The computer mouse hovers over the light purple button, tentatively waiting for your index finger’s final decision. After scrutinizing the corresponding answers to the 50-question test, you click “submit”, the screen instantly generating a customized personality type. Squinting slightly, you make out the four letters that represent your newly designated character and proceed to conduct an intense investigation on its strengths, drawbacks, and future potential.         These assessments, known as personality tests, are a means to identify and evaluate individualized traits and characters. Although ubiquitous and multifaceted today, the origin and intent of personality tests vary greatly from modern questionnaires. 

According to “Smithsonian Magazine,” the start of personality tests began during World War I as physicians noticed early symptoms of what would later be named Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Originally coined as shell-shock, this affliction hosts a multitude of symptoms, like insomnia, paralysis, nightmares, and anxiety attacks. 

Once the U.S. entered the war, provisions were already instituted in terms of these mental health concerns; the military created psychiatric divisions and a school of military psychology in the Georgia location of Medical Officers Training Camp. 

With awareness of these growing psychological strains, the military began to seek out a form of screening. Columbia University professor Robert Sessions Woodworth was a central figure in the creation of psychological screenings, having tested his assessment, dubbed Psychoneurotic Inventory, on over 1,000 potential soldiers. 

Woodworth believed that the detection of neurotic tendencies — predisposition to negative emotions, like fear and anxiety — was essential to the success of psychological screenings.

But although Woodworth’s test would allow for the momentum of personality questioning, with the next few decades producing a variety of tests like the Rorschach test and Bernreuter Personality Inventory, modern psychology argues the validity of basing tests solely on distressing emotions.

Today’s personality testing, a 2 billion dollar industry, according to “The New York Times,” uses more than just a narrow, emotion-specific lens, instead focusing on a varied range of mental and emotional aspects.

In the “New York Times article” “The 2 Billion Question of Who You Are at Work,” Ben Dattner, an organizational psychologist,  states that although humans are much more complex than an assessment, modern personality testing can help people get feedback on “blind spots.” The growth and expansion of personality tests has been increasingly associated with providing career guidance.

Modern testing has been increasingly expanding and changing, accounting for more nuances and factors like aptitude, social skills, and demeanor.

For example, the popular Big Five personality test not only deals with neuroticism, but also explores openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, and agreeableness; Gallup, a management consulting firm, has created a well-known assessment called CliftonStrengths, which many companies and organizations use for their employees. 

But how exactly are these tests created? “Psychology Today” describes some basic steps to understand how modern tests are made: define the trait, write multiple statements associated with the trait, test subjects on these statements, typically on a Likert scale, and take an average of their quantified responses to determine how much of the specified trait they have. 

The participant would then score themselves on how much they agree with the statement, and after completion of the test, developers would take the average of all responses to statements pertaining to organization in order to gauge how organized a person is. 

For students, whether in high school or college, personality tests can help gauge strengths and career interests, helping to recognize and narrow down potential fields of work. 

From scoring high on “Relator” on Gallup’s CliftonStrengths test to being an “ENTJ” on the Myer-Briggs assessment, personality tests are utilized to fine-tune and summarize prominent traits. Although now utilized in a different manner than its ancestor, the personality test is increasing in frequency, making individuals ponder just a little more about their personality.