Friday, March 21, 2025

LIS 768 01: PLNs and Personality Quizzes

                                             


                                                   Introduction 

    Hi Readers! I’m sure many of us have taken personality quizzes at one point or another in our live, maybe it was back in high school to determine what career fields you gravitated towards, or maybe it was just for fun on Buzzfeed to figure out what Disney Princess you were most like or what type of elemental bender you would be in the world of Avatar. After school, throughout our lives, the psychology of personality quizzes can still tell us a lot about ourselves, causing us to reflect upon our answers, our interests and help give us insight into our where personality types lean, our individual choices or personal preferences. This week, I wanted to share with you, Readers, the results of three personality type quizzes I took part in, known as 16 Personalities, Five-Factor Test and Personality Type Indicator, as well as share with you my reflections on the results of my quiz answers. These quizzes are not the ones you find on Buzzfeed or other recreational sites, but were taken for the purpose of showing where my strengths and weaknesses were, as well as highlighting what areas I could expand upon in relation to building my Personal Learning Network, or PLN, for short. An PLN helps individuals find resources as well as develop a network of connections within their chosen professional field; personality quizzes as three I took provide not only a diversity in data findings to draw from in learning more about how I am as a potential worker, my hobbies or in my education, but the quizzes can also help individuals such as myself with self-discovery, such as what positive and negative traits I have as a person, and what I can contribute to my profession with these personality traits.

 

                                   The 16 Personalities Quiz

Image Source: 16 Personalities Site.   


    Within each quiz I gave my best, honest answer to each question listed. The first quiz I took was 16 Personalities test, answering questions on a scale from “agree” to disagree,” and according to its results, I have an INFJ-T personality type, known as an Advocate. Within its findings, it says that I possess a combination of idealism and insight, characterized by complex emotions, vivid imagination, and a deep well of empathy that allows me to connect with others on a profound level, with a desire to make a positive impact the world (16 Personalities, 2025). The results further elaborate that my strengths lie in creative-thinking and innovative problem solving, with the ability to read through the lines which would be beneficial in a workplace environment. Whereas, in accordance to the quiz results, my weaknesses lie in idealism, perfectionism tendencies, sensitivity and conflict avoidance. The results state that my idealistic leaning would cause me to struggle with mundane tasks or office politics, while also stating that based on my personality type, I would thrive in professional environments which allow opportunities for creativity, personal grow and ability to make a positive impact on other people through my work. Looking over these answers from the quiz, I feel they genuinely reflect traits that I noticed about myself in my daily life; I lean towards empathy and wanting to make the environment around myself a positive space, while confrontation is something I’ve always had a struggle with as an individual. Overall, I find the results to a be fair assessment of both my strengths and weaknesses as a person, as well as how those traits translate into a work environment.  

 

                                      The Five-Factor Test

Image Source: Five-Factor Test Site.


    For the second personality quiz, I took what is known as the Five-Factor Test, which as its name implies, accounts for five key traits, related to Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism in each person. Based upon my honest responses to the questions, the test concluded that I scored 70% in extraversion, 84% in openness to experience, 85% in conscientiousness, while also 82% in agreeableness and 51% in neuroticism as an individual. According to the Five-Factors’ site. While I’m unsure of the 70& in extraversion, as I consider myself a rather introverted personality type, I find the test’s findings on my percentage of agreeableness and conscientiousness to be fairly accurate to my sense of self-identity. I was pleasantly surprised by highly I scored in openness to experience, which stated “Openness to Experience describes a dimension of personality that distinguishes imaginative, creative people from down-to-earth, conventional people. Open people are intellectually curious, appreciative and sensitive to beauty” (Psychologist World, 2025). These results align with the test answers I received from the previous 16 Personalities quiz, which described me, based on my responses, as a creative-thinking person who valued empathy and desired to be friendly and positive in social situations.

 

                         The Personality Type Indicator Test 

Image Source: Personality Type Indicator Site. 

