The Delphic Maxim “know thyself” has never appealed to me. Why, exactly, is the unexamined life not worth living? Thus, I’ve always been more interested in action than introspection, although that certainly hasn’t stopped me from having extremely positive thoughts about myself. Nobody ever accused me of being self-hating. Nonetheless, my purpose today is to examine myself, in certain respects. Mostly this is for my own amusement, though maybe it will be interesting to others (especially given my, um, outrider test results) and cause them to pursue their own self-analysis. It may also illuminate some of my own writing. Of course, if you don’t care about me, and are wondering what happened to the interesting book reviews, you should just ignore this entire post!
The spur for this line of thought was the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose meteoric rise has caused him to appear everywhere, it seems. I like Peterson quite a bit, although I am hardly in perfect agreement with him. For today’s purposes, though, I am focused narrowly on his implementation of the “Big Five Aspects” personality analysis. This analysis is not original to Peterson; it has been developed since the early 1960s by a variety of psychologists, and, from what I can tell, is widely agreed to be useful. Underlying it is the theory that word usage in a society’s language can be used to identify key personality traits, and then statistical analysis of responses to questions relating to those words, including correlation of different responses (“factor analysis”), can be used to rank individuals relative to each other with respect to those traits. This seems similar to the extremely commonly used Myers-Briggs test; it is not, and Peterson has nothing good to say about Myers-Briggs. “Perhaps they did a fine job for the 1930s. . . . Corporations love it because nobody gets offended by it because everybody wins. . . . It should be relegated to the dustbins of the past because it’s no longer properly valid. And that’s that.”
Peterson’s purpose in offering his own version of the Big Five test isn’t just to let people navel-gaze and compare their scores while drinking at a bar. He offers it for two basic reasons. The first is to allow people to understand that there are real differences among people, and so disagreements are often not based on, and not susceptible to, rational argument. This is basically the same point Jonathan Haidt makes about moral views; it’s just broader in analysis and application. The second is to give people a starting place for them to reconfigure at least their behavior, and maybe their personality as well, if they are unhappy with some aspect of their lives, through his “Self-Authoring Suite.” As to the latter, I have no thoughts, since I am not unhappy with any aspect of my life, or for that matter, my scores. I’m just, as I say, amusing myself.
So I took the test Peterson offers; presumably, it’s one he and his team derived from earlier tests. It is not designed to fit any particular hobbyhorse of Peterson’s (of which there are plenty). He’s a clinical psychologist by profession, so this is his field, and his test is strictly objective, although perhaps the conclusions he draws across groups of people from the test are not ones everyone agrees with. The test involves stating your degree of agreement or disagreement with one hundred different phrases—or, in Peterson’s words, “You will be presented with a series of phrases, such as ‘carry out my plans,’ ‘respect authority,’ and ‘like to solve complex problems,’ and asked to indicate your agreement or disagreement with those phrases as they apply to you, typically and personally.” The results are comparative to other test takers, or perhaps to some pre-existing database, on a percentile basis. But the test taker has to pay ten dollars in order to filter out sloppy or lazy usage and attempts to distort the system; and you can only take the test once—no retakes (presumably you could set up a new account with a fresh email, though why you’d want to do that is beyond me).
I paid my ten dollars and carefully answered the questions. Peterson warns the taker to answer “as you are typically and not as you would like to be.” I expected that my results would skew in certain directions, and they did skew in those directions—but more so than I expected. My percentile results were:
Agreeableness: 0 (Exceptionally Low)
Compassion: 4 (The tendency to empathically experience the emotion of others; Very Low)
Politeness: 0 (The proclivity to abide by interpersonal norms; Exceptionally Low)
Conscientiousness: 96 (Exceptionally High)
Industriousness: 99 (Ability for sustained, goal-directed effort; Exceptionally High)
Orderliness: 76 (The tendency to schedule, organize and systematize; Moderately High)
Neuroticism: 6 (Very Low)
Withdrawal: 2 (The tendency to avoid in the face of uncertainty; Exceptionally Low)
Volatility: 21 (The tendency to become irritable and upset when things go wrong; Low)
Extraversion: 89 (Very High)
Enthusiasm: 36 (Spontaneous joy and engagement; Moderately Low)
Assertiveness: 99 (Social dominance, often verbal in nature; Exceptionally High)
Openness to Experience: 53 (Typical)
Intellect: 96 (Interest in abstract concepts and ideas; Exceptionally High)
Openness: 5 (Creativity and aesthetic sensitivity; Very Low)
I think it fair to say that these results are extreme. Now, to be fair, the words that comprise the aspects have somewhat specialized meanings. So, “intellect” does not mean intelligence, it is “interest in abstract ideas.” But even the one trait, Openness to Experience, where my result was not extreme, was only not extreme because it was the average of two oppositely extreme sub-traits. That said, most of these are pretty much what I’d expect. For example, as I have noted before, my art appreciation is low, and I am a big fan of conflict. I have compassion, I am pretty sure, but it is more intellectual than empathetic, at least outside my immediate family circle, though I do sometimes sniffle at sad movies. In any case, I will return to how these relate to my self-image in a moment.
