One of the cultural trends that have shaped our generation of 40 year olds has been the resurgent popularity of all kinds of personality assessments.

From the use of zodiac signs to screen romantic partners, to the use of tools like the StrengthsFinder and DISC assessements to evaluate employees, to the experimentation with tests like the Enneagram within spirtual communities to help individuals identify their purpose, the various personality categories, labels, and descriptions have seeped into our societal subconscious and have become a widely-used shorthand for describing ourselves, and others.

The godparent of these personality tests is the Myers Briggs Personality Test. I recently took the Myers Briggs test, nearly 20 after the first time I took the assessment, in my 20s. And it got me to thinking about how these assessments, the labels that come with them, the conclusions we draw from them, and the way we award and avoid others based on the meanings we assign to different personality traits.

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