People love taking personality tests, but are personality types real? Maybe, and maybe not. Personality development is complicated, and most healthy personality types are not so easily defined.
Your personality is what makes you unique. It’s your lasting behaviors and traits that determine how you respond to the world, including your interests, abilities, major traits, and emotional patterns. Your personality helps drive your behavior and interactions with others.
The field of psychology has several theories to describe different personality types and how they develop. But are personality types real? It’s complicated.
Personality development is so complex that it most likely cannot be accurately categorized into just a few personality types. Personality is considered to be a spectrum, with most people not fitting neatly into any one category.
Psychologists have long tried to differentiate between types of healthy personalities. This requires subjective observations over time as well as the reliance on self-reported information.
However, while these personality type indicators have become commonplace tools, there’s no true scientific basis to support these categorizations.
There are several different theories of personality types, but some of the most well-known are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Types A–D, and the Enneagram model.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
This self-report questionnaire claims to indicate different personality types based on your identification with four character “preferences.” The different combinations of these preference choices result in 16 personality types.
Despite having no
Created in the 1940s, the MBTI is based on philosopher Carl Jung’s theory of personality types. Its goal was to help people understand themselves better and select occupations in line with their personality strengths and weaknesses.
The questionnaire is based on four preference scales:
- extraversion / introversion
- thinking / feeling
- sensing / intuition
- judging / perceiving
While people may find personal value in the MBTI, results are
Personality Types A, B, C, D
These four personality types were initially identified by Hippocrates in ancient Greece. They were then redefined by two cardiologists who noticed dramatic differences in types of behaviors. This led them to categorize personalities as such:
- Type A: This type tends to be competitive, hardworking, aggressive, and more likely to have heart issues.
- Type B: This type tends to be more relaxed and patient and less likely to have heart issues.
- Type C: This type is more precise, logical, and detail-oriented.
- Type D: This type has a tendency to be pessimistic and anxious.
These personality types might be helpful for making sense of general behavior patterns, but people can exhibit traits of more than one personality type.
There has been no correlation found between Type A personalities and heart issues. However, a separate research review showed a tendency toward cardiovascular disease in people who had more negative personality traits and identified closer to a type D personality type.
Enneagram model
This tool is based on ancient traditions to help people find self-discovery and meaning in life. It’s a circular model with intersecting lines representing stress and growth. It uses integration and disintegration to represent the ways you will respond to various life challenges. Each point on the circle represents a personality type, numbered 1 through 9.
There’s a lack of research on the validity of the Enneagram model, but it claims to be helpful in personal and spiritual growth.
Personality type vs. personality trait
A personality type is a combination of traits that collectively demonstrate a recognizable behavior pattern.
A personality trait is one factor of a personality that can exist in different types of personalities, such as compassion or honesty.
Personality development is complicated. Your individual personality will develop based on an interaction between your genetics and your environment — the old “nature versus nurture” combination.
Studies on twins have found that personality traits are
Additional
The shaping of a personality involves many different variables.
Even though personality tests are flawed and often inaccurate, people love taking them. Employers love using them. Magazines (and online sites) love generating them. But why? In a nutshell, it comes down to self-exploration.
Maybe you want to learn something new about yourself. However, in a self-reported personality test, this is unlikely to happen. It’s more likely to validate traits you were already aware of rather than shift your perspective on yourself.
People also like to categorize themselves. It helps foster a sense of belonging to something larger than yourself. When you get the results of a personality test, you may feel satisfied that you fit into an acceptable personality range or belong to an exclusive group.
Some people also believe that personality tests could help you understand other people better. But trying to understand someone’s personality from the outside could leave you relying on stereotypes rather than seeing them as a fully complex person.
So, if you enjoy taking personality tests as a fun diversion, there’s no harm in it. But if you’re counting on them to tell you hidden facts about yourself or others, they’re likely to let you down. They’re also not good predictors of job performance over time or how satisfied you’ll be in a certain situation.
A personality type is a collection of traits that make up an individual’s personality. There are many different categorizations of personality types, which are sometimes used by employers, universities, and government offices.
The accuracy of personality tests is unreliable, and they do not have roots in hard science. However, some people find them valuable for personal insight or entertainment.