Peterson points out that these percentile results are compared to all people—all ages, both sexes—and that all else being equal, sub-groups divide in their results. Thus, the older you are, the lower you score in Politeness. Women score significantly higher than men in Agreeableness. And so forth. So, arguably, my results might not be so extreme if compared to “middle-aged men”; they would probably be even less extreme if compared to “middle-aged men who are former lawyers and now are business owners.” That’s just a reversed way of saying the same thing as Peterson does, though, which is that certain scoring tendencies, especially when combined with others, are indicative of other personality traits than those on this test, some of which are also predictive (though not determinative) of success or failure in certain areas.
So, those low in Agreeableness are more competitive. No surprise there, but that is doubtless correlated with both wanting to, and successfully managing to, run a business. Combined with low neuroticism, Peterson informs us that such people “tend very strongly toward dominance.” That probably characterizes me, as much as that sounds like it should mean people don’t like me. And they don’t, or at least some don’t—I have a list of enemies a mile long (though I strive to love each and every one, generally failing because I am not serious about it, and anyway Peterson tells me I am relieved of responsibility because those low in Agreeableness “do not at all easily forgive.”) Similarly, my wife points out that people either love me or hate me, which may just be code for “everyone hates you,” though I hope not.
Peterson here makes the point, which he often puts forth, that small differences in averages are magnified at the extremes. For example, the mean percentile for women in Agreeableness is 61.5; for men it is 38.5. But nearly all the most extreme people in the general population, say the lowest 2% in Agreeableness, are therefore men, due to the way statistics work. This is a partial explanation why nearly all criminals are men, because criminal behavior is strongly associated with extremely low Agreeableness scores. Hey, wait a minute. . . . Peterson also points out that where equality of outcome between the sexes is the most enforced, such as in Scandinavia, the gap between men’s and women’s scores is the highest, suggesting a mostly biological basis for this difference.
It’s not just crime that is explained by Agreeableness; it’s also career choice. Caring for others is typically done by high Agreeableness people; dealing with things by low Agreeableness people. I totally agree with this—I can’t imagine anything worse than, say, being a nurse, as much as I admire nurses, but I do love metalworking. And low Politeness, one of the two components of Agreeableness, means you are disobedient and love conflict. I was actually a fantastically obedient child, but nobody would characterize my professional life, as a lawyer and businessman, as either obedient or conflict-avoiding. As Peterson says, low Politeness “can make it extremely difficult to find a place in the middle or lower hierarchies of power and dominance.” Yeah, pretty much. That’s why being a law firm associate, or junior partner, never sat well with me.
The only thing I am sad about is that my abysmally low level of Agreeableness correctly identifies that I “do not easily see the best in others.” My maternal grandfather, whom I idolized and who died at ninety-seven, when I was thirty-two, always saw the best in others. And despite a lot of challenges in his life, this served him very well. He was a psychiatrist (originally, in Hungary, he was an obstetrician, but left Hungary as a refugee just ahead of the Communists, in 1945, and ended up a psychiatrist in America, since more mainstream medical options were not available to foreign doctors), in a time before modern drugs were available for mental health. Yet he went deer hunting often with a patient of his, a paranoid schizophrenic. Going into the woods with guns with such a patient requires a very positive view of other humans, and I would not do it, but I admire him for having done it. It is true that I was more agreeable as a child. Once when I was about twenty, my mother, in response to some comment I had made, said “Whatever happened to you? You were such a kind and generous child.” And I was. Maybe I just got old.
