After 25 years of my life, I finally completed a paid personality test from “Understand Myself,” a personality assessment platform that provides me with a comprehensive psychology report based on the top five human psychological features. I came across this on YouTube back in July and decided to take it because I appreciated the team behind it, particularly its founder, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Dr. Peterson is a renowned psychology professor at the University of Toronto, a prolific author, and a controversial figure in online discussions.
We can discuss about him in another blog, but without further delay, let’s delve into the report and what it reveals about my personality, summarizing the main points for the sake of my intellectual exercise.
Firstly, let’s try to understand what this report is about.
According to Jordan B. Peterson and his team, this assessment and report are “based on the Big Five Aspects Scale, the scientific model that describes personality through the Big Five factors and each of their two aspects.” Additionally, this report describes “where you stand in comparison to others in the general population on these traits and aspects.” So, let’s familiarize ourselves with the Big Five personalities and their main two aspects.
The traits and aspects of the Big Five personality model are:
- Agreeableness: Compassion and Politeness
- Conscientiousness: Industriousness and Orderliness
- Extraversion: Enthusiasm and Assertiveness
- Neuroticism: Withdrawal and Volatility
- Openness: Intellect and Aesthetics
[ N.B. Those who wants to know and read original papers from this model cam from you can read from here.] Now, let’s go one by one and extract what they suggest about my personality on each trait.
- In the first trait, Agreeableness, I have a score in 54th Percentile that suggests I am Typical or Average in this section.
Here, I snap out the best points from their long report:
- I am somewhat cooperative, warm and considerate
- I look for best in other and am reasonably interpersonally tolerant
- I have a good balance between submissiveness and dominance
- I have tendency to forgive, accept, flexibility, gentleness and be patient
- I sometimes feel pity for those who are excluded, punished or defeated
- I believe in cooperation, however I also feel the importance of competition, with its losers or winners
- I less likely to lose argument : especially with less agreeable people
- I am quite good at bargaining, and at negotiating for more recognition and power (thats’s I didn’t know before)
- I have a chance to get high salaries and earn more money (Wow!!)
- I may less likely to suffer from resentment or invisible anger (That’s Nice!)
- I am less prone to sacrifice medium to long term stability and function for the sake of short term peace
- I can identify with those who are deem oppressed, and I demonize people who are oppressors, seeing them cruel, heartless predators
- I have a good chance to enter profession like teaching (That’s Nice!)
Inside agreeableness, compassion and politeness are the two major factors. Lets see, what this personality report suggests about my compassion and politeness traits.
- Compassion: 48th percentile (Typical or Average)
- I am somewhat concerned about helping other people and avoid negative emotion, But I can also stand on my ground even though other people get upset
- I have time to do kind things, but I maintained balance that with fulfilling their own need
- I have soft side, but I am not a pushover (That’s Nice to know!!)
- I can be empathetic and caring, but I can negotiate on my own behalf
- Politeness: 58th percentile (Typical or Average)
- I am not particularly obedient (thats’s I didn’t know before)
- I can be respectful, but I can push back If someone pushed me
- I usually avoid conflicts, but I am not completely averse to confrontation (That’s Nice to know!!)
- In the second trait, Conscientiousness, I have a score in 49th Percentile that suggests I am Typical or Average in this section.
- Conscientiousness is a measure of obligation, attention to detail, hard work, persistence, cleanliness and adherence to rules, standards and processes. There are two aspects of conscientiousness: industriousness and orderliness
Here, I snap out the best points from their long report:
- I am reliable, but I waste some of my time and have some proclivity on procrastination
- But, I keep my promise on schedule and time
- I can maintain focus, but have some trouble fighting off distraction
- Typically, I obtain moderate grades in academic
- My performance could be improved through diligence, focus and careful scheduling (That’s Nice to know!!)
- I like things in proper place, but not obsessed with detail
- I am relatively free of shame, self-disgust and self-contempt
- I am committed to my personal responsibility, but I believe that there is more to life than diligence, orderliness and duty
- I am not excessively preoccupied with hygiene, moral purity or achievement, and are unlikely to be micro-managers or over-controlling
There are two aspects of conscientiousness: industriousness and orderliness
- Industriousness: 32nd percentile (Relatively low)
- I am less likely to be successful in school (which is not the case!)
- I don’t focus on my work as much as others and I procrastinate a lot, miss deadlines (really!!) and fail to complete assignments or projects completely (never happened!!)
- I am not particularly concerned with the schedule, timeline or efficiency
- I have a lack of focus and am easily distracted (not camplain!!)
- I believe that chances and luck play a very important role behind the failure of people (rather than working hard) – Yes I do!
- Orderliness: 66th percentile (Moderately High)
- I am disgusted by mess and chaos
- I love to keep everything tidy and organized (Indeed – especially my kitchen)
- I think comparatively black and white (either good or bad with less room of gray area) (really??)
- I am detail oriented, but not obsessive
- I am aware of social rules and tend to abide by them – Yes I am!
