Interesting personality tests

[Enail]

I have a ridiculous love of personality tests, so I thought it'd be fun to have a thread for interesting/unusual ones that you've run across and sharing results.

I tried this odd little personality test, which gets weirdly unsettling for a series of questions about shapes. My results were largely quite inaccurate (perfectionist, black-and-white worldview, love of logic) with a few matches (enjoys being alone, head in the clouds), but not more than I'd expect if it were random. But it's just such a strange one that I'm curious to know what other people thought of it and if the results were at all accurate for them.

This one has much more ordinary questions, but I kind of liked the format of the results. I got Respectful Creator and a nifty little colour doodah of my "personal dna map" which I can't seem to paste directly here. On the colour doodah, my most dominant trait is masculinity, so apparently I'm like, super-butch, but I'm not really sure which of the personality traits it lists for me resulted in that, because it doesn't mention anything gendered or obvious in the written results parts.

[eselle28]

Oh, I love personality tests, even though I don't always trust them very much!

Thoughtful to the extreme, you are often obsessed with perfection and the rules governing your own personal interests. Your world is black and white. You love to work within a logical system, such as language, computer programming, or mathematics. Manipulating a system that can be completely understood is a distinct pleasure to you, because of your confidence in the underlying veracity of your belief system. Because of your appreciation for logic and order, those who speak or think in a sloppy manner are apt to generate more than their share of wrath. Although very amiable, you are not drawn to friendships out of a sense of personal need. You are just as happy by yourself with a good book or puzzle. Because you are so involved with thought, you will on occasion have difficulty dealing with the day-to-day problems of a normal life. Taking out the trash, doing the dishes, these are often left until the last possible moment, if at all.

Well, that first test got creepy in a hurry. I don't think the logic focus sounds very much like me, but the last three sentences sound about right.

you are a reserved inventor.

Now this one sounds about right! I like to think I have more empathy than the test gives me credit for, though. Apparently I'm neither very feminine nor very masculine? I'm not quite sure how that works.

[Enail]

I think you got the exact same result as me for the creepy shapes one!

[Robjection]

Tried the shapes one. At around question 9 the questions stopped making sense so I pretty much picked at random for half of the test. What I got was:

Handy in the real world manipulation of objects and events,

Not really.

you are easily enthused by practical projects.

Wouldn't go so far as "easily".

You often ignore or conveniently forget rules and boundaries that limit your freedom.

Wouldn't go so far as "often".

This need for freedom extends even to the personal sphere

I guess?

and though you are kind and gentle, you will often be hard to pin down to a monogamous lifestyle.

Because you tend to verbalize so seldom, you can be seen as phlegmatic or impassive.

Finally, got one right!

In moments of high tension you can often surprise those around you with a lighthearted or humorous remark.

And another! Holy cow, did the test finally realise who it was dealing with?

Because of your facility with the physical world, you are often engaged in sports that require dexterity, such as motorcycling or hang gliding.

Nope, false alarm.

You will rarely have time for flights of fancy or unproductive discussion.

Unproductive discussion can sometimes be annoying, but otherwise, not even close to right.

Constraints on your freedom will be regarded as a personal attack.

Let me get back to you on that one.

[The Wisp]

I love the abstract creepiness of that first test! It evoked a similar feeling to the one I got when I first saw the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You have a poetic sensibility and an ability to see beyond the day to day. You often seem to be living in a higher realm, or to be not-of-this-earth. Occasionally you imagine interior lives for friends and associates that are near-complete fabrications based on your fears or hopes for the future. You are often not aware of your own feelings. You have a strong sense of right and wrong, and because of this are often disappointed. Despite what can sometimes be a destructive inward-turning anger, you are very gentle. You are sometimes a bit out of touch with the ebb and flow of modern life. If your behavior is out of synch with your moral values, a severe psychic disturbance can result. Because connectivity is so important to you, you can become quiet and sulky if you feel that others around do not understand your point of view.

A couple of the sentences are accurate for me if interpreted a certain way over another way, but overall I think this is actually pretty accurate and gets me pretty well.

For the other one, I got that I'm a generous dreamer. I thought the 'generous' part of the title was weird, but when I read the descriptions they actually matched me a great deal. The specific descriptions fit me very well with 'dreamer' as well.

Your combination of abstract thinking, appreciation of beauty, and cautiousness makes you a DREAMER.

...

Your awareness of those around you, along with your nuanced perceptions of the world at large, makes you the GENEROUS person that you are.

