Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.

Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.

Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, oln listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here.

Back for another episode as we, of course break down the psychology of our twenties.

Today, my friends, is our second ever bite sized bonus episode if you missed the first one.

We are doing this like new Fun format, where episodes are just twenty to twenty five minutes, something shorter, for when you know, you just want a little bit of an info dump, you just want something to accompany your shorter commute, or for when we have to topics that don't necessarily fill a full fifty minute to one hour episode, but I still want to talk about and I still want to you know, discuss with you guys, so welcome.

Today.

We are going to talk about one such topic, which is personality tests.

From Maya's Briggs to the Big Five.

It feels like we are often asked to kind of define ourselves with a four letter code or a one word answer.

We especially love them in our twenties.

I remember sitting around like the dinner table when I was at college and everyone was doing their sixteen personalities quiz.

It's definitely a time when we feel very drawn to this, very drawn to the idea that someone could just tell us who we were.

They're kind of almost like zodiac science, like they're a shortcut to understanding ourselves and to understanding others.

You know, maybe you're an infj maybe you're ninety percent extrovert, maybe you're the architect, maybe you're the commander.

If you've ever done your personality tests, you will know what I'm talking about with these.

And for a moment, that feels really, really satisfying, like someone just handed you the manual for your own brain.

Someone told you what you're good at, told you what you're bad at, told you what to look out for.

And that's, like I said, that feels amazing.

But there are a couple of big questions that come with that.

Firstly, can you can you really siphon everything about a person down into a four letter word using what thirty questions?

And is that actually a good thing?

Because the moment we start categorizing something that is as complex and fluid as human identity, we kind of run into a few problems right Firstly, are these tests even legitimate or are they just giving people the answers that they want to hear.

Secondly, are they totally restrictive?

Are they like telling us the full picture?

Or are they more just meant to be used for a little bit of fun like a BuzzFeed quiz?

What's the real use for these kinds of tests?

To answer that, we first have to talk about what these tests are actually trying to do and why why is that we love them so much?

So?

Most of them, if not all of them, are based on the idea of trait theory.

Now, trait theory is basically a psychological approach to human behavior and human personality that attempts to identify and measure the fundamental characteristics of each individual.

The core assumption here is that our personality and in a way, our identity, is made up of a set of stable internal traits that influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and that are kind of innate within us.

And when we understand everyone's formula or everyone's recipe, we understand them as people.

This is kind of different from some other famous ideas about personality.

For example, psychodynamic theories like Freuds really suggests that personality is driven by unconscious conflicts.

Humanistic theories kind of talk about self actualization and fulfillment and growth.

Spiritual theories talk about the soul.

But trait theorists really say, no, let's just measure the consistent parts of who you are.

I can tell what those things will be using certain questions, and there we go.

We'll call it a day.

That's who you are as humans.

I've talked about this so often on the podcast.

We do have a need for cognitive closure and for certainty.

So basically we do sire, We crave firm answers, and we don't love the unknown, especially when those unknowns are about ourselves.

You know, the messiness of human personality is very overwhelming, especially earlier on in life.

You know, am I introverted?

Am I extroverted?

Should I do this?

Should I do that?

Why do I feel like I'm this person one day this person the next.

Tests give us the illusion of clarity.

They hand us a label and they say this is who you are.

Now act that way and it's not just about clarity, but also about identity and belonging.

If you're categorized into a personality type, I feel like you suddenly know you're not alone.

I've definitely had this experience of being at like a party and it's come up and someone says, oh, you know, I'm an INFJ or I'm an E andF whatever it is, and it's like, oh my god, maybe we should be friends.

Or a friend tells you their personality type and you're like, oh, that's just proof.

That's proof that we're meant to be together, we're meant to be bonded, and that can be incredibly comforting.

So sometimes I think we cling onto these personality labels for a sense of identity and a sense of understanding of ourselves, but also of social identity as well.

But of course, of course, if we become too attached to the label, we can start to develop this very surface level, one dimensional view of us as people, and we can start to ignore the ways that we grow and we change and we develop.

Before we get into the different types of tests, we do need to understand two fundamental concepts in psychological testing.

