Surprisingly accurate personality test

@RiotDemon Thanks. Looks like I copied a space by mistake

@mfladd Yes, you are.

@Barney

@mfladd

@mfladd
Plain and simple?
or
Slain and pimple?

@KittySprinkles

@mfladd oh Emma. you could shrug at me all day and i’d never tire of it.

@carl669

This was the question which I didn’t understand:

Winning a debate matters less to you than making sure no one gets upset.

@PlacidPenguin Do you concede in disagreements to avoid upsetting people?

@PantHeist

Of course not.

@PlacidPenguin then you disagree.

@PlacidPenguin Those kinds of questions make me wonder how far off cultural center I am… my first thought is "Winning a debate? That’s a stupid thing to try to do in the first place, unless you’re on a debate team."
On the other hand… I don’t tend to consider other people’s feelings too much if I think they’re wrong, other than trying not to be mean.
… Unless the interlocutor seems like a lost cause, in which case I drop it. Maybe that puts me on the feelings side of the question.

I hate survey questions.

@InnocuousFarmer You’ve never tried to convince someone of the best way to do something you’re both working on? How about trying to get someone else to acknowledge another point of view?

@PantHeist I surely have, but those aren’t “debates”, and I’m not trying to “win” them; rather I’m trying to effectively express an idea, and then hear what the other person thinks. This can have a large component of emotional work, where I’ll be consciously trying to make the other person more comfortable, so that it doesn’t turn into a fight or debate. (I’ll work harder at that part for pragmatic reasons if I have to, but it’s a PITA that I usually avoid dumping a lot of energy into.)

I’ve often had the experience of trying to engage in that kind of communication (political topics being probably the most universal example), realized the other person is aiming to “win”, rather than understand and be understood, and then been forced to write off the conversation, with my respect for the other person taking a nose dive as a consequence.

@InnocuousFarmer
Bravo.
And that’s part of what’s wrong with these sorts of tests.

They might give a quickie read on some basic qualities or habits, but hardly express the ranges of attitudes and approaches.

@InnocuousFarmer shrug that’s what I would consider a debate.

@PantHeist I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a debate where either of the participants do a 180 and come around to the other side, though.

@InnocuousFarmer
Not with political or econ debates. Have heard a # of tech and scientific fact or history/culture fact debates resolved by recourse to hard knowledge.

The person in a temp error state usually does a 180 happily and eagerly.

With “soft” issues, one way to try to bring people partway round is to not “frame” it as a debate in the first place. Instead, a discussion with alternate takes offered to illuminate the situation.

@f00l That’s a good point… around the soft issues, that’s a lot of what I was trying to get at–framing typical disagreements as something to be won or lost, instead of resolved.

@InnocuousFarmer I actually had that happen once. In my medieval group there were a group of guys from pretty rough backgrounds, the “wrong side of the tracks”. Great guys, so different from me and getting to be friends with them was one of the things I prize from the club. We were at a camping event, it was late, and I ended up sitting on top of a picnic table with one of these guys chatting about honor and knightly virtues and we ended up in an extended debate on the subject of “might makes right” vs “with great power comes great responsibility”. We probably spent two hours discussing the ideas, and strangest of all, a group of probably twenty diverse people gathered around, sitting on the ground and listening, never once interrupting. There was never a raised voice or any heat to the debate, just our best reasoned arguments, under the canopy of stars with the dark forest around us. At the end he said that he’d changed his mind and shook my hand. The audience clapped. It was so strange, but also wonderful.

@f00l Just don’t get caught up in the semantics of the test questions: debate vs discussion. A problem-solving process deciding from 2 or more proposed solutions can be called either, but as long as it isn’t a contest.
The test is trying to determine some basic defining characteristics about you by asking a series of unique, inter-related, sometimes redundant questions. The alternative is to spend months getting to know you via personal interaction. Ain’t nobody got time for that

@moondrake you filthy larper! That sounds like a fascinating, surreal experience.

/giphy knight philosopher

@compunaut
Tests like that are just an excuse to start playing around. If you take them straight,

1. They’re really boring
2. They don’t reflect my life experience or how I view the situations mentioned at all. Not even slightly. Both options meaningless and irrelevant.

