Day 12 of Classes

I tend to be wary of self-assessments that ask you to take a quiz and then tell you what kind of person you are. There is an aspect which is interesting - will my existent thoughts of who I am come through in the results of the test? Might the results be skewed because of my self-image projecting onto how I answer the questions, whether or not I am aware of this happening?

In my high school psychology class, we took a test that was supposed to show whether you were right or left brain dominant - right indicating creativity and left indicating logic. The scale of the test was a -20 indicating completely right-brained dominance and a +20 complete left-brained. Our teacher had us form an arc in the classroom, lining up according to our scores. As all my classmates finished sorting themselves out, I asked the teacher whether I should go out to the courtyard and stand there. I had scored a -40. He double-checked my scoring, not believing me initially, but confirmed that I done the match correctly and achieved a score he had never seen before.

I have taken the full Myers-Briggs personality test several times - the full test of over 200 questions, not a set of 20 quick questions on a quiz website - in part because a friend of mine is a certified Myers Briggs practitioner. When taking the test, I can intuit for many of the questions the result each answer leads to. So is it possible that because I see myself as introverted, I am more likely to choose answers which I know indicate introversion? It is certainly possible.

Then there are all the articles out there claiming to debunk such tests.

This was on my mind as I took the Gallup Strengths Assessment, which leaves me wondering whether my internal sense of self had any effect on the results. Taking that one step further, would it matter if it did? After all, my own sense of self could be entirely accurate. Regardless, I found the results intriguing.

No surprise, I ended up being something of an oddball. Most, if not all, of my classmates had their strengths spread out over at least two of the areas, while all of mine fall under Strategic Thinking. 

No matter the validity, or whether any bias skewed the results, I found the answers aligned with what I think of myself. It tells me I crave knowledge and enjoy time alone to read a book, that I see patterns and create solutions to problems, that I am inspired by the future and what could be, that I generate innovative ideas.

Whether or not it is accurate, I would not mind embodying these traits.