Of course, being a domineering jerk isn’t a great recipe for worldly success, by itself. But I am also very high in Conscientiousness, and such people “implement their plans and establish and maintain order.” Of the two sub-categories here, though, I’m only extreme in Industriousness, less so in Orderliness, which again fits with my own self-image. For example, for the most part I refuse to keep task lists, and I was notorious in my law firm for refusing to ever show up to meetings, client or otherwise, with a notepad and writing implement to take notes (though this was also a lack of obedience and refusal to acknowledge my place in the hierarchy—surprise, surprise).
The analysis falls down a bit in Neuroticism. I am very low in Neuroticism, so, allegedly, I “almost never focus on the negative elements, anxieties and uncertainties of the past”; I “cope very well and don’t worry.” Up to a point, this is true—when I am complaining about something during a vacation, my wife will point out that if it’s so horrible, why don’t we just stay home? My response is always that I view the past through rose-colored glasses, so while I may be complaining now, I will remember the vacation with only the most positive thoughts. On the other hand, I do worry a lot, both about business matters and with a strong streak of hypochondria, so Peterson’s analysis as it relates to me is not wholly accurate, especially since those low in Neuroticism are said to have “markedly decreased concern about mental and physical health.” And while I tolerate risk well, much of my activity is devoted to, as much as possible, finally (to the extent it’s ever possible) eliminating risk from my personal and family life, as well as business life. On the other hand, I do indeed have a “very much higher level of self-esteem” and do not (normally) suffer from depression.
Moving to the third trait, I am high in Extraversion, “a measure of general sensitivity to positive emotions such as hope, joy, anticipation, and approach.” That sounds like I am a happy person that everyone wants to be around. Nope. Actually, most of that high score is derived from exceptionally high Assertiveness, meaning I “constantly dominate and control social situations.” Ouch. On the other hand, that means I “can be extremely influential and captivating.” Yay! And I “don’t wait for others to lead the way, but leap in.” That’s true; once upon a time my motto about doing things, in any walk of life, which I relentlessly flogged as advice to those less decisive, was “Action In Motion,” and it always benefited me. But my Enthusiasm is moderately low, which means I am “not particularly easy to get to know,” and “not particularly positive or optimistic.” This is true, and a little sad—my grandfather was extremely optimistic, always, and I want to be optimistic—but for the most part, I’m not.
Finally, I’m average in Openness to Experience. But as I say, I’m actually very low in simple Openness, which roughly equates to creativity. I am “not imaginative,” and in fact, am usually terribly unobservant (except in threat situations), as my wife is fond of pointing out (but she is very observant, one of the many reasons we make a good team). Incorrectly in my case, “at least moderate levels of Openness tend to be necessary for entrepreneurial success,” but that may still be correct, and my lacks are just being compensated for by the other members of my company’s team. So, given low Openness, Openness to Experience is only high because of my exceptionally high Intellect, which, again, is not IQ, but interest in abstract ideas; I “tend to compulsively read, think about, and discuss idea-centered books (generally non-fiction),” which is pretty much a perfect description of the genesis and implementation of this blog. And it is always good to have it suggested that I am “notably articulate, and can formulate ideas very clearly and exceptionally quickly (particularly if average or higher in extraversion).” I have always said that people think I am more intelligent than I actually am, because I think extremely fast and have a big vocabulary, and that’s pretty much what Peterson is saying here. (I am starting to imagine him in a chair while I’m on the couch—I should probably stop that. In fact, given his scientific interests and my extreme scores, I’m pretty sure Peterson is going to send ninjas to capture me and put me in a giant glass jar.)
Online tests are not the measure of a man, and the Big Five test does not, and does not purport to, measure people on scales of greater importance for their lives than these instrumental axes. It does not capture virtue, or religiosity, or what a man does when he is tested (although I suppose certain forms of virtue come easier or harder depending on traits, and these tests do seem as if they to some extent can predict individual action). That said, for what Peterson cares about, which in essence is self-improvement, lifting the broken out of chaos, this test seems like an excellent starting point. As far as myself, one has to be careful of hindsight bias, but in retrospect, this analysis seems predictive of my career path, and, really, my life path. Does that have any particular value for me? I’m not sure, but, at least, it suggests that my own self-image is not wildly divorced from reality. And for just ten dollars and half an hour of your time, the same knowledge is probably worth having—perhaps very worth having, if you are dissatisfied with some aspect of your life, and this can become the foundation for making necessary changes.