I defend the purity of my soul by turning into a complete asshole whenever I take one of these.
Calling Forth! Immaturity In Action! To The Barricades!

Re Ain’t Nobody Got Time Fo’ Dat

Agree entirely.

@PlacidPenguin
I think I may have flunked the rules.
Uh-oh.

@f00l

You weren’t the first. And I’m not talking about myself.

Ha! On second read, I’m a member of the Diplomat Role group. Right up there with Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa.

So listen up everyone, Barney’s here to save the day!

Nah… Forget it.

@Barney

@Barney
/image “purple advocate”

Wow, that’s way better than I thought I’d get from “/image”.

@f00l Does it shoot kryptonite bullets?

@Barney
Of course!

/giphy "kryptonite bullet"

@RiotDemon That’s funny, that’s the only one I was almost even on, with a slight lean toward extrovert.

@PurplePawprints I got the same. Thought it wasn’t accurate. However after reading the description it did fit me rather well.

@f00l snort

@Kidsandliz
Subtype
SPCL-SNWFLK

@f00l Yes, you are.

@Barney
Which are you agreeing with? Or do you agree with both?

@f00l Yes.

@Barney
What can I say? It’s truly a gift.

/image “purple gift”

@f00l here - this should cure you of your spcl-snwflk status…

@Kidsandliz
Oh no.

Way way way too SPCL for that.

@f00l the 'ol eye dee ten tea error trick

@compunaut
That would seem to imply that you score highly on “perfect job” or “great pay” or “inertia” or “satisfied” or “i love abusing all my serfs too much to leave”.

/image cobwebs

@f00l It’s just a ridiculous statement for ranking when I’ve only had 2 jobs in 32 years.

Have no interest in being a boss

Mediators feel most comfortable among colleagues – they aren’t interested in controlling others, and have a similar distaste for being controlled. Among their colleagues, Mediators will feel freer to share their ideas, and while they may maintain some psychological distance, they will make every effort to be pleasant, friendly and supportive – so long as their coworkers reciprocate.

@compunaut I must of missed that part that talked about the 4%. I got mediator as well, this time. I forget what I got last time. I think it was something different, but I can’t remember what it was called. Last time I took it, I was so on the fence about stuff, it actually told me to pick what felt right out of three choices.

I’m sad that I accidentally closed the window. I think I’m going to do the test again after a few days, when I’m in a completely different mood. See if I answer the same.

@InnocuousFarmer I felt that way about a lot of it. Especially the argumentative stuff. It’s very situational. For example, “Being right is more important than hurting someone’s feelings”. Absolutely, if it’s on a subject that matters. If it’s on something trivial, absolutely not. I have a friend who’s damaged a lot of his relationships and lost jobs over this, if they are wrong and he is right he hammers on it till they yield or storm off. Even really stupid stuff, there was a big blowup over what year some model of car was released, it wasn’t about the stupid car, it was about chest thumping and it generated a lot of hard feelings. When he does it to people less assertive than he is it comes off as bullying. It’s a form of social dominance behavior and can be very destructive. He’s never tried that nonsense with me because I am the alpha dog in our pack, but I have talked with him about the price he pays with this behavior. It’s cost him friendships and respect. A bunch of questions were situational, I’m glad it was Likert scale method so weight could be applied.

@moondrake yeah, I answered dead-center on a lot of the questions (and as a result was pretty close to 50-50 on everything except introversion).

Their INTP verbiage does seem to pretty solidly nail a lot of my dominant approaches to ideas and interactions with other people though, so maybe that’s what was supposed to happen. I might read all the others at some point, for comparison, heh.

Have you suggested concrete alternate approaches to your friend? Like “Instead of saying X, try saying Y.” If all he knows is that he comes on too strong, he might still not have an alternative in mind when he needs one.

@InnocuousFarmer I’ve told him that the main problem is the way he tries to humiliate the person that was incorrect, that he needs to state his case, provide his data, and let it go. That there are less hurtful approaches to correcting people than the ones he employs. I’ve challenged his ego, explaining that I have no need to prove others wrong to know that I am right. I don’t need the affirmation of others to feel secure in my knowledge. This discussion came about because he was getting serious about a girl and didn’t want to screw it up as he’d done with so many other relationships. I explained how what he was doing was an attempt to dominate someone, and how completely poisonous that would be in a marriage. He seems to have taken it to heart as he’s engaged and they’ve been living together happily for a couple of years. I hardly see him anymore, as she has no shared interests with our group. I hope he’s managed to get a real leash on the behavior, as he’s a great guy.