Not the most entertaining, flashy part of psychology, but one of the most important these are reliability and validity, and they basically determine how good a test, how good a questionnaire, how good a measure is of what it's trying to tell us about.

So reliability refers to the consistency of the test results.

A reliable test will produce the same or very similar scores each time a person takes it, assuming that, based on trait theory, the underlying traits haven't changed, and that's a crucial part of what these personality tests believe.

So a great analogy for this is a bathroom scale.

If you step on it five times in a row and it gives you different weights every single time, it's unreliable.

If you take a personality test and it gives you a different result every single time, it's also unreliable.

Validity, on the other hand, refers to the accuracy of a test.

A valid test measures what it claims to measure.

Going back to the scale analogy, If the scale is consistent and it says you weigh I don't know, it's ninety kilos every single time, but your actual is seventy kilos, the scale is reliable.

It's telling you ninety kilos, but it's not valid.

You actually weigh seventy.

Maybe it's not calibrated properly, maybe it's like not a very high tech scale, but it's consistently giving you the wrong number.

A test basically can be reliable and not be valid.

But for a test to be considered truly valid, it has to firstly be reliable.

It has to give you the same result every time, and that result has to actually reflect something that is happening.

Now that we have those two ideas, let's look at some of these really famous models.

When we talk about measuring personality.

There's a huge divide actually between what is popular and what is scientifically backed.

The model with the most scientific validation is the Big five.

I think this is taught in every intro to psychology course ever all over the world.

It's also known by its five factor anagram ocean oce e n.

Its legitimacy really stems from its empirical basis.

So it wasn't created by a specific theory.

It wasn't like someone had a theory and was like, let's fill in the gaps.

It emerged naturally from decades and decades of research.

Now, the roots of the Big five model can be traced back to the nineteen thirties with a psychologist called Gordon Outport, but it really didn't solidify until the nineties through the works of other researchers who came along found Outport's initial findings and were like, wait, there's something really good here.

Through various different studies, like across various different cultures, they found that personality descriptions consistently clustered around five broad dimensions or areas.

Now the acronym ocean helps us remember them.

The first is openness to experience.

Are you cautious or are you curious?

The second is conscientiousness.

Are you organized?

Are you Type A or are you Type B?

And very easy going kind of go with the flow.

Extraversion.

I think this one's pretty self explanatory.

Are you outgoing or are you solitary?

Agreeableness?

Are you compassionate?

Do you like to you know kind of do you like to make friends with people but also not stir the pot?

Or are you sometimes a little bit detached or a little bit inflammatory?

And finally is neuroticism.

Are you anxious or are you I guess anxiety free or confident?

This is how they describe it.

Neuroticism is kind of an outdated term now, so bear that in mind, but it is an important part of this model.

And the reason this model is powerful is because it works on spectrums.

So you're not an extrovert or an introvert.

You are not either outgoing or solitary, or going or easy going.

You can kind of be a little bit more to the left, a little bit more to the right, maybe right in the middle.

The nuance makes the Big five much more accurate than those rigid type based systems, and it's generally a lot more reliable and actually likely to apply to people.

The other thing about the Big five is that it has been shown to predict important life outcomes.

For example, conscientious people tend to perform better academically and professionally people high in neuroticism.

This is linked to greater anxiety and depression.

Extraversion often predicts larger social networks, so it's also valid.

But here's the catch.

It still doesn't tell us why we are the way we are.

It describes it, it just can't explain it, and it may not capture culture differences fully.

Since a lot of the early research was Western, as is the case with I would say most, if not all, psychology tools.

Here's what I mean by that.

The Big Five was largely developed using English language personality descriptors, and it was tested on participants in the US and in Europe, where psychology really got its foothold.

It means that the model reflects the cultural lens of individualism.

Implicitly.

There is a lot more focus within this test on independence, on personal achievement, on self expression, when sometimes the way that our personality traits are expressed can be a lot more subtle.

Personality also isn't just biology, right, It's also shaped by culture.

In more collectivist cultures like many in East Asia, Africa, or Latin America, certain traits may look different or they matter differently.