I only scored high on 'empathy', 'imaginative', and 'aesthetic'. I was low on everything else, including both masculinity and femininity, though I was only somewhat low on masculinity but very low on femininity. That feels both right and weird to me at the same time.

The thing both tests get most accurate is that do spend way too much time idly lost in vivid thoughts!

[readertorider]

I'm not crazy about the analysis from the shapes:

You need to help others and to be thought of as a generous and kind individual. Often you are taken advantage of and regarded as simply part of the scenery. You work best when handling the work yourself; you do not appreciate a managerial role and tend to be uncomfortable in that position. Friendship is important to you, but it is generated on a personal basis, rarely a professional one. Consequently, family life is very important to you, and is often the most important aspect. Because of a strong sense of propriety however, you will sometimes consider the eccentric behavior of your friends and family as a personal affront. Often you find it difficult to speak up about personal anguish or pain, feeling instead that it is something an individual should bear in silence. Tradition is important to you, and you feel a sense of belonging when operating within the constraints of a predictable routine.

The last sentence is a particularly ill-fit for me since I frequently (and happily) deviate from routine often to the point of not having one. I enjoy working in teams both for class and in my actual work and have frequently taken on managerial roles when there's no one else competent around.

I love my family and my siblings, and dorm polls people usually pinpoint me as a kind and generous individual, but I don't really care about most people's opinions and when friends act OOC I usually laugh and blame the water. I don't know--the whole result feels they tried to catch me in a box just about big enough to hold my stomach or they were drawing me in one of those fun house mirrors--it's kinda recognizable, but like a cousin or BEARDED!me.

Also does everyone get the "If you'd like to continue testing at a time and place of our choosing..."? because that was a little creepy...

[litterature]

Wow, that first one was really trippy and it had a couple of creepy bits, a bit Boards of Canada-like maybe? I wonder what would happen if David Firth made a Salad Fingers personality test...
Anyway, I answered by association: for example the "has the nightmare only begun?" question gave you (A) a good old regular shape I can't even remember and (B) something that looked like a severely infected wound, so I chose B. I don't really know what to make of the results, though!

Creepy Boards of Canada test results and my comments:

I enjoyed the other test a lot! I liked how you weren't forced to give strong A or B answers, and the results are pretty consistent with how I view myself, but I wonder what the people around me would think! I also liked how it gives you tips on how to be different, that was a great idea!
I score really low on masculinity (16) compared to femininity (52), which I don't find surprising at all. Actually I kinda sorta fantasise about being a woman sometimes, or about not being a man, but I agree with Enail that none of the questions seemed to be about gender! Maybe someone could drop them an email and ask about how these two traits are calculated.

This is what I got:

results & comments:

"Creator", "inventor", "dreamer" and "visionary" are fairly close in meaning as words, aren't they?

[waxingjaney]

I took the shape one. I didn't find it at all unsettling, and the results paragraph was reasonably accurate.

[Wondering]

I took both. The shapes one was weird. Neither described me well at all. And I had such high hopes for the second one.

[Enail]

Also does everyone get the "If you'd like to continue testing at a time and place of our choosing..."? because that was a little creepy...

Oh yeah, I got that, I just assumed they want volunteers for a psychology experiment. But now that you mention it, that phrasing is a little creepy.

[nearly_takuan]

Your power comes from an ability to sense how things might be and to proclaim this possibility with a great force and willingness to act.

You have a tendency to be romantic, and can be an idealist. This sense of how the world can be is often expressed with self-deprecatory humor.

Because of your need to address the immediacy of the moment, you may not think things through to their logical end, relying instead on a feeling for how a situation SHOULD end.

You need to be liked and appreciated by others, although your attention often wanders. Sometimes you neglect old friends in favor of a new or exciting acquaintance. You have a real difficulty being alone.  Often you will seem to know how to handle a situation without exactly knowing HOW you know this.

Your thoughts are often shallow.

While in the excitement of the moment you can obsess about a task at hand. If it should become rote and unexciting, however, it can be dropped just as quickly.

[nearly_takuan]

I'm not a psych expert, but it seems to me these quizzes rarely tell us anything we don't either already know or have some form of objection to. Which is to say they're usually at least a little inaccurate even if they're based on something other than nonsense questions like the shapes thing. Which is to say they probably have more utility as tools to facilitate introspection than as standalone instruments of prescription.

This is also how I believe horoscopes work.

[Enail]

The ones that aren't so bizarre pretty much just ask you to evaluate yourself in different categories, so the result is more of a 'this is what the test thinks you think of yourself' than genuine insight into your personality. I think they're rarely useful for anything but the fun of saying "OMG, it's me!" or "hey, that's not me!"

