How useful is a personality test?

I found one via Triangulations I hadn’t heard of: O.C.E.A.N so obviously I had to give it a shot. I’m sure I answered honestly, but still was bummed over results.

And I admit right now I altered the colour of this to be a lot more sunny than the original pea soup colour existing on site.

So, to define my results:

Openness to Experience/Intellect: High scorers tend to be original, creative, curious, complex; Low scorers tend to be conventional, down to earth, narrow interests, uncreative.

You typically don’t seek out new experiences. (Your percentile: 59)

Well, I’m working on that at least. That’s part of what the whole Freethinkers thing is about. Get out, do something different and meet new people for a change. My rut is so deep I can barely see over it.

Conscientiousness: High scorers tend to be reliable, well-organized, self-disciplined, careful; Low scorers tend to be disorganized, undependable, negligent.

You tend to do things somewhat haphazardly. (Your percentile: 35)

Yeah, I’ll buy that. I’d prove it with photos of my level of apartment cleanliness but why embarrass myself. I think it comes down to priorities and I don’t see housecleaning as one of them. I could take a lot more care with the stickers I put on books at work and measure just so and carefully apply tape but I have so much to do it’d be a waste of my day to be that focused on identical tape strips and level application. I need to be quick, efficient, and accurate but perfectionism is not required. I don’t tend to be negligent or late, though. And if I say I’ll do something, I’ll follow through.

Extraversion: High scorers tend to be sociable, friendly, fun loving, talkative; Low scorers tend to be introverted, reserved, inhibited, quiet.

You tend to shy away from social situations. (Your percentile: 27)

And again, I’m working on it. I do spend too much time alone. Growing up most of my social stuff was with family and cousins will put up with a lot more weirdness than kids at school might. And I was a weird bird back then and shy about getting mocked by people whose opinions “mattered” to me in some way. Silly now. I should have just done what I liked instead of worrying about how much I’d be teased over the actors I liked (i.e. Wil Wheaton) or shows I watched (Fraggle Rock).

Agreeableness: High scorers tend to be good natured, sympathetic, forgiving, courteous; Low scorers tend to be critical, rude, harsh, callous.

You find it easy to express irritation with others. (Your percentile: 38)

This is the one that bugs me, but more because it’s true, I suppose. But I am good natured and courteous and I do have sympathy and some capacity of forgiveness. Just not enough, apparently. I can also choose to look at this as a good trait, at least in terms of not being willing to take shit from people and call it jam. If I’m bothered, there might be a real reason for it. It won’t be an overreaction every single time. Not by a long shot. And not every thing that happens in a day is going to cause me irritation. I’d get nothing accomplished if I groused about everything to everyone. Some things aren’t worth making a case over and can be dropped without a feather out of place.

Neuroticism: High scorers tend to be nervous, high-strung, insecure, worrying; Low scorers tend to be calm, relaxed, secure, hardy.

You are generally relaxed. (Your percentile: 37)

In this case a low score seems to be good. Awesome. It ties into the previous a bit, too. I could freak out over all the unknowns and unlikes and unappreciateds but why? It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t make anything better. All it does is eat up time better spent working and it ruins the time I set aside for fun.

Someone else do this test and let me know how it goes. Is it accurate, or do you feel it misrepresents what or who you are? How does it relate to any other tests you’ve tried? I don’t remember what I scored last time I played with the Myers-Briggs. INFJ, ISTP? I’ve been both at different times of my life. Maybe now I’d get something else. Thoughts?

Morality quiz

Your morality is 15% in line with that of the bible.

 

Damn you heathen! Your book learnin’ has done warped your mind. You shall not be invited next time I sacrifice a goat.

Do You Have Biblical Morals?
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Well, that was a fun few minutes. I’m surprised at the score, actually. I thought it’d be lower. Ah well. H/T to Salad is Slaughter for the link to that.

Trying out the typealyzer

Hattip to In Defence of Reason for the link to this thing. Try your blog and see what result you get. Here’s mine:

INTP – The Thinkers

The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

For an instant result, it’s alarmingly accurate.

Freakydeaky.

So what do I credit or blame for this result? Maybe once I’ve read Charles Tilly’s book called Credit & Blame I’ll have a better understanding. I’ll post more about that one in the next couple weeks.

Which is the right religion for you?

Sounds like a quiz that will provide a few moments of amusement.

Statement 9 is an interesting one.

The right man is the one who follows rites and customs of his culture.

I don’t particularly think that the way many Muslim women get treated would be considered “right” by anyone’s definition. Unless, of course, they’re strict Muslim men. It’s heinous what gets done to women and children all over the world because people are following rites and customs of a culture that’s never treated them as anything more than property or second class citizens. I’m glad the women in the West were willing to fight for their right to be humans. Look how long it took women to even get the right to vote in some places.

Canadian women like Nellie McClung worked hard to bring the vote to women here. Manitoba gave them the green light in 1916 but it was two more years before the country followed suit with the Women’s Franchise Act that made it official. American Suffragettes managed a country-wide voter eligibility by 1919.