@InnocuousFarmer those obsessed with organization are the absolute WORST at adapting to circumstances.

@DavidChurchRN
I would say that depends much on the personality. For those who are incredibly rigid about organization, yes, adaptability and organization are somewhat opposed. The paper-clip counters among us. Some people w extreme OCD can suffer this way.

For some people who are naturally flexible and creative, being organized can be an enormous advantage to being effectively and quickly adaptable. Our military trains units in being able to do both at once, after hard experience with the downsides of alt approaches.

The trad “Silicon Valley challenge” - to do both, and both very well. Some people and some organization zations are just plain excellent at both.

@looseneck some fun people on that list.
/image Thorin Oakenshield

swoon

@RiotDemon I’m partial to Lestrade on the BBC Sherlock myself
/image Inspector Lestrade Rupert Graves

@looseneck I did not know what the letters were supposed to mean either, but this link explained it sufficiently to me.

@f00l

Almost as bad as career path tests. (Never took them.)

I say almost, because here, most people will be able to be honest with themselves with the result in if it’s close to being accurate.

Those career tests… Pffft.

If any mehmber is affiliated with a company which does those:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@f00l My first boss had his group all take the Meyers-Briggs test and put everyone’s name in little boxes on a chart in his office. He was an ISTJ.

@sammydog01
<groan>

@f00l I had my own box. It was lonely.

@f00l pretty much sums it up. on another note, have you looked into the TAPAS test? it’s a test often taken for potential military recruits along with the ASVAB and supposedly “fake resistant”, not allowing testers to think their way out of the answers. the results don’t matter unless you score too low (or something) on the ASVAB, but I read into the test a little (because while I did well on the ASVAB, apparently I didn’t do “well” on the TAPAS). it’s a curious sort of test.

@f00l try just going with your gut feeling. It doesn’t change anything in your life, it’s just interesting when it describes you correctly.

@PantHeist
My gut feeling about the somewhat “constructed” dilemmas those tests propose is normally “Huh? WTF?”

I suppose that means something or other.

I might run thru it again a few times in diff “mental modes”.

@DrunkCat

@f00l WNDRFL SPCL-SNOFLK right?

@Kidsandliz
WNDRFL -ID10T -SPCL-SNOFLK

It’s oh so very rare. You just wouldn’t believe how rare.
I’m speshul.

@f00l THE WNDRFL -ID10T -SPCL-SNOFLK VLAGE F001…

@Kidsandliz

@Cerridwyn I love that it’s a 900 number

@gertiestn Hmmm. We might have a few traits in common

@sammydog01

@Yoda_Daenerys

“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

@f00l one pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small

@Yoda_Daenerys
Yeah. Alice is one of my homeys.

/giphy Alice Wonderland

@f00l Well you guys are 3/4 OK so I guess that’s something.

@sammydog01
We’re just awesomeness defined.

@sohmageek You gonna tell us or not?

@sammydog01

@mfladd I think that’s quite a few of us.

@sammydog01 that’s me, even though the letters are wrong.

@mfladd
Then how come we have to pretend to let you win?

@kittysprinkles?

@f00l Red velvet ice cream? Sounds gross to me.

@Shrdlu
Have to admit I’ve never tried Red Velvet Ice Cream. However, if Ben and Jerry offered that flavor, I guess I’d try it.

Mint Chocolate Chip was what I always ordered when we bicycled to Baskin-Robbins as kids. Clue, huh? : )

@f00l Actually, I don’t like Red Velvet anything. I tried the cake a couple of different times, but if I wanted to eat that much food coloring, I could just drink a Coca Cola or a Pepsi (but I won’t). Here’s a standard recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/9295/red-velvet-cake/

Four TABLESPOONS of food coloring? Ewwww…

My favorite is actually Talenti Gelato, Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip. Very low calorie, I swear. The container says there’s four servings in it, at 230 calories a serving. Nope. I just get a spoon, and eat all of it (instead of dinner, because why bother with dinner when you could have Gelato, right?)

