How the multimillion-dollar personality testing commodified soul-searching

What does your favourite fruitcake say about you? Are you a wallflower or a social butterfly? Should the Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor or Slytherin? Which F.R.I.E.N.D.S character are you? Thus go some of the quirky personality quizzes I stumbled across online recently. A viral trend on Instagram this year was the Cosmos Persona Quiz. It categorises you into celestial bodies like Nebula, Black Hole or Supernova based on your responses. Then there are the classic what-do-you-see Freudian illusion tests that assess you based on your interpretations of images. So why are these quizzes, with no scientific backing, an instant hit among Gen-Zers? They give these young soul-searchers a sense of fulfilment in their journey of self-discovery.

Just admit it: After coming across a magazine zodiac section that goes something like, “You trust your gut feelings”, you have told yourself, “Wow, that’s so me!”. If a roadside palmist tells you, “You often doubt yourself,” you might nod to that, too. Two contrasting remarks but both oddly feel personal to you. That’s the Barnum effect―a feeling that a random remark about human traits is specifically about you. These online quizzes are no different―they tell you what you want to hear, whether it is fruitcakes, F.R.I.E.N.D.S or Freudian.

“Who am I?” It is a cross-cultural and trans-historical question that has kept sages, scientists and maybe even your neighbour’s Saint Bernard up at night. The Upanishads explore the ideas of Aham Brahmasmi (I am the ultimate reality) and Tat Tvam Asi (You are That). In the early 20th century, Ramana Maharshi’s practice of Atma Vichara (self reflection) became popular in the west, inspiring contemporaries like Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.

A few millennia ago, it was the Mesopotamians who first posited human-sorting theories. When the idea reached ancient Greece, Hippocrates, the father of medicine, devised humorism to sort people based on four bodily fluids: blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm. He believed that if your humours go out of whack, so would your body and mind. Greek physician Galen later jazzed up the humours into four temperaments: sanguine, melancholic, choleric and phlegmatic.

However, like corsets and sword fights, there were fewer takers for the ancient wisdom in the 20th century. The two Great Wars accelerated the need to dissect the human psyche using contemporary science. The first reported use of personality tests was by the US Army during World War I to spot soldiers prone to “shell shock” or “war neuroses”, a condition that we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder. The American Psychological Association roped in Columbia University professor Robert S. Woodworth to prepare a yes-or-no questionnaire to screen out the US enlistees being shipped to France. And voila, the world’s first personality test was born―The Woodworth Personal Data Sheet.

Now, back to the future and a look closer home. Soul-searching today has become commodified in the form of personality tests and you can learn about your psyche, at a premium. But who can put a price on self-discovery, right? The multi-million dollar industry not only caters to people looking to discover themselves and relevant careers but also companies trying to hire the best candidates or building dream teams. Dr Alok Kulkarni, senior consultant and interventional psychiatrist, Manas Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Hubballi, said that the global market for personality tests is estimated to be around $500 million with an annual growth rate of 10-15 per cent. “Personality tests categorise individuals into specific types or traits. To some extent, this reduces humans to data in today’s knowledge economy. Though individuality cannot be reduced to a set of data points that can be bought and sold, unfortunately, market forces seem to be doing that,” he told THE WEEK. “A welcome trend is the integration of these tests with neuroscience and genetics, which lends objectivity to the overall testing process.”

In our country, too, the industry is booming. “Personality assessments are already big in India,” said Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, organisational psychologist and professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia University. “This is no surprise, given India has all the conditions to leverage assessments: a tech-savvy nation with great talent and expertise in business psychology and AI; a rapidly growing economy; a talent-centric philosophy; and large volumes of applications and jobs, as well as data scientists and evidence-based leaders. There is already a big explosion in startup activities in this field, leveraging AI, game-based assessments and other innovations.”

One such innovative startup is the Delhi-based PMaps, which has come up with a visual assessment that can prevent candidates from gaming the algorithm, making it tough for you to give fake responses and get socially desirable results. PMaps cofounder Saurabh Rana says unlike text-based assessments, a visual test is quick, fun and one doesn’t have to be proficient in a particular language.

