

You can find a variety of free and paid personality tests online, so it's important to research the ones you are considering taking to make sure they use scientifically validated methods. The results from these tests can be incredibly valuable — but only if you interpret them correctly and don't take them as absolute truths about who you are.

Some additional tips to keep in mind when taking a personality test:

• Read the questions carefully
• Allow yourself plenty of time, and don't rush through it
• Don't compare your results with those of other people
• Take breaks if you need them
• Be prepared for unexpected results
• Remember that these tests measure tendencies, not absolutes

Explore personality in therapy online

While personality tests can be invaluable for self-discovery and understanding, it's important to remember that they are just one piece of the puzzle — not the entire picture. By combining the results with our observations and experiences, we can better understand who we are and how best to use our unique strengths.

Online therapy can also be a great way to gain insight into your personality and motivations. In therapy, you'll work with an experienced professional who can help you explore the results of your personality test in a safe, supportive environment and provide guidance to help you make positive changes in your life. With knowledge of who we are and understanding our strengths, limitations, and motivations, we can make more informed decisions about our lives and pursue paths that allow us to live the best life possible.

A recent clinical study indicates cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) may effectively increase positive affect within treatment sessions. CBT is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviors, allowing individuals to control their emotions and ultimately make healthy life changes. The study found that those who received CBT experienced increased positive affect compared to their pre-treatment levels. These findings suggest that CBT can effectively increase feelings of happiness and positivity in individuals seeking therapy or self-improvement.

Your personality can be an incredibly useful tool for finding paths to positive and meaningful life experiences. By understanding our traits and how they affect our behavior, we can make more informed decisions about coping with difficult situations or taking advantage of our natural strengths. Understanding ourselves also gives us more empathy and compassion for others, making us better friends, family members, coworkers, and citizens.

Is there an actual free personality test?

Most official personality tests, like the Myers-Briggs and the DiSC assessment , cost money to take. However, if you don't want to spend money and want to take a personality test free of fees, there are multiple websites that offer free online surveys based on these tests. These online surveys aren't considered official personality tests by psychologists, but they may still interest you and provide insight into how you operate.

What are the 4 personality types test?

The Fisher Temperament Inventory categorizes people according to four temperaments: Explorer, Builder, Director, and Negotiator. The inventory measures a person in terms of curiosity/energy, caution/social norm, analysis/tough mindedness, and prosocial/empathetic characteristics.

How to know my personality?

A personality test is one way to better understand how your personality type influences your life. There are also other ways. For example, you could talk regularly with a therapist who would reflect your personality back to you as you built a relationship. You could also reflect alone, mentally or in a journal. Finally, you could ask your friends and family how they view your personality.

Which MBTI has anxiety?

People of any personality type can experience anxiety or develop an anxiety disorder. That said, studies suggest that being more introverted than extraverted may put a person at a greater risk for anxiety . If you disagree, it may be because you are introverted but do not have anxiety. Not all introverts have anxiety and not all extraverts are free from anxiety.

What is the rarest personality type?

Of the Myers-Briggs personality types, INFJ is least common. INFJ stands for introversion, intuition, feeling, and judging. About 1.5% of people in the U.S. are thought to have this personality type.

Are personality tests 100% accurate?

The results you get on a personality test may be affected by the mood and state of mind you were in when you took the test. Whether you strongly agree or strongly disagree with your personality test results, consider taking the test again at a different point in time, when you're in a different mood, in order to see if you score differently. 

Talking over your personality test results with a professional counselor or psychologist may also help you determine how accurate they are for you.

What are the Big 5 personality types?

The Big 5 personality model places people on a spectrum in five realms: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience. 

Extraversion measures a person's energy, talkativeness, and sociability. People who score high on extraversion often find it fun to make new friends. Agreeableness measures kindness, generosity, and the ability to forgive. Conscientiousness measures organization, reliability, and thoroughness. Neuroticism measures anxiety, tension, and self-pity. Openness measures curiosity, imagination, and insight. People scoring high on openness are often full of ideas.

What does MBTI stand for?

MBTI stands for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality test often referred to as the Myers-Briggs. This test uses a self-report questionnaire. There are four dimensions measured, with two categories in each dimension. These include extraversion/introversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. 

