Personality Affirmation

Don’t take personality quizzes too seriously

By Avery Wageman

Personality quizzes are a fun, effortless way of determining who we are and prophesying our futures. However, if the answers they dole out aren't what we wanted or expected, they suddenly don’t mean anything. It's great when the results validate how we see our own personalities, but are we being honest with our responses, or are we catering to the result we want from the quiz? If we’re not honest with our answers, the results are fabricated and not an authentic assessment of ourselves.

Depending on the quiz and what we expect from the results, they can be harmless and 

solely used to assuage curiosity. For example, Buzzfeed's "What Kind of Pickle Are You" quiz probably would not send you into an existential crisis if you didn't get the answer you wanted. But quizzes that determine deeper interpretations of our identity and psyche, like the Myers-Briggs test, can have a greater effect on our sense of self. These tests often include questions that exploit the test taker’s insecurities, forcing us to confront difficult aspects of ourselves. It's comforting to have our positive traits confirmed, but having our faults called out can hit too close to home.

In a time of incredible amounts of stress, when climate change is worsening, student debt is rising, and the state of our mental health is declining, having a test to explain who we are is one less puzzle to solve. But if you don’t like the results from a quiz, or are concerned about who you are, remember that our personalities evolve and change. Ask yourself who you want to be or how you can work on the aspects of yourself you may not like. If you can’t answer these questions yourself, ask the people closest to you; the people who you interact with everyday provide better feedback than an internet quiz driven by algorithms.