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Introduction

Personality analysis and testing is now a significant business. The various models can be seen as a modern secular equivalent to traditional religions: many people who have studied the subject claim that personality (the thing these models tell you about) does not exist, but clearly the world does not operate on the basis of such scepticism. Each model has its own group of fervent believers, but there is no objective way to choose between them - and we don't even have any agreed way to compare them.

One assumption behind many of these models seems to be that each individual's personality is relatively stable, both in different contexts and across time. But other sources seem to suggest that character is more fundamental (and therefore more stable) than personality - so, for example, Psych Central tells us that "character can be seen as your essence, while your personality is how you express that essence." In this article, I don't attempt to reconcile these two perspectives, but I assume that a study of comparative personality would also help in this area.

Similarly, I don't attempt to connect personality with the basic emotions identified by Paul Ekman: while one might suppose that different personalities express the different emotions in different contexts and to different extents, I am not aware of any work which has been done in this area.

Personality Models

There are many personality models available to us, each one with their associated test, and each one presented as an invaluable tool. There seems to be no complete list of models, so this is a general starting point - but be aware that, while each of them may have started out as a single, coherent model, many of them are now a group of related but competing models, each one claiming to have the greatest credibility. The more you look, the more appropriate the description of these models as 'a modern secular equivalent to traditional religions' seems.

Big Five - five personality traits, each one representing a range between two extremes: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
DISC - four personality types, with most people having varying degrees of each one: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness.
Enneagram - three 'centers' (instinctive, feeling and thinking); nine personality traits: reformer (perfectionistic and self-controlled), helper (generous and people-pleaser), achiever (driven and image-conscious), individualist (dramatic and temperamental), investigator (innovative and perceptive), loyalist (responsible and engaged), enthusiast (fun-loving and spontaneous), challenger (self-confident and decisive) and peacemaker (agreeable and complacent); and 27 subtypes.
EQ Test - four 'quadrants' of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
Five Voices - pioneer, connector, guardian, creative and nurturer.
Four Colour - four standard personality types: orange (energetic), gold (structured), green (intuitive) and blue (empathetic).
Four Temperaments (or Humours) - four standard personality types, associated with the ancient four elements: sanguine (air - optimistic and social), melancholic (earth - analytical and quiet), choleric (fire - short-tempered and irritable) and phlegmatic (water - relaxed and peaceful).
Hare Psychopathy Checklist - testing for an important trait which most of the alternatives seem to ignore.
HEXACO - this is based on the 'Big Five', but redefines some of the personality traits and adds a sixth: Honest-humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to experience.
Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) - this uses seven primary scales (adjustment, ambition, sociability, interpersonal sensitivity, prudence and inquisitive), six occupational scales (service orientation, stress tolerance, reliability, clerical potential, sales potential and managerial potential), and 42 subscales.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) - this scores people on 10 clinical scales designed to measure for the presence of psychiatric syndromes: hypochondria, depression, hysteria, psychopathy, masculinity-femininity, paranoia, obsessive-compulsive, schizophrenia, mania and social introversion.
Myers-Briggs - four scales, so 16 personality types: extraversion - introversion, intuition - sensing, thinking - feeling and judging - perceiving.
Occupational Personality Questionnaire - the test provided by SHL measures 32 different characteristics in three major categories: 'relationship with people', 'thinking style and feelings' and 'emotions'.
Psychopathic Personality Inventory - this encompasses eight lower order scales which can be organized into two higher-order factors: fearless dominance (social influence, fearlessness and stress immunity) and self-centred impulsivity (Machiavellian egocentricity, rebellious nonconformity, blame externalization and carefree nonplanfulness).
Revised NEO - this measures 30 'lower level facets' of the Big Five personality traits, six per trait.

Comparative Personality

It seems clear to me that we need a study of 'comparative personality', in much the same way that we study comparative religion.

If you want to test people for a specific purpose, it is probably not too difficult to find one or more tests which claim to deliver what you want, and then it is simply a pragmatic question of doing a cost-benefit analysis for each one. But if you want to find out which test is the more accurate, there seems to be no alternative to the obvious approach: try each one, and compare them.

And if you are simply seeking to understand yourself, or the people around you, there seems to be no objective way to choose between the general purpose models: it is easy to find people whose lives have been vastly improved by the application of each of the popular options. Conversely, I can't find any reports of people complaining that their life has been ruined because they chose to use the wrong personality model. Although, I do recall reading some years ago about people reflecting on their engagement with one of these models, and recognising that it doesn't deliver all that they initially expected and hoped - which is hardly a surprise.

At first glance, it may seem that the only 'sensible' question to ask is: does this model ask about the aspects of personality which I am interested in? But, if we assume that I have weaknesses and blind spots (which I don't, obviously), then the most useful models might be the ones which don't ask about the aspects I'm already interested in... which makes the choice of model a bit tricky.

What I am looking for is an analysis which provides some basic information for each model, in a form which would enable us to compare across models. Perhaps a meta-analysis of their chosen categories, identifying areas of overlap, or perhaps where different terminology refers to essentially the same category?

As a starting point, the sort of basic information I would like to have available about each model includes the following.

What are the assumptions?
What are the strengths?
What are the weaknesses?
What is the commercial status of the model - can it be used and explored free of charge, or do you need to pay for important parts of the material? (And, if you need to pay - how much?)

Are there other obvious questions? Is anyone interested in starting to work on producing some kind of comparison?

Articles

Personality

Introduction

Personality Models

Comparative Personality

Further Reading

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