People can fall into one of 16 combinations of these different categories. Each personality type is communicated with an abbreviation using the first letter of each category a person falls into. For example, a person who scores extraversion, sensing, thinking, and judging would call their personality type ESTJ.

What is a good personality for you?

Personalities aren't necessarily good or bad, and everyone has different personality types. Instead, they help you understand what motivates you and how you've been interacting with the world. If you realize you'd like to grow more in a particular personality trait, that is possible. Working with a therapist could help you gain skills and characteristics you desire.

Is there a Type C personality?

The DiSC Assessment identifies a "C style" personality. The C stands for conscientiousness. People who have this quality are often cautious and engage with things carefully and thoroughly. The DiSC Assessment is a personality test often used by work teams. A DiSC result describes how a person operates in the workplace.

• How You Can Use A Free Personality Test Medically reviewed by Andrea Brant , LMHC
• What The True Colors Personality Test May Say About You Medically reviewed by Paige Henry , LMSW, J.D.
• Personality
• Relationships and Relations

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) | Official Myers Briggs Personality Test

Myers-briggs type indicator® (mbti®).

Results that engage and inspire

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® (MBTI ® ) assessment is one of the world’s most popular personality tools—because it works. Used by more than 88 percent of Fortune 500 companies in 115 countries, and available in 29 languages, it has become the go-to framework for people development globally. With more than 70 years of science-based, research-based insight, the MBTI assessment is a robust tool for self-awareness and improvement. It provides positive language for understanding and valuing individual differences. With practical insight that’s easy to understand and implement, the MBTI assessment has helped thousands of organizations and millions of people around the world improve how they communicate, learn, and work.

Powering productivity

The MBTI assessment can transform how people work together. Only 14 percent of executives believe that the traditional model of a hierarchical organization is effective. Forward-looking leaders are moving to a flexible, team-focused model. * MBTI insights enhance personal development, supporting team and leadership training, conflict management, career change, and transitions. Multinational companies value the common language the Myers-Briggs assessment provides for discussing interpersonal differences, making it the preferred choice for training and development programs around the world.

*  2017 Deloitte Human Capital Trends: Rewriting the rules for the digital age

How the MBTI assessment works

MBTI Personality Preferences

• How do you direct and receive energy—by focusing on the outside world, interacting with people and taking action, or by focusing on your inner world and reflecting on ideas, memories, and experiences?
• How do you take in information—by focusing on what you perceive using your five senses or by seeing the big picture and looking for relationships and patterns? 
• How do you decide and come to conclusions—by logically analyzing the situation or by considering what’s important to the people involved?
• How do you approach the outside world—in a planned, orderly way or a more flexible, spontaneous way? 

Your natural preferences in these four areas sort you into one of 16 distinct MBTI personality types. Understanding these types gives you objective insight that you can use to enhance your professional and personal relationships, as well as your direction, focus, and choices. 

The Four Myers-Briggs Preference Pairs

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Take the MBTI assessment online and discover your personality type.

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What our customers are saying

We've leveraged the MBTI ® framework to enhance our organization's culture through team development and applying the MBTI concepts to common growth areas, i.e. dealing with stress, change, etc.

— Gary Kinser, HR Manager, Toastmasters International

At FedEx, we’re leveraging the MBTI ® assessment to impact organizational culture by championing deeper dives past just the MBTI Profile, using some of the more robust reports to provide participants with more insight.

— Sam Haskins, Learning and Development Consultant, FedEx Corporation

The MBTI ® framework is foundational to our Leadership Development, which has a significant impact on our organization’s culture.

— Tracy Burpee, Director, Organizational Development, Augusta Medical Center

We use MBTI ® assessment about ten times per year and it always sparks amazing conversation. It brings such self-awareness to our students that the MBTI certified trainers here find it priceless.

— Allison Gross-Ebert, Training Manager, US Department of State

How to Use Personality Tests for Leaders

Ultimate Guide to Leadership Assessment 

PERSONALITY TESTS FOR LEADERS

Understanding How We're Wired

Personality tests for leaders are a huge source of fascination because people are always looking to learn about themselves. 

They might wonder if they have what it takes to be a great leader, or how their personality might be similar to famously successful leaders. In truth, personality is incredibly complex, and our unique combination of characteristics can manifest itself in innumerable ways. That’s why it’s important that HR uses personality tests carefully and correctly for leaders .