The most popular psychometric instrument to date is (drumroll, please) the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), first copyrighted during the peak of World War II in 1943 by Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers, an American mother-daughter duo who had no formal education in psychology. The inspiration for this test was Jung’s 1921 work Psychological Types, which was also not based on any experiments or data.

MBTI categorises you into one of the 16 different personality types. The first type is based on whether you receive your energy from being alone or with other people: Introvert (I) or Extrovert (E); then it sorts you based on how you take in information: Sensing (S) or Intuitive (N); the next one is how you come to conclusions: Thinking (T) or Feeling (F); and the last one is how you approach the outside world: Judging (J) or Perceiving (P). According to the 93-question framework, you have one dominant preference in each of the four pairs represented by four letters like ENFP or ISTJ.

MBTI isn’t just for soul-searching, it can also help you search for your soulmate. Forget cluttering your Tinder bio with fancy Greek-laden adjectives like sapiosexual or pluviophile, your four-letter type might have more chances of getting you swiped right. It became a huge hit in South Korea during the pandemic, with even BTS and Blackpink members as well as the country’s presidential candidates flashing their MBTI types.

Janaki Venkat, one of the founder-directors of Anahat, which is the official distributor of the MBTI test in India since 2005, told THE WEEK, “Young people are naturally attracted to typology because they want to find their tribe. When we train professionals who are authorised to administer MBTI, we make sure they present it with equal respect regardless of your type. MBTI gives equal weightage to all 16 types and does not see one type as inferior to the other. This is one of the reasons for MBTI’s popularity.”

Child Rights and You (CRY) board member Pervin Varma said MBTI was introduced in the NGO in 2001. “The assessment was insightful and transformed our working relationships, by giving us a deeper appreciation of the gifts in differences. Areas of possible friction were turned to opportunities for collaboration,” she said.

Depending on how deeply you want to know about yourself, MBTI can cost anywhere between Rs 2,540 and Rs 9,330. Going by Myers-Briggs, I am an ESTJ and people like me make up 9 per cent of the population; it says I am dependable, a rule-abider and a problem-solver; moreover, I am a natural leader. If I keep flattering myself, you may think I am pretentious, too (I am not). But MBTI has platitudes not just for ESTJs, but for all the 16 types because its “positive psychology” allows a person to be their best self.

But to be honest, I consider myself an ambivert, which people close to me would vouch for. However, according to MyersBriggs.com, you are either an extrovert or introvert, not both―just like you are either right- or left-handed.

“This assertion is anti-scientific,” said Chamorro-Premuzic, “It’s like saying that some people are Libra or Scorpio. Most people are neither extroverted nor introverted, but somewhere in the middle. And the same goes for all the other traits that MBTI tries to assess. So, according to the MBTI, most people do not exist.”

However, Cameron Nott, chief international markets officer and psychologist at The Myers-Briggs Company, clarified that we can have both preferences. “If you are born an extrovert, you can still have introverted characteristics. But MBTI looks at which preference is actually driving you,” said Nott, asserting that the test meets the validity and reliability standards set by the American Psychological Society and British Psychological Society. “We also continuously update MBTI to promote diversity, train leaders to be inclusive and stay relevant in hybrid workplaces.”

So, to get a perspective, I tried MBTI-style tests elsewhere, too. These tests are inspired by Jungian types and Myer-Briggs but have their own formats and interpretations to avoid copyright infringement. One such MBTI-inspired assessment, Truity.com’s TypeFinder test, priced at Rs 2,435, found an ESTP in me, slightly different from my MBTI type ESTJ. ESTPs are flexible and spontaneous, while ESTJs prefer structure and planning. But both are outgoing, task-oriented and focus on the here and now.

But going by the Rs 2,399 NERIS Type Explorer test on 16personalities.com, I was more like “WHAT?”―forgive my Freudian slip, or Jungian snark if you will―I meant INTJ, which is a lot different from the previous two types. INTJs are reserved and seek innovative methods to solve problems, while ESTJs and ESTPs are direct and prefer traditional processes. And only the logical reasoning trait is a constant among all three.