I like Big 5 tests. I even like Myers-Briggs/Jung-type tests, to a point (there is a lot more material out there for interpreting MB compared to Big 5, even though Big 5 is a strictly superior personality model). I did this one awhile ago myself — I had to dig up the results, but here they are, for fun:
* Agreeableness 15 (Low)
* Compassion 2 (Exceptionally Low)
* Politeness 58 (Typical or Average)
* Conscientiousness 96 (Exceptionally High)
* Industriousness 93 (Very High)
* Orderliness 93 (Very High)
* Extraversion 92 (Very High)
* Enthusiasm 83 (High)
* Assertiveness 92 (Very High)
* Neuroticism 0 (Exceptionally Low)
* Withdrawal 1 (Exceptionally Low)
* Volatility 2 (Exceptionally Low)
* Openness to Experience 75 (Moderately High)
* Intellect 92 (Very High)
* Openness 38 (Moderately Low)
My results are similar to yours in places — low agreeableness, high conscientiousness, high extraversion (though expressed differently throughout). I score as more “polite” — perhaps it is the Canadian in me, eh?
I get the feeling that readers of TWH would tend to fit this general profile; obviously it is predictive of holding a very conservative or rightist political philosophy, but also simply because it is the profile of our eloquent and punchy host!
Very interesting! And thank you for “eloquent and punchy.” Yes, I imagine that there is correlation between coming here and certain traits . . .
Jordan Peterson? Hmmm . . . I almost subscribed.
Why not?!
Anyhow, I just discovered your blog this morning and I was especially impressed with your reply to a comment re Vox Day on the JP review post. The first sentence captured my opinion precisely although, IIRC, I had not thought of using the c-word in that context.
Feel free to delete my unnecessary comments. I subscribed from different laptop from which I read my email and confused myself. It happens. I’ll be back, subscribed or not.
Thank you–and I hope so!
Here are my results. I’m more of a moderate and a liberal than you two, but I’m still on the right. Must be the low conscientiousness and high neuroticism.
Agreeableness 5
Compassion 1
Politeness 32
Conscientiousness 1
Industriousness 2
Orderliness 4
Extraversion 12
Enthusiasm 21
Assertiveness 12
Neuroticism 84
Withdrawal 80
Volatility 84
Openness to Experience 37
Intellect 72
Openness 13
What is life like with an industriousness of 2 and orderliness of 4?
I see Will commented on your sharing of your results (1/1/22). He seems to find your orderliness and industriousness to be quite low – which they are. In actuality, you are quite introverted, not overly agreeable and your Neuroticism is your highest of the Big-5 by far. The Neuroticism has very little to do with anyone being on the “right” which is an ideological orientation and I’m not sure why you have drawn the conclusion you have since it gives “hints” of you being very defensive but suggests nothing about one’s ideology.
I would guess that most others wouldn’t know this since you are quite passive, use withdrawal as a defense, are not very enthusiastic but are driven by your intellect. Perhaps you march to your own drummer.
I see the Big-5 has opened a few doors but it tells YOU and us very little about yourself as you appear to be very “self-protective.” If you’d like see my post of 1/13/22 (below) where I suggested that Charles might take the Digital Couch. He decided against doing so which is totally up to him. The Traits give one only “probable behavior” in situation “x” and don’t tell WHY one does what they do. This would certainly give you more insight into your personality if you are interested.
Feel free to respond on the site or email me directly if you are interested. Just so you know, your DATA will only be shared with you alone. What you do with it after that is your choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7u3Lu-kzgg
Have you watched or read Vox Day’s analysis of Peterson?
I had not. But now I have. It is awful and makes Vox Day look like a clown. There is endless hand-waving (combined with stupid edits and effects), selective editing (as in the clip from the Munk Debate, the whole of which I listened to earlier) and only two factual claims about Peterson’s supposed failings: about Osiris (C. S. Lewis talked about this and related things, with needed nuance) and the enchanted-world status of pre-modernity (that some Greek philosophers were skeptics and empiricists doesn’t prove that’s not right, which it obviously is, to anyone who reads history). In the video, Vox Day offers not a coherent attack on Peterson, but scores, if not hundreds, of assertions and conclusions with no evidence or chain of reasoning. Blah.
That Peterson avoids responding, through contortion, to questions about his own religious belief is not news. That’s the only item in which he tends to so respond, though.
