Personality Tests - an introduction to on-line questionnaires

Advice on their use

This webpage provides some information advice about personality tests and links to good, free online tests you can complete. We have various personality tests you can complete at this site, including the famous:

Free personality test:
The Mental Muscle Diagram Indicator (MMDI)

But before you complete a personality test, please read our advice...

Important advice about personality tests

Is a personality test really a "test" or a "quiz"?

Yes... and No!

Technically (according to the dictionary definition) they are tests or quizzes because they ask questions to which you give answers and then produce a score. But the expression "personality quiz" or "test" can be somewhat misleading, because usually:

a quiz or test has right or wrong answers against which you are marked
the results reliably give you a result
that score is objective and definitive
it tells you something about your ability
it can be used to predict how you might do something in the future

However, none of the above apply to most personality tests or quizzes, especially ones relating to "personality type", because usually:

they tell only tell you how different people like to approach things differently
they do not predict behaviour, because behaviour is often dependent on the circumstance or situation - eg: when you are driving a car, whether you change gear with your right or left hand depends on the design/layout of the car, not your handedness preference
they do not tell you about your ability (eg: you might prefer extraversion, but could be bad at dealing with people, or you might prefer introversion and be very good at dealing with people)
the scores are subjective, and can change depending on the mood/attitude/mind-set you have when completing it
the results are not infallible, or even highly reliable. Eg: research shows even the best personality type questionnaires produce an incorrect result in, on average, 1 in 4 cases.

This has important implications for you, if you are thinking of completing a personality test or quiz: you should be prepared to change the results if you think they are wrong, and not base any important judgements solely on the personality test.

Are tests better if they have 'reliability' and 'validity' statistics?

Perhaps, but perhaps not.

When reliability and validity statistics are available for a questionnaire, it means that we have an idea of how reliable and valid they are, on average. That is:

Reliability stats show...	...how much, on average, the result tends to change if you complete the same questionnaire a second time. No personality type questionnaire is 100% reliable so, the same person might get a different result the second time, not because the person has changed, but because of the reliability of the questionnaire
Validity stats show...	...how well, on average, the questionnaire measures what it claims to measure, in the purpose/context for which it was intended. For example, a handedness test might do a good job of showing whether you are left or right handed, but that test would be hopeless at predicting which hand you would use to change gear whilst driving a car.

Having reliability and validity data available for a questionnaire doesn't mean that it is 100% reliable and valid - it just means that we know their performance 'on average'. Sometimes an unvalidated questionnaire might actually be better than a validated one, but we just don't know. Also, as you are a unique individual, a questionnaire may work better or worse than the average for you.

The bottom line is that, even with the most reliable and valid personality tests, the results are sometimes wrong.

Why are some personality tests restricted to professional/qualified users and others not?

The potential drawbacks of misusing a personality questionnaire can be severe, such as making poor recruitment decisions to causing damage to someone's self esteem. In theory, a qualified practitioner is trained to spot and avoid the pitfalls and, if you would like to complete a personality test and discuss the results with a qualified practitioner, this option is available to you (eg: see http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/mbti.html).

However, you are probably reading this page because want a free personality test. Companies are nowadays offering alternatives to you online so that the internet isn't dominated by 'black market' personality tests that may be poor and/or used unethically.

Personality Test Link

If you would like to try a personality test, you could take a look at the MMDI - our own Mental Muscle Diagram Indicator - a research questionnaire that reports your personality type.