My Reflections on Self-Assessment tests (Myers-Briggs as an example)

Disclaimer : The mentioned here is a personal opinion

1-    Despite all the warnings before taking the test about telling your real behavior, what you really do rather than what you think yourself are … I think it’s still unavoidable to answer based upon the image you want for yourself rather than the reality, yet it’s still useful because it will reflect some (or a lot of, based on how much objective are you) the truth

2-    The test is somehow showing the extreme result I think, for example, If you are INTJ, the description of the personality given is that for 100%I, 100% N, 100% T and 100% J, for those who get low scores in any (50%), this will not be very relevant, yet it still gives some insights about some properties of your personality

3-    The test is mood-dependent , for example, imagine someone doing this test after a big problem happened for himself due to his poor planning on one issue, and imagine the same person did it after a great success or promotion he got, I think the answers to the questions (and hence the results) will be different, we are still humans

4-    When you take the tests, know more about this character represented in the result (I said the character not you), then you behave in some situations with a different behavior that was expected from this character (ex: got nervous when you were expected –according to the assessment- to be calm), you might start asking yourself, “why did I do that? I ought not to have done it –according to my personality-?” … I don’t like this, I think this made us escape from one kind of stereotyping to another which we created by our hands (this is yourself and this is how you ought to behave), yes we need to follow up on our personal behavior, but we shouldn’t judge our every single action against an expected personality.

5-    The questions are sometimes culture dependent, ex: asking about selecting liberal candidates in elections, asking about some kind of art like music, sculpturing, films and such, these things –and similar- might be seen in America –or the west generally- with different perspective than in the middle-east, India or china for example, I think openness trait should be examined with different set of questions that are not culture-dependent

6-    Still have concern about being restricted to measure only and specifically these 4 aspects of personality and use it to estimate the whole personality. The four aspects are chosen by the test creators for a certain reason and they admitted that there are other (hundreds) of aspects that are present but can’t be included in the test practically, however the 4 aspects are chosen according to a criteria that might not be suitable for you or for the reason you are taking the test

7-    Still I think it’s generally a good thing and helps knowing the strengths and weakness points for oneself