Personality Questionnaire
A personality test can provide insight into your characteristics and behavioral characteristics. A personality test is often part of an assessment that you must undergo in an application procedure. Different types of tests are available, all of which work with similar questionnaires.
Reasons for personality questionnaires
An employer who lets you undergo an assessment usually wants to know not only how intelligent you are and whether you have the right experience, but also how you are as a person and whether you fit into the team.
To find out, you often get a personality test during an assessment.
How you are and how you react to a certain situation must match the position. For certain functions, for example, it is important that you easily establish contacts with other people. If this is not in you at all, such a position is probably not suitable for you.
Because a test consists of standard questions, it does not exactly show how you are and how you function, but the employer does get an overall impression of what kind of person you are or say you are.
A personality test can not only be used in an application procedure, but also, for example, in study choice or career advice or in team building activities. Of course you can also do a personality test yourself, because you are curious what comes out of it.
Questionnaires
There are different types of personality tests that you can face. However, these show great similarities: your behavior and characteristics are tested by means of personality questionnaires. You must indicate for each question what is most applicable to you. The same kind of questions keep coming back, often with different combinations of answers. Many candidates experience it as a somewhat boring test, because they are many questions with little variation.
Sample questions
The structure of the questions may differ. There are three common ways of asking.
You will be presented with statements about your character traits or your behavior. You must then indicate to what extent this statement applies to you.
Example:
“I like to meet new people.” After that you must tick one of the following boxes: totally disagree, disagree, don’t know, agree, totally agree.
You will be presented with four statements for each question and you must indicate which statement is best for you. Sometimes you are asked if you want to indicate which of these statements is the most consistent with your behavior and which is the least.
Example:
I like to organize events.
Sometimes I get angry.
I am someone who likes to talk.
At work I like to resolve conflicts.
You will be asked a question that you must answer with “yes” or “no”. It is not possible to add nuances. Even if you think it should be “sometimes” or “a little”, you still have to choose between “yes” and “no”.
Example:
I always lead the way with new developments: yes or no.
Jung as a basis for personality testing
The basis for many of the personality tests is the personality theory of Carl Gustav Jung, who lived from 1875 to 1961. This Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist used his personal theory during his psychotherapy sessions. With the help of psychotherapy, he wanted to find a balance between the extremes of the various functions and attitudes he had described for his patients. His psychological characterization was therefore not intended to give people labels.
Eight psychological types according to Jung
In his book “Psychological types”, Jung wrote that there are four psychological functions, namely “thinking” and “feeling” (the rational functions) and “awareness” and “intuition” (the irrational functions). He also classified people according to their attitude to life in “introverted” or “extroverted”. Jung assumed that every person has a dominant attitude to life and a primary psychological function, which together lead to a certain personality type. That is how he came to eight types of people:
- extrovert thinking type
- introverted thinking type;
- extrovert feeling type;
- introvert feeling type;
- extrovert sensation type;
- introvert sensation type;
- extrovert intuitive type;
- introvert intuitive type.
Different types of personality tests
As stated, the questions asked for the different types of tests are similar, but what exactly is tested may differ per type of test. Tests that are widely used today are:
the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI);
the Big Five personality test;
the DISC personality test;
the interpersonal test “The Rose of Leary”.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a questionnaire developed in the 1940s by mother and daughter Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers on the basis of the book “Psychological types” by Jung. With the MBTI your personality is described on the basis of four dimensions, which are indicated by a letter. It then concerns:
- extrovert (E) or introvert (I);
- observing (S) or intuitive (N);
- thinking (T) or feeling (F);
- judging (J) or acting (P).
Sixteen personality types according to MBTI
With each dimension you are assigned the letter that most closely matches your way of thinking and acting with this dimension. By combining the four dimensions you get a personality code of four letters that reflects your personality. Sixteen different personality types can be distinguished in this way. For example, you can be INFP: introverted, intuitive, feeling and observing. Often all personality types are given a name, which already gives a picture of the kind of personality that lies behind it. However, these names are not standardized. For example, you might come across INFP: harmony seeker, explanation giver, idealist and mediator.
Big Five personality test
The Big Five personality test is based on the theory that your personality can be described on the basis of five main characteristics (the “big five”). These five main characteristics, determined by scientific research, are: extraversion, care, emotional stability, kindness and being open to experiences. The test examines the extent to which you have these five qualities. The method of the Big Five is very similar to that of the MBTI, only the number of dimensions looked at differs (five instead of four).
DISC personality test
The DISC personality test is based on four personality traits or personality styles that someone can describe. This concerns the characteristics / styles dominant (D), influential (I), stable (S) and conscientious (C). According to this method, these four styles are present in everyone’s personality structure, but the extent to which they are present varies from person to person. The style that is mainly present is your main style and it mainly determines how you are and what you do. A character description is therefore given for each main style. The different main styles are usually also shown in a color. Dominant is red, influential is yellow, stable is green and conscientious is blue.
Interpersonality test “The Rose of Leary”
The interpersonal test “The Rose of Leary” is based on research by, among others, the American psychologist Timothy Leary into behavioral patterns and their predictability. The test determines the preferred behavior of someone. Based on your answers to the test questions, it is determined to what extent different behavior types apply to you. The results are graphically represented in the “rose of Leary”: a circle that is subdivided into eight sectors.
Eight behavior types according to “The Rose of Leary”
Each sector on the Leary rose stands for a certain type of behavior: leading, helping, cooperative, following, withdrawn, rebellious, attacking and competitive. In the sectors you can indicate how your score is on the behavior types. The higher you score on a certain behavior type, the further to the outside of the circle your result will be. So a kind of graph appears in the circle with peaks and troughs, so that you can see how you usually behave (according to the test).
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