I told an acquaintance one time that I thought I was an introvert. He told me there's absolutely no way. Turns out, I was pretty extroverted around him for whatever reason where I'm more introverted around other people. Even if personality tests worked perfectly, in my experience, personality is by no means fixed.
2:40 yeah that is a thing about life ive noticed, you cant really just box yourself in and say "I cant do it" I was diagnosed with autism so I could easily just say im a social outcast, with specific interests and I can just not even try to have interests outside of that. but I dont, I talk to people, I try to get interested in whatever they like, and heck, I succeed more than I would have thought. So yeah, dont box yourself in, no matter what it is.
I don’t have autism but I do have moderate anxiety and depression. I could use them as an excuse not to do uncomfortable things or to not be happy but I don’t. It’s not always easy as it varies from person to person and the intensity of their struggles and issues, but I’m in a better place in life ever since I chose to step out of the box of my personality which is more like an open field that is subject to change multiple times
Now I don't feel so dumb when I cringe at past decisions! I used to obsess over personality tests. I think they make sense intuitively and play to our confirmation bias because no one is actually keeping track of every decision they make. I never thought of the negative effects by giving us excuses not to improve.
The self fulfilling prophecy of personality types was something I hadn't thought of before, if a test tells you you're an introvert, you become more of an introvert
I love this take, people are so quick to put themselves in boxes because it feels reassuring without thinking about whether the box is actually important or real
This hits so well for me. I have struggled to explain why I'm not comfortable with personality tests because they change for me depending on the day or my mood and this? This is it.
The part about personality tests that really gets my goat is when jobs require you to do them as part of an application process. Nothing quite like having your future decided by pseudo-scientific data vaguely correlated with nebulously-defined terms like "job performance."
@Abhinavv Arora OCEAN is pretty well-established, but it's a pretty recent development, and won't show you "job performance." Personality ISN'T relatively constant across time and age, or even across one person in different social circumstances. Introvert / Extrovert isn't even a real category that people actually fall into. Time and again, evidence shows that the only real solid predictor of success at doing a thing is experience in doing the thing. After you get over that, everything else is basically Human Resources astrology.
This helps put into words why I've always felt frustrated and uncomfortable with personality tests. At my lowest mental health I'd obsessively take quizzes to give me answers rather than just getting help
It is very disheartening that these test are almost considered a science. Even some workplaces make their employees do these test to "figure out" what kind of positions they should have. leader, silent worker, etc.
Before watching: "I bet the problem is that these tests have historically been deployed in ways that enforce racist and classist beliefs, thus justifying disproportionate funding/policing." After watching: nope! it's because there's no science under there
Great video. I like how you brought up the fact that personality test put you in a bubble. I did not think about it that way. The persona thing was interesting as well. I knew they were vague and inaccurate but that’s about it.
Oh, finally someone brings up this topic! I think the only people that benefit from personality tests are the ones that score great in "cool" skills like being extrovert, good management and other blablas The rest of us just feel like they have to resign from something because according to the test they don't have the skills. I sometimes had totally different results because I was I different moods.
Thanks for this video! About 6 months into my current job I did an 'ego-scan' as part of the job. 3 years later my current team manager asked if I'd already done it. I told her yes, but I'd like to take it again because it's been three years and I've gotten a lot more comfortable in my team, so my personality has changed since then. Team manager said that test outcomes are very unlikely to change with this particular test. I sent my previous results to a team mate and she just laughed.. "you're 'the quiet one'?! No no, you're definitely not". This video is making me question why we take these tests at all, cause this ego scan thing is actually expensive and obviously pretty pointless 🤔
This made me feel so much better. I always thought that it was something wrong with me because I didn't have a fixed idea about my personality and the fact that it isn't a given thing, but it is changing as I grow
My professor once put a trick question on our personality psych exam: "what is the definition of Intellegence?" The answer was "Whatever you are measuring" cause like you said with Personality, there is no one definition of what personality or intellegence are- it really boils down to what measures you are using to compare people. Wanna look at extroverted versus introverted, that's your personality definition esentially- with different schools of thought that dictate why we choose those measures. Love the vid!
This video was great! Very topical for me right now, as I've been trying to disprove MBTI tests as non-scientific to my friends recently. I'm sharing this to them :)
This is perfect timing because I made my mom take a personality test and she got the same result as me and I was like noooooo we are so different like what! Haha 😂
Not me watching a Curious Tangents video and get absolutely completely callrd out by my use for being told im an extrovert on the myerr-briggs test. Totally definetly not me.
