One of so many fun things about quarantine is how you really get an opportunity to learn about yourself! Really dig in to who you truly are, really face yourself in the mirror. What better time, then, to think hard about whether or not you often get lost in daydreams, if you’re the life of the party, or to what degree you are interested in abstract ideas?
Some of the tests on this list are fun novelty tests — the type that ran amok in print magazines of yore (particularly teen mags) and now take up real estate all over online media —and others fit more solidly into the field of pop psychology personality tests that’ve gained in popularity over the last century as more and more people began working in offices. Personality tests like Myers-Briggs are now a two billion dollar industry, with myriad tests used by employers or educators to assess capability, negotiate team dynamics and envision long-term potential. But now also the internet exists, enabling all of us to get our hands all over them regardless of our teacher or employer’s interest in whether we like being the center of attention. If you’re wondering “What do personality tests really deliver?” you should read this article about the rise of Myers-Briggs, which essentially concludes “not much” but who wants to deal with reality today not me!
1. Fictional Character Alignment Test
This was a real HIT on social media a few weeks ago. I ended up with Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City) and Goh Peik Lin (Crazy Rich Asians) tied at the top of the list with 82%, which made me feel insane.
2. Enneagram Types
I told you about the joy of Enneagram Types a few years back. If you missed it, it’s never too late to answer some questions and understand everything you’ve ever done and why you did it. The “Enneagram of Personality” body of teaching was developed by Bolivian psychoanalyist Óscar Ichazo in the mid-fifties. Ichazo was looking for a deeper understanding of mechanistic and repetitive thought and behavior processes in order to help people transcend their identification with said patterns. I had a trauma therapist who leaned on Ennegram Types a lot throughout our work together and I actually found it pretty helpful. (I’m an 8 jsyk.) This is the gold standard, but you’ll have to drop $12 for it. Here’s a free one and here’s another free one and here’s an app, or you can just read about the types and decide which fits!
3. Jung and Myers-Briggs Personality Type Theory
Perhaps the most popular personality type test of all, it ranks you on a scale of Introversion/Extraversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perception, which then becomes an acronym you can share at will with people who care, and also with people who don’t care! Test yourself with the Open Extended Jungian Type Scales 1.2 or the Jung Typology Test. The official Myers & Briggs Instrument Test, which includes lifetime access to the website and personalized courses and comparisons, costs $49.95.
4. The Political Compass
By agreeing and disagreeing with a number of relevant statements, you can find out where you lie on the Political Compass, which maps Left/Right on one spectrum intersecting with Authoritarian/Libertarian. Then you can compare yourself to Gandhi!
5. Birth Chart / Natal Chart
This Birth Chart from Cafe Astrology is the most frequently used chart by people first beginning to dip their toes into the murky waters of the sky, which is unscientific and although most of y’all don’t believe in astrology, astrology culture really seems to permeate a lot of queer culture. You can also do CoStar’s Natal Chart, which can be accessed through its very popular app and also through this website.
6. Harry Potter’s Sorting Hat
Pottermore hosts the animated author-created Sorting Hat Test, although you’ve got to sign up for a free account to take it (which includes a code sent to your email for verification). If you don’t want to register at Pottermore, which I understand because we’re all humans with different ideas about things, Time Magazine, oddly enough, has one of their own.
7. The “Big Five” Personality Test
Named by 538 as “the only personality test based on science,” arising from decades of research about how people describe one another and themselves, this test asks you to rate not only yourself but also somebody you know. If this person is taking the test with you, it’s interesting to compare what you both came up with — if not, apparently your own test is more accurate when you think about yourself in relation to someone else. The “Big Five” traits, by the way, are achronymed as OCEAN: Open-Mindedness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Negative Emotionality. Researchers who created the test in the 1970s believe most human personality traits can be boiled down to those broad dimensions of personality.
8. Multidimensional Introverstion – Extraversion Scales
I scored much higher (read: closer to extrovert) on this scale than I expected as a very dedicated introvert who somehow still at the age of 38 breaks out in a panic when you leave me alone at the table with someone I’m not best friends with in order to use the restroom. This test intends to account for people meaning several different things when describing themselves as introverts or extroverts, when “in fact the trait of introversion-extroversion should actually be broken down into a couple different, though related, traits.”
9. DISC Personality Test
As touched upon in the very hot film Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, DISC analyzes your relationship to four traits: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness. Created by Marston himself, the personality profile is used by many business and organizations including Deputy Editor Kamala’s friend’s Mom, who made everybody take this before they could hang out. (“She’s a D who prefers other Ds” – Kamala) I haven’t hung out with Kamala’s friends Mom, but I took it anyhow and it turns out I am a C (I was expecting to be a D)!
10. Love Language Test
Is your love language Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time or Physical Touch? There is literally only ONE way to find out. Just one: it’s this test on the page for the book that defined Love Languages for us all. (Mine is unsurprisingly Acts of Service.)
11. Kinsey Scale Test
What sexual orientation am I? You might wonder. The answer is right here!!! This 6-question test is 100% accurate and I’m sure nobody will take any issue with how it is conducted or the results. The actual Kinsey Institute would like you to know that “An official Kinsey “test” does not exist, which is contrary to popular belief and many tests across the web. The original Kinsey research team assigned a number based on a person’s sexual history.”
12. Which US City Should I Live In?
Teleport is a website that looks at the actual qualities you desire in a city, your income and career aspirations to make a recommendation and compare potential locations. There’s also lots of smaller quizzes that somebody probably wrote in 20 minutes for $35, like this one about U.S cities on Kaplan (I got Portland?) or this one about international cities on Buzzfeed (I got Barcelona?) or this one about U.S. States on Quizony (I got California?), which basically determine things most sentient beings could figure out on their own without a test.
13. Nerdy Personality Attributes Scale
The nerdy Personality Attributes Scale was ” developed to quantify what exactly nerdiness is.” True nerds will want to read the article about the development of the Nerdy Personality Attributes Scale to fully understand the process of narrowing down 445 items onto the 26 that most closely correlated with self-identification as a nerd.
14. Career Explorer
This 30-minute behemoth of a test is probably accurate because it told me my best career matchers are Television Writer, Author, Film Director, Filmmaker, Professor, and Forensic Psychologist! The test points out “rare” things about you as you proceed through its many levels, and ends with giving you ten career matches. You’ve got to upgrade for more.
15. Which Character From “The L Word” Are You?
Listen we’re all friends here this is just what life is.
