Personality tests are all the rage – but what

do they really tell you?

Keywords: Personality test, Please Remove, Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, Domino’s Pizza Franchise, Burger King,
Northwestern University
Publisher: Link & QR Code: https://goo.gl/cf hTf
Published: Class date: October ,
Author: Kikhay Alena Andreevna Article length: , words

Personality tests are all the rage – but what do they

really tell you?

[1] A new test claims to be most scientific yet – and that out of four types, most of us are Average.

The thing is, we don’t really do them to find out 1 the truth.

Fig.
 Personality tests are all the rage – but what do they really tell you?

[2] I was once forced to take a personality test by a boss who had read that they were a valuable 2

source of managerial insight 3 , or some such nonsense. Weirdly, it didn’t go well. After wasting

my time answering multiple-choice questions such as, “Do you hate wasting your time?”, I re-

ceived a laminated 4 report informing me: “You rarely see the need to be modest about your own

achievements and have a high opinion of your own abilities.” Which is ridiculous 5 because I am

the most modest person I know. And I know a lot of people.

[3] Anyway, my former employer isn’t the only one with a misguided 6 passion for personality tests.

Despite there being no scientific evidence to back them up (many scientists consider them to be

the business-bro equivalent of horoscopes), personality tests are all the rage in the corporate world,

where they are used as a guide in hiring or assembling 7 more effective teams.

[4] The gold standard of personality tests is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI), which di-

vides people into 16 types, depending on their self-reported 8 preferences for things such as

extroversion 9 or introversion. The MBTI has been around since the 1960s, and an estimated

two million people take it every year, a lot of whom seem to be management consultants; the

test reportedly exerts considerable influence at McKinsey. I know, it is hard to believe that

management consultants would be enamoured of pseudo-scientific BS, but there you go.

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 Personality tests are all the rage – but what do they really tell you?

[5] Apologies for the snark 10 . I’m an Aries; I can’t help 11 it – it takes us a while to get to the point 12 .

If you’re an ENFP (outgoing 13 and creative) on the MBTI, you will be glad to know that I have

now reached my point – which is that time may finally be up for Myers-Briggs. Researchers at

Northwestern University have just published what they believe to be the first scientifically sound

approach to personality classification. “Personality types only existed in self-help literature and

did not have a place in scientific journals,” one of the researchers announced. “This will change

because of this study.”

[6] What makes this new study so great, apparently, is the volume of data; the researchers analysed

questionnaires from more than 1.5 million people. They then ran algorithms and produced lots

of graphs. From this they concluded that there are four main personality types: you’re either a

Samantha, a Carrie, a Miranda, or a Charlotte. Just kidding! Sorry, couldn’t help 11 my inner

Miranda coming out. No, according to this very serious study, your personality is either: Average,

Reserved, Self-Centred, or a Role Model 14 . Apparently “young males are overrepresented in the

Self-Centred group, while females over 15 years old are vastly underrepresented”. Meanwhile, the

most common personality type is Average, which is defined as being “high in neuroticism and

9
extroversion
......................, while low in openness”. In conclusion: most of us are pretty terrible people. I’m

not sure the researchers had to do a study to find that out, they could have just looked at Twitter.

[7] I don’t want to tell these academics how to do their job, but they have completely misunderstood

the point of personality tests. Nobody cares if a personality test is scientific or not. We love them

because they cater to our narcissism and our need to belong; they make us feel normal and special

at the same time. No one wants to spend 15 minutes answering questions only to find out 1 they

are Average. Or is that Self-Centred?

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 Personality tests are all the rage – but what do they really tell you?

Why do lesbians love cats?

[8] I recently realised that I have achieved something quite amazing: I have never dated anyone who

owns a cat. The reason this is amazing is because I’ve mainly dated women, and we all know

queers 15 love their cats. This isn’t just a stereotype, by the way, there is data to prove it. Au-

tostraddle, an online magazine for LBT women, recently published the results of its 2018 Lesbian

Stereotypes Survey. As a dog person, it pains me to say this, but there seems to be firm evidence

that most of my fellow gays go to bat for cats. Particularly in Australia, for some reason.

[9] So why do girls who like girls like cats so much? Please remove the obvious smutty joke from your

head; this is a serious sociological discussion we’re having here. Well, first of all, it should be said

queer 15 woman
that you should take these cat-stats with a pinch of salt. As Autostraddle noted, “a ............

in possession of a cat is exactly the type of person who would want to take a survey about lesbian

stereotypes” in the first place.

[10] With that caveat 16 in place, Autostraddle considered the theory that cat-loving tends to be thought

of as a female trait, and lesbians tend to be female. After musing a while on the matter, however,

this theory was quickly nixed. Despite all the cliches about women and cats, it seems cats have

conquered the petriarchy. According to a study from the Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association,

more than two-thirds of cat owners in the UK are now men. The researchers suggested celebrity

cat-owners such as Ed Sheeran may be behind the trend. I rather like this explanation as it chimes

with my own personal motto: “When in doubt, blame Ed Sheeran.”

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Personality tests are all the rage – but what do they really tell you?

Russians will do anything for free pizza

[11] Russians are famous for their love of Salisbury cathedral and, it would appear, their knack 17 for

ill-advised 18 fast-food campaigns. Earlier this year an online backlash 19 forced Burger King’s

Russian division to pull a promotion that offered women a lifetime supply of Whoppers if they got

impregnated 20 by football players competing in the World Cup. Now a Domino’s Pizza franchise

has abruptly ended a deal offering free pizza for life to anyone who got the company’s logo tattooed

on them. The promotion was supposed to run for two months, but 381 people branded themselves

with Domino’s logos in just four days, forcing the franchise to end the promotion before they were

bled 21 dry.

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