Excellent video again! Makes me think about the worn out question of ‘do people change’ and while, as you said, the correct answer is yes, we obviously change continuously whether we want to or not, it’s also interesting that our perception often remains suggesting that no, our base personality wouldn’t change. Very interesting to think that it happens constantly in ways that are not obvious to us: that the changes in our personality may be related to our environment/our roles in our social situations at the time that are so regular we don’t even notice, or our changes may be only expressed internally, or they are so gradual that they don’t stand out, or they may be the result of a long term concentrated effort like in therapy. So, as far as our short term experience of base personality is concerned, people wouldn’t often get to notice others or themselves changing significantly and adding to that, it generally probably also feel more safe to not recognize our own malleability.
Love the video. The only thing I would add is that there are some validated personality tests, such a the Big 5, that are empirically validated and have a large and interesting literature. However, as you demonstrate very well, your individual results need to be properly contextualized; your results are not your destiny. Like any tool, these validated tests have their legitimate uses, but can be harmful utilized without care or expertise. Thanks for your excellent videos.
So clearly explained and well-researched! I really wish high-up people in charge of hiring at the big Silicon Valley companies would watch this. It's ridiculous how much pseudoscience those people believe.
I think a similar thing happens with IQ, I have adhd a so got tested and scored like 108 which isnt even that bad .but it kinda felt like knowing that statistically speaking me wanting to become a doctor wasn't on my side because I wasn't smart it influenced my behavior my gpa dropped quite a bit
So I was just listening to the podcast episode of "philosophize this" about Sartre and Camus' theories about the self. The host was talking about the idea that always either try to lock themselves into a fact, like a personality test, or be so transient as to not be able to be defined. Or both, and be like a god, both perfect, but able to change everything about ourselves. It was an interesting expansion of this conversation and I think this a good continuation of the topic of this video
At best psychological tests are a best guess of where you were when you took the test. I've been an educator for over 40 years: k-12 (one room schools) and in post-secondary education. In education the big thing is "learning styles" and they don't exist in any permanent way. The model I prefer using is the verbal- auditory, tactile, visual-linguistic, and visual-graphic but I use it to make sure I vary my lessons to keep students engaged or find the best way to present different kinds of material. If I take a learning styles test, I will always score low in the visual-linguistic style BUT I also have dyslexia. But I am an insatiable reader. I just know that if I need to read for detail, I need to use the whole bag of tricks to get & remember those details. These tests should thought of as interesting & thought provoking but never used to label students. My biggest blow up in a classroom was when a university airhead from the big city told my class they were all retarded because they failed an English language IQ test. THE SCHOOL HAD BEEN OPEN FOR LESS THAT A YEAR AND SH@T FOR BRAINS COULDN'T SPEAK CREE, THE ONLY LANGUAGE THEY HAD HEARD UNTIL 6 MONTHS BEFORE. I had been teaching them using pictographs to teach them English because I didn't speak Cree myself.
I know somebody who studied for an IQ test in order to get a Mensa membership (not to actually go more than once but just to be "quirky"). If I were to say this in an MBTI forum they wouldn't like me very much, some of the people there are very invested in the validity of tests of all kinds.
thanks for consistently being one of the best channels out there for addressing the way we think about ourselves-- from stuff like your video on the history of agriculture to this. this topic in specific really resonates with me. i always struggled with having a sense of self when i was young, so these tests acted like a malformed crutch for me sometimes. even now, though i don't have such a rigid view of what the self can be anymore, i do struggle with being convinced im a certain "type" of person; coz yknow, ever since some major traumas that happened like years ago i haven't had a social life at all, im not really recognized by society because I had to drop out of school, because my mental health can be too disabling to let me work, because a billion reasons. but the idea of improving myself is the one thing i have to hold onto. so i focus on my mental health, i try my best to seize opportunities to socialize (even though not having a network is the most discouraging feeling), and now im studying for my GED. putting in effort towards oneself is better than falling into the essentalist traps that say who a person is can be simplified, summarized. sorry for the tmi, but it's just nice to see someone talk about psychology in a way that's actually useful and accurate
I have found this to be true, I can just choose to change how I am. I used to have very few friends, and not try different opportunities, now I have much more responsibility and I love it.
An interesting thing about the masks, there was a social practice theorist Erving Goffman who used the masks and a back stage/front stage dichotomy to take about that difference in situational personality. :D
This video has some really good life advice that I'm going to have to revisit every once in a while. More people, including myself, should remind themselves that self improvement really is an expansive aspect of life, and it really is possible to be who you want to be.
