Personality Tests: Discovering More About You

I remember as a young girl concerned about how others may see me, I would take the personality quizzes in lifestyle magazines as a fun diversion and to discover more about myself and who I was becoming. Now, we encounter fun quizzes on social media that will match aspects of our personality or preferences to those of Disney characters and we can share these results with your friends and followers. While these quizzes are quick and fun, they really do not provide much insight into one’s personality to become more self-aware, assess personal growth, or discover career strengths. In this blog, we discuss how personality tests are beneficial in your journey of self-discovery and continued growth and examine some free, online personality tests.

Benefits of Personality Tests

Self-Awareness

Personality tests can help you to gain a better understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as well as identify areas of self-improvement. This leads to greater self-awareness and self-improvement.

Career Development

Personality tests can help identify career strengths or preferences which will aid in choosing a career path that is a good match for your personality. This may lead to greater job satisfaction and, ultimately, career success.

Team Building

Personality tests can also be used as a team building activity to aid team members in understanding each other's strengths and weaknesses, communication styles, and work preferences which can lead to better teamwork, increased efficiency, and improved collaboration.

Personal Growth

Developing a deeper understanding of yourself through personality tests will improve your relationships with others will result in greater personal growth and a sense of well-being.

Mental Health

Some personality tests can be used to identify symptoms of mental health disorders such as depression or anxiety, which can help licensed healthcare professional guide patients in an appropriate treatment plan.

Free Online Personality Tests

Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors

Raymond Cattell was a British-American psychologist best known for his work in psychometric research developing new analytic techniques leading to improved personality and intelligence measurements. Cattell found that human personality differences can be explained using a model with sixteen variables or personality traits and created the 16Personality Factors (16PF) Questionnaire. This personality test consists of 164 statements about yourself which you scale from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree). Lucky for us, there is a free, online version of the 16PF Questionnaire that should only take about 10 minutes to complete.

Don Lowry’s True Colors

Personality theorist, Don Lowry, developed the True Colors Test using four primary colors to designate personality types and behavioral styles. The True Colors Test is used to provide a deeper understanding of communication and understanding in group settings such as the workplace or classroom. In this test, everyone exhibit behaviors and personality traits in all of the four colors, but one color is often predominant. You should be able to complete the True Colors Test in under 15 minutes.

Ashton and Lee’s HEXACO Personality Inventory

The HEXACO Personality Inventory was developed by psychology professors, Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton, to provide users with a deeper understanding of their personality using six facets - Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness (vs. Anger), Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Learning more about your personality by taking the HEXACO Personality Inventory will help you to understand more deeply what motivates you and why you may react a certain way in a situation.

Overall, personality tests are a valuable tool for your self-discovery, personal growth, and improving your relationships with others. However, it's important to keep in mind that personality tests are just one piece of the puzzle that makes up you and should be used in conjunction with other sources of information and professional guidance.

Are you an introvert or extrovert? Take this quick quiz to find out!

See the Pen Personality Test by Danube Victoria (@danubevictoria) on CodePen.