For example, what psychologists call agreeableness being cooperative, warm, compassionate.

That might not be an individual trait in those contexts.

It can actually be a cultural expectation, something that everyone is taught to express in order to maintain harmony.

So when you measure it, you're not actually measuring personality, you're measuring a cultural norm.

There are also traits that just don't fit neatly into the Big five framework.

Humor is one of them.

Some Researchers also studying personality traits within China have argued for a sixth factor called interpersonal relatedness, which emphasizes not so much being extroverted or being agreeable, but respect fulfilling one's role in the group, and maintaining harmony.

That is something that the Big Five just doesn't have the nuances to necessarily or explicitly capture because it wasn't part of the cultural context in which the model was created.

So whilst the Big Five does replicate pretty well across certain cultures, it's not like it totally fails.

It's probably not the whole story.

It really does miss some of the nuances of how personality expresses itself in societies where values, traditions, and social roles are just innately different from those in the West.

And that's really important because personality doesn't occur in isolation.

It's about how you show up in the communities and the context around you.

Now for the big one, let's talk about the Mayers Briggs Type Indicator, the MBTI.

You've probably heard of it.

It's used in so many different contexts in workplace training, on dating apps, it's advertised on social media.

I feel like everyone's done this.

It's the one that gives you the four letter codes, so E NFP STJ AI n FJ, and then it also often will give you, like the celebrities that this personality type is like, and it will give you a name, like a label, like the architect or the commander, or the peacemaker or the protagonist.

I did mine right before recording this episode, just to like remind myself of what mine was.

And I am an Ian FJ the protagonist, So there you go.

I had to.

I wanted to see if it was it still reflected what I remembered it being before, and it did, so that's mine.

What we're gonna do is talk about where the Meyers Briggs type indicator was developed because it is such an interesting story, So stay with us.

We'll be right back after this short break.

The Meyers Briggs actually has a really interesting origin story.

It is one of my favorite origin stories in psychology.

It was developed actually not by a psychologists, but by a mother daughter duo, Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers.

Catherine was a writer and she was really fascinated by personality and in the nineteen twenties she stumbled upon the work of Carl Jung.

We talk about him all the time.

He's a very famous Swiss psychoanalyst.

He's like where in a child healing and in a teen healing comes from.

And he basically proposed that people have different personality or psychological types, so introversion versus extroversion, or thinking versus feeling, and he introduced those to help people kind of make sense of themselves and make sense of the world.

She was so inspired by his ideas that she decided to take them and adapt them into something that was practical and accessible.

Now.

During World War Two, Isabel Meyers Briggs saw an opportunity.

She thought a test like this could be useful in helping women who were entering the workforce for the first time and help them match with jobs that suited their natural personality, because obviously, at the time, all of the young men slush men were away at war, and there was this huge hole left, like this huge labor demand, and women filled it, and a lot of them had never worked before.

So she and her mother began further developing this idea and this questionnaire that would sort people into sixteen personality types based on Jung's original theory, and they also simplified them yet again into four dichotomies.

So where you sat on these four scales would help determine obviously where you sat in the sixteen personality types.

So we have extraversion versus introversion that is basically in every single personality test you can think of, versus intuition.

This was basically how you take on information.

Sensors often focus on what is concrete and practical and grounded in the five senses, so the facts, the details of the hero and now.

Intuitives, on the other hand, are more interested in patterns, abstract ideas, gut feelings.

Then we have thinking versus feeling.

This describes how you make decisions.

Thinkers prefer objectivity, consistency, and logic, whereas feelers prioritize values, empathy and harmony.

And finally, judging versus perceiving, this is how you approach the external world.

Judges like structure, schedule closure.

Perceivers prefer flexibility, keeping things spontaneous, kind of going with the flow.

So once you figure out which category you have preferences for from each section, you combine them and you basically get a four letter personality type.

For example, if you were more introverted, more likely to like concrete facts, more likely to make decisions aligned with values, and had a preference for an organized life, you would be an ISFJ.

It supposedly highlights your strengths and also your blind spots of your personality, and so it is very specific and personal, but it's also quite general as well.

