Personality assessment

[drflox]

I am big fan of Prof. Jordan Peterson's work and his youtube videos. So after hearing about this personality assessment method that he developed together with many other psychologists, I decided to give it a try (understandmyself.com, warning: the test is not free of charge). 

I thought it would help me gain some insights, but it turned out I am more puzzled and worried now than before. What it showed is that compared to the 10'000 people on which this scale was designed, I am scoring "exceptionally low" on the trait Extraversion, and I found the description quite fitting: "They find social contact rapidly draining and tiring, and uncontrollably crave time alone to recharge. They rarely plan parties, tell jokes, make people laugh, or volunteer for community activities. They are much more likely to be depressed and to have lower levels of self-esteem. [...]"

Also I scored exceptionally low on Enthusiasm which is one aspect of extraversion.  "They can be extremely hard to get to know, as they are neither chatty nor bubbly. When they do talk – and they do so rarely – it tends to be about things in which they find exceptional interest. They open up to other people with great difficulty, particularly in larger social gatherings or parties. [...] They clearly prefer solitude and find it difficult to enjoy themselves around other people. At most, they can handle social contact in tiny doses...."

While its certainly better to know the truth than to live in a self-delusion, I am also quite discouraged by these results.  First, I should probably learn to accept myself, because according to research it is very difficult, maybe even impossible, to change personality traits. But on the other hand they prevent me from making social connections, for which gaming has long been a convenient replacement. How could I possibly improve myself in those areas? Since I am such an extreme outlier compared to a really large population, I am not sure if thats even possible without professional help. The problem is though, that I am in a foreign country for the next couple of years, and the opportunities for social gatherings are more limited that somewhere where I would speak the local language. 

Edited January 21, 2018 by drflox

[Rick Boon]

These are some pretty big general questions you're asking so lets break it down a bit. 

you're saying its 'better to know the truth', is this the truth? do you accept the tests conclusion? this is not clear to me. I point this out because when i started to look for tests and analyses such as these, it always felt and looked like they where true, and they where pointing out a shortcoming. A little example;

I used to find in most tests and descriptions that i lack initiative. I learned to accept myself, and now i can see, with clearity that i just like to do things with people i like. I'm not going to the beach with my neighbour for that exact reason.

Self-development is always cutting 2 edges (is that a correct saying?) if there is a 100% perfect image, there also has to be a lower standard, conclusion then that. So what i'll encourage you to do, is identify on which fronts you want to change. Not necessarily improvements. Say "I want more social interaction"  is something so different to "i suck at socalizing or conversation". They might both be true, but that's not always the case. If you live in the sahara dessert you can say the same, and nobody will say it's your fault.

Okay i hope i'm making sense. Now i want to comfort you a little. I currently live in a building with 15 other's, all have autism or something else. We all pretty much suck at starting a conversation, and making deeper conversations then "the cow's where really loudly last night", but that's okay. What is your threshold? what do you want more? otherwise, accept yourself man, it's the shortest way to a little bit of happiness. To depict what i mean:

- i'm a pretty social guy, although i have some weird contradiction in my personality. Despite this, i always wondered why my fellow housemembers where not talking and why that was. Where they okay with it? did they needed help starting or a different reason. So sometimes i ask someone if they like to talk, or why they are a bit silenced. I never got the feeling, idea or even the slightest reason i would think they where lying. She was totally okay with not talking for 30 minutes for example, and i was always thinking in a bit of arrogant way that she had difficulty talking, while that wasn't the case at all. That's my question, right there: be okay with how you are. And if you're not change it. Bit by bit. Stay true to yourself.

 

Btw, did you know gaming will like crush your emotions, and mute basic feelings? I wonder now, did you make the test while quitting just after? if yes, it's normal to feel that way or get that conclusion. I would seriously do it over a few months again. Maybe the outcome is totally different.

(resuming later on due to some stuff)

 

[Imabunny88]

I also took this personality test a few months ago.

low extraversion - 9th percentile

extremely low enthusiasm - 4th percentile.

I'm right there with you lol.

 

I think some introspection is helpful. Why is it that you can thrive in an online social environment, but don't or don't want to do so IRL?