Thread by @thearmchaircom

Personality tests are great for helping us understand ourselves and others, though I think that it’s important to note that their pop psychology bint can make them hard to take seriously, especially if the tests aren’t well crafted.

And then there’s the white supremacy…

In ministry circles, the personality tests that I’ve run into the most are Meyers-Briggs, the DISC, and the most popular one right now…the Enneagram. About 20yrs ago, people also talked about the four humors: phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric, and melancholic. I’m not sure…

What rest was associated with the latter, but I remember people trying to type me according to those thing yeas ago…I was a psych major back then and v confused.

Note: I’m talking personality tests and not “spiritual gifts” assessments. Big difference.

I’m not sure when personality tests became a thing for people do do in ministry, but here we are. (Honorable mention to Strengths finder and it’s companion CoreClarity, which is probably the best out of all of the ones I’ve seen and taken).

ANYWAY, something that I noticed with all the tests I mentioned except the Meyers-Briggs and Strengths Finder/CoreClarityis that there is a component of white supremacy that seems to be baked into the typing.

Both the tests and the casual way that people might “type” people.

I used to administer the DISC regularly (it’s my least favorite and I don’t think that it’s a very good test, though there’s a version of it that is better than the actual thing 😬), and I would tell Black people to ignore if they scored a “D” unless it really resonated.

I started doing this after I *consistently* saw Black women scoring high in the D (Dominant) category and being confused because the description didn’t fit them, but their next highest or combination did.

There’s something baked into that test that codes certain behavior as “Dominant” (I believe that there are a couple of other “softer” d-words that can also be used instead of dominant) that is really just based on white culture.

Similarly, I know a lot of Black women who people will automatically type as Enneagram 8s because…🤷🏿‍♀️

I’ve had people assume I was an 8. I’m a 1, but I can see how people might mistype some 1s as 8s. For the record, 8 isn’t even in the top 3 or 4 of other types I could be.

To the Enneagram test’s credit, I have not really heard of a lot of initial mistyping from Black women who have taken the test. But I’ve seen a lot of folks trying to help people find or understand their type mistype Black women who aren’t anywhere near 8s.

Anyway, I think that these tests can be good tools. But I also don’t like their potential to harm non-white, non-men in dominant culture settings.