There are personality tests like sand on the sea
Why do people from Frankfurt think about personality tests? Questions like "who am I?", "how am I?", or "why am I the way I am?" have been asked again and again for thousands of years, not just in the world Coaching. On the Internet, you can find various tests by searching for “personality test” on Google, which supposedly let you know who or what you are after hundreds of questions. We have listed the most common questions that our clients tell us about here.
The ability to interact socially is the most common reason why personality tests are used. You want to know whether the new colleague is with the company and Team fits.
It is difficult to say which is the best personality test. The Big Five personality test is the most well-researched test.
Personality tests are regularly used in personnel selection to assess the suitability of candidates.
All people are the same and yet different. The difficulty of a personality test is to squeeze individuals into certain patterns.
External factors such as poor sleep or insufficient fitness can falsify the results of a personality test.
The costs vary massively for private individuals and companies. Unfortunately, in most cases free tests are not scientifically substantiated.
What is the best personality test?
There are personality tests like sand on the sea. From a psychological point of view, caution is advised here. A large part of the mostly free tests is not scientifically based or very outdated.
This means that you can often do little with the result. On the other hand, if you tend to place some value in the outcome, know that it is likely to affect you.
But what actually is personality? Personality is the sum of innate and learned characteristics of a person. So to speak, the union of self-image and external image. Also visit our page on the topic personality development.
The concept of personality includes all internal processes such as fears, sensations, feelings or needs as well as external, visible behavior. A personality test is and remains an attempt to normalize characters.
Character can never be pinned down to one point, but is to be understood as a range from ... to .... This range is one of the bases for the scientifically recognized Big Five personality test Coaching applies.
Our Team is here for you
Free initial consultation
Where does the Big Five personality test come from?
As early as 1936, Allport and Odbert laid the foundation for today's Big Five model. They identified several thousand terms that describe human personality in an English dictionary.
They then challenged psychology as a science to determine in how many categories such a complex matter as an individual's personality can be unequivocally described. It was not until the 80s that it finally became possible to effectively support evaluations using software programs in order to obtain reliable results. Finally, "five groups of synonymous terms could be shown, with which the individual differences in personalities can largely be recorded" (Howard & Howard2002, pp. 23-25).
Today, these word groups form the five dimensions of the Big Five model, probably the most decisive personality test on the market. The so-called Big Five or five-factor model for describing human personality has existed since the end of the 20th century. It is used in many ways and especially in the world of work, for example in coaching, processes for Teamdevelopment, management, personnel selection and many other areas. Since then, the Big Five personality test has been the international standard in personality research and has been researched extraordinarily conscientiously like no other model in psychology. The model has been applied and analyzed in over 3.000 scientific studies.
The Big Five personality test LPP from the LINC Institute uses this by far the best model for explaining personality. You may also be interested in our article on the subject mindfulness and coaching. In summary, the Big Five personality test explains which behavioral preferences one shows in certain situations based on one’s personality profile (“how do I behave?”).
Free initial consultation
How is such a Big Five personality test structured?
In what is probably the most renowned personality test of the Big Five on the market from the LINC Institute, motives and competencies are analyzed and evaluated in addition to the Big Five. The characteristics of the Big Five personality test are:
- Compatibility (cooperation vs. competition)
This dimension describes how someone typically behaves in social interactions. Agreeableness is not to be confused with the extraversion dimension! - Openness (Openness vs. Consistency)
This dimension captures the extent to which the person is interested in new things, is willing to open up or is willing to keep and pursue what has been tried and tested up to now. - conscientiousness (conscientiousness vs. flexibility)
This dimension contains different perspectives. In particular, it is about the questions of whether someone approaches a task with a lot of structure or more spontaneously as a free spirit. - Extraversion (Extraversion vs. Introversion)
The question of what I focus on in everyday life and in dealing with others provides information about this dimension. Is it my own inner experience and my interpretation of the outside world or rather the interaction with others and the resulting sensory impressions? - neuroticism (Sensitivity vs. Emotional Stability)
The fifth and last dimension of the Big Five personality test describes a person's emotional sensitivity and, on the other hand, psychological resilience.
Free initial consultation
Big Five personality test is considered to be the most scientifically validated model
The motives explain underlying drivers such as the "what" and the "why" for the direction in which a person strives. The test draws on David McClelland's well-established motive model with the three main motives of relationship, achievement and influence. There are strong interactions between the Big Five and the motives, but they also differ significantly. Motifs provide a direction, the Big Five define personal style.
