Cracking the Personality Code

Image generated by Stanley Yang with Generative AI

“You are motivated by family, community and relationships rather than power, fame, or material success… You are deeply altruistic, gaining meaning from helping others. When someone is in trouble, you feel their pain, and are there for them — supportive, patient and empathetic, regardless of the problem…”

A self-professed personality test junkie, the above is an extract of a personality test that I took recently. And I am not alone in being an active participant of personality tests.

Since the 1960s, an estimated 50 million people have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), making it by far the most popular personality assessment ever created^[1]. The popular website 16personalities.com, which offers a free ten-minute MBTI test, has administered 1231 million tests world-wide as of July 2024, of which four million tests were taken by an estimated 653,413 respondents in Singapore^[2].

Why are humans obsessed with personality tests? Let’s dive into the past, present and future of personality tests.

(i) The Past

The desire to know thyself

The human desire to “know thyself” is innate and ancient. Greek physician and philosopher Galen (129–216 AD) believed that there were four fundamental personality types: the more extroverted sanguine (being optimistic and social) and choleric (being short-tempered and irritable) types, and the quieter phlegmatic (being relaxed and peaceful) and melancholic (being analytical and quiet) types^[3]. Why do humans create and sort ourselves into categories? At the crux of it is a desire for guidance to better understand our feelings, motivations and thinking patterns to give ourselves an internal measure of our self-worth.

As Aristotle put it, “knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”. The yearning to understand and to be understood by others is a powerful emotion that has both captivated and frustrated humans, and the fascination with personality tests is an indication of the human desire to peel away and reach the layers of our core.

On a more pragmatic note, humans have endeavoured to understand differing personalities for the betterment of society. Psychologist Robert Woodworth developed the first formal personality test during World War I to identify emotionally unstable soldiers who should not be sent to war. His efforts produced what is known as the first “personal data questionary” and is widely considered as the ancestor of all modern psychological personality inventories^[4]. Woodworth’s work inspired a generation of researchers, who were eager to measure the core of who we were, and then apply those results to streamline university admissions, train spies, and fight evil^[5].

Humans have always sought to better allocate resources. The very first humans were independent passive scavengers who evolved into collaborative foragers^[6]. As group identities formed and competition occurred amongst groups, survival required better skills of coordination and communication, and therefore the allocation of humans to job tasks according to our strengths.

The rise of personality testing

Personality tests rose in popularity with companies as a means of effective resource allocation, as employers sought to better manage the post-World War II boom in employment. These companies wanted a means to streamline their hiring process and determine which jobs would be best suited for one’s personality.

The answer came in the form of the MBTI test, which was one of the first personality test to gain mass popularity, as it gave people a simple yet affirming framework to sort themselves and identify their individual strengths. As Merve Emre wrote in her book The Personality Brokers, the Myers-Briggs pair who created the MBTI test intuited that understanding personalities “would yield higher productivity, and it would convince workers to bind themselves to their jobs freely and gladly”^[7].

The MBTI test identifies 16 possible psychological types each with its own innate strengths and blind spots. By understanding which one we are, so the theory goes, we might apply ourselves more effectively in our personal and professional life. More importantly, the MBTI’s appeal lay in the premise that within each of us dwelled a unique individual who was master of his or her own life. This desire to “know thyself” is a thread that will continue to connect generations through the ages and beyond.

(ii) The Present

How has the quest to “know thyself” impacted the development of our modern society?

Today, personality tests wield considerable influence not just at the workplace, but also over the formation of human relationships in societies.

Developments in the modern workplace

The rise of industrial capitalism and the development of the modern workplace had exacerbated the division of people into classes: owners versus workers, white collar versus blue collar worker^[8]. Ironically, this exacerbated and conditioned humans’ acceptance of classifications as well as of people-sorting mechanisms. 