Obviously there's only sixteen and there are seven billion people in the world.

If we did the math, like, you're going to have a couple of brothers and sisters in your pack like who have the same personality type as you.

So by the nineteen forties this was when it really became available commercially and really began to spread into business, education and even dating culture.

But here is the catch.

Whilst it has become really popular, the MBTI was never actually built on any kind of rigorous scientific testing.

Catherine and Isabelle they weren't trained psychologist, and Yung's original theory it was much more like metaphorical and philosophical rather than empirical, and that shaky foundation is kind of part of why the Mayas Briggs has always been a little bit controversial in the scientific community, and that's where some of the criticism comes in.

In a lot of cases, psychologists don't take the Mayas Briggs seriously.

Studies show it has low reliability.

About fifty percent of people will get a different result when they retake it within weeks.

That's a problem.

It can't be used as an objective scientific measure.

Plus, it forces you into one category or another, even though realistically humans are a lot more nuanced than that.

So it doesn't really typically measure what it's trying to measure because it doesn't, yeah, again allow for flexibility.

So why is it so popular?

We might put this down to something called the barnum or for effect barnum or for her that's when vague, flattering statements feel personally accurate.

Think about your horoscope.

Your horoscope for this week might say you something like you sometimes doubt yourself, but deep down you know you have a unique purpose.

I'm not bashing horoscopes here, I really enjoy them.

But that kind of applies to literally everyone, and the Mays Briggs type descriptions are written in a similar way.

They're broad enough to fit almost anyone who sees themselves as being an extrovert, sees themselves as being thoughtful, who has some kind of allegiance or you know, reason to want to be that personality type.

So, of course, when you give them a piece of information that says you are there, and this person is capable of this and they're incredible at that, everyone's gonna be like, yeah, and if I am that, that means I'm great and I'm capable.

Here's one such statement from my results.

Actually, Ian FJ.

This was my result.

This is what it said, Your journey of personal growth is fueled by a desire for self improvement and a genuine commitment to becoming the best version of yourself.

I don't know about you, but doesn't that apply to literally everyone who has ever had a goal or wants to better themselves.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, you know.

It resonates with people, not because it's scientifically sound, but because it helps people articulate something in themselves.

That's not terrible.

But it's just important to see it more as that storytelling tool that can be just as valuable.

But it's not necessarily scientific, you know.

But though again, if it resonates with you and it provides you with some guidance or comfort, like I don't see the problem, I really think it's just a lot of fun.

The issue is when we take it too seriously, when we let those boxes contain us.

If you believe I'm an introvert, therefore I can't lead, or I'm more neurotic, therefore I will always be anxious, you start limiting yourself and these labels can become self fulfilling prophecies.

But here's the flip side.

Used wisely, these tests give you a language to describe things that you felt about yourself but never articulated.

They also can help you identify what you like about yourself, what you think of as an asset within you.

So as we wrap up, here's my main takeaway.

Personality tests are like maps.

A map is super useful.

It helps you orient yourself.

It helps you see where you might be or paths forward.

But if you have your head down and you're constantly looking at the map, you are actually not going to really enjoy the scenery and enjoy your way through life and enjoy how you can test yourself and how you may find little back roads that the map doesn't tell you about.

At the end of the day, every single person on this earth is more nuanced than four letters.

You are a constantly evolving human being.

You change depending on your environment, your experiences, your growth.

That's what makes you interesting and human.

So take the tests.

I think they're super super fun.

Use them to reflect, use them to connect with other people, but don't let them limit you.

That's all we have time for today.

Just like my last bonus episode, do let me know if you have other theories or topics or concepts you want me to dive into next.

As always, thank you to our research assistant Lubby Colbert for all the effort and work she puts in behind the scenes.

We appreciate her so much, and thank you.

Thank you for listening to the podcast.

If you made it this far, drop your drop your Miydes breaks down below.

I want to know what everyone is.

I think it would be super interesting to see if there's like a certain pattern or a certain a certain one that rises to the surface.

Until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself, and we'll be back with a full length episode on Friday.

Talk to you very soon.