The other night, while I was at my book club, we were chatting about a fun quiz on Facebook that determines which Hogwarts house in which you will be sorted. The quiz is based upon the NEO-PI Personality Inventory that measures the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism). I hoped I'd get sorted into Gryffindor, well, because, Hermione is awesome and Gryffindor is her house. However, the Sorting Hat put me in Hufflepuff and actually, Hufflepuff is the house for me. It's a fun little quiz, but it got me thinking about the Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment. I'm something of a MBTI geek since I first took the test in college.
I took a handful of upper division psychology classes while in college and while I never thought I'd major in Psychology, I was fascinated with the subject especially personality. Over the years, I've taken the Myers-Briggs again and again always getting the same result: INFJ. See the above chart? I'm similar to Remus Lupin in personality. (It keeps coming back to Harry Potter.)
Out of all those letters, I most strongly identified with my "I". Introversion is something that seems to drive my whole being. I get introversion. I understand it well.
Well, the other day, while dealing with a grouchy twin who wasn't feeling well, I decided to take the Myers-Briggs again, but I couldn't find the actual test. Apparently, you have to pay for the real test, but there's all kinds of MBTI type tests on the internet. So, I took EIGHT different assessments! While I didn't really expect that every single test would yield the same result of INFJ, I was stunned to find that out of those eight tests, on half of them, I was sorted into the Extroverted category. On one test, Introversion/Extroversion were tied. I have long considered that I'm possibly in a third category: the Ambivert. I found this post a while back on the subject. Perhaps, I'm a good blend of both and introvert and extrovert?
I don't believe that our personalities can be narrowed down into four letters, but I do think that the Myers Briggs Personality Assesment does help us understand ourselves much better. So, after rekindling my interest in the MBTI, I ordered this book:
These are my results: INFP, ENFJ, ENFP, ESFJ, E/INFP, INFP, ENFJ, INFP. Did you notice that I didn't turn out an INFJ on any of those eight tests? Is it possible that our letters just aren't static? It seems that our personalities grown and change within a certain framework of letters. It's worth investigating.
Modern Mrs. Darcy is a kindred spirit. She's been writing a lot about personality too. She loves the MBTI, but she introduced me to another book that's now a must read.
Honestly, at first, I thought this title had something to do with ancient codes, conspiracy theories, or maybe a cult, but since I trust Modern Mrs Darcy so much, I knew I was wrong. (It's possible that the word enneagram made me think of the word pentagram which of course makes me think of dark things.) It just sounded weird, but after looking into it, I think this book will help me further down my rabbit hole of personality research. It's fascinating stuff and I always gets excited to learn something new.
Where will the Sorting Hat put you?
