HW 54 - Testing

Part 1

Taking this Myers-Briggs test was an interesting experience for me because I am not quite sure it was a very effective test. The questions were very broad and poorly worded. Certain questions were asking you to rate your tendencies to do one thing or another, which created a sort of double negative effect. For example, if a question asks; Are the decisions you make more based off of fact, or on gut-feeling? How can you respond to that on a scale of 1-5? Any response that you give could mean two different things. Say I answered 5 (Very accurate). Well, this could mean that I often use fact to make decisions, or that I often use my own gut-feeling to make decisions.

Either way, I don't believe that this survey was helpful or revealing to myself in any way. Another problem with the test also had to do with the way the questions were phrased. The questions were posed in the following basic format; "I tend to do ________ more than _______." This gives a scale of 1-5 a double meaning. Say I respond with a 1 (Very Inaccurate). Well that means I hardly ever tend to do_____. Than the conclusion can be drawn that if I don't do _____, than I must always do the alternative. The same problem comes with answering a 5, except the assumption would be made that I don't do the opposite of what I said I often do.

My test result was ENFJ. This result didn't seem to match who I was, with the exception that I do try to build up the people around me as opposed to bringing them down. I like to see people succeed and I don't see anyone else's success as a detriment or obstacle that is in the way of becoming successful myself. I am definitely not the leader of my group of friends, but I feel I do have qualities of a good leader.

Part 2

The test results for our class were not all that interesting to me, because I have a pretty solid understanding of who everyone in my class is (even if that understanding isn't very comprehensive). The interesting part of hearing other people's results, was that I realized what types of things make up what we call "personality". A person's personality is made up of many things. These are known as traits. This concept made me reflect on my own interpretations of my peer's personalities. For example, Charles has a very outgoing personality, but what makes him outgoing? Well to answer this, we need to consider the traits of Charles' persona. He talks a lot to people, making him very social. He plays sports, making him athletic, and he makes his opinions well known, making him outspoken. Of course their are other aspects to Charles, but the ones that I mentioned are part of what makes up his "outgoing personality". This test asked question to define certain traits, and depending on how we answered, we were paired up with a personality that seemed to be the culmination of our traits.