What Is a Personality Test? 

A personality test is designed to identify a person's natural characteristics, motivations, and tendencies. You might think of it as trying to uncover why they are the way they are. These factors tend to stay fixed over time, although major life events can sometimes change a person.

Typically, a personality test involves the leader responding to a series of statements related to their style and preferences. The tests are usually delivered online or as a questionnaire. 

For example, a personality test might make a statement like, “I enjoy large parties where I can meet new people.” The leader would then select their level of agreement with the statement, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” 

Other tests might make several statements and leaders need to choose which statement best describes them.  

The goal is for participants to quickly answer based on their immediate reaction to the question to get an accurate picture of their natural preferences. 

What Does a Personality Test Measure? 

Personality is one of the big causes for behavior, along with environment, learning, values, motivations, etc. Everyone has a personality and no two are the same.  

But because we can’t measure personality physically, like height and weight, personality tests help us use common language and science to describe and understand the unique characteristics that cause people to do what they do. 

That science, which is vast, has lead to a global conclusion that there are five common factors of personality, or what’s known as the “Big Five,” often known by the OCEAN acronym, which are: 

• Openness to Experience  
• Conscientiousness  
• Extroversion 
• Agreeableness 
• Neuroticism 

That’s not to say that there are only five overall factors. Underneath each personality trait are several subsets of characteristics that influence these broader five areas. That’s why you may see some providers like Hogan introduce a wider range of personality factors, such as ambition and inquisitiveness, among others.

Regardless of the framework used to interpret results, what’s important is that personality tests are consistent in measurement. They should accurately measure characteristic patterns related to how a person behaves at work, how they interact with others, and which parts of a job bring them satisfaction. This data can help to create a well-rounded view of a person and how they may react to situations on the job. 

When Should I Use a Personality Test for Leaders? 

There are a range of circumstances when you might consider using a personality assessment for your leaders. For example: 

Leadership Selection 

Personality tests can be useful when you are considering someone for a new role. The test could help raise any red flags that may prevent their success as a leader. In addition, the test may help you spot strengths where someone is highly inclined toward leadership. 

However, a word of caution: we do not recommend using a personality test on its own in leadership selection. It should be paired with behavioral data. That data might come in the form of an assessment center or a  behavioral interview . What’s important is that you get an accurate picture of what the person chooses to do, beyond just what they may be inclined to do based on their personality type. 

Using a personality type measure without a behavioral measure can lead to inaccurate conclusions about a leader. 

Leadership Development 

Personality tests can be particularly powerful in fueling leadership development . They can help leaders uncover deep insights about themselves and understand how they can leverage natural strengths. 

Personality data can also help leaders recognize when their natural instincts and reactions might be holding them back. They may recognize when their natural reaction, such as a tendency toward arrogance, might prevent them from trusting and listening to their teams. Once they are aware of a problematic personality trait, they can work to change their behavior. 

Leadership Succession 

Personality testing becomes increasingly important for leaders as they get promoted into higher positions. That’s because personal impact increases in each level of leadership. For that reason, companies looking to build a strong succession pipeline should consider helping leaders gain personal insight through personality testing to increase their effectiveness for future roles. 

What Are the Benefits of Using Personality Tests for Leaders? 

After taking a personality test, leaders should gain a better understanding of how they’re wired as a person. This deeper understanding can help them understand why certain leadership responsibilities and challenges are easier or harder for them.  

For example, an introverted person may find that they struggle to build their network. That doesn’t mean that they can’t do it. However, they may need to apply more conscious effort to networking. Meanwhile, an extroverted person may find themselves building networks nearly effortlessly. 

By having a better understanding of how their personality can enable or derail their performance, leaders are better equipped to manage their personality. They can leverage aspects of their personality that enable them to thrive. And they can recognize situations where they may need to modify their behavior. 

What Are the Dangers of Using Personality Tests for Leaders? 

Like any tool, personality tests for leaders can be used for good or poor purposes. It’s up to HR to ensure that personality tools are used properly. 

At DDI, one of our biggest cautions to our clients is against using personality assessments as a standalone tool to make leadership decisions. We strongly recommend pairing personality data with behavioral data. 

Why? Because when personality data are used in isolation, it’s too easy to misinterpret the data and insights. 