Now, I’m not sure Peterson is the great hope some people think he is. His own struggles, and his daughter’s grossly disordered life, suggest he’s not ever going to be some great leader. But the main objection by people like Vox Day seems to be, from what little I can tell, that Peterson is (allegedly) taking the energy, particularly from dissatisfied young men, that would otherwise be directed toward Real Problems like the Jooooooz and instead dissipating it. That seems unlikely. Rather, Peterson is part of the overall ferment on the Right, and far more beneficial than not. He’s more likely to open doors for people to admit to their minds new thoughts as they arise and are relevant in society as it evolves. Vox Day seems very much part of what I call the clown show. He is not a serious man, and despite what he doubtless thinks, is not going to be part of the future.
I agree with you that Day is intellectually scattershot. It’s a hazard on the right, at least when you are far enough right to categorically disbelieve the organs of the Cathedral. I certainly agree with you that his vendetta against Peterson comes across (to me, at least) as shrill and weird. (This is independent of the quality of the analysis, which I have not engaged with seriously.)
However, Day has one big thing going for him. Unlike pretty much everyone else on the dissident right, he is not just complaining about the right’s weakness and powerlessness in the face of the left’s full court press of deplatforming and gleichschaltung. He’s putting in hard work where is mouth is, organizing, creating and maintaining non left-controlled platforms: infogalactic, Castalia House, unauthorized.tv. (He also writes books and comics, presumably not leftist in content.)
So I disagree with you that Day is unserious.
Like Grant, like Trump: he fights. That makes up for a lot.
Good points. I actually had a favorable opinion of Vox Day, from the Sad Puppies saga, and then heard about the Peterson thing. But I’ve never really paid attention. I’ll go check out some of those platforms.
BTW, speaking of platforms, Peterson’s thinkspot is shaping up to be a big disappointment, and his and Rubin’s talk of an alternate payments infrastructure seems to have disappeared. Both of those are unfortunate.
Interestingly got the same distribution in the “Openness to Experience” category:
Agreeableness 20
Compassion 55
Politeness 4
Conscientiousness 87
Industriousness 88
Orderliness 76
Extraversion 60
Enthusiasm 59
Assertiveness 58
Neuroticism 64
Withdrawal 41
Volatility 80
Openness to Experience 61
Intellect 92
Openness 17
Inspired by your post, I decided to take the test. While I have enormous respect for most of your personal qualities, I assumed that the fact that I disagree with you on nearly every aspect of what constitutes a virtuous civil society would be reflected in some significant differences in our scores.
Here’s what I got:
* Agreeableness 39 (Moderately Low)
* Compassion 16 (Low)
* Politeness 71 (Moderately High)
* Conscientiousness 87 (High)
* Industriousness 82 (High)
* Orderliness 76 (Very High)
* Extraversion 53 (Typical or Average)
* Enthusiasm 25 (Moderately Low)
* Assertiveness 77 (High)
* Neuroticism 26 (Moderately Low)
* Withdrawal 41 (Typical or Average)
* Volatility 17 (Low)
* Openness to Experience 68 (Moderately High)
* Intellect 96 (Exceptionally High)
* Openness 17 (Low)
So there were some places where we had big differences – my withdrawal score (41) was much higher than yours (2) – meaning I am more prone than you to self-doubt (but who isn’t?), worry, self-consciousness, etc., but still less than most other people. My politeness score (71) was dramatically different from yours (0). That basically suggests I am way more conflict-averse and respectful of authority, which is probably true, but it begs the question of why I ever post a comment this blog.
Per Peterson, the former distinction is associated with our ideological differences. But the latter is the exact opposite – liberals typically score lower in politeness than conservatives. You’re ready for the Squad, apparently, and I should get a seat on The Five.
What surprised me more were some of the strong parallels in our numbers. A few seemed to make sense: I had very high numbers on conscientiousness and industriousness – not at your level, but close. That seems reasonable. Like you, I pair relatively low enthusiasm with high assertiveness (though both of my scores bend more toward the middle of the scale), which I suppose does explain why I post here.
But a couple of the alignments caught me off guard. We had the same intellect score (96) and while my openness score (17) was higher than yours (5), it was still very low. But like you, I spend very little time on creative or artistic pursuits, and my occupational path accords with what Peterson attributes to low openness. But that is distinctly “non-liberal” of me.
The standout similarity was compassion – you’re a 0, and I’m a 16. For you, that makes sense – you’re the dashing but steel-hearted executive from an Ayn Rand novel. But me – I’m a bleeding-heart liberal pinko, who desires nothing more passionately than instituting confiscatory wealth taxes and distributing the proceeds to the impoverished out of the back of a vegetable-oil powered VW camper! How can I be so low in compassion?
