Personality

个性

Overthink

2026-03-03

59 分钟
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Can Buzzfeed quizzes, Myers-Briggs Types, and Enneagrams tell us anything valid about who we are? In episode 163 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss personality. They talk through the Big Five personality test and its legitimacy, the history of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test (MBTI), and how the concept of personality emerged out of abnormal psychology. Why did the concept of personality replace using literature to understand the self? How does the concept of personality presuppose a fixed concept of the self? And what is the connection between MBTI and World War II? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts think about how personality tests might be susceptible to the Barnum effect and their reduction of the self to egos.   Works Discussed: Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian Personality Merve Emre, What's Your Type? The Story of the Myers-Briggs, and How Personality Testing Took Over the World Colin Koopman, How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person Enjoy our work? Support Overthink via tax-deductible donation: https://www.givecampus.com/fj0w3v Join our Substack for ad-free versions of both audio and video episodes, extended episodes, exclusive live chats, and more: https://overthinkpod.substack.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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  • Hello and welcome to Overthink.

  • The podcast where your two favorite personalities talk about philosophy and its connection to everyday life.

  • I'm Ellie Anderson.

  • And I'm David Pena Guzman.

  • Personality tests are everywhere.

  • With simple Google search,

  • you can find a BuzzFeed quiz that will tell you which character from friends you are.

  • Your workplace might even require that you take a Myers Briggs type indicator test in order to determine like what kind of vibe you're going to bring into the workplace.

  • And I have to say, David, right here at the top of this episode,

  • I was completely obsessed with personality tests when I was like a late teenager to young adult.

  • This was this was the college era for me.

  • I read so many books about the Myers-Briggs personality typology or the type indicator,

  • we'll get into that later,

  • and why it may not be a personality typology, but that is neither here nor there for the moment.

  • Enneagram was absolutely one of my favorites.

  • And I would like read these books.

  • There was one book about the Enneagram called Are You My Type, Am I Yours?

  • And it was about how different Enneagram types, you know,

  • relate to each other and what potential sources of conflict may emerge.

  • And this was like my Bible