I am an INFP but can be an INFJ. I am a 2 add 9. I’m also a blue, a golden retriever, an empath and a melancholic. I am a Capricorn with Gemini rising.
When I was young I LOVED A PERSONALITY TEST! There is a huge part of me that loves them to this day. There is something so deeply appealing to the idea that a quiz, or a test or a metric can untangle the mysterious web that is the long and seemingly unanswerable question “Who Am I?” It’s so soothing to think that something outside of you can analyze, detect and report back why you are the way you are. It can even go so far as to predict your future behaviors and help you make sense of the miss-steps you might make along the way. “Sorry I got so drunk and danced on the table at your party, I’m a seven, so sometimes I’m a mess.”
I totally get it. Sometimes, the most important thing to our psyche, to our ego is to be known. Sometimes it can be so painful to feel like a foreigner inside of your own body; acting in ways that you don’t understand, that don’t line up with your values, or what everyone else seems capable of being. When we take a little test and discover more about “who we are” we get an extra dose of self-acceptance. We can say things like, “Yeah, I know that party sounds like a lot of fun and I’m sure you’ll have a blast, but I’m an INTJ, and parties just aren’t my thing.”
Sometimes personality tests can give us a sense of pride at our comforts and discomforts and inject a boldness into us that helps us embrace ourselves as we are and empowers us to advocate for ourselves where we might have felt some shame.
And really, what can go wrong with thinking you’re a blue, versus a green, or an otter instead of a lion? We need different people on the planet to achieve different things. Self acceptance is the key to happiness!
Sure, but what if it’s all garbage? What if I took a quiz that asked me what choices I make in various instances and it just infers a bunch of new features on my back? Perhaps, yes, what I score is what I have been…until now. Perhaps, yes, the answers to the test accurately describe how I might even behave today. What effect does hearing that have on my tomorrow? Could it trap me in behaviors? In patterns of unhealthy thought? Could deeply believing I’m “just an introvert” exacerbate my social anxiety? Give me an irrational peace about avoidance? Could it prevent me from confronting my shyness and learning how to be open, engaged and free in a crowd? If I’m a 2, and deeply want to be a 7, am I screwed? Is it impossible?
Are these quizzes showing us WHO WE ARE, or are they further fusing us with a past version of ourselves and limiting our ability to change, grow and evolve into something bigger than what we have always been? The same goes for any label whether it be a personality, a race, a class, or a diagnosis. We can over-associate to a point of total inflexibility making our effectiveness at dealing with novel situations weaker, less genuine, and less adaptive.
Are they fun? Yes. Can they enlighten us to the unseen parts of our behaviors and coping mechanisms? Yes! Will I still click on links to see which Disney Princess I am? OF COURSE (Ariel, by the way). Are they accurate? Maybe. Are they truth? Less maybe. Are they the final word on who we are and can be? Hell naw.