As companies expanded and job roles became increasingly specialised, employers began to use personality tests as a point of reference, to understand prospective hires more deeply and place them in their most-suited roles. Besides the MBTI, some of the more popular personality tests employed by modern companies include the Enneagram Framework, the Clifton Strengths Assessment and The Big Five Personality Traits^[9] etc. Increasingly, companies are also using personality tests as part of their overall management process, with the aims of improving company culture, driving a self-improvement mindset and enhancing employee engagement levels.

However, the obsession with personality test results has sometimes led to spillover negative impacts on societies. In some countries, one could even gain or lose a job based on your personality type. In Korea, the perception is that the brightest and most diligent workers are thought to be ENTJ, ESTJ, INTJ, and ISTP^[10]. These MBTI personality types are considered valuable in Korean work culture because they generally do not question authority. Correspondingly, a growing number of Korean companies are asking job candidates to reveal their MBTI personality test results^[11], angering job hunters who argue that the test is an unreasonable standard to screen and evaluate their capabilities. 

Other criticisms of the MBTI test include how it lacks scientific credibility and is flawed by the fact that it relies on “limited binaries” when most humans fall along a spectrum and are therefore not easily classified into opposite choices. The test had also been proven to be ineffective at predicting people’s success in various jobs^[12]. 

Notice how I had extracted only the positive aspects of my personality test at the start of this essay? It is human nature to zoom in to what looks good, and part of the appeal of personality tests is its comforting illusion that we all have our strengths. However, as personality tests like the MBTI are often entirely self-reported, it leaves no room for one of the most basic human capacities, the capacity for self-deception^[13]. Just like how people jazz up their dating profiles with positive traits, we might fall unknowingly into the trap of portraying ourselves as how we would like others to see us, when answering a personality test. This encourages the introduction of bias, which might explain why some people who have taken the MBTI test more than once, get classified as a different type more than 50 per cent of the time^[14]. 

The situation is exacerbated by how work increasingly gets intertwined with our personal identities, as the modern worker spends increasingly larger amounts of time at the workplace. As such, many of us might end up identifying more of who we are, based on how we behave at work. The danger is when our work identities, as defined by our personality test reports, start to replace and define who we really are, even when outside of the workplace. 

The East Asian obsession with personality tests

Besides exerting a strong influence at the workplace, personality tests such as the MBTI have also permeated everyday life and relationship formation in some societies. 

In Korea, the MBTI is quickly becoming one of the basic pieces of information that people share about themselves. A Hankook Research survey taken in December 2023 found that over half of Koreans have taken the MBTI test, of which many of them are the younger Millennials and Gen Zs^[15]. MBTI’s popularity and influence can be seen from how candidates tried to woo younger voters by sharing their MBTI results online during the 2022 Presidential elections. Then candidate Yoon Suk Yeol said his type is ENFJ, just like former U.S. President Barack Obama ― an altruistic protagonist and a natural-born leader with charisma and passion. Mr Yoon emerged victorious in the race. 

Why are East Asians in particular so intrigued by personality tests? Perhaps this is because most Asian cultures are predominantly collectivistic in nature, where individuals are embedded within their group identity, and the notion of separate, autonomous self is de-emphasised^[16]. Hence, Asian societies are more likely to be accepting of classifications and of people sorting mechanisms — and group identities, ironically, is what personality tests provide. 

The classification of people is not new in East Asian societies. The Chinese have long believed in the concept of the Chinese Zodiac, a traditional classification scheme that assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle. The 12 Chinese zodiac animals are believed to influence people’s personalities, career, compatibility, marriage and fortune. Hence, there has been a traditional preference to have children in an auspicious year like the Dragon year, as these children are associated with desirable traits like charisma. Ultimately, the belief that everyone and thereby every zodiac has a role to play in society translates well with Confucian beliefs in a hierarchical society. 