However, contrasting results from different Jungian tests do not necessarily raise questions about the reliability of these self-reported assessments. Because the way questions are framed by different test providers can impact the results. Your carelessness, honesty, self-awareness and stress are also key factors.

Bengaluru-based techie Dashwini Anoop, 31, first came across the 16personalities test during the pandemic and she is an ESFJ. “I think it is nice to get an idea about ourselves. But what I find problematic is that these types restrict you to a few labels, not allowing you to grow.”

Another popular typology framework is the Enneagram, which simply means “nine letters”. At the core of this theory is a circular diagram with nine equidistant points, each represented by a number that denotes nine personality types. According to the Enneagram, you could have some traits of all nine types but not equally. However, unlike MBTI, it does not cast you into an either/or binary.

The Narrative Enneagram, a Colorado-based educational nonprofit, encourages representatives of different types to share their personal stories and reveal their inner worlds for the understanding of its students. Terry Saracino, founding president and core faculty of The Narrative Enneagram, said, “In our school, determining your type is a process of self-discovery.

Scientific validity is not a high priority to many of our students who find tremendous value in the Enneagram as a tool to help improve themselves and their relationships. Once a person identifies their type, they have an inner sense of the truth of it.”

The most popular Enneagram test is the Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator (RHETI), devised by the late Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson, who founded The Enneagram Institute in New York. The forced-choice assessment with 144 paired statements costs Rs 1,680. The results will reveal how much you scored for each type and one of the high-scoring types could be your actual personality.

My highest RHETI score was 22―for both Type 6 and Type 9―followed by 20 for Type 3. Talking about my results, Hudson said, “It’s not surprising because those three points form the inner triangle in the Enneagram. Whichever one is your actual type, you have the two inner lines connecting the other two.” He was referring to the lines inside the Enneagram circle connecting 3, 6 and 9, showing how each type relates to two other types. A Type 9 will behave like an average Type 6 when they are stressed, and at their best, they will act like a Type 3. The same goes for the other two types.

Enneagram Institute recommends reading the type descriptions, observing yourself and talking to someone close to you to find your actual personality. “Though I designed the RHETI, I am not a big advocate of people just relying on tests,” Hudson clarified. “Tests are pieces of evidence, a good place to start looking but not a final word on anything. Enneagram is meant to help people see themselves more accurately.”

However, not all personality tests are type-based like MBTI and Enneagram, which classify you into a specific category. Some of them are trait-based, measuring where you are on a spectrum. And most psychologists prefer traits to types. “The type versus trait debate is a hotbed in the field of personality psychology,” said Kulkarni. “Generally, trait-based models are considered more reliable and scientifically valid. These provide a more nuanced understanding. On the other hand, MBTI categorises individuals into distinct types based on traits. This can oversimplify the complexity of human personality.”

Type-based tests like MBTI can help you become the best version of yourself or help you learn about others. The problem emerges when they are used for hiring. “It’s like asking someone to design a forklift truck and then complaining that it is not as fast as a Ferrari,” says C.S. Mahesh, founder-director of Anahat. “When you check the validity of a test, you should first check what it was constructed for in the first place. Each test is made for a specific reason. MBTI focuses on a person’s inner workings and is suitable for coaching and team building. It should not be used for hiring, as typologies don’t predict well an individual’s workplace behaviour.”

The Big Five framework, a trait-based model, is generally considered a more suitable tool for hiring. Chamorro-Premuzic considers it the “gold standard” for all personality tests as studies show it has more widely replicated reliability and validity predicting work outcomes. Agreed Kulkarni, adding that the Big Five has more empirical data, which is gathered through controlled experiments or surveys. Since the Big Five measures traits on a continuous scale, it allows for more flexibility in describing personality, he said.