- I have a good chance of being politically conservatives
- In the third trait, Extraversion, I have a score in 84th Percentile that suggests I am High in this section
Here, I snap out the best points from their long report:
- I can think of myself as a low in introversion (not sure!!)
- I am enthusiastic, talkative, assertive in social situation and gregarious
- I am typically energized by social contact and crave it (I doubt it!)
- I had positive memories about past, high self esteem about present and feel positive and optimistic about the future
- I have tendency to tell everyone everything
- I am captivating and convincing; often I act first
- I am well suited in persuasion, working in groups and public speaking
- I am not well suited for a lot of isolated work (such as computer programming) (I see!!)
- I can be impulsive, can sacrifice the future for the present and trouble in alone to study and work
- I can be easily distracted by opportunity to chat, joke, socialize
There are two main aspects of extraversion: Enthusiasm and Assertiveness
- Enthusiasm: 84th percentile (High)
- I laugh and giggle much more than average
- I love to live around people
- I can close with people easily
- I am gregarious, encourage other people, loving and positive about what might happen next
- Assertiveness: 77th percentile (Moderately high)
- I can be influential and captivating
- I have trait of leadership
- I am more action oriented
- In the fourth trait, Neuroticism, I have a score in 53rd Percentile that suggests I am Typical or Average in this section
- Neuroticism is a measure of general sensitivity to negative emotion such as pain, sadness, defensive anger, fear and anxiety.
Here, I snap out the best points from their long report:
- I have a balanced view of happiness and sadness of the past, present and future
- Sometimes I am unhappy, anxious and irritable – when I face a particularly genuine problem. However, I cope well and don’t worry too much
- I have a chance to experience success in career, satisfies in relationship and career
- I am careful about security, but I can handle recreational, career, financial and social situation where possibility of loss is higher
- I am focus on maintaining current status and I always try to enhance it
There are two aspects of neuroticism: withdrawal and volatility
- Withdrawal: 57th percentile (Typical or Average)
- I can handle new, uncertain, threatening and complex situation quite well
- I sometimes feel sad, lonesome, disappointed and grief stricken, but not too deeply and not for too long
- I have normal level of doubt, worry and embarrassment in the face of threat and punishement
- I am not too sensitive to social rejection, don’t feel hurt too easily
- Even when I hurt, I can recover within a short amount of time
- My brain like passive avoidance (Nice to know!!)
- Volatility: 48th percentile (Typical or average)
- My mood does not swinging much – abnormally at least
- I am irritable, level of frustration, pain and social isolation is low
- Even when I feel angry or irritated, I can calm myself down relatively quickly
- I am not that argumentative and infrequently lose my composure
- I often keep myself calm, unperturbed
- In the fifth trait, Openness, I have a score in 89th Percentile that suggests I am Typical or Average in this section
- Openness is the primary dimension of creativity, artistic interest and intelligence (particularly verbal intelligence). It is a measure of novelty, art, literature, critical thinking, philosophy as well as sensitivity to aesthetic emotions and beauty
Here, I snap out the best points from their long report:
- I often characterized by smart, creative, exploratory, intelligent and visionary
- I have high interest in learning, and continually acquire new abilities and skills
- I am very curious and exploratory
- I am unusually attracted to abstract thinking, philosophy, meaning of belief system and ideologies
- I seek out movies, concert, dance recitals, plays, poetry reading, and gallery opening and art shows
- I like writing highly – driven to write
- I enjoy complex, abstract ideas and love to confront and solve complex, abstract and multi dimensional problem
- I am a prolific readers, with wide range of interests
- I have broad and deep vocabulary
- I can think
- I am very proficient in new ideas, tend strongly to be articulate
- I see old things new ways, and I can generate very large number of problem-solving solution
- I seek change, often make things better
- However, I am less well adapted and tend to do less in situation or occupation that routinized and predictable
- I am not fit very well at the the bottom of hierarchies
- I have tendency to think radically
- I can shake things with my thinking, sometimes revolutionary rebels
- I have entrepreneurial spirit is in myself
- However, I am interested in everything and it is harder for me to seattle on single path in life to specialize a degree or create an integrated identity
- I often called as underachiever
- I am creative, but I may have problem to implementing those ideas
- Politically I may have an association with liberal (ha ha!!)
There are two aspects of openness: Intellect and Aesthetic
- Intellect: 82nd percentile (high)
- It is not IQ. Intellect is the measure of interest in abstract ideas, while IQ is a measure of processing speed and verbal ability, working memory and problem solving capacity.
- I am interested in abstract concepts
- I like to tackle and solve complex problems
- I like issue-oriented discussion, I like to read and want to discuss idea-centered books
- I am generally articulate and can formulate ideas clearly and quickly
- Aesthetics: 87th percentile (high)
- I love beauty
- I need an outlet for my creative ability, otherwise I may face difficulty in thriving
- I want to be surrounded by art and beautiful crafts
- I am sensitive to colors and architectural features
- I affect by music deeply, often many genres
- I immersed in a book or a movie or my own thought and become oblivious to the outside world
- I respond strongly to beauty, creativity and art
- I may have difficulty to transform my creativity into money
- Politically I may associate with liberals