What Pixar’s Tuning Red Means to Me, a Chinese-Canadian Animation Fan
Posted on April 9, 2022
What is more fun than having someone or something tell you about yourself? If you’re like me, you also enjoy taking personality tests and quizzes in your free time. And if you’re also like me, you have definitely been told that you are “such a Sagittarius”. In this blog I will be discussing Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicators versus astrology through their ability to provide us insight about an individual’s personality.
Are you an introvert? An extrovert? Maybe even an ambivert? Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) suggests that there is simply more to that. The concept of personality type indicators was developed in the mid 20th-century by Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs, who were inspired by Carl Jung’s theory of Psychological Types. Myers and Briggs took this theory and developed it to make it more accessible for wider audiences.
MBTI is determined through a self-served personality test that evaluates an individual through questions at varying levels of agree or disagree. There are 16 personality types that each have their own “role” within society- for example, ENTJ is The Commander, and its introverted counterpart INTJ is The Architect. These personality types are presented with acronyms, with each letter representing a certain quality about an individual (E= Extrovert, I= Introvert, N= Intuitive, etc.). After completing these tests an individual is assigned one of these 16 personality types.
Image Credit: Medium
Personally, I feel like MBTI is very fun if you are a fan of pop culture. Websites like Personality Database allow users to find out what fictional character, celebrity, and even career options match their personality types. Even niche topics, like tropes in literature, are given their own personality type.
Image Credit: Personality Database
I have seen a lot of discourse online about whether or not 16 Personalities, the most common website that is used to assign personality types, is accurate or not-the general consensus seems to be no, as it often mistypes users. Instead, tests such as keys2cognition and John’s Test have been offered as better alternatives. So far, throughout all of these results that I have received through these various tests, I seem to bounce between ENTJ, ENTP, and ESTJ, with the most common result being ENTJ.
Next, we have astrology. In my personal opinion, I think astrology provides more insight about an individual’s values than MBTI does. Astrology and horoscope has existed for hundreds if not thousands of years, and has/is practiced by many different cultures. The astrology that is popular within many online spaces is based on the Western interpretation of the practice, which is founded on the movements and positions of the sun, moon, and planets. It is through interpreting these celestial bodies that astrology can explore relationship patterns, personalities, and life cycles.
Image Credit: The Belladonna Comedy
In pop culture and online spaces, astrology is a way for people to determine different facets of an individual’s personality. This is definitely where you’ll hear comments like “Wow, you’re such a Scorpio!” being tossed around. I think astrology is a fun way to try and understand how and why people behave.
Apps such as Co-star and TimePassages can give users access to their full astrological charts, which includes an individual’s moon, rising signs, as well as many others.
So, which one is better? Does MBTI provide more insight to an individual’s personality than astrology does?
In my opinion, comparing MBTI to astrology is like comparing apples to oranges. Sure, some people may argue that MBTI is more scientifically sound compared to astrology due to its proximity to personality theories developed in the 20th century, but at the end of the day, I find that both MBTI and astrology serve similar purposes. They both allow us to understand and even explain different parts of ourselves and others.
Overall, both MBTI and astrology are simply fun ways to explore and define different facets of yourself. Astrology tends to be more predictive, whereas MBTI is more indicative of a person’s nature. These two indicators are very different, but ultimately are just harmless ways to understand yourself and others.
Image Credit:
16 personalities: https://medium.com/@iris_sim/the-characters-of-our-world-ce5f3ec8020c
Personality Database https://www.personality-database.com/
Astrology Signs and Dates https://thebelladonnacomedy.com/astrological-signs-you-shouldnt-date-because-they-re-a-drug-dealer-6d26a58bd246