And since many of those women were also anti-slavery, it might be worth mentioning when blacks got the vote. Some people think they were allowed after the end of the Civil War, but it’s not quite accurate. Perhaps they could have, but efforts to make it happen were quickly squelched.

From the 1870’s through most of the 1900’s, Blacks were blocked from voting by threats of violence, being made to take reading and writing tests (some Blacks couldn’t read or write so they couldn’t pass the tests), and many other voting rules designed to keep Blacks from voting. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon Johnson over 100 years after the Civil War ended, that it became illegal to stop Blacks from voting. Blacks were finally guaranteed their voting rights in 1965.

25 is a bit of a theoretical minefield, too

25. There should be no moral restrictions on diet or sexual activity.

I think societies across the globe should draw the line on cannibalism and pedophilia. Although it sounds pretty definite we taste like pork.

Armin Meiwes, the German cannibal serving a life sentence for killing and eating a man who begged to be devoured, has described how the meat tasted of pork and how he prepared an elaborate meal of human steak in a green pepper sauce with croquettes and Brussels sprouts.

In his first television interview, broadcast on Monday night on the RTL channel, Meiwes, 46, looked relaxed and healthy as he spoke about his decades-long yearning to consume another man.

Yes, a man did agree to be eaten so it’s not quite as bad as Hannibal Lector but we’re still in wiggy territory here. Glereuerhg. But perhaps even cannibalism could be worked around if it was the difference between the survival of a few and death of everyone. Without openly resorting to murder for a slice of thigh, obviously. But, this gives me another place to quote Red Dwarf (from the Whitehole episode, series4):

CAT: Come on, man, you gotta sacrifice your life! I’m not asking you to do anything _I_ wouldn’t do!
RIMMER: _YOU_? You’d sacrifice your life for the good of the crew?
CAT: No, I’d sacrifice YOUR life for the good of the crew.
KRYTEN: I beg you to reconsider, Sir. Human history is resplendent with examples of such sacrifice. Remember Captain Oates: “I’m going out for a walk. I may be some time.”
RIMMER: Yes, but the thing is, about Captain Oates; the thing you have to remember about Captain Oates; Captain Oates … Captain Oates was a prat. If that’d been me, I’d've stayed in the tent, whacked Scott over the head with a frozen husky, and then eaten him.
LISTER: You would too, wouldn’t you?
RIMMER: History, Lister, is written by the winners. How do we know that Oates went out for this legendary walk? From the only surviving document: Scott’s diary. And he’s hardly likely to have written down, “February the First, bludgeoned Oates to death while he slept, then scoffed him along with the last packet of instant mash.” How’s that going to look when he gets rescued, eh? No, much better to say, “Oates made the supreme sacrifice,” while you’re dabbing up his gravy with the last piece of crusty bread.

And 38 ties in handily:

38. I should be able to do whatever I enjoy, with few limitations.

No, I think murder and mayhem should still be avoided, no matter how much fun it might be to finally deal with that idiot in the adjoining cubicle who coughs and yammers incessantly. Theft should still be a nono, too. Or, it could be mutually agreed by a society that ownership no longer exists. Then there would be no such thing as theft, and hoarding could be the new crime. Not sharing could actually be punishable then.

I kind of agree with 53 but I wonder why it’s in the list.

53. Common people and ordinary human activities are really boring.

Since I’m boring, I must be common. I’m fine with that. I don’t think an ordinary human activity like sex should be boring, but I know some people find that it can get a bit dull if they’re just going through the motions but not feeling any reward for it.

And, my results:

You Scored as Atheism You scored as atheism. You are… an atheist, though you probably already knew this. Also, you probably have several people praying daily for your soul. Instead of simply being “nonreligious,” atheists strongly believe in the lack of existence of a higher being, or God. Atheism 75% Paganism 65% Satanism 65% Agnosticism 55% Buddhism 45% Haruhism 40% Islam 30% Confucianism 25% Hinduism 20% Christianity 10% Judaism 0%

Interesting how high on Satanism I wound up. Being atheist, I don’t believe in any gods so it follows I can’t believe in any demons or devils either. These good and evil entities travel in pairs, do they not?

Paganism I could kind of see from a “love the earth” angle. I think everyone should be loving the earth and doing what they can to keep it habitable. It’s not like we have somewhere else we can go.

I had to look up Haruhism.

A term describing an event when everything goes your way, despite all odds or the current circumstances.

It appears to be connected to Haruhiism, a mock religion based around characters from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). Great, all I need is a new obsession. I haven’t even heard of this one and after watching this, I feel compelled to seek it out.

I can totally see myself doing that, and then being completely and utterly mocked.

This is harder than it looks

Via Pooflinger’s Anonymous:

The FM 100 Hue Test. How well can you judge variations? I scored a 19, which is sucky since a perfect score is 0. All my mistakes happened in the blue/green range, judging by the outcome here.

I’ll bet a paint store has a name for each and every shade…