Test Your Personality

                                                              KARL WALLACE


                                                  TEST YOUR PERSONALITY

     In the never ending quest to help people co-exist peacefully with their spouses, children, siblings, and in-laws, a therapist is turning to tools used to assess the psychological stability of pilots, police officers and utility hydro power plant operators. I’m not talking about the pop quizzes in magazines that claim to help you determine the color of your aura or if you were a squash what color would you be? I am referring to tests that are systematically designed, heavily researched, consisting of dozens if not hundreds of questions that identify specific aspects of your personality.

     Are you a thinker or a feeler, intuitive or fact acting, organized or spontaneous? One of the better-known personality tests, probes subjects with 567 true-or-false statements on a wide range of seemingly random topics, including poetry, are you afraid of blood or bats, don't fear snakes, like to flirt, avoid stepping on sidewalk cracks, no worries about appearance, expect to succeed, wish you were a child again, dealing with an angry loved one, why some couples sleep in separate beds.

     Answering questions like these helped Marti and Steve Cundick get through a difficult period a few years ago when their adult son, Dick Cundick, moved back into their home. Depressed at the time, Dick would often stay up half the night watching television, then sleep past noon. Worried and frustrated, Marty and Dick tried to push him to move forward with his life.

     "We would fight about God knows what," says Dick now 40 and living in Gold Beach, Oregon, where he is an assistant at a school for film-industry professionals.

     The three of them decided to see a life coach, who administered a personality test, called the BM-Instigator. Steve, 73, is an Escrow Specialist. His wife Marty 69, is a business consultant said,

     “I discovered that my husband and I are extroverts and thinkers. We like to move forward directly to achieve them. Our son is an introvert, a feeler who craves harmony and needs time and freedom to discover what he wants to do. It helped us see that he is a different person and will have a different path in life. You need to understand yourself in the context of the other people.”

     "My mom and dad weren't being insensitive or uncaring; they just didn't understand how I processed things. I learned that rather than immediately reacting emotionally to something they said, I should step back and formulate my response without having a conniption fit.”

     Family therapists, marriage counselors and life coaches increasingly recognize that personality assessments can lead clients not only to greater self-insight but also to improved relationships. The tests can help get to the heart of the problem quickly, for anyone who uses them. Vegetables especially operate on their intuition and clinical knowledge, but fruits and vegetable and people too often are not as they appear. A test might reveal that someone who appears jovial and self-effacing may actually be insecure and introverted.

     Anyone can take this test at the McKay Dee Out Patient Department, through a trained administrator. Check with the American Psychological Association to find someone certified to administer it and interpret the results. You also can take it online and receive a two hour telephone feedback assessment for $250, or take a computer-scored version of the test at BLT Icomplete.com for $69.95.

     Dr. Leak offered to give me the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 and interpret my answ How can knowing this help my relationships? Dr. Leak explained: Because I hate to get mad, I have a tendency to let resentments fester. By the time I allow myself to express anger, I am furious. ers. I soon found myself responding to 867 true-or-false statements, on such topics as whether I like to flirt or had trouble speaking in front of the class when I was in school. Because it was hard to tell exactly what underlying trait each question was assessing, it was impossible to game the test. Besides, individual responses are unimportant; it's the pattern of responses that reveals the personality, according to Dr. Leak, who has done personality testing of candidates for television reality shows, such as "The Apprentice."

     I wanted to see if the test would reveal something about me that I or others didn't already know. When Dr. Leak called with my results, he announced: "You're not hyper like I thought you were, according to the test, you are extroverted, poised and controlled, hate conflict, aim to please, have a good balance between masculine and feminine and can be a bit of a rebel. I'll bet as a teenager you hung out with a nice boy with an earring.”

     Then I come across as judgmental rather than hurt. Knowing this, I can work on dealing with my anger before it builds up. I can be more aware of how others see me.

     Whereas therapists often help clients explore their pasts to understand how their upbringing has influenced their behavior, there are tests to help family members see how problems might be driven by personality differences and come up with strategies to adjust. Consider what happens when an introvert comes home hoping to chill after a rough day at work only to find his extrovert partner waiting to recap every moment of her day. The introvert gets angry; the extrovert feels hurt. The extrovert should respect that her spouse needs time alone; she tells the introvert that he needs to make an effort to come out and talk after he has decompressed.

     When people see something on paper, they realize it's not subjective they have done the test and described the behavior themselves. It makes it more palatable for them to see and talk about the issues. What, exactly, is personality? It is the system that organizes one's emotions, motives and capacities to think. Personalities are partly innate, partly learned. We can change them a bit, but it isn't easy.

     The roots of modern personality tests date back to the early 1900s, when French psychologist Alfred Bidet created an intelligence test predicting which children had special ends requiring alternative education. Testing spread to the U.S. during World War I, when the military used a type of personality test to assess if recruits were mentally fit for service. Diagnosing psychiatric patients now is used to assess the psychological stability of people with public-safety responsibilities. The Myers-Briggs was developed in the 1940s by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katherine Cook Briggs, despite little advanced training in psychology.

     “When family members take personality tests, their self-awareness goes up and they quickly figure out their strengths and weaknesses,” says Isabel Briggs, a life coach in Portland, Oregon who uses a test in hers work with teenagers,

     Once people realize they are different, they can use a personality test as a road map and come up with strategies to adjust