Of course, the way we conventionally think of “compassion” differs somewhat from the way Peterson defines it. He says people low in compassion are not swayed by “cuteness,” are willing to risk bruising others’ feelings by engaging in competition, “like to win,” and are a place for others to turn for a cold head truth rather than a sympathetic ear. I can see myself in those descriptions, at least in many elements of my personal life. They are also “less concerned about helping other people” – that one sticks for me, because my thinking about politics and public policy (which makes up a large part of my identity) is very other-focused. However, upon reflection, in my personal life that description may be true – I tend to be very internally-focused, probably as an artifact of general introversion. I rarely go out of my way to offer help to others if it draws me away from my tasks at hand – and rarely do I ask others for help. That does reflect a lack of a certain kind of compassion, I suppose.
Of course, I have an inherent skepticism about tests like this. Despite Peterson’s admonition to answer as you actually are, and not as you want to see yourself, that’s a nearly-impossible mandate for most human minds. Reading the statements, any halfway-intelligent test-taker will know exactly what kind of “finding” the answer to any individual question will bend toward. And there are reams of social science research about the ways we delude ourselves about our own natures, even when earnestly trying not to. I tend to think our subconscious puts a thumb on the scale toward engineering the results that would validate our self-image; but nonetheless, it’s an interesting diversion.
Very interesting. You post comments on this blog because of your high “Intellect,” of course. After all, this is not really a conflict zone; you are informing yourself of how others (our future rulers, to be precise) think, not just squabbling for squabbling’s sake. (For the record, I don’t like Rand, and I want to implement confiscation of most ruling-class wealth, to the degree any individual has supported the Left or built that wealth through socially-corrosive methods, although that’s not compassion, to be sure.)
You and I are more similar than we think, no doubt. In the new Foundationalist state, once you have converted some of your views, you will have an honored and powerful position!
Dear Charles,
I read your review on David Goldman’s “How Civilizations Die” and found it interesting so I went to your site the Worthy House to look at reviews and other insights. I’m primarily interested in the area of Political Theory.
However, what caught my eye was your interest in Personality and your view based on the Big-5. This is the academics “go to objective personality assessment” that they correlate with all things of interest. I’m afraid it’s the typical academic struggle to be scientific so they can churn out papers that only they read.
I was a chemical engineer at P&G and ran into a consultant from UCLA who worked in Organizational Behavior (OB). A hallway chat convinced me to get a PhD in Clinical Psychology rather than business. His reason, “You can pick up a book about business and get it but I wished I went the psychology route since I’m always stymied why smart executive managers do really strange things.”
I went that route and couldn’t get a job in OB. I went into the USAF and saw referrals sent from half of the world. Our goal was to assess them and the psychiatrists made the final decision to discharge or return to duty.
Finished my MBA while on duty so I could “speak business language” and joined a firm headquartered in Chicago. Left after two years, started my own practice and focused on Aerospace since they used OB. My job was to make recommendations. 50% was evaluating senior level mangers to be promoted or hired.
The Big-5 is nothing more than a trait test and it’s fine to measure “overt behavior” but that’s where it stops and it’s very easy to distort. I developed an instrument called the Digital Couch which focuses on underlying dynamics and still picks up critical traits.
I have over 3,000 profiles from every profession you can imagine. The goal is to understand the “WHY” you do what you do and when things go wrong how your Defenses take over.
If you’re interested, you can complete this online and I’m sure it will tell you much more about yourself than you would ever know from a Trait test.
Sounds interesting. But I don’t really want to learn about myself. I am solipsistic, and convinced that either I am completely adequate, or already know in what areas I am inadequate!
Thanks for the reply. It seems a little unusual to share your Big-5, make a podcast and respond to comments but you don’t want to learn about yourself. I don’t see anyone as being completely adequate and their areas of inadequacy are what one sees as personal shortfalls.
This will show what motivational areas you emphasize, how you believe they impact your daily life and when things go wrong how you handle it. I afraid it’s not just one’s mind that may exist (whatever that might be) but it is 1) what YOU think about yourself (may/may not be accurate) and perhaps more importantly 2) how others close to you may see you and how they connect with you. This is NOT behavioral traits as they are more situational. I’m afraid you are deeper than a set of behavioral traits – which is really measuring the black box of behavior but not knowing how that black box really works.
