personality tests

[brasssun]

I just took a personality test, as assigned by one of my classes and am now reading up on the different personality types. Now I'm caught between thinking that this is (a) pretty interesting stuff and a helpful way to understand more about people, or (b) these are a lot of very extreme versions and all the descriptions read kind of like horoscopes

Comments

[brasssun]

Admittedly it is a really self-indulgent pleasure for me, too, to take personality tests and hear them respond with information about me, even if I already know it. I like reading my horoscope, for instance. It's fun.

The idea that the test results vary a great deal depending on the people around you, makes a great deal of sense. In fact, it would likely effect the results in two distinct ways. If I spend time with people who are primarily interested in football or something I have no interest in, then my introversion tendencies increase, while if I spend time with a bunch of SWILlies, then I'm a lot more extroverted. So I might actually change how I act depending on the people around me. On the other hand, if everyone around me is just more extreme in some way, keeping their desk extra messy or extra clean, then I might consider my own desk to be relatively clean or messy or whatever in response, without it actually changing what it is.

I'll be going into class tomorrow to discuss the personality tests and results and whatnot so it will be interesting to see what comes out in the discussion. The results I got online were saying that #NT#s (or the four "Rational" types) are extremely rare, but it looks like the vast majority of my friends fit (or fitted) into that group.

[sildra]

carnap always liked to make unfoundedly sweeping generalizations about people, but the two I remember most were his claim that 1) everyone at Swarthmore had an IQ of at least 150, and 2) everyone at Swarthmore was an N and just about everyone at Swarthmore--and certainly everyone in SWIL--was an NT, mostly INT.

[brasssun]

Alas, my only official IQ test did not put me as high as 150. On the other hand, I have deep reservations regarding IQ tests in general, so...

I just finished reading "In the Beginning... was the Command Line" by Neal Stephenson, and it was really interesting but also kind of irritating for making sweeping generalizations about the motives of people based upon type of computer they use. He was wrong about my motives, too.

[sildra]

150 is past where IQ tests are actually designed to measure anyway. Some tests cut off at 145, some cut off at 180, some cut off at 200, but even in those cases it's a pretty meaningless number. Plus the way they accommodate age in the scoring significantly skews it against adults. My only official IQ test... well, I took it when I was 11 so they never showed me the result. My mom promptly forgot it, and when my dad quoted it to me over the years there was a 20-point range in his memory.