    For the third and final personality quiz I took, I answered questions from the Personality Type Indicator test, which had interesting results. According to its findings, based upon the Myers-Briggs Personality Types, I am an ISFP type in terms of my personality, known as a Harmonizer in regards to different category titles. I found this to be a fascinating outcome because I consider myself to be a rather shy person, with the quiz listing aspects of my ISFP personality type as “you are warm, kind-hearted and generous. It may be difficult for you to open up at first, but once you do, others are drawn to your charm” and that I am “incredibly observant and very aware of others’ feelings” (My Personality Test, 2025). I was surprised by the quiz results stating that only 6% of the nation’s population make up this personality type, with the ISFP acronym standing for traits of Introverted, Observant, Feeling and Prospecting (My Personality Test, 2025). While I strive to be someone who is welcoming and kind to those around me, the answers also state as possible weaknesses about my personality type is that I may struggle with long-term-planning due to living in the moment, taking life day-by-day, which I suppose is a fair assessment of a university student! The results also state that due to my empathetic and reserved personality traits, as determined from my responses, in a work environment, “You may become reliant on others’ approval to validate your self-worth. Others may view you as overly sensitive and emotional” (My Personality Test, 2025). Thinking over the answers of this quiz, I feel that it reflects that I strive to be compassionate and earnest with other people in different areas of my life, whether in my personal relationships, in school or how I would apply these traits to my chosen career field of librarianship. I feel these results tell me that while kindness and empathy are strengths, in the workplace, I need to self-aware and not let my emotions overwhelm me nor should I let others take advantage of my kindness or openhearted tendencies.

 

                                                Conclusion

Embrace your inner-glam-rocker. Image Source.

    After completing the three personality quizzes, I believe that my kindness, earnestness and creativity are amongst my strengths as an individual, whereas my weaknesses lie in having difficulty with confrontation, shyness and I have perfectionist tendencies. In regards to building my PLN, these personality quizzes can help give opportunities to reflect upon my sense of self, potentially highlight my areas of strength in which I thrive and what weak areas I can always improve upon for the future, helping to grow as a person and being resource for building resources or networking and creating work connections in my career path. Although we should not take personality quizzes, whether we take them for recreation or for study, as being set in stone about ourselves and what we are capable of accomplishing in our personal or professional lives. People are complex, we have positive traits and flaws, that’s what makes us human-beings! Personality quizzes, however, can be an opportunity for self-reflection, not only for to look for weaknesses we can learn from and build upon, but can also discover positive traits about ourselves and what we can accomplish that we may not even be fully aware of before taking part in one of the personality quizzes. Whereas the quizzes highlight personality traits that I can work on, I feel it also underlines positive traits that will be beneficial in a work environment, such as in a public library for my future career; I am someone who strives to be positive, to create a welcoming environment for the people around me, to be kind and considerate towards the feelings of others, and I enjoy expressing myself through creativity, whether in creative-thinking for projects I work on or for problem-solving on a task. Readers, why not try exploring personalities too? You never know what you may discover about yourself!

6 comments:

  1. This is a great reflection on your experience, Lizzy. Thanks for a thorough look at your test results and what you bring to your PLN. I agree with your observation about how personality tests should be seen as a reflective tool, not as the end result of who we are.

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    1. Thank you for your kind words, Professor Nicole! I thought the personality quizzes were a great opportunity for me to reflect upon the area of cognitive growth of the PLN's benefits. I felt that doing the quizzes allowed me to reflect upon both my strengths and weaknesses as a worker, to think about what traits I can improve upon for the future, as well as consider how I can form a PLN and build upon my positive traits as a worker to create a positive work environment as well as broaden my career resources and tools going foward.

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  3. I thought you explained your results wonderfully in an easy to understand manner. I swear I forgot about personality quizzes for fun and to relieve boredom being a thing people used to do until you mentioned it. I remember taking some with one of my younger sisters when we were bored for giggles on our ancient dinosaur of a home computer back in the day. I completely agree that they are great for fun and reflection though not to be taken so seriously that they are considered the complete sum and outcome of who a person is. No quiz could accomplish that.

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    1. Hi Diane!

      Thank you so much for your nice response. I admit I forget about personality quizzes too, I use to take them for fun back in high school, it was usually silly fun stuff for just relaxing and curing boredom for ten minutes. I think it's really sweet that you and your little sister did quizzes together for fun. You make such a great point about how personality quizzes shouldn't define people like they're the sun and moon, exactly what I was trying to say in my post! I think at most, quizzes help us reflect more deeply about ourselves, our interests or our likes and dislikes as people, but you're right, they shouldn't be intended to put people in boxes or set the direction for the rest of someone's life. Thanks for your reply, Diane!

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LIS 768 01: Reflecting on My Social Media Break

                                                              Introduction Image Source.     Hello, Readers! For this final blog post, after...