7 personality tests to discover what you are like

Personality tests are one of the most used tools in psychological practice. Although we are faced with a complex trait to measure and made up of dynamics that make each individual unique, these clinical instruments are more useful than we think. Now, it is necessary to first know what types of tests exist, what they measure and what methodology they use.

Who most and who least has taken a personality test at some point in their life. Whether when going through a selection process, for clinical purposes or for simple personal interest, it is undoubtedly something quite common in most of our social settings. Nevertheless, It is necessary to remember that there are tests with greater validity than others and that it is important to be demanding with these instruments, if we really want to obtain reliable information.

What types of personality tests exist?

Thus, it is also interesting to know that within psychological practice we usually find two very specific types of tests. The first are the classic psychometric teststhat is, those in which we start from a cognitive-behavioral current and assume that people will be sincere when answering each of the items.

The second typology is projective tests. These are tests in which the subject projects unconscious elements and unrecognized internal conflicts through creative or introspective exercises. These tests are very useful, especially in clinical, forensic practice or in children’s settings. Next, we are going to point out which personality tests are most used to define, understand and describe our always interesting personal universes.

1. Personality test: the Big Five model

Although it is not exactly a personality test, the Big Five model is one of the most recognized, and in turn, the one that lays the foundations for a large number of tests that aim to understand and measure human behavior. This approach to personality is divided into five main areas, in five dimensions known by the acronym “OCEAN”:

Openness to experience (openness to experience).Conscientiousness (responsibility).Extraversion.Agreeableness (kindness).Neuroticism (neuroticism).

This test is usually applied in multiple areas with considerable success.: from the clinician, through the human resources departments to select personnel, until reaching the educational counselors, who see in this model a very successful framework to suggest to students those professional profiles that can best fit their characteristics.

Nowadays, one of the fields in which most work is done is the studies of personality of groups of people. In this sense, you will surely remember the notorious case of MyPersonality, a Facebook application as a simple personality test that managed to put the United States elections in check. This tool, created by David Stillwell in 2007, and based on this “Big Five” model, has served as the basis for numerous studies on happiness and longevity.

2. 16PF Questionnaire

The 16PF questionnaire is one of the most respected and used. It was the result of decades of work and analysis by Raymond B. Cattell, a British psychologist known for his great contributions to the field of personality and, above all, intelligence. It was he who proposed, for example, the existence of fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence.

This personality test has been continually revised and updated, but the essence remains the same: study our personality traits based on 16 factors and five secondary ones.

Factor A (Affectiveness).Factor B (Reasoning).Factor C (Stability).Factor E (Dominance).Factor F (Impulsivity).Factor G (Group conformity).Factor H (Daring).Factor I (Sensitivity).Factor L (Suspicion). M Factor (Imagination). N Factor (Cunning). O Factor (Guilt). Q2 Factor (Self-Sufficiency). Q3 Factor (Self-Control). Q4 Factor (Tension).

3. The Myers-Briggs Indicator

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality test well known for being based on work. by Carl Jung on this same area. The test itself was developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. Now, it should be said that although its popularity is very high, it is not used much in clinical practice because it is not a very useful instrument in this sector.

The scale measures only two dimensions: extroversion and introversion.. Thus, and given that it is of no use at a clinical or forensic level, the same does not happen in the field of personal growth or even in the school and work environment. The information that the Myers-Briggs indicator can provide us is the following:

Understand how we focus our attention and obtain our energy (extraversion or introversion). Know how we perceive or process information (sensation or intuition). How we make decisions (thinking or feeling). How we orient ourselves toward the outside world (through more logical judgments). -rational or more emotional perceptions).

In this sense, The Myers-Briggs Indicator can be especially useful in business. As researcher Franco Cotino highlights in his article Psychological tests and interviews: key uses and applications in the process of selecting and integrating people into companies, the lack of talent at the executive level is a tangible reality. For this reason, notable efforts must be made to hire the people most suited to the required job profile. And that happens, in the first instance, by applying tests that measure the appropriate personality traits, skills and abilities in each case.

4. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) is one of the most popular personality tests used in clinical, forensic, and personal selection fields. It is made up of 566 items to which the subject responds true or false, according to their experience; being applicable to people over 16 years of age, with a level of schooling corresponding to basic education.

The MMPI therefore measures people on a wide variety of scales, including depression, cynicism, schizophrenia, anxiety, antisocial behaviors, mania and paranoia, etc. It even has three validity scales, which were designed to detect if the evaluated person intends to lie in the test, or if their answers show any inconsistency.

5. Rorschach test

We’ve all heard of the Rorschach test.. Its trail, often somewhat cinematic, means that it is conceived as that personality test that every psychologist has on hand (almost obligatory) every time a patient comes to his office. Now, it must be said that everything has nuances.

Since Hermann Rorschach published it in 1921, its diffusion in the psychoanalytic community was immediate. However, nowadays, it is still just another projective test, like the tree test or the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).

However, these projective tests, like the Rorschach Test itself, requires that the professional carry out an adequate evaluation process in which to attend from the latency time in the responses, the content attributed to each of the sheets, to the details in the stains that evoke those ideas in the patient.

Likewise, this test is presented as another means to trace the shape and imprint of our personality, that is, used exclusively it will never be conclusive. The ideal is to combine it with other instruments, with other test batteries where you have more perspectives to offer a more precise description.

6. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

The Thematic Apperception Test is a projective evaluation created by the American psychologist Henry Alexander Murray in 1943. It is made up of 31 plates, which vary from realistic photographs and faded drawings to more ambiguous representations.as is a blank sheet.

From them, the evaluated person must tell a story that reflects a before, during and after.. The evaluation will be based on what the subject projects in their stories. In this way, each narration must be recorded and properly analyzed by the specialist.

For interpretation, different assessment systems have been published, which consider the characteristics of the most frequent responses for each sheet. However, although they provide a general framework for interpretation, many professionals rely on subjective norms formed through their own experience.

Each sheet usually mobilizes specific contents, which provide information about certain aspects of personality. Some of them are:

Interpersonal relationships. Defense mechanisms. Desires, fantasies and aspirations. Expression of sexuality and aggressiveness. Attitude towards death. Feelings of guilt. Fears, anxieties and anxieties. Self-image. Psychic conflicts.

7. Theodore Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory IV (MCMI-IV)

This inventory is a self-report tool that was designed to evaluate the personality and psychopathological factor of adults undergoing treatment. For this reason, it explores domains related to the disorders that appear in the ICD-10 and the DSM-5.

Therefore, its use is recommended in clinical contexts for planning treatments and therapies, as well as for evaluation in the forensic field. For this evaluation, several axes are distinguished:

Axis I: clinical syndromes of moderate severity, such as anxiety or alcoholism.Axis II: Here are the personality scales, both basic and pathological.Psychometric scales: included to evaluate the validity of the test, the sincerity of the subject, the desirability bias and the negative alteration of the patient.

To conclude, it is pertinent to note that there are many more personality tests. However, those presented here tend to be the most common, those that are most used in the daily life of any school psychologist, business psychologist, in the clinical field or in the world of personal growth.

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