@Shrdlu I had a pint of Talenti banana chocolate swirl for a snack once.

@Shrdlu I never understood the red velvet craze. Why not just eat chocolate colored cake?
The grossest thing was when I had red velvet that hardly tasted like chocolate. It was so bland. Hardly worth all the dye.

@Shrdlu
I try not to allow desserts into the house, because something happens to them the min they get inside and then they’re all gone.

Now you’ve done it to me. I have no choice but to go find that gelato. Poor me.

FWIW, I never much liked red velvet cake.

I am not up on current flavors of ice cream because I try not to look at those aisles.

PS Sometime around the college years people were over, and i asked them if they wanted dinner. Yes. But all I had were several enormous cheesecakes (this was during the era when I was trying to work my way thru The Joy Of Cooking by starting with breads and desserts.)
So we all had cheesecake for dinner and it was grand. And they teased me about it.
Except that they kept asking for another dinner like that one. And kept suggesting varieties of cheesecake I might want to make.

Cheesecake must contain some protein, right?

@f00l As a kid, I always got orange sherbet @ BR. Nowadays, I might on rare occasion stop at DQ for $.99 special vanilla soft-serve w/ chocolate shell. Marble Slab has ruined it for everybody else (cuz they’re so good), but I never waste that many calories any more.

I just have one important thing to say to you all:

Life is short. Eat dessert first. You’re welcome. :-}

@Shrdlu
/giphy one of us

@Shrdlu
Yeah Meyers-Briggs is kinda a party game. Not completely worthless, but I think mostly useful for mild entertainment and selling books? Do the types align with your horoscope? : )
Each “type” has practically its own bookstore on Amazon.

I figured you would come out “INTP” according to this sort of questionnaire. I go back and forth between “INTP” and “INFP” depending on how I interpret the (to me) rather odd dichotomies between logic or rationality and feeling, as these sorts of tests appear to differentiate them. I simply do not use the logic or rationality (or emotions for that matter) in the way the test presents.

And any of us can adapt to various circumstances. The way we approach some issue at home, or with family or friends, or at work, or on a personal project may differ, due to differing goals and justifications.

To me, the T vs F and J vs P differentials seem especially weak. But whatever. It’s a party game.

Mind
This aspect shows how we interact with our surroundings:
Introverted individuals prefer solitary activities and get exhausted by social interaction. They tend to be quite sensitive to external stimulation (e.g. sound, sight or smell) in general.
vs
Extraverted individuals prefer group activities and get energized by social interaction. They tend to be more enthusiastic and more easily excited than introverts.

Energy
The second aspect determines how we see the world and process information:
Observant individuals are highly practical, pragmatic and down-to-earth. They tend to have strong habits and focus on what is happening or has already happened.
vs
Intuitive individuals are very imaginative, open-minded and curious. They prefer novelty over stability and focus on hidden meanings and future possibilities.
(I suppose this has to do with whether one is focused on the practicalities in front of one, or “lives more in one’s head”, theorizing and creatively interpreting what we encounter)

Nature
This aspect determines how we make decisions and cope with emotions:
Thinking individuals focus on objectivity and rationality, prioritizing logic over emotions. They tend to hide their feelings and see efficiency as more important than cooperation.
vs
Feeling individuals are sensitive and emotionally expressive. They are more empathic and less competitive than Thinking types, and focus on social harmony and cooperation.

Tactics
This aspect reflects our approach to work, planning and decision-making:
Judging individuals are decisive, thorough and highly organized. They value clarity, predictability and closure, preferring structure and planning to spontaneity.
vs
Prospecting individuals are very good at improvising and spotting opportunities. They tend to be flexible, relaxed nonconformists who prefer keeping their options open.

Identity
Finally, the Identity aspect underpins all others, showing how confident we are in our abilities and decisions:
Assertive (-A) individuals are self-assured, even-tempered and resistant to stress. They refuse to worry too much and do not push themselves too hard when it comes to achieving goals.
vs
Turbulent (-T) individuals are self-conscious and sensitive to stress. They are likely to experience a wide range of emotions and to be success-driven, perfectionistic and eager to improve.