This can play out in several ways, but one of the most common is in “typecasting” people. Many companies will reach broad conclusions about their talent based on personality data. For example, they may assume that people who are introverts can’t build relationships across the organization. But that may not be correct. Many introverts are excellent at building relationships and can broaden their networks with conscious actions. 

This is especially important given the focus on inclusion and diversity . One of the biggest payoffs of diversity comes from having people with different perspectives and ways of thinking contribute to solving a problem. So it may be a mistake to limit the types of personalities accepted into leadership roles. 

Where we see personality data come to life is when it’s coupled with behavioral data. Together, you get a more holistic view of a person. You can see why they might do things, and how they get satisfaction from their job. That can help you choose and develop deeply self-aware and effective leaders. 

What Type of Personality Assessment Should I Use for Leaders? 

There are a range of personality tests for leaders. At DDI, we incorporate personality directly into some of our tests and assessments, such as Leadership Snapshot TM and Leader3 Ready ®. At our executive levels, we use a custom version of Hogan’s personality tests , which we couple with behavioral data.

Often, we get requests from clients about using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or the DiSC assessment, based on the popularity of both tests. We rarely use these tests for our client contexts, especially not for selection. However, they can be used for engaging self-discovery or to spark conversations about team interactions.  

We also work with clients who use several other types of personality tests, which they may choose to pair with our behavioral assessments or behavioral interviewing approach.  

Before using any test, we advise clients to request and evaluate the test technical manual that should include information about the test’s reliability, validity (preferably relationship to job performance), and fairness.

How the Personality Test Process and Timing Works 

Typically, personality tests for leaders are extremely scalable and easy to roll out. Usually done online, HR can send a link to leaders and they can quickly respond. Depending on the test, it may take 10 minutes to an hour to complete. 

The real question is what companies choose to do with the data after the personality test is delivered. In many cases, leaders may get a report back and are left on their own to interpret the personality test results. 

In our experience, a personality test is more powerful when a trained coach is able to talk through the results with the participant. The coach can help the leader bring in their personal context and understand how their personality type may be playing out in work situations. This can help leaders shift their interpretation of the data from a simple score or label and instead apply the insight to their real-life situations. 

Should I Pair a Personality Assessment with Other Assessments? 

As noted elsewhere, we strongly encourage any company using a personality assessment to pair it with behavioral data. Using a personality assessment as a standalone tool results in the real risk that leaders and organizations make talent decisions based on faulty assumptions of what the data actually means. 

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Statistical "Which Character" Personality Quiz

This is an interactive personality quiz that will match you to fictional characters from a large database based on similarity of description.

When the creator of this website would tell people that he published personality tests on the internet, people would usually ask him if he meant that he worked at BuzzFeed on their "Which character are you?" personality quizzes. And he would have to explain that he did not and had never been very interested in that style of test. These quizzes are very fun, as evidenced by their extreme popularity. But they are not that meaningful, two people who get the same result on a typical example of these tests don't necessarily have much more in common than two randomly paired individuals. So for the longest time this website had not one character match personality quiz, but I guess it was inevitable because here is an attempt at a slightly more scientific, but still silly, "Which Character Are You?" test. This test was created by getting more than 3 million volunteers to describe characters on a variety of different adjective based scales. This created a database of descriptions for 2,000 characters. A user's self ratings are compared against these profiles and the closest match is found. The documentation on how this quiz works and was developed can be found here . There is also a peer report version , which addresses the biases of self-report, and a version for couples .

The test is made of pairs of adjectives with a slider between them. For each pair you must indicate by dragging the slider to where you fall on the spectrum between them. This test is adaptive and you can select how many questions you want to do using the version option. The median time to complete the reccomended version is 185 seconds (~3 minutes).

This interactive program is provided for entertainment and informational use only. It should not be used as psychological advice or a screening tool of any kind and comes without any guarantee of fitness for any particular purpose. At the end of the survey you will be asked for consent to include your responses in our database, if you agree your responses may be used and shared per the website privacy policy .

Personality Test

The personality test was created in the 1920s and were meant to ease the process of personnel selection, particularly from the armed forces. A personality test is often a questionnaire or different standardized instrument made to reveal aspects of the individual’s character as well as psychological makeup. Personality test utilized in an array of contexts, including but is not limited to, specific and relationship advising, career counseling, career testing and security and customer connection management.

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