We have Unique Personalities, not Types
May 10th, 2008 by Ran ZilcaPersonality assessment is based on the “study of individual differences“. But how different are people actually? Well - very different. Old school personality tests provide results in the form of a “type”: You may be a “gentlemen” or a “thoughtful leader”, or a “stressed out couch potato”. These old assessment instruments divide the human population into a small number of “buckets” and tells you what bucket you’re in. The Myers Briggs test, for example, uses 16 different possible personality types. That’s not very unique . Facebook currently has about 70 million active users and MySpace about 200 million. Assuming people are evenly distributed between the 16 types, you and almost 13 million MySpace users are the same type…
The scientific method Signal Patterns uses are “trait based” - they capture what characterizes people based on data collected from a large number of individuals. The Big Five personalty assessment framework captures the degree to which a person exhibits five main dimensions of personality. The Signal Patterns personality survey extends that level of detail to 45 traits, capturing subtle differences even between very similar individuals. It’s a long tail filter into the ocean of people that are online today.
Here is Signal Patterns scientist David Rosen’ take on this:
October 1st, 2008 at 11:07 am
I’m curious to learn about strategies for coping with a heavily biased type.
For me, it’s primarily on the contentiousness scale. My traits are so heavily weighted on the free-spirit side (loose, inefficient, slapdash, distracted, carefree, instinctive, arbitrary, etc) that it interferes with my goals: i.e. succeeding at work, completing projects, general self-discipline, etc.
How can I overcome these so that I don’t self-sabotage?
This may be part of a bigger question: why, if these traits are who I am, do I harbor the internal dissonance of wanting to overcome these? Partly I believe the answer to this larger question is that (at least for this Big 5 classification) it’s a question of life-skills: I still have to pay bills, get some exercise, eat healthy, mow the lawn, etc. I simply don’t have the natural personality to be disciplined. It feels like an uphill battle to get organized, while my general inclination is to let everything slip into chaos while I chase the latest sunbeam.
And, perhaps there’s an even bigger question: how does anyone with goals that point one way, and traits that point the other, cope (i.e. someone “abrasive” wishes to be more “agreeable”)? Is the answer “willpower”? Or is your personality malleable enough that you can use some therapeutic technique to “shift” you traits somewhat? Or do you need to simply rely on external factors, strategies, relationships to shore up your weaknesses? Or do you simply need to accept yourself as is and find the context in your life (career, relationships, etc) that work for you?