The questionnaire you filled out measures your scores on five different personality dimensions collectively known as the "Big Five". Below are your scores on each dimension based on the answers you provided, along with some interpretation. If you'd like more information about these personality dimensions, the Wikipedia entry is a good place to start.
Neuroticism
Neuroticism (sometimes also called Emotional Instability) is the tendency to experience negative emotions such as sadness or anxiety. People who score high on neuroticism are vulnerable to stress and tend to experience negative feelings more often. People who score low in neuroticism tend to be less susceptible to stress, and experience negative feelings relatively infrequently.You scored 27 out of 50. This score is higher than 56.0% of people who have taken this test.
ExtraversionExtraversion (or Extroversion) is the tendency to experience positive emotions and seek out stimulating situations. People who score high on extraversion tend to be active, energetic, and enjoy being around other people. In contrast, people who score low on extraversion, known as introverts, tend to be quiet, low-key, and are typically less involved in the social world.You scored 38 out of 50. This score is higher than 68.5% of people who have taken this test.
Openness to experience
Openness to experience is a general tendency to appreciate emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas or experiences. People who are open to experience are intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive to beauty. People with low scores on openness tend to have more conventional, traditional interests.You scored 49 out of 50. This score is higher than 96.6% of people who have taken this test.
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is the tendency to show self-discipline and persistence. People who score high on conscientiousness tend to be persistent, responsible, and duty-driven, but are sometimes perceived as being overly perfectionistic and concerned with order. Individuals low on conscientiousness tend to show less persistence and may have trouble seeing things through.You scored 36 out of 50. This score is higher than 58.7% of people who have taken this test.
Agreeableness
Agreeableness is the tendency to be sympathetic and cooperative towards others. People who score high on agreeableness strive for social harmony and value getting along with others. Disagreeable people tend to be more suspicious and hostile towards others.You scored 35 out of 50. This score is higher than 36.3% of people who have taken this test.
So apparently I'm slightly neurotic, very open to new experiences, conscientious but not a maniacal perfectionist, generally extroverted...and pretty disagreeable. No surprises here really except for the extroversion [my Myers-Briggs profile is the INTJ "mastermind"...introverted...though I am right on the cusp of extroversion, which would make me a "field marshall" if I was feeling slightly more outgoing while taking the survey].
And then there's the "disagreeable" bit.
I don't really think I'm all that disagreeable (despite all the rants that appear on this blog -- that's why they're on the blog people, so I don't have to rant at real people in real life). Judging from the questions on the survey, I think that they get this from many, many responses to questions about avoiding confrontations to which I answered "strongly disagree" (Aha! I see it now; I've been strongly disagreeing with their statements; therefore I am disagreeable).
Joking aside though, avoiding confrontation does not necessarily make you an agreeable person -- passive-aggressive individuals are practically defined by their avoidance of confrontation. In the same vein, not shrinking from confrontation is not (to me at least) a disagreeable quality. I would much prefer dealing with a problem or issue immediately and openly and getting it solved quickly, than stewing over it because I didn't want to deal with the confrontation. I find that people who do the same are much more agreeable to work with...but maybe that's just because it's easier to communicate with people who think and act like I do.
Thoughts?
Posts
21 comments:
haha! i did the same thing, was thinking about posting about it but haven't yet.
i'm apparently extremely unneurotic, quite agreeable, not that open to new experiences, and in the middle for extraversion and conscientiousness.
as far as i can evaluate myself, pretty spot on.
i doubt you are actually very disagreeable though - you don't come across that way on your blog at all!
Thanks Phizz.
I do think it's interesting that people with my "agreeability" profile are characterized as being more suspicious of others. I can see in retrospect which questions on the survey allude to this.
In my case, I don't necessarily think that general "suspicion" informed my answers to those questions. I do, however, recognize that I spend a great portion of my day with people who don't generally communicate very well...not out of malice, they're just not skilled communicators. This makes me cautious about taking their words at face-value, and I answered questions about whether or not I think that people mean what they say accordingly.
Then there's the whole confrontation fandango, but that's another matter.
I got this invite too, but I haven't done it yet. I'm totally going to post my results too once I'm done.
It's a pretty interesting study it seems, looking for correlations between writing style and personality to see how much of "you" you actually express in your blog.
And no, AA, I don't think you're disagreeable. (Though we certainly have had our disagreements - remember the whole women and hormones thing?? LOL) I bet I score higher than you on that measure! lol
ha, I have written this before. I am the Masterind/Field Marshal depending on the time I have done the MyerBriggs ;)
And some people would say that I am not approachable, some say I am...
I'll do the online test and see what comes up. Thanks for the link.
well, I hit the mark on the neurotic thingy... I have noticed that I am more nervious now than when I started my post doc (huh).
