A psychologist friend recently shared a story with me about calculating personality traits from social media, and using those results to influence election outcomes by allowing more targeted political advertising. It turns out that you can subject your psyche to this scrutiny for free online. I was a little hesitant to volunteer my Facebook profile, but I didn’t see any harm in pasting in some of my blog posts to see what it came up with. (These were all written, of course, with no thought that they would be used as part of a personality test.)

I’ve posted the results of the Big 5 personality traits below, along with Myers-Briggs estimates, which were always INTJ or INTP (I have always thought I was an INTJ, but INTP isn’t a bad fit either).

My psychological gender was 95%-99% masculine, which made sense: not long ago I read an article that pointed out that female INTJs have difficulty being accepted because they think like (stereotypical) men. When I first read that, I suddenly realized the peculiar contradiction that I’ve never really struggled with my masculinity, even though I’m a poetry-loving non-athletic academic: in spite of not doing any stereotypically masculine things, I think like a (stereotypical) man.

In general, I’m impressed that it gives fairly consistent results—although this might not mean anything more than that I have a consistent writing style. In terms of personality, I am surprised to see consistent marks in the direction of “Liberal and Artistic”. The other dimensions are not particular surprising to me; some of them are right on the border of course.

Psalms (INTP)

The Idea of a University (INTP)

A bit of sanity in an insane election cycle (INTJ)

  • Odd that an essay that was trying to get people to stop freaking out showed me as more strongly ‘competitive’ and ‘impulsive and spontaneous’.
  • But this is also where the J in INTJ showed through most clearly, which perhaps suggests decisiveness following the election result. (?)

The Moral Vision of the New Testament (INTJ)

A People’s History of the United States (INTP)

  • If writing a negative review of A People’s History gets me the highest scoring for ‘Liberal and Artistic’, I think they must be using the 17th-century definition of ‘liberal’.
  • More ‘Competititve’ here perhaps because I was writing a negative review?

The best fail video of 2016—perhaps of all time (INTP)

  • This post was mostly about funny stuff and fun memories. Perhaps that’s why I came across as more ‘Impulsive and Spontaneous’ and more ‘Laid back and Relaxed’?
  • Apparently I should watch more fail videos!

Make economic immigration radically easier, and build a wall (INTP)

And here are my results from a personality test they have on their web site based on my responses to 100 statements.

Now, if we can assume that the two means of personality evaluation are both valid, the interesting points are:

  • I am more open in my writing than I am willing to admit to on a personality inventory.
  • I am more conscientious in my writing than I admit on the inventory, but also more neurotic.

This test also labeled me as an ISTJ, however, which I think is pretty far off.

And this has been the week’s dose of navel-gazing and self-absorption.