Various Types of Personality Tests for Various Purposes; A Historical Perspective

Everyone is!

No two people can be 100% alike as far as their personalities are concerned.

No two people think the same. Not even the great ones.

And for that reason psychologists across the world have considered for years as to what types of personality tests are the most accurate at determining someone's personality.

Over the years, personality tests have greatly changed, and updated to fit a more modernized society.

If you are interested in the history of the different types of personality tests, and their relative accuracy, read on!

After the World War I, the United States Army was presented with a problem. Soldiers coming back from the battlefield in Europe were reported to have shell shock, a condition that can often incapacitate a soldier, and may ultimately lead to disconnection from reality. The U.S. Army wanted to determine if it was at all possible to screen recruits to the Army before enlistment- to “weed out” any potential recruits that were more likely to experience shell shock.

Thus, the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet was created. Consisting of 116 simple yes or no questions, this test enabled the Army the ability to effectively screen recruits before accepting them into combat positions. The Woodworth test consisted of simple psychological questions, such as “Are you sickened by the sight of blood?”, and “As a boy, did you have a happy childhood?” A typical score on the Woodworth test was considered to be a 10, but a score of 40 or higher was directly found to be related to hysterical behavior. Today the army still uses personality tests very similar to the original Woodworth test, which speaks a lot on importance of such an early personality test.

One of the most famous personality tests is the Rorschach inkblot test. This test is commonly used by psychiatrists, to determine your personality type. Consisting of 10 ink blots, you are asked what shape each random ink blot represents. Everything that you say, no matter how trivial, will then be written down. In truth, it is not your direct answers that a psychiatrist is looking for, but instead how you arrive at your answers. In addition, the psychiatrist is also looking for how you react when the psychiatrist rotates the cards. The Rorschach inkblot test is still in wide use today.

The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) ™ is a very accurate, in many professional opinions, of all of the mentioned types of personality tests. The MBTI™ asks a series of 93 different questions, which are designed to pinpoint exactly what your personality type is. The questions on the MBTI™ test are often referred to as forced choice, meaning that you must choose one answer out of a provided two answers. This enables a more accurate score, versus tests that allow you to choose items on a scale from one to five, for instance. The MBTI's most impressive feature is that it recognizes 16 different personality types, instead of the standard two or three. The MBTI is still in use today, and considered by many experts to be the most important of all available types of personality tests.

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