Usefulness of personality tests
Online tests used to be the craze in high school. Dodgy websites asked you questions about your kitchen utensil preference and bowel habits to determine what type of dog you were. Sometimes personality tests also have a bad wrap, putting people into distinct ‘categories’.
But there are some uses that stem from knowing your ‘personality type’. They can help you understand in a more concrete way how you relate to people, how you deal with stress, what to watch out for, and so on.
A good one to use is the DiSC test. This is useful in group situations, figuring out how each person in the group handles tasks and relates to each other. We did this at our church’s leaders’ retreat earlier this year and it was quite helpful. It categorises people into the categories of Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness (there are other descriptions that are largely similar). Free online versions of this test are available at this link and also on this current website (I didn’t realise this was like the DiSC test until I did both!). A description of the DiSC personality types may be found here, or within the temperament survey. Note that the DiSC test should be performed in terms of a ‘role’ - that is, you should take the test in terms of your mindset in a particular role or position, like youth group leader, team member, etc. It makes a difference.
One test that’s been around for ages is the Jung-Myers-Briggs test. This is the more well-known test that assesses your personality in terms of four factors: Introversion/Extroversion, Thinking/Feeling, Intuition/Sensing, and Judging/Percieving. The most useful indicator I find is the introversion/extroversion factor, which tells you where you need to gain ‘energy’ from (very useful to understand!). A nice description of this test can be found here. Free online versions of this test can be found here, here, and here.
So go forth and find out your personality types. It might help you understand how you relate to people or how to recharge your batteries. For DiSC, I’m a high D and high C. For the Jung-Myers-Briggs, I’m an ISTJ.