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Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008
Why do people love taking personality tests online?
Apr 23, 1998 | Hello, I'm Pam and I'm an Idealist: NF (variant Teacher: ENFJ). My medieval persona is Dreamer-Minstrel, I'm right in the middle between a Type A and Type B personality and, for you enneagram folks, I'm a Reformer in the rational-idealist school. In terms of Values and Lifestyles, apparently I'm Actualized and Fulfilled. Ansir For One reveals me to be a well-poured cocktail of the Visionary, Scintillator and Idealist styles. And my Life Color is a nice deep Red (Fire-Earth quadrant) -- although Insight insists on Blue. I've got to work on my tints.
What else do you need to know about me -- other than that I've been spending far too many hours taking online personality tests?
Such tests have been a fad for some time, probably starting with the infamous "Purity" tests that became a Web hit after being popular on college campuses for at least a decade. To be precise, I'm talking about free, multiple-choice personality tests that provide results directly online and often don't take more than 15 minutes or so to complete. Dozens now exist on the Web -- more if you count the numerous parodies and corporate knockoffs.
Anyone who grew up addicted to the Cosmo quiz and has some free time can get a few kicks out of the exercise. Some may well find these tests useful -- even comforting -- in a generic sort of way (personality "typing," by definition, places you within an identifiably large group).
The most popular test -- numbers aren't easy to come by -- appears to be the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. David Mark Keirsey developed the site and is the son of psychologist David W. Keirsey, who penned the 70-question test for his 1984 book "Please Understand Me." He says nearly 3 million people have taken it online in the last year and a half. Tabulated results from about 540,000 of those can be found on the site.
While many people say they take the Keirsey test as a lark, the four temperaments and 16 "variants" that form its categorization system are popping up all around the Net. One can now find routine mentions of Keirsey temperament results in online risumis and occasionally in e-mail signature files. Lengthy discussions about members' "types" have filled newsgroups as varied as alt.gothic, alt.tv.nothern.exposure and (unsurprisingly) alt.support.depression. A college professor is collecting Keirsey results from anyone with a personal Web site; and you can find pages devoted to cataloging the temperaments of online diarists and fantasy-game aficionados, among others.
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