This assignment started off by reading all of the other students’ posts from unit 12 assignment 1, which was about personality traits. after reading these, we had to remind ourselves of the best way to respond to discussion board posts by reviewing the course syllabus. Finally, we had to respond to the posts of 2 students, one being to a student whose Big Five Personality profile is the most similar to ours, and the other being to a student whose Big Five Personality profile is the least similar to ours.
I first responded to a girl named Holly, who’s Big Five Personality profile is the most similar to mine. Her results for Extraversion were 36 and 77%, and mine were 35 and 73%. For Conscientiousness, she scored 40 and 73%, and mine were 44 and 81%. For Agreeableness, she scored 32 and 77%, and I scored 31 and 75%. For Openness, she scored 30 and 77%, and I scored 25 and 67%. Finally, for Neuroticism she scored 18 and 48%, while I scored 10 and 12.5%.
So, her and I were both lowest on neuroticism and relatively high on the other 4 personality traits.
I expressed that I like how she decided to showcase her results both through words and through the pictures of your results. In the assignment instructions, they told us to save our results, but I think she was the only person who actually included them in their post. It was definitely a great idea, and showed that she was paying attention to detail.
I agreed with her thoughts about introversion. Her and I are both extroverts, however, she made the point that society needs to support the environment that stimulates each individual the best, which I concur with.
I also really likes how she pointed out that one of the tests only gave options for male and female, and that this may leave out people who identify as non-binary. I wonder when they will change the range of options and add more options, because they really need to! I am surprised that they have not changed it already.
The second student I responded to was a girl named Seraph, who is in my current chat group for this course. Her Big Five Personality profile is the least similar to mine. For Extraversion she scored relatively low/below the average, while I scored above the average. For Conscientiousness she scored relatively low/below the average, while it was above the average for me, and my highest personality trait. For Agreeableness she scored high and 81%, I scored high and 75% as well, but was lower than some of my other traits. For Openness, she scored average and 81%, I scored average and 67%. For Neuroticism, she scored relatively high and 58%, I scored low and 12.5%.
So, the biggest differences were in neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion. For the other 2 traits, her and I weren’t super far off, but overall, we seemed to be pretty different.
I liked how she shared a personal connection with the points from the TED talk. She discussed being an introvert and trying to act extroverted, and how that was not always the best idea for her. I definitely understood how pushing herself out of her comfort zone could be tiring and stressful.
I agreed with her statement that there may be a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of introverts facing negative stigmas, and then having to face social pressure, so the pressure may lead them to fulfill the stigmas. Social pressure can definitely lead to negative outcomes, and people may use that to justify things. There should be less emphasis on being extroverted and more emphasis on being who we really are.
I also really liked her point about how there can be benefits to low sides of certain personality traits because things are context-dependent. She gave an example of low conscientiousness for a musician, and how that may be advantageous, which is spot on, and I did not think about it that way previously!
I wonder why society is so set on trying to mold one type of person. I hope that as years continue to pass, people will be recognized in a positive way for their differences!
Reflecting on this assignment, I thought it was super interesting to read through the personality test results of everyone. There was so much diversity in the results, and it was fascinating. Usually, people hang out in crowds with people that are at least somewhat similar to one another, so we don’t get to interact with people who are different from us as much. So, some students had very different results than myself, and it was kind of cool to see, because I am not used to interacting with people who are very different in personality for the most part.
Additionally, it was really cool to read through what everyone said about the positive aspects of other personality traits. When I had completed the assignment, I had mostly thought that it was best to score high on a lot of these measures, however, some people made some really great points, which altered how I feel about it now. It is really powerful that just hearing thoughts from other people can shift my own thinking!
Also, as in all of the response assignments, it is cool to respond to both people who are similar to us and who are different from us. I think it is very valuable to spend time interacting with all types of people, and as I mentioned previously, this does not always get to occur, for a variety of reasons. So, this assignment gives us the opportunity to do that, which I appreciate!
This was a simple assignment but I actually learned a decent amount, which I was surprised by. It was also probably the most enjoyable time of reading through other posts that I have had so far this semester, because personality traits interest me a lot!
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