The Japanese, on the other hand, are obsessed with the concept of “Ketsueki-Gata”, or the “Japanese Blood Type Personality Theory”. They believe a person’s blood type determines temperament and personality, which has implications for life, work and love. According to popular belief in Japan, those with Blood Type A are sensitive perfectionists and good team players, but over-anxious. Type Os are curious and generous but stubborn. Type ABs are arty but mysterious and unpredictable, and type Bs are cheerful but eccentric, individualistic and selfish^[17]. Unsurprisingly, Type B people are often deemed as less desirable romantic prospects in Japan due to these long-held stereotypes. 

However, the obsession with classifying people is not necessarily always a bad thing, as it can help to create a sense of solidarity. In China, there has also been a surge of gatherings as people sought to connect with others who share similar traits^[18]. These events, which are often categorised as “E people” (or “extroversion”) parties and “I people” (or “introversion”) parties, offer a safe and inclusive environment where attendees can explore their personalities and make new friends beyond their usual circles. Proponents of the MBTI also believe that such tests encourage people to adopt positive habits^[19], as most of the described traits are about our strengths, which nurtures positive thinking when taken in the right spirit. 

As the East Asian stories above demonstrate, the human psychological need to understand and explore ourselves remains an endearing puzzle to solve throughout the ages. And that is why personality tests, which offers us a peek into a possible solution, has flourished in modern day society. 

(iii) The Future

Yet, will personality tests remain relevant in a world where Artificial Intelligence (AI) already seems to know everything about us? Why do we need to depend on tests, when our digital footprints already reveal more about us than we know about ourselves? In this segment, I explore the challengers to personality tests, and how these tests may continue to flourish, by existing in new forms that may surprise some of us. 

New challengers to the throne 

While one reason for personality tests gaining mainstream acceptance is due to its job matching value, it should not come as a shock that some companies have already turned to alternative ways to gauge candidates’ suitability for job roles. 

A fundamental principle in psychology is that our past behaviour is often a good predictor and indicator of future behaviour. Hence, our digital footprints, which follows us throughout our lives, might turn out to be a more accurate yardstick of who we really are. By collecting and ploughing through information from an individual’s Facebook or other social media profiles, a more accurate recruitment process can be undertaken, because of the growing ability to analyse an applicant’s interests and personality from what he or she posts online. Such assessments are made even more accurate with the advent of artificial intelligence. Research suggests that computer-based judgments of personality based on an individual’s digital footprint is more accurate than an average human’s judgment^[20]. While bias is likely to creep in during the undertaking of personality tests, what we post consistently over a long period of our lives is less likely to be an attempt to portray a positive image in the eyes of others. 

Some companies are also starting to explore the use of wearable technologies to track and record these digital footprints. Many employees already own wearables such as smart watches and fitness trackers that are collating large amounts of digital data that can be analysed to understand patterns of behaviour. Another growing trend is the use of tracking badges in the workplace. These allow employers to follow employees’ behaviours at work and record the frequency of talking and turn-taking and where in the office they are the most^[21]. Other useful data can also be identified via these emerging technologies, such as predicting team effectiveness^[22], as dots can be drawn to show where people go for advice and how ideas and information spread within an organization. The use of such data might allow companies to improve work dynamics and how we work in the workplace. 

In future, companies might just do away with self-reported personality tests, and instead rely on these wearable technologies and other new forms of technological developments, to glean more reliable insights into their candidates’ temperament. 

Will personality tests still have a place in society despite the emergence of these challengers? I would say they still do, as these developments are mostly embraced by companies, but less so by individuals, to determine their personalities at this stage. Privacy concerns will also remain another hurdle, as people are likely to object to companies gaining access to their private data via these means. 

The future of personality tests 

And now for the big reveal — do you recall the personality test results which I extracted at the start of this essay? 

Those lines were actually derived from a new AI-powered personality test run by the Humanality.ai site, which offers a free test which can be completed within 12 minutes^[23]. To my surprise, some of its findings were not too far off from what I read in my original MBTI assessment, which I had taken more than a decade ago. 

