PERSONALITY QUIZZES ARE VERY HELPFUL FOR ME
Many people ask me the reason for why I constantly do online personality quizzes (via the sites Buzzfeed, OhMyDisney and Howstuffworks) and share the results on social media, when it’s about the character/answer I myself get. Personality quizzes are often perceived as being a popular activity for teenagers and not for people like myself who are older. A fair few even regard such activities as damaging to one’s psychological health.
However I find personality quizzes to be very informative and helpful. This is primarily due to the fact that I struggle with understanding and acknowledging who the people around me are, as well as how to socialise with different people according to their specific personalities.
As has been mentioned in many of my previous blogs, I have a lot of difficulty with understanding people from reading their body language and facial expressions. However I can remember all of the comments and statements that I hear them saying, either to myself or from me overhearing their spoken words given to others nearby (during those moments I don’t of course overhear on purpose and I always keep their names/words to myself). The only difficulty I have while I’m attempting to analyse their words is that I can’t interpret their emotions and general personalities from my own thoughts alone.
Yet, all I feel that I need help with is to put all of this information together to understand who a person is. That’s where personality quizzes are a very helpful tool for me. The way in which the questions are written allow me to think of remembered words expressed by other people from a perspective which is (for the most part) a lot more useful than just superficial, and purely factual information. It may not be as straightforward, quick and detailed as getting to know a person by using human instinct. Though I am still very grateful that personality quizzes are available to at least make a good start.
Without any effort of my own it’s unfortunate that I take the world of socialising for granted. Admittedly, I don’t think much (neither negative or positive thoughts or feelings) of a person’s presence if I’m unable to understand them, or if I can’t find any sort of familiarity. Despite experiencing what I mentioned above I still feel very guilty about this ignorant detachment of mine.
But when I began using Pottermore a decade ago (which initially had the Sorting Hat and wand selection quiz) I developed an idea of researching credible sites which had personality quizzes from my favourite fictional stories. At first I did these quizzes to better understand my own emotions, as I have almost as much difficulty with understanding them as I do with any other person’s. Though I also found it helpful to ask questions according to what I had seen of my friends’ and family’s communication as well.
A sense of familiarity comes to me when I can associate a person with a character from Harry Potter, or from any other fictional/non-fictional story which gives me comfort. For example if a person gets an answer of Ron Weasley, I get an idea that they are laid back and humorous but also with strong sensitivities. Or if someone gets Joy from Inside Out (a Disney film that I like because it teaches me about emotions) I then understand that this is someone who is strongly optimistic and can’t stand sadness, or anything else which isn’t joyful.
There are some who may argue that the action of doing personality quizzes is very impersonal and is limited towards the characters who merely exist within a single story. Yet the truth is that I’m unable to understand or acknowledge people by any other means, and if I can at least have some general idea as to who a person is, it enables me to gain the ability to socialise with them a little more. In summary, it is so much better to have a rough idea of someone’s personality than no idea at all!