And then I had the same agreeableness as you :)
I don't know. I can see a few things here but still, I am apparently very high on the conscientiousness and neuroticsm and the extraversion (which I don't really get). And then not so high on agreeable and middle on the openess to expericene. I think there might be a faulty thing in how you read the questions if you aren't English native? (hiding behind it). But sure, I'll take the nerviousness to heart and work on it. Couldn't hurt.
I've taken the Myers/Briggs test a couple of times since high school (>20yrs ago) and ALWAYS come up as INTJ ... so you're in excellent company :) And it describes me perfectly, regardless of which of the gazillion interpretations of the INTJ personality type you read.
I haven't heard about the blog personality thing, but I'm pretty sure mine would say that I was disagreeable too ... and probably nasty, rude, intolerant and very possibly extroverted, none of which are true. I don't find you disagreeable in the slightest and I know that I'm certainly not so I wouldn't stress too much about it at all!
PiT - I should have guessed you were a mastermind*! Excellent company indeed.!
Actually not all that worried about it. I tend not to place too much stock in these sorts of things and even if I did, I am who I am...and I like me well enough to live with me, so who cares?
But I do find these kinds of assessments intellectually interesting. I am well aware that some people find my communication style a little abrasive (and that this may come off as disagreeable)...but those people tend to have VERY different communication styles than I do. This is nobody's fault - we're all different. But some perspective on how other people see you is good information to have. When I come across someone with the sort of personality that will likely perceive my (to my mind benevolent) communication as disagreeable or abrasive, I try to adjust accordingly so that we can have some meaningful exchange not clouded by anybody's hurt feelings.
I also believe that I know which questions allowed the evaluation to come to the "disagreeable" conclusions, and I think that I was probably reading way more into the questions than the survey authors intended. Therefore, I gave answers that weren't really answers to what they wanted to ask me. It ALL comes down to communication styles, I tell you.
*Interestingly, I also took the TAIS test several years ago. They
use this one to profile CIA spooks and Navy SEALS and such...like the Myers Briggs but much more in-depth and they give you a full evaluation of your survey by a real profiler. Turns out I have a scary number of qualities in common with "criminal masterminds"...I look for loopholes and ways around obstacles and ways to break the rules, creative, smart, willing/highly able to organize and lead a team, objective, goal-oriented, don't like authority or because-I-said-so attitudes, when I find that I tend to undermine it, blah, blah, blah.
But they're not worried about me because I scored very highly for "ethical integrity". So they think I probably won't become a criminal mastermind even though I have the right skill set to be a very good one. Gee, thanks guys, I'm so relieved to know that.
I think people place too much stock in some of these tests. I'm not a psychologist but I suspect they are culturally and intellectually biased in similar ways to the standard IQ tests. It does make me laugh that one of the INTJ descriptions is "scientist" and that even though the INTJ is one of the rarest of the 16 M/B types, it's one of the most common in academia!
Many moons ago (ie when I was trying to "find" myself before grad school), I was unemployed and running out of savings so I thought a civil service job at home in the land far, far away was something I should consider so I signed up for their aptitude test. The test was in two parts with one a very simple IQ test and the second a brief personality assessment. Our equivalent of the FBI/CIA/Secret Service also falls under the civil service and that's what I thought I would take a shot at (ha - still make me laugh).
Anyway, to be eligible to apply, you had to get an almost perfect score on the reasoning/IQ test as well in the top 5th percentile or something in their preferred attributes on the personality profile ... I went to the 3+hr exam and nailed the thing in <15mins and had to sit there waiting for everyone else to finish (I fell asleep on the desk). Scored 100% on it - that's how easy it was. On the personality test however, it was pretty obvious which answers they were looking for (team player, leadership potential etc) but I decided to actually answer truthfully (dumbfuck) and only scored ~80th percentile on their desired list of attributes. Thus endeth my potential career in the spy world!
I got the invitation, but hadn't yet decided if I would participate yet... sounds like it *could* actually be interesting, but I'm guessing I wouldn't be very surprised by the results! I don't generally believe these tests anyway. We'll see. If I have time I'll do it.
Yeah, the thing that bugs me about these assessments (and the reason I don't place too much stock in them) is that the people who administer them tend to be really fanatical about the accuracy of the "test". I find this to be weirdly true of people who make a living out of administering the M/B "test".
Like PiT, I've taken this assessment more times than I can count, and *almost* invariably score INTJ. I say almost because I occasionally score ENTJ, and whichever the final outcome I am invariably right on the I/E border (there are odd numbers of questions to profile each dichotomous quality so that you can never be 50% I and 50% E).
I brought this up with the the M/B proctor last time I took it, and I suggested that perhaps I am not really an INTJ or an ENTJ, but rather something intermediate.
It was really funny to watch that blow her little mind. She actually freaked out a little.
"No, no, no," she said. "You can only be one type."
"Well, maybe on some days, or with some people, or in some places I'm an INTJ and under other circumstances I'm ENTJ," I suggested.