Will the day come when AI knows our personalities and who we really are, better than we do? The future of personality tests has already descended upon us. And we do not even realise it.

Endnotes

[1] Harrell, Eben. 2017. “A Brief History of Personality Tests”. Harvard Business Review. March 2017. https://hbr.org/2017/03/a-brief-history-of-personality-tests#:~:text=Over%2020%20years%2C%20the%20mother,popular%20personality%20assessment%20ever%20created.

[2] 16Personalities. n.d. “Singapore Personality Profile”. Accessed July 31, 2024. https://www.16personalities.com/country-profiles/Singapore

[3] Dammeyer, Jesper and Ingo Zettler. 2019. “Chapter 1: A Brief Historical Overview on Links Between Personality and Health”. In Personality and Disease, edited by Christoffer Johansen. Amsterdam: Academic Press.

[4] DuBois, Philip. 1970. A History of Psychological Testing. Michigan: Allyn and Bacon.

[5] Chen, Angela. 2018. “Meet Yourself”. Lapham’s Quarterly, November 5, 2018. https://www.laphamquarterly.org/roundtable/meet-yourself

[6] Tomasello, Michael. Alicia P. Melis, Claudio Tennie, Emily Wyman, and Esther Herrmann. 2012. “Two Key Steps in the Evolution of Human Cooperation. The Interdependence Hypothesis.” Chicago Journals. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/668207

[7]Emre, Merve. 2018. The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing. UK: HarperCollins.

[8] Ibid.

[9] “7 Workplace Personality Tests That Can Help Improve Your Team.” LinkedIn. August 10, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/learning-and-development/workplace-personality-tests-that-can-improve-your-team

[10] Karmokar, Suparna. “Workplace MBTI in Korea.” KoreabyMe. Accessed 29 July 2024. https://koreabyme.com/workplace-mbti-in-korea/

[11] “No INFPs please, and other excesses of the MBTI craze.” Naver. March 27, 2022. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/03/27/business/industry/mbti-MyersBriggs-MyersBriggs-Type-Indicator/20220327172450438.html

[12] Zurcher, Anthony. “Debunking the Myers-Briggs personality test.” BBC, July 15, 2014. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-28315137.amp

[13] Menand, Louis. 2018. “What personality tests really deliver” newyorker.com, September 3, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/10/what-personality-tests-really-deliver

[14] Emre, Merve. 2019. The Personality Brokers. The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing. UK: HarperCollins.

[15] Lee, Hae-rin. 2022. “Personality tests become hugely popular among young Koreans.” The Korea Times, August 31, 2022. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/07/113_335268.html

[16] Kawamura, K.Y. 2012. “Encyclopaedia of Body Image and Human Appearance”. Science Direct. Accessed 29 July 2024. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/asian-cultures#chapters-articles

[17] Evans, Ruth. 2012. “Japan and blood types: Does it determine personality?” BBC, November 5, 2012. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20170787

[18] “MBTI-based in-person gatherings gain popularity in urban China”. CGTN, September 12, 2023. https://radio.cgtn.com/news/recommend/MBTI-based-in-person-gatherings-gain-popularity-in-urban-China/2323

[19] Lu Yan. 2023. “MBTI personality assessment becomes a conversation starter among youth.” Beijing Review, September 14, 2023. https://www.bjreview.com/China/202309/t20230911_800341833.html

[20] Ihsan, Zohra and Adrian Furnham. 2018. “The New Technologies In Personality Assessment: A Review”. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Vol. 70, №2, 147–166. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000106

[21] Ibid.

[22] Woolley, A. Christopher Chabris, Alex Pentland, Nada Hashmini, Thomas Malone. 2010. “Evidence of a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups.” Science, Vol 330. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.119347

[23] Humanality.ai. n.d. “Free personality test”. Accessed July 2024. https://humanality.ai/

Wang Jieying was Senior Assistant Director at the Centre for Strategic Futures.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of Centre for Strategic Futures or any agency of the Government of Singapore.