And, there’s a whole lot more info, here:
https://www.16personalities.com/articles/our-theory

I came out (this time)

• 27% vs 72%
  Extroverted vs Introverted
  When i was much younger, the introversion would have been rather higher. Have actually learned to deal with the wide world of people to a degree.
• 89% vs 11%
  Intuitive vs Observant
  Yeah, reality is what I say it is, when I’m in the mood. : ) In other words, I filter stuff thru all sorts of mental byways.
• 40% vs 60%
  Feeling vs Thinking
  (here, I just have to toss a coin, the questions do not mirror what I do - yeah, I try to be nice, when nothing huge is on the line. And also because it’s effective approach much of the time, and because I prefer it. Ergo, considering another’s feelings is rational, in many instances. And arguing usually doesn’t change anyone’s mind about issues not resolvable by recourse to hard facts.)
• 0% vs 100%
  Judging vs Prospecting
  Oops. Oh no. That must mean something. : ) Perhaps that I take the orderly operation of things for granted, that’s the jumping off point? Possibly. Or it could imply massive immaturity. Hmmm.
• 28% vs 72%
  Assertive vs Turbulent
  OK. Something to that. Tho… How i approach the thinking about stuff vs how I approach operating in the world are not fully aligned. Not that I’m good at either.

Of course this test is obviously gameable. And then the interpretations are all evocative and complimentary, in hopes that we will invest in some POV or books or services.

Even the 500+ question MMPI and its successors are gameable if someone reads up, tho the industry tries to keep them under wraps. The newish adaptive US Military Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System, or TAPAS would be harder to game, harder to get info without scouring academic pubs. But a seriously gifted successful sociopath - a true “born manipulator” - or someone who understood or could guess the construction of the test - might be able to do it.

it doesn’t seem right to me though. i think because i’m so borderline on the last two letters (and always have been).

usually i get 99% introverted, so that’s improving.

@connorbush woo, I’m not alone

@f00l I got Robert E. Lee.

@f00l Lord Horatio Nelson here.

@PantHeist
@RiotDemon
Good to know that we would all be outstanding generals in a pinch. : )

@RiotDemon Me too! Robert E. Lee was a fine general, and it made me happy in a goofy way to know that I fell into his camp.

My only other possibility was Ulysses S Grant, so I’m happy twice!

Fun quiz!

@f00l Go home and hide in a closet isn’t a choice? I’m not playing.

@f00l Omar Bradley

@f00l

I wanted to be Patton, so I just theu the options and finally got the be Patton.

1,1,1,1
Napoleon Bonaparte
1,1,1,2
Stonewall Jackson
1,1,2,1
Dwight Eisenhower
1,1,2,2
Douglas MacArthur
1,2,1,1
Teddy Roosevelt
1,2,1,2
John Paul Jones
1,2,2,1
Wesley Clark
1,2,2,2
William Tecumseh Sherman
2,1,1,1
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
2,1,1,2
Lord Horatio Nelson
2,1,2,1
George Washington
2,1,2,2
William C. Westmoreland
2,2,1,1
Omar Bradley
2,2,1,2
George S Patton
2,2,2,1
Robert E Lee
2,2,2,2
Ulysses S Grant

@f00l
I had made the error of thinking Patton would choose #1 for the first question, because Patton’s ability to personally unify and inspire his troops was legendary, and he was quite aware of it. But in a tight situation, short on time, Patton was no dummy and had nothing against planning. Besides, his reputation would have preceded him and offered substantial motivation without his personal presence.

According to what I’ve read about WWII, ordinary soldiers, including even the most reluctant slacker sad sacks, wanted to be in one of Patton’s units. He made his soldiers train harder and take on more combat than other units - but ordinary soldiers not only believed they would be far more successful, in far more cohesive units under Patton than under another general, they also believed that Patton was so effective, that even having to take on the hardest challenges, his soldiers would be far more likely to survive and possibly be unharmed under Patton. Patton was thought to be such an effective leader, that even tho he routinely threw his troops into the worst situations, he had relatively low casualty rates. He liked to win. So did his troops, and they also liked staying alive. They believed that under Patton they had better odds at going home with a future. Morale under Patton was normally pretty good.