I’m sure that everyone, at one point or another, has gotten distracted, wandered onto Facebook and taken a Buzzfeed quiz that tells you what part of burrito you are or what your favorite vegetable says about your future. My favorite one I’ve taken was a “Which Gossip Girl Character Are You?” where I ended up getting the dutiful, sarcastic maid, Dorota. These Buzzfeed quizzes don’t tell you much about yourself though — they are just fun to pass the time.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator — now that is serious mind-reading. This test gives you a four-letter description of your personality and instincts, shedding light on your formulation of thoughts and what you do with information. I have taken this test multiple times, alternating between an ENFP and an INFP, both very similar types and aspects of both describe me pretty accurately — good listener, idealistic, stubborn and curious.
I know the talk about the Myers-Briggs — and about personality tests in general. Many argue that these tests are tainted by confirmation bias — the idea that when descriptions are placed in front of you, you tend to twist them to affirm your ideas of self. Some also think that individuals cannot properly assess themselves, rendering these tests insignificant.
I personally subscribe to the idea that these tests can definitely tell a lot about yourself, good and bad. Sometimes these test results have made me feel understood, especially knowing that some people have similar combinations of instincts, feelings and interests that I do.
One of the personality tests, the Enneagram, is an example of how these tests have proven to be almost hurtful in my life. The Enneagram gives you a number which corresponds to a personality type and lists your basic fears, desires, motivations and the healthy and unhealthy levels of your personality.
I am a four, known as The Individualist. My basic desire is to find myself and significance. My basic fear is that I have no identity and no significance, which is a somber and sad fear to realize. Both of these proved to be incredibly accurate, though I wasn’t necessarily proud of the results and didn’t want them to define my personality.
I continued reading, finding that these results also described the nature of relationships with other types. The Enneagram described the relationships as being between romantic partners, though can be applied to friendships if the sexual aspect of this description is ignored.
I had a few of my friends take the exam and read how the Enneagram described each of our friendships. One of my friends was evaluated as a one, The Reformer. The test lists the nature of the relationship between two personality types, and even potential issues that can arise between people listed as these two types of personalities. As I read on, the positive ways they describe our friendship eventually succumbed to the lengthy descriptions of how the relationship between ones and fours can be contentious and controlling, leading to disdain and condescension. I wanted to unread everything I had seen, trying not to let the negative aspects of the test affect my thoughts about my friendship.
I became upset over a personality test. I know — dumb, right? But I couldn’t help it. Flaws with myself had been brought to light and could potentially hurt my relationships with some of my closest friends. I tried to shrug off the results, thinking of how spot-on the description of my type was, but I was still a little hurt that this test basically explained that my friendship was inevitably going to fail over time.
I was letting the results of a perhaps inherently flawed test affect the future of my friendships, which was never what these tests were designed to accomplish. I began to just think about how understood I felt reading the different descriptions of my Myers-Briggs type and my Enneagram, considering the fact that people are not just a type. People may subscribe to the descriptions of these kind of tests, but individuals are multifaceted and dynamic, and do not simply adopt the description of their type. I had to really think about what these tests are meant to do — to help people understand themselves, not to confine people to those types.
In the end, I still love taking these tests. They are fascinating and can really help you to feel understood, but people don’t fit into a cookie-cutter description simply after answering a few questions. Bottom line — people are amazing, and these tests can’t possibly place people into a box to which they must adhere.
Lucie Drahozal is a Life Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at life@cavalierdaily.com.
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