Then she started to get visibly frustrated with me and insisted that I "choose" one.
I decided to have some fun with her so I insisted that I can't choose one if I'm actually both and that the very slim difference between the two in my score ought to count for something (I'm pretty sure that impatience with nonsensical authority shows up in both profiles - big surprise).
She nearly had a coniption fit! It became quite obvious that she was the sort of person who really needed to categorize people into these neat little boxes in order to make sense of the world and feel comfortable...I wonder if that showed up in her M/B type!
Newsflash lady: there are a *hell* of a lot more than 16 types of people in the world. I think that both my M/B profiles describe me pretty well (INTJ a bit better, which is also the one I score more frequently)...and if you need that info to relate to me, fine.
But I hope these people realize that there is a lot more to people than their M/B profile. How sad to go through life thinking you can just give someone a survey and just have them all figured out. Where's the fun in that?
Every time I've taken the M/B, I've been very obviously positive in the NTJ bits and pathologically positive for introversion! My postdoc mentor, lab manager and I all re-took the test last year out of curiosity and my mentor and I both scored INTJ (no great surprise) but they were both stunned when they saw the "I" part of my scale almost off the charts as they said they had never thought that I was introverted at all - like I said on my blog once before, I'm really good at hiding it. That's one test that I have absolutely no issues with!
Hmmm .. the word verification is "turnme". Odd!
I realized long after I posted my original comment that I said of the agreeable measure:
" I bet I score higher than you on that measure! lol"
Which sounds obnoxious, because I was trying to say a higher score in terms of being DISagreeable, so I would be MORE disagreeable than you, AA.
Just wanted to clarify, because it occured to me after the fact that I sounded like an asshole. My bad!
I took the test, prompted by the same invite. I came out about the same as PhizzleDizzle, which felt pretty accurate.
As for the disagreeable thing, maybe it's not so much about whether or not you engage in confrontation. It could be more to do with getting upset about things in the first place. For example, EGM gets upset about stuff that doesn't even make it on my radar.
JLK - I totally didn't notice until you pointed it out. I just assumed your original intention. I wouldn't have been offended anyway.
Chall - I also noticed that since starting grad school I answer a lot more "strongly agree" to statements like: "I frequently feel overwhelmed", or "stress affects me physically". Has my Neuroticism read-out increased since commencing my PhD studies? You betcha!
EGM - I got the impression that the questions that I assume "measure" agreeability where directed toward interactions, rather than just internal reactions. But then, I don't know what the scoring algorithm is so you could be right.
I don't think that I get overly upset about random stuff, but then, most crazy people don't think they're crazy either.
I really would be interested to know how my blog's "personality" differs from my own...I think I'm pretty transparent here (pseudonimity makes it easy), but I guess there's a fair amount of bluster too (general a ploy to pump up my self-esteem during an imposter syndrome episode)...nobody here knows me in real life, so I guess you couldn't call me out on the carpet for it.
I don't think EGM think he gets upset about unimportant stuff. I think he thinks I should get upset more often. Be more assertive, I guess. Anyway, you're probably right about the what the test is measuring.
I agree that it's potentially a really interesting study. I feel like my blog is pretty representative of me, but it's hard to judge yourself.
Very funny about the intro/extro question, because I am a reliable I on the myers-briggs (usually INFJ, though the F/T is close to the middle and sometimes flips). But I scored a whomping 40 (78%) extroverted on this test! What gives?
And never fear about being disagreeable: I scored a solid 30 (14%) on the agreeable meter. Well, it's probably true. I prefer to call it effective, though.
Yes for many of those survey I was beginning to wonder if "agreeable" = "push-over". Push-over I am decidedly not...call it what you want.
My results are here. I have issues with the questions that determined "agreeableness" and "openness to experience" but the rest of my results were what I would have expected.
AA>"I also noticed that since starting grad school I answer a lot more "strongly agree" to statements like: "I frequently feel overwhelmed", or "stress affects me physically". Has my Neuroticism read-out increased since commencing my PhD studies? You betcha!"
yeah... I would proably see the same thing for me. with a slightly better result just after defending (when I thought I was on top of the world!).
Overall i think it must be easier to answer yes to those questions when the whole job is depending on your brain (and/or novel ideas in the lab) and publication record. I realise that I need to stop being so nervous but it is stressful when "you are only as good as your last publication" comes around.
Regarding the I and E. I feel a bit confused since I love to stay at the house and be alone and think. I also like being out wi th my close friends but come a choice; "stay in with no social life" or "never be alone" I would choose the nonsocial life every day. THis doesn't mean I can't pretend to be social. Or hang around people.
I guess i might need more cloaked tests that these online things when I "know" what to answer ;)
Ha, I just took this, I want to post it later. The most surprising result is that I'm really not open to new experiences. I got a 33 out of 50 (which doesn't sound so low), but it is higher than only 13% of other people.
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