1

Personality Tests
What They Say About Me

Daniel Fields
Washington County Community College
Community Mental Health
Prof Elizabeth Sullivan
Due: 17 November 2024
 2

This week I took both the Type A and B Personality Test from PychCentral (Hinson,

2022) and the Big 5 Personality test from their own website (Enge). I had never put much stock

in this type of test and had, purposely, avoided them for many years. I was not sure what they

would say about me, and much like when I took the Implicit Associations Test (IAT) I was not

looking forward to the outcomes.

The simpler of the two tests, and far shorter, was the Type A and B Personality Test. If I’d

had to guess about the results before I took it, I would have said that I was a Type B as I don’t

see myself as being one of the hyper-driven neurotic caricatures that are often representative of a

Type A personality. The test itself only consisted of twenty questions and I had completed it in

less than five minutes, probably closer to two minutes. I had a feeling that it was going to be a

coin-toss at the end for the test to categorize me as I was just about evenly split between “slightly

agree” and “slightly disagree” for my answers with only one “strongly disagree” being the outlier

(“Spreadsheets are fun!;” no they most certainly are not!) (Hinson, 2022). The actual results,

“Right down the middle” (Hinson, 2022) was quite surprising based in my pre-conceptions but

not at all surprising after I had answered the twenty questions. I still feel as though I am more

Type B than I am Type A but will accept being hard to quantify and box-in! I do not feel,

however, that this says anything about my state of mental health except that I have some risks as

a person who tries hard but knows that I can always be better, but that I also know how to relax

and take care of myself. Most of the time.

The Big 5 Personality Test was more in-depth, to be sure. It consisted of 120 questions

and it took me about eleven minutes to complete. It had the same general range of Very and

Moderately Accurate and Very and Moderately Inaccurate as the Type A or Type B test but also

included a fifth option; Neither Accurate nor Inaccurate (Enge). The Big 5 test examines what it
 3

calls the five leading personality traits in people, or the five-factor personality traits. They are

also called the OCEAN or CANOE models (Big five personality traits 2024). These five traits

are O, openness to experience; C, conscientiousness; E, extraversion; A, agreeableness and N,

neuroticism. Other personality tests, like the Type A or B test, sort

individuals into binary groups,

introvert, or extrovert for example,

while the Big 5 model says that each

personality trait is instead, a

spectrum. Thus, people are ranked on

a scale between the two extreme ends

of each personality trait (Very

Accurate/Very Inaccurate) (Lim, 2023).

Going into this test I had no preconceptions and no expectations as I was not familiar

with the test or what it was looking at (and only researched these terms after I had completed the

test). With a greater range of questions, it was able to get deeper into what it was exploring and

not seem so blunt, which is what the other test felt like knowing that it was going to be a binary

result (or ternary, as I discovered with my ‘Right down the middle’ result). I should also state that

I do not know what the range is on these. I am assuming the top range is 120 for the number of

questions and 20 points for each of the six categories under each trait.

My highest result was a 93 in ‘Openness to Experience’ which came as no surprise to me

once I knew the traits that were being explored. I have always been a very imaginative person

and involved in writing and story-telling participating in many cooperative story-telling groups

(or, as others may call them fantasy tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons
 4

which is the most popular of the type). When it comes to my recharging my mental and social

batteries this is how I do it, by writing and using the creative outlets available to me through my

hobbies and my imagination. This is what I, only half-jokingly, say is what keeps me sane and is

a strong component of my self-care routine.

Second, at 87, was ‘Agreeableness’ which I was also not surprised by. I was a little

surprised, though, that ‘Extroversion’ was my lowest at 69. I had figured they would be linked

and a little more relative to each other. With my hobbies, and my higher score in Agreeableness,

I’d think would score higher in being social, but to be fair, I definitely see myself as more of an

introvert than anything else. I certainly do not care for large groups preferring more intimate

gatherings where I can pay more attention to each person present rather than feeling like I am

spreading my social battery thin trying to keep up with everybody. But, at the same time, I can

absolutely get lost in myself and be ‘free’ when I am at a concert or a sporting event with

thousands of people I do not know, other than that we share this one common interest.

The last two measures of the Big 5 are ‘Conscientiousness’ (78) and ‘Neuroticism’ (73),

which both scored as High on the break-down used by this test. While both are rated high, I

would have thought them flip-flopped and figured both would be lower. I think, that if my mental

health were at risk (and I do not feel that it is) that it is here that I would struggle. Neuroticism,

seen as the tendency to struggle with negative feelings, is something that I do feel I struggle with

at time more than any other concern on this list. I have been through a difficult divorce recently,

have two kids that I see far less than I would like and live with their mother, am struggling with

one of those children’s behaviors, have an older child that (because of my now ex-wife) I have

lost contact with altogether, was fired from a job I loved and, while I have many acquaintances, I

have very few friends. With conscientiousness I have some of my highest scores in the sub-
 5

categories that make up this trait (self-efficacy, dutifulness, and achievement-striving: all at 15,

of I am assuming 20) but also my lowest of the entire test with a nine in orderliness. I scored

much higher in self-discipline that I though I would as I know that I am a consummate

procrastinator and have a very hard time with focusing on work, but feel that when I do focus on

my work, I perform at a high level, but not without causing myself an unwarranted amount of

stress.

What does this all mean when put together? I wish that had a more thorough answer than

“I don’t know,” but that is what I come up with. I know that with the experience I have had in

life, in work, and especially in work in the social services field that I know my limits and know

to take care of myself so I do not have

any fears about my mental health

collapsing or weakening. If it were going

to, I think that my experience of working

(without a single day off) through the

entire Pandemic, getting kicked out of

my house by my wife (during the

Pandemic) and cut off from my children

until I ‘won’ my divorce case and

struggling to keep everything above

water would have been the thing to do

me in, but here I am and here I persist.

(Lim, 2023)
 6

References

Enge, J. (n.d.). Free open-source bigfive personality traits test. My results from the BigFive
personality test - Free open-source BigFive personality traits test.
https://bigfive-test.com/result/673a01c65b5e7674be1664a7

Hinson, L. (2022, November 30). Type A vs type B quiz: What personality do you have?. Psych
Central. https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/type-a-vs-type-b-quiz

Lim, A. G. Y. (2023, December 20). Big 5 personality traits: The 5-factor model of personality.
Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/big-five-personality.html

Wikimedia Foundation. (2024, November 4). Big five personality traits. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits