Neurotic? Extroverted?

December 12, 2005 1:16 AM

Personality

“Research in individual differences addresses three broad questions: 1) developing an adequate descriptive taxonomy of how people differ; 2) applying differences in one situation to predict differences in other situations; and 3) testing theoretical explanations of the structure and dynamics of individual differences.”

Visit the Personality Project. While you're there, participate in the Internet Personality Inventory Survey.
posted by Ethereal Bligh (17 comments total)

That looks like it's going to be fascinating. I've been using the Enneagram theory of personality for years, to make a rough assessment of people's types: there's a good overview at 9types.
posted by MinPin at 1:41 AM on December 12, 2005

MinPin - someone had given me the enneagram book after i had been talking to them about sacred geometry and a few other esoteric subjects. It seemed interesting, do you use it professionally?

Personality-based Psychology is indeed fascinating, a new science... much like Neurolinguistics, another field worth watching in the next 10 years.
posted by phylum sinter at 3:11 AM on December 12, 2005

I wonder - how do they separate out the problems of self-image and self-report from the actual reality? If you have an image of yourself as a horrible disorganised person, you would obviously score yourself high on those, while low being friendly or something. But the reality may be that you are actually average or even good at being organised, but also high at being picky on yourself.
posted by jb at 3:35 AM on December 12, 2005

Extraversion: Average
Agreeableness: Low
Conscientiousness: Low
Emotional Stability: Low
Openness: High

No problem with that except I think it's a bit harsh on the "Emotional Stability" rating. I think I deserve at least an "average" there, so that REALLY PISSES ME OFF and I'm going to go kick the cat.
posted by Decani at 5:53 AM on December 12, 2005

Hey, Bill Revelle's site! I know him. He's a good guy. Also noteworthy on the site is the intro to R (statistics programming system).
posted by rbs at 6:11 AM on December 12, 2005

Personality-based Psychology is indeed fascinating, a new science... much like Neurolinguistics, another field worth watching in the next 10 years.

It may be fascinating but it sure as hell ain't new.
posted by myeviltwin at 6:24 AM on December 12, 2005

I got a low conscientiousness rating. I think it was because i was lazy about how I answered the questions.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 7:44 AM on December 12, 2005

Highly accurate.
posted by kozad at 9:09 AM on December 12, 2005

My score No surprises here.
posted by seawallrunner at 10:03 AM on December 12, 2005

Extraversion: Low
Agreeableness: High
Conscientiousness: Low
Emotional Stability: Average
Openness: High

It's in interesting test, but not anything really new.
posted by ozomatli at 11:16 AM on December 12, 2005

Extraversion: 5th percentile
Agreeableness: 82nd percentile
Conscientiousness: 79th percentile
Emotional Stability: 1st percentile
Openness: 99th percentile

From self assessment, it's not too far off the mark, except for the extremes (1st & 99th percentile?!).
posted by PurplePorpoise at 12:11 PM on December 12, 2005

Except that people's personalities change to fit the situation. Let's not forget the Stanford Prison Experiment. I'm wary of any system using Jungian archetypes much the way I'm wary of any psychoanalyst who believes all of one's problems originate from an unresolved Oedipus complex. And I can never remember the name of the effect where a variety of people read the same pablum and believed it was written about them specifically ("You are a nice person. Sometimes you try to hard and get discouraged. But you always pick yourself back up... etc." "Hey, that's ME they're talking about!").

Personality is a continuum, not a discrete quantity. You can't step in the same river twice because you're never the same person from one instant to the next. And I think individual personality is useless to study, because it depends on your interaction with individuals outside the self. You can measure someone's bias towards a particular action at a particular time, but that bias can be manipulated by any number of things such as priming. You cannot ask the question: "Is Jim a violent person?" because Jim's reaction to provocation will depend on what he watched on TV last night, what kind of person is attacking Jim (hint: he's less likely to attack women, unless he isn't), and even what color they're wearing (people wearing black are more likely to be seen as violent).

Fundamentally, I have number of disagreements with this whole field of study, as it tends to embrace the is-of-identity. I also disagree with the very fundamental assumption that humans are individual beings. We are social creatures, and humanity is a collective organism.
posted by Eideteker at 12:19 PM on December 12, 2005

For the record, I've taken Myers-Briggs several times, and I almost always get a different answer. The last time I took it, I was XNXX. And they specifically state your answer shouldn't change over time! I did my best to answer honestly and truthfully each time.
posted by Eideteker at 12:22 PM on December 12, 2005

Mine.

Extraversion: 93 vs "normal" of 4.9.
93rd percentile for males over the age of 21.

Agreeableness: 7 vs "normal" of 3.
7th percentile for males over the age of 21.

Conscientiousness: 95 vs "normal" of 5.
95th percentile for males over the age of 21.

Emotional Stability: 18 vs "normal" of 3.2.
18th percentile for males over the age of 21.

Openness: 76 vs "normal" of 4.7.
76th percentile for males over the age of 21.

The only thing I'd really disagree with is this - Your score on Emotional Stability is low indicating that you are easily upset, even by what most people consider the normal demands of living. People consider you to be sensitive and emotional.

If by "upset" they mean "driven to extremes of anger and frustration by stupidity and meanness" then yes. I'll cop to that - a quick straw poll of those around me indicate that I am seen as empathetic yet horribly nasty and aggressive when I encounter fuckwittery.
posted by longbaugh at 12:41 PM on December 12, 2005

I agree "low emotional stability" + "high conscientiousness" = a lifetime of getting upset by being surrounded by lazy incompetents. It is the bane of my existence, and the thing that troubles me the most in life.
posted by dipolemoment at 1:28 PM on December 12, 2005 [1 favorite]

When someone unites this with Phrenology we will truly understand human beings.
posted by sien at 1:44 PM on December 12, 2005

Extraversion: 95th percentile
Agreeableness: 66th percentile
Conscientiousness: 1st percentile*
Emotional Stability: 8th percentile
Openness: 97th percentile

*Yeah, I'm a mess.
posted by brundlefly at 3:11 PM on December 12, 2005