[Wondering]

I do much better on personality tests, and find them to be much more accurate for me, when they give specific situations, not general ones.

Also, since I've gotten married, I find questions about what I do with or for or because of other people difficult because my husband is in a whole different category of interaction from everyone else I know. A lot of the answers to questions like that are "only my husband," but that's never an option. And since becoming a mom, I can say the same thing about questions regarding nurturing or caring or putting the needs of others before my own: "only my baby."

Be more specific, tests!

[reboot]

This one was kind of fun. I am apparently high Machiavellian, which is unsurprising given my career path and experience.
http://personality-testing.info/tests/MACH-IV.php

[Guest]

This one was kind of fun. I am apparently high Machiavellian, which is unsurprising given my career path and experience.
http://personality-testing.info/tests/MACH-IV.php

What was your score though?

I got a High Mach. score too (65/100).

[Caffeinated]

Looks like there's not a lot of distance between what they term High Mach and Low Mach. I got 54/100 and it called that Low Mach.

[eselle28]

Your score was 71 of 100.

This puts you in the category of the high Machs, people who do not belive in the goodness of the world and that because that it must be manipulated, people who Machiavelli would approve of.

[Wondering]

Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so.

This is exactly the sort of question I was talking about in my prior post. Anyone? My husband is a someone. I would tell him, even if I would not tell anyone else. So...how to answer?

[fakely mctest]

Also does everyone get the "If you'd like to continue testing at a time and place of our choosing..."? because that was a little creepy...

Oh yeah, I got that, I just assumed they want volunteers for a psychology experiment. But now that you mention it, that phrasing is a little creepy.

Did you guys check out the story of this test link?

I'm reasonably sure it's an art piece/online story (like The Dionaea House or Ted's Caving Page). Very cool!

[litterature]

Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so.

This is exactly the sort of question I was talking about in my prior post. Anyone? My husband is a someone. I would tell him, even if I would not tell anyone else. So...how to answer?

Yeah... I mean, I think Machiavelli is all about situation. His point is politics is politics and morality is morality. He wanted an unified Italy so first he wrote the Prince, and then the situation changed and he wrote the Discourses. Realising that being ruthless is necessary for securing power says nothing about what you personally are like, and that's why Machiavelli isn't a historical footnote: his idea was politics is a discipline in itself, so philosophising about human nature isn't pertinent when discussing the State.

To me the interesting question is "to which extent do you consider everyday life to be a power struggle where being ruthless is the optimal course?", but I think "a lot!" isn't what Machiavelli himself would have answered!

Anyway, I got a low score!

[Wondering]

I've always taken issue with the traditional characterization of Machiavelli, anyway. The Prince really reads as a satirical to me.

But that is not a discussion for this thread!

[nearly_takuan]

Never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so.

This is exactly the sort of question I was talking about in my prior post. Anyone? My husband is a someone. I would tell him, even if I would not tell anyone else. So...how to answer?

No idea. I have a different problem answering the same question, though: I find there's an extent to which it is almost always "useful" to explain my reasons for doing a thing to at least one person. Sounding boards, that sort of thing. Does that count? I'm talking a utilitarian approach: I don't do things I don't have a reason to do, and usually the reason has something to do with "usefulness", but not the kind of useful where I'm deliberately trying to affect someone else's future behavior....

[Enail]

I got high Machiavellian, 65. But since I was either "it depends..." or totally indifferent in opinion on almost every question, I'm not really sure what to make of it other than that I'm not too fussed about the interplay between my morality and my effectiveness. Also, I'm not really sure what to make of the picture comparison bit in the additional questions, I can't figure out any pattern in what I preferred.

[litterature]

I got high Machiavellian, 65. But since I was either "it depends..." or totally indifferent in opinion on almost every question, I'm not really sure what to make of it other than that I'm not too fussed about the interplay between my morality and my effectiveness.  Also, I'm not really sure what to make of the picture comparison bit in the additional questions, I can't figure out any pattern in what I preferred.

Yeah, it was similar for me, although I scored lower than that! I think I gave a "neutral" answer for almost every single question.
As for the pictures, I dunno. I disliked anything that was too cottage-y looking and systematically preferred ukiyo-e but other than that... there seemed to be a bit of a portraits vs landscapes and abstraction vs realism pattern in some pictures, though.

But that is not a discussion for this thread! 

Haha, I think I've got a bit of a -complex sometimes. I'm sorry!

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