The traits measured in this five-factor model are often referred to by the acronym OCEAN. O stands for openness to experience, which measures your personality in a continuum between curious and cautious. Then comes conscientiousness that looks into the organised vs careless scale, while extraversion assesses energetic vs reserved spectrum. Agreeableness gauges where you stand in the compassionate vs judgmental range. The last one is neuroticism, which measures how nervous or confident you are.

Chamorro-Premuzic said critics of the Big Five are outliers. One of the cons of this model is the missing H factor: humility vs honesty. This led to the creation of the Hexaco, which is an acronym for the six traits the model measures: honesty-humility (H), emotionality (E), extraversion (X), agreeableness (A), conscientiousness (C) and openness to experience (O). Though less popular than the Big Five, Hexaco is often attributed for giving better insights into your integrity and being apt for diverse cultural settings.

Hogan Assessment Systems, an Oklahoma-based test provider, claims its Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) incorporates key predictors of workplace behaviour that are not readily found in other tests. Its chief science officer Ryne Sherman, citing studies, said that both Big Five and Hexaco measure the “bright side” of personality, which is when you put your best self forward. This means a stranger can accurately evaluate the traits measured by both these frameworks.

“HPI is similar to Big Five and Hexaco in this regard,” Sherman told THE WEEK, “However, it measures two core dimensions obscured by them: ambition and learning approach.” A very low score on ambition could mean you are a good team player, willing to let others lead, and complacent, while a very high score might mean you are energetic, competitive, restless and forceful. If your learning approach score is very low, you might be a hands-on learner, focused on your interests and technology-averse, while a high score could indicate you are interested in learning, insightful and may seem like a know-it-all.

The company also has another test called Hogan Development Survey (HDS), which it claims is the only validated test that can identify the “dark side”of a personality. HDS-based programmes are said to help tackle employee stress while improving morale and job satisfaction. HDS scores indicate possible risks linked to hiring and help employers explore them during the interview.

Recalling how his firm began using HDS, Salil Raghavan, Head-HR at Mumbai-based Great Eastern Shipping, said that in 2015, one of their ships collided with two other vessels at a Fujairah offshore anchorage in the UAE. A probe revealed that the ship was speeding and the captain was under stress and not listening to his crewmates. Following this, the company introduced HDS tests to screen leadership-level hiring to avoid future mishaps.

Raghavan, who is also certified by Anahat to administer MBTI since 2005, recounted how the test helped him personally. While he is an INFP, the former HR-Head at the shipping company, N.J. Thomas, is an ISTJ. As a Sensing-Judging personality, Thomas had a preference for details and structure while Raghavan looked at the macro picture and was flexible due to his Intuitive-Perceiving trait. “Understanding his personality helped me anticipate his needs in advance and prepare for his review sessions,”said Raghavan.

There are several more personality tests that are beyond the scope of this article. And, there are many more to come, as AI takes centrestage. So where is the personality testing industry headed in the coming years? If you ask Chamorro-Premuzic, he would tell you, “...To get rid of assessments altogether. In a world in which we have unlimited data on humans, and sophisticated AI to interpret those data and turn insights into a prediction machine, there would be no need for assessments as we know them and have used for the past 100 years.”

Yet, even in a future where AI and datafication leave traditional assessments redundant, the basic human quest to learn about oneself is here to stay. So, in the coming years, we can expect personality tests―scientific or not―to coexist in some or other advanced form alongside apps like Co-Star that delivers real-time star readings using NASA data, Kundli GPT that advises on marriage and career via an AI chatbot and whatever other fads that social media throws at us. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go listen to what my favourite fruitcake has to psychobabble about me (Trust me, I won’t argue with a dessert).

JUNG AND FREUD

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who published Psychological Types in 1921, laid the foundations of modern psychology along with Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. The duo closely collaborated from 1906 to 1913, a friendship that prompted Freud to name Jung as his successor. However, the bonhomie did not last long as Jung was opposed to Freud’s insistence on sexuality as the root of core personality. By 1913, they parted ways. It was around this time that Jung first spoke about typology at the Munich Psychological Congress.