The exact expression of competencies can only be measured by performance tests in which competency must be shown, such as an IQ test. Have you ever been over Executive coaching thought? With the LINC personality test, the user's competency profile can be derived from their character traits in the Big Five, since there is a strong, verified correlation between the Big Five and the specific competencies. In this way you kill two birds with one stone.
Each area of the Big Five dimensions has a variety of different career opportunities that can be associated with it. (Howard & Howard2002, p. 138).
The prerequisite for successful coaching is and remains the willingness to change and trust on both sides. With the personality test of the Big Five there is a scientifically based and effective way to get to know yourself and your counterpart within the framework of coaching and to build trust.
Reflection is thus stimulated in a natural way, which means that an essential part of every coaching is considered. In coaching, tendencies and changes in personality can be crystallized over time, and motives and skills can be determined together. Together with your coach, you can steer the coaching process in your desired direction - sometimes through the results and analysis of your personality test.
The nice thing is, we don't rate you on the Big Five personality test. In coaching, we analyze your unique dynamic personality together and leave room for Development, creativity and self-discovery.
Professional coaching – what possible applications does the personality test offer?
The personality test itself is one thing. The other a synchronized professional coaching. Due to the wide range of applications, the personality test can be used excellently at the beginning of a coaching process, during a coaching process or at the end of a coaching process.
Assuming that the test is used several times within a coaching process, different results may result. As already mentioned, personality is something dynamic and therefore never 100 percent tangible.
The desired development over time can thus be excellently mapped and checked. Possible fields of application for the Big Five personality test in connection with coaching are: personality development, Teamdevelopment, personnel selection, comparison of self and external image, couples counseling, Mediation, leadership, sales. Also visit our pages Systemic coaching and Career reorientation.
Another bonus for you
An essential added value for you is the structure, the significance and the possibility of interpretation of the Big Five personality test. In addition to a deep, well-founded analysis, you get an overview of the proportions of your motives. Here you can quickly see which motifs are in the foreground. Accordingly, you will determine to what extent you correspond to the expression of the respective motive or not.
This represents the actual added value. Because the reflections that come to light through the well-founded results are of use to you as much as you deal with them. That's what we're here for, asking the right questions at the right time. What we see particularly often after a Big Five personality test are aha moments. Aha experiences are small insights that are necessary for the further path of life.
1. The Myers-Briggs personality test distinguishes between 16 personality types.
2. Scientists have been arguing about the accuracy for years, since repetition always leads to different results.
3. Many personnel decision-makers do not agree on the test, they see the test more as a pastime and compare it to a horoscope.
1. This test is fundamentally different from the competitor's approach, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
2. The analysis of the Big Five personality test focuses on the five personality dimensions and three basic motives.
3. When carrying out the Big Five test, you have to reckon with around 120 questions.
1. Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
2. People who are comfortable with social interactions score extremely high on the openness criterion.
3. The personality test has meanwhile become the standard test for many psychologists due to the differentiation of characteristics.
1. The MBTI – Myers-Briggs Type Indicator distinguishes between 16 personality types.
2. The 16 personality types are divided into four subcategories. Analysts, diplomats, guardians, researchers.
3. It is still very controversial whether personality tests are useful. From our experience, such a test can only be an indication.
1. All personality tests have a reason for being. However, the most thoroughly researched and tested is the Big Five personality test.
2. We use the for work with our clients Linc Personality Profiler from the Leuphana University of Lüneburg.
3. This personality test is based on the latest psychological standards and has proven to be the best for our clients.
1. The Myers-Briggs type indicator personality test is still in first place worldwide by a wide margin.
2. Persolog personality profile and Bochum inventory are just behind in comparison.
3. There are also exotics on the German personality test market, such as Ms Stahl's "Stefanie Stahl Personality Test".
1. There are 4 types of people in temperament theory.
2. The melancholic, the choleric, the sanguine and the phlegmatic.
3. This type of personality test is based on the four-element theory of Empedocles (ancient Greek philosopher) on.
1. The personality test is based on decades of research into personality and motivational psychology.
2. The basis for this was laid with the five-factor model of personality, also known as the Big Five, by Costa & McCrea in 1992.
3. With the process standard DIN 33430, the personality test meets the highest formal and scientific requirements.
Free initial consultation