You also need to know that I will share the results only with you and you may do what you want with them. I might guess that these might not be something you want to post as they are more private and certainly more telling.
Less about you Charles and more about the methodology.
Years ago when the preponderance of the various profile tests were in person or at best partially computerized, a result-steering exercise to see how far you could skew the test results without grossly violating one’s natural proclivities found that many of us test subjects would be able to place our eventual scores.
In the typical quadrant presentation of axis pairs we were asked to place ourselves in each of the quads in a series of tests.
As most personalities are blended and contain parts of all components – though in varying amounts – the challenge was not too difficult, though the resulting scores tended to be more centered than our nor natural scores.
What was difficult was creating the scores at the extremes of the axis’s scale unless they were one’s natural scores (or extensions of natural scores that were near), unless one abandoned referencing ones truer core values.
So perhaps you have more of an authentic set of results than expected?
IMO trait tests don’t work that way. You are correct about them “containing parts of all components” as the traits, whatever they are, are not orthogonal when they’re correlated – just a nice way of saying that they are like fuzzy logic or sloppy or ambiguous. That’s the nature of people.
There isn’t a connection between extreme scores and being one’s trues core values – if indeed I have captured your insight. An extreme score means the person is more like that ALL the time. Say dominant. They are that way at work, among their friends, with their spouse, children … So virtually everyone sees them that way and all usually agree since it’s so obvious. But usually the problem is that no one is really sure why “Mike is so damn aggressive (i.e., 97%).” But those external to Mike may think they know why he is that way because it is obvious.
On the other hand more moderate scores (say 40% to 60%) suggests the person is more situational in using that trait. Take dominant again. He may only be dominant with his wife when she has a political view about “x”, or when she tells his to do something he dislikes, or when she intrudes in his quiet time …
Trait tests give you some good insight into one’s behavior but they don’t tell you “WHY” which is a better predictor of one’s behavior but it’s more complex.
To take the Delphic Maxim “know thyself” as being about “introspection” is the typical interpretation of a romantic and a subjectivist – the sort of man you keep claiming you are not. It is an anachronism. Probably the best way to understand that saying can be found in Pindar’s Pythian 3: “We must seek from the gods what is appropriate for mortal minds, [60] knowing what lies before our feet, and what kind of destiny we have. Do not crave immortal life, my soul, but use to the full the resources of what is possible.”
So it invites us to remain aware of Gods and men’s respective attributes: immortality for the former; a limited existence for the latter; and to fully explore the practical possibilities that are at our disposal. Very much the opposite of what you put in it.
That the Greeks’ early wisdom be not the sort of Semitic one you are usually subservient to should not lead you to put in their mouth what cannot seriously be found there. Christianity with its emphasis on self-examination in order to find sins has been far more conducive to introspection and literally created its own object: individual conscience. On the other hand, in a book critically assessing Nietzsche’s heritage, Gorgio Colli shows how our modern sense of individuality is lacking in the spirit of the Ancient Greeks.
Of course! Jordan Peterson. That’s it in a nutshell. Jordan Peterson is proof that Psychology, as all scientistic Enlightenment specialties, is a field of technicians, not intellectuals. In fact, his fan boys are so immersed in this paradigm they no longer know what an intellectual is, and confuse him with one. No wonder Charles would like to follow in his footsteps. Well, Sartre was an intellectual. Herbert Marcuse was an intellectual. Zizek is an intellectual, as was Lacan. Jordan Peterson is no intellectual. And proof of an intellectual is that the lower elements dismiss him, while they embrace the Ayn Rands, Jordan Petersons and, ‘hopefully’, the Charles Haywoods of the world. These men so ironically dismissed by ‘the masses’ are direct intellectual descendants of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and, yes, Hegel. You cannot pretend to do Western Philosophy and dismiss the likes of Derrida (a follower of Heidegger) or Foucault because you simplistically label them communist homosexual degenerates. And, also, it’s always embarrassing to be a follower of Jung. No serious intellectual takes Jung seriously. Only the rabble, the hoi polloi follow these ‘poor man’s’ philosophers.
Narrator: “They were, in fact, communist homosexual degenerates.”
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The truth about what? Everything, perhaps especially yourself. I think of myself as a scientist when observe the laboratory of my own behavior, my being. What “official” science ignores are the innate flaws in all human beings, so naturally science itself has become corrupt.