I am an INFP, Enneagram type 2w3, and my “big three” are Cancer Sun, Capricorn Moon and Libra Rising. To some people, what I just said makes total sense, and to others it means nothing.
As someone who has been interested in personality tests and birth charts for a while, I have gained an interest in societies reactions to these kinds of tests; I like to call it the Personality Paradigm. There are those who love these tests and enjoy the rush of waiting for the results page to refresh and see what they get. Then there are the skeptics, those who say it’s all a hoax and provides nothing of value. I have been both of these people in my life and while I don’t think there is a correct stance to take on the question of where someone stands in relation to the personality paradigm, I think there is something that can be taken from them that is beneficial to everyone.
Before I try to convince you why you should appreciate these tests and maybe even take them, let’s unpack the phenomenon of them a bit. The most popular personality and self-indicators used would be someone’s zodiac sign and birth chart, the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Enneagram number.
Zodiac Sign/Birth Chart: Someone’s zodiac sign and birth chart refer to the position of the sun, moon and different planets when and where someone was born. Astrology is the study of this phenomenon and can be traced back to ancient civilizations. A birth chart can recreate a snapshot of the sky from the exact moment a person was born and can tell us so many things from our identity, our values and transformation. While it can be complex to understand, there are aspects to astrology that can be broken down and understood more easily, most notably someone’s “big three” or sun, moon and ascending/rising sign, which essentially tell us the core of our personality, our emotional self and who we show to the world.
MBTI: The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator is comprised of 16 personality types that are made up of 4 different categories that focus on psychological preferences and how people see the world and make decisions. The categories are introversion or extroversion, intuition or sensing, thinking or feeling and judging or perceiving. From taking the test you get a series of letters that correspond to which one of each category you identify with the most, which then tells us a vast array of information. It is based on psychiatrist Carl Jung’s book Psychological Types and hones into the nature aspect of who we are.
Enneagram: The Enneagram describes how people interpret the world and their emotions. It is a system of 9 different personality types. The enneagram refers to a geographic design that shows the interconnections between these types that have different categories and meanings for each of them. Each of these types are characterized by motivations, fears, behaviours, strengths and weaknesses. The enneagram focuses more on the nurture aspect of our personality and emphasizes that we have adjacent types called wings that support our primary type. Wings are either of the adjacent numbers to your core type which act as a sidekick and provides a deeper sense of understanding to someone.
Each of these have their own unique properties, but all have a centering characteristic, which is that they tell us something about ourselves. The Meyer’s-Briggs test and Enneagram results rely on your own observations of yourself, and astrological signs rely on the position of stars. Perhaps it can be contested that these can’t be reliable because we aren’t able to be the most preceptive about yourselves, or the most truthful. Sometimes in these tests we may select the answers that are congruent with who we think we are, or who we want to be and not necessarily who we actually are. The others rely on something completely and utterly out of our control, which maybe scares people more than they would like to admit.
Well, the truth is that these criticisms are valid and in fact, I think they are important and essential to understanding the purpose of the categorizations we apply to ourselves. When it comes down to it, the purpose is to encourage people be introspective and do the work to really understanding themselves. Having hesitations and criticisms with these things allows us to take a step back and do even more introspection about ourselves as we are able to see where they may be faulty, and where they ring true. Because at the end of the day, the results we get can tell us so much about ourselves, and figuring out who we are not is just as important as figuring out who we are.
Do these tests hold weight whether you believe the science behind it or not? How do you go about learning about yourself on a deeper level and be introspective? What’s your sign? What’s your enneagram type? What’s your MBTI? Take the tests and see if the results are meaningful to you, and perhaps you will get your answer to the Personality Paradigm.
Check the links out below to find out more about yourself below.
https://astro.cafeastrology.com/natal.php
https://cafeastrology.com/whats-my-ascendant-sign.html
https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test https://www.truity.com/test/enneagram-personality-test?ppcga=fixed&gclid=Cj0KCQiA1NebBhDDARIsAANiDD109mpqi1LBORkDX2Wd7eVxb3drEG1rrHg0gdyQd2rX4SqjpgGaNAgaAkVyEALw_wcB