Frankie Rowley's cell phone buzzed with a text from a group chat, including her sister and best friend. The message contained a link to an online personality assessment, which the three friends filled out together, joking around and comparing each other's results.
One might guess that the three teenagers bonded over a Buzzfeed quiz titled "Which Starbucks Drink Are You?" or "What 'Friends' Character Are You The Most Similar To?"—In reality, the quiz they took for entertainment's sake was titled "The Depression, Anxiety & Stress Test," a test used to assess negative emotional states.
Rowley, 18, said that her friends often send each other more "serious" personality tests they find online, a fun bonding activity they all enjoy. She wasn't exactly sure why she has fun taking these diagnostic-style tests, many of which are created for therapeutic uses. Still, she explained that taking the test with a group is a form of entertainment.
"Whenever one of us finds [a personality test], we'll send it in the group chat and compare results," Rowley said. It's called The Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Test. We took that one altogether. We're comparing results, and suddenly all of us realize, this is supposed to be a really serious test. Why are we acting like it's entertainment?"
Some might consider personality tests to be an odd choice for entertainment, especially in the case of The Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Test. But psychology suggests this yearning for self-understanding is a natural desire for young people, who seek to define their own personality as they become independent adults.
"During the period of emerging adulthood, one of the key interests is identity. Once you move into emerging adulthood, you're really trying to work out, 'What kind of work should I do? What do I care about in life?'" clinical psychologist Eileen McBride said. "People are interested in trying to define themselves at that point, and because it's such a complicated process, I think it's helpful sometimes to have a framework where you can say 'Oh, I fit into this group,' or 'I am more like this than that. It's part of the process of understanding yourself more and seeing where you fit in."
Personality tests offer the test-taker a quick and effective way to understand themselves better, whether it's a psychology-based test or a quirky Buzzfeed-style quiz. One of the more popular personality tests is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which separates users into 16 different personality types, identifying each personality type by a four-letter sequence like INFP or ESTJ.
Psychology professor Anne Gehrenbeck-Shim of Emerson College said she requires all of her students to take the MBTI test, partially because she thinks the test is fun, but also because it demonstrates the range of human personalities in a way that applies to real life.
"I think the factors in the Myers Briggs make sense in real life," she said. "They're not pathological; they're not disorders, or people with personality problems. It's more so like, we all fall somewhere on a range between extroverted and introverted, we all fall somewhere on a range between whether we're more thinkers or feelers. Of course, we all do both. It just kind of naturally lends itself to thinking about all of these ranges of characteristics, and we all fall somewhere on those ranges."
The MBTI is not necessarily designed for 'fun' purposes either. Still, despite this, the test has become highly popularized across the internet with the company reporting 1.5 million test takers a year. The test has been co-opted by young people, as evident by the frequent MBTI memes that can be found on social media. For young people interested in learning more about themselves through personality tests, the MBTI can serve as a happy medium of entertaining and insightful.
Alexandra Dudley, 20, has an affinity for the Myers-Briggs test, which she said is her current favorite personality test. Dudley said she and her friends often take personality quizzes together to understand themselves and their relationship to others better.
"I think the Myers Briggs is currently my favorite because it's been a constant topic of conversation just between myself and my roommates," Dudley said. I feel like I've always liked personality tests; they're just fun. But lately, we've just been using them as a way to figure out things about our parents or to figure out qualities or personality types we want in a romantic partner."
Chloe Nanian, 20, shares a similar appreciation for the MBTI.
"The 16 personalities quiz [MBTI] is really good, and I think it's a lot more accurate," she said. "I scored an INFJ, and I read everything out, and I was like, this is so accurate... I just like being told more about myself than I am willing to acknowledge on my own time."
Although Gen Z, defined by the Pew Research Center as people born after 1997, may have been the first generation to grow up with high-speed internet and smart phones, they certainly are not the first generation to be interested in learning about the 'self.' McBride argued this focus on the self is less about genuine narcissism and more about the developmental phases every adult goes through at a young age.
"So we do these sort of, almost generational stereotypes," McBride said. "But if you go back decades and decades, there was always this idea that young people were too self-centered and narcissistic, and so on, but it's because it's part of their job at that point in life."
For Rowley, she believes personality tests are so popular with Gen Z for the exact reason that young people are often stereotyped as narcissists—young people simply want to better understand themselves.
"For the personality tests, I think why young people are so obsessed with them is because we all just want to know like, 'Who am I as a person?'" Rowley said. "Like, I will take just about anything to just give me some information about who I am. And if there's a test that you take online that can give you some form of like, 'okay, this is one part of me,' it's such a relief."
For the generation of Tide Pods and TikTok, a stronger sense of identity might just be one Google search away.
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