TheSpark’s Personality Test
Posted by Skrud at Wednesday, April 26th 2006 at 4:28am
I love personality tests. I find them to be an excellent waste of time – regardless of how meaningful they are. Often I find them to be pretty accurate, and all too often brutally honest about my faults. I suppose that’s a good thing, I should learn to be fault tolerant.
Harley pointed the forum-goers to the PersonalDNA test, which is a pretty unusual test as far as online personality tests go. It was very well done, and you can see my results in this PersonalDNA Profile if you’re interested. Spurred on by this renewed interest in my own personality, I decided to retake TheSpark’s Personality Test.
TheSpark’s Personality Test is a staple of Internet culture. I remember taking that test for the first time when I was about 14 years old, and seeing all those neat “compatibility” charts with my friends. (Of course, I’d be mostly incompatible with virtually every girl I knew at the time). I scored a “Dreamer” (Submissive Introverted Abstract Feeler) the first time I took the test. Here’s what they say about Dreamers:
You are a DREAMER (SIAF)— reserved and imaginative. You are basically the shy, silent type. You don’t have much interest in facts and figures or most of what’s going on around you, but the internal worlds you build for yourself are rich and complex. Luckily, your creativity and strong heart mean you have a deep personality evident to anyone who gets to know you. It’s just that not many people do. Talk to yourself less, other people more.
I used to retake the test every six months to a year or so, to see how I might have changed since then. Every single time I took the test, though, I would invariably be a Dreamer. Other interesting factors that I remember, is that I’d be right at the edge of the Introvert-Extrovert spectrum; almost all the way on the “Introvert” side. Also, I distincly remember being exactly 50/50 on the Thinker/Feeler spectrum.
The PersonalDNA Profile, however, said I was extroverted. This is a change in my personality that I think has surfaced only in very recent years. Coming to university and finally feeling like my education is justified has given me some sense of self-worth. Keeping a blog has made me focus more on expression. Being comfortable with the state of my academic career and learning so much, and understanding so much has given me incredible confidence. Making some amazing new friends, with a group of people on the forums who proudly call themselves “skrud.netters” has given me a major boost in social confidence. Take all of these factors combined, and you have a Skrud with an inverted polarity bit on the introverted/extroverted scale. That facet of my personality has been completely turned around.
I decided I would take TheSpark’s test again, since it has remained constant for so long, to see if there were any changes this time. Lo and behold, I am now a Guru (“Submissive Extroverted Abstract Feeler”):
You are a GURU (SEAF)— kind, knowing, giving. Like Buddha of old, you can be a persuasive speaker, and you use your creative talents to further the objectives of your heart instead of your mind. But be careful that your friends don’t take advantage of your relaxed nature.
Above all, you like going with the flow. That’s cool. Oh yeah, you like to talk a lot. That’s cool, too. Whatever.
What’s amazing is that not only am I an extrovert, but the scale was almost to the end of the spectrum. As if that part of my personality really did do a 180-degree turn. The other interesting thing, is that once again I am exactly on the midpoint of the Thinker/Feeler line.
All this makes me wonder about how everyone else might have changed (or grown, if you prefer) over the past few years. So I ask you, readers and fellow bloggers: How have you changed since the last time you took these tests (and since you’re on the Internet, I’ll assume that you took them at some point)? How has your personality changed since entering the current stage of your life (be it University, full-time work or whatever)?
