Mr Personality
I was discussing personality profiles with Carolyn the other day. I remember taking one as a kid at school, the whole class took them. Once we’d taken them, we all got to read each others and say whether or not we thought they were accurate. Apart from testing the correctness of your results, it was also pretty interesting to find out what everyone else thought about you. I was voted “most laid-back”. I remember thinking this was kinda weird at the time, as we didn’t actually get to vote about anyone else, just me. Was my teacher was trying to tell me something? I don’t know. It’s lucky I’m so laid-back, otherwise I could have gotten seriously paranoid.
After our little discussion, Carolyn (being ever resourceful) goes and finds this website where you can take the tests. And so, of course, I did.
It’s a series of multiple choice questions (72 to be exact) that were developed by some people called Myers and Briggs (there’s also thing Jung guy that it’s kinda based on). It has some pretty serious psychological backing, it’s not just one of those “tell me your favourite colour or you’ll have bad luck for 5 years” things.
Anyway, as I was saying, I took the test. Apparently I’m an ENFP. So what the hell is an ENFP and, more importantly, why the hell do you care?
So it works like this. You take the test and then you get given your “personality type”. There are 16 of them, and everyone is one (and only one). Each one has a rubbish acronym that doesn’t make much sense (i.e. ENFP). They also have more poetic names, which vary depending one where you look. For example, on one site I’m in a group called “The Inspirers”. On another I’m “The Advocate”, and on yet another I’m “The Visionary”. I’m sticking with that one until I find a site where it’s calling me “The Most Awesomest Future Ruler of the Free People”.
Once you’ve got your acronym you can them look up the profile of your type, e.g. what it all actually means. This is where it gets really interesting. This site, for example, contains information on your profile, career choices, personality and relationships, you name it. And the weird thing is, it’s all scarily accurate. Like “bugger me, have they been following me for weeks or something?” accurate. I mean, it’s lucky I’m so laid-back, otherwise I could have gotten seriously paranoid.