Personality Tests

Personality Tests

Sometimes it's
more than meets
the eye.

Chances are, you've had the opportunity to take a "personality test" whether it gives you a color, some four-letter code, or other output, they can be good ways to better know yourself and your loved ones.  Over the years, we've dabbled with several of the tests personally and professionally.  In that time, we've found that they can serve as great conversation starters around the table if nothing else.  We've also found that, to certain extents, they allow us to better understand each other and how we can most smoothly interact with our loved ones.  

They're just wired 
that way!

A couple that stand out that we'll talk about are the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Love Languages by Gary Chapman which were particularly useful in our family.  With most of these tests, you answer a series of questions and then score the answers to get a summarized result.  For MBTI, your test questions spit out one of 16 personality types based on intro/extroversion tendencies and other markers.  For the 5 Love Languages, the test questions spit out how you like to be loved...or what your primary/secondary love languages are.  As an example, my wife's biggest love language is quality time,  far more than gifts or acts of service.  Learning from this, spending time with her is more important, or fills up her love tank more than doing extra chores around the house.  As our kids have aged, one is decidedly a physical touch guy...he starts climbing the walls if he doesn't get his rough-housing need filled by wrestling with me or his brother.  The other is much more of a quality time guy and we can spend hours just hanging out, the "what" we're doing doesn't matter nearly so much for him.  

Helmets
optional.

We've put together some of these outputs into a Google Sheet that you can use (link below).  We'd encourage you to purchase and read (together) The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman and perhaps Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey.  You can order them off of Amazon, or your local bookseller, or, we've found copies of both at the local Goodwill-type stores or libraries regularly enough.  The books help y
ou dive below the surface a bit to where research helps convey understanding.  When you both read the book(s), it allows you to build shared vocabulary between you and your significant other so that conversations about understanding how to best love your loved ones become more informed.  The continued study helps you become a Ph.D. in your spouse, it renews your "pursuit" of them in new ways, and on shared new levels...those are good things.  

You might be
Batman!

Once you've got your results, you can do an internet search for "MBTI Celebrity Match" and take a look at some of the examples it gives you.  In doing this, I came out with Dirty Harry and McGyver.  The lighthearted look through the celebrity/fictional character angle helps you spur the conversation ahead... more than some of the drier results-only content out there.  When we think, and talk about, how such-and-such fictional character would interact with some other fictional character (they can be stand-ins for you and your spouse, since sometimes the challenges you're having are more navigable when we remove some of the personal emotion), we may plant a seed for interacting in a more healthy way with your loved ones.  

Sometimes you have to 
start over to move 
ahead.

Beyond these two, you can look at the Strengt
hs Finders, a great one from Focus on the Family (link below), or KnowAndLove (link below) especially geared toward kids.  There are plenty of others out there, most accessible with a quick Google search...and most free.  Remember, these aren't intended to hold over your partner's head but rather to better understand, communicate, and interact with them.  I'd encourage you to take a date night and go through the assessments, then have a meaningful, intentional conversation about some actions you and your family can take based on the quiz results.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out an assessment you and your family will do.  Then write down three things that you'll change in the next six months based on the results.  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) based on the insights from the assessments.  

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- 5 Love Languages test - https://5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/love-language

- MBTI - 16 Personalities - https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test 

- MBTI Celebrity Match - https://careerassessmentsite.com/celebrity-personality-types/myers-briggs-types/mbti-types/ 

- Focus on the Family - https://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/navigate-family-differences-with-this-personality-quiz/ 

- Know and Love - https://knowandlove.com/