MBTI nerd here - I love the MBTI but I think the problem with MBTI is that people take it as categorically who they are - a nice little pigeon hole that they can live within without growing - it is an indicator or a tool that points toward preferences, nothing more. The company that owns MBTI has extended the indicator to step 2 to help people grow within their preferences. I think we need to stop taking tests on the internet to find out who we may be and spend some time meditating or talking to a therapist to get a better idea of how we can each grow. on a side note - I am strongly indicated in introversion - which simply means I recharge within my inner world and groups tend to exhaust me - that doesn't preclude me from being with people, having a public speaking career or interacting with people every day - I just have to find ways to recharge myself through walks or other solitary pursuits.
Great video! I hadn't heard that perspective before; it sort of frames things differently. Unfortunate amount of views though, maybe more interesting visuals and thumbnails could get more people hooked 😄
I remember being really fascinated by like not just Myers-brigg tests but also what level of dysfunction or personality disorder do you have and doing them again and again and realising the values changed EVERY test! But if we stop thinking of them as who we are forever but rather snapshots in our personality at the time, it could help with improving aspects of us that we didn't realise were holding us back? Not sure
Awesome video. I definitely need to hear about this, as I've noticed how comfortable I've gotten with my own definitions of myself/the boxes I've put myself into. 😬 Thanks for sharing!
Dang so you're telling me if I tell myself I can be a responsible and capable person enough times, I will metamorphosize into that butterfly of a human being?
Exactly! It helps to play pretend to fit into the role too. Walk around your house in a tie, say "taxes" a few times, maybe call the doctor's office once or twice without dialing. Boom, you did a capable-person thing
B...but some website told me that I'm basically like Tolkien. In all seriousness, these websites are just horoscopes for people who say they don't like horoscopes
Great video 👍This topic is very interesting. Could you recommend any psychology relented books/websites etc. to this topic? I would love to know more about it
The pairing has to do with the dichotomies of classical theater. A great play has comedy and tragedy. A hero and a villain. You only ever see the masks together because thats what they hint at. As for why, i don't know and am also curious. My guess is that in the early days masks like that were used to make an actors expression more expressive, and they just decided to slap these masks on the wall. Like how all great art is made
Super interesting and well-made video! To people who are interested in this topic, I highly recommend the podcast episode "The Personality Myth" from Invisibilia. It really changed the way I thought about personality and our perceptions of ourselves.
The real reason I hate personnality tests is that I've bee, diagnosted with a "personnality disorder" by pychiatrists, which is never a nice news to get. And if your personnality, what makes you you, can be qualified as a disorder, then what does it means about you as a person? (Though yes, we can work on it, especially when we are young, to becoming more flexible).
Here's an idea. Could this be true of ALL labeling? For example, when we are told this is how females act or this is how males act do we subconsciously try to conform to these ideas? Or, what about actual diagnosis in psychology? Anecdotally, I know that once people receive a diagnosis it has helped them explain why they've struggled so much. But they also tend to see themselves different and thus act differently. Neither of these things are necessarily bad, but it brings up the question: how much of ourselves are truly intrinsic and how much is us conforming and reacting to the labels society gives us? I honestly don't know, just something I'm curious about!
The only thing I think is wrong with this is believing that you can be the sole author and controller of personality changes. Our choices are in no control at all. For more on this, please see: Free Will lecture by Sam Harris, Free Will Determinism and Compatibilism by This Place, or Why We Don’t Have Free Will & Why That’s OK by What I’ve Learned!
So much of pseudo science is pushed into mainstream, and end up harming people. I found out the other day that Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ, like IQ) was not an actual thing. The whole power posing turned out to be a facade after so many others couldn't replicate the studies. I think atleast that's one of the benefits of studying a subject at college, the info one gets is legitimate, books recommended are standard. (just saying, not trying to justify it's increasing cost in any way)
I’ve taken a lot of personality tests... they usually don’t feel right, they change a lot when I retake the tests. I bet part of the reason Is because I don’t know who I am, since I don’t have a strong sense of self it’s hard to identify what I resonate with? Idk I’ll still take the tests sometimes but I don’t believe them :/
The questions are like "you are very sentimental" or "you enjoy participating in group activities". Those aren't relative to anything so your answers might change depending on what you're thinking about, how you're feeling and what result you think you should get.
great video, and you make a lot of good points, but being an introvert isn't necessairly the same as being unhappy about one's social life, i mean i think you can both accept your personality and also accept that you will change and think critically about your decisions. bc wishful thinking alone won't make you change magically and it can be pretty frustrating to constantly force yourself out of your comfort zone based on your vision of how you'd like to be. just some thoughts.
