Emily Serveiss

Dr. Merck

Survey of Personality

11 September 2020

Personality Assessment Report

Character Strengths and Virtues

The Character Strengths and Virtues is a personality assessment created by the VIA

Institute on Character. This non-profit organization has researched personality and developed a

test for individuals to take in order to assess their personal strengths. Their research found that

there is a common language of twenty-four-character strengths every individual has but in

different degrees. The twenty-four characteristics are: appreciation of beauty and excellence,

bravery, creativity, curiosity, fairness, forgiveness, gratitude, honesty, hope, humility, humor,

judgment, kindness, leadership, love, love of learning, perseverance, perspective, prudence, self-

regulation, social intelligence, spirituality, teamwork, and zest.

The VIA designed the assessment to be a self-report survey. The assessment is an online

survey in which an individual answers multiple prompts based on the degree to which they relate

to the statement. For example, a statement may be “I have many interests” and the responses

would either be “very much like me,” “like me,” “neutral,” “unlike me,” and “very much unlike

me.” Following the assessment, individuals are shown their greatest strengths and how these can

be used in their personal and professional life.

In my opinion I felt the assessment was rather accurate. After taking the survey and

viewing my results I felt that my signature strengths were very accurate and that I indeed

struggle with my lesser strengths. According to VIA, the signature strengths are most

representative of the “real me” and appear to come naturally to me. My top trait is kindness or
humanity. It is described as “doing favors and good deeds for others; taking care of them.”

Following this trait, I experience humility, zest, forgiveness, and judgment. Humility is described

as “not regarding oneself as more special than one is.” Zest, or courage, is explained as

“approaching life with excitement and energy; living life as an adventure.” Forgiveness or

temperance is described as “forgiving those who have done wrong; accepting others’

shortcomings.” Finally, my fifth top strength is judgment which is “not jumping to conclusions;

being able to change one’s mind in light of evidence.” After examining and more closely reading

about these traits I feel that these come naturally to me. I enjoy doing favors for others and find

this to be an essential piece of who I am. Additionally, I identify as a humble person and do not

like to brag or be the center of attention. I also am a bit of an overthinker and take my time to

carefully examine the facts before deciding on a conclusion.

After reading about my signature strengths, I examined my lesser strengths. These may

feel less natural and could be strengths I choose to work on in my future. These include bravery,

self-regulation, love, spirituality, and creativity. All of these I understood their meaning except

for self-regulation which, according to VIA is to “regulate what one feels and does; being

disciplined.” I know I am not a very creative person, and therefore, it makes sense that the value

of creativity does not come easy to me. If I want to become more creative, I will need to give a

lot of time to improving this value. One result that I am confused about is bravery. According to

the survey, my third highest strength is zest which can also be seen as courage; however, bravery

is a weakness of mine and this is also known as courage. It appears that zest deals more with

approaching life with excitement, while bravery is not shrinking from a threat. Therefore, I

appear to have courage when approaching life’s exciting moments, but lack courage in a

threating situation.
 This assessment is useful in identifying my strengths that I can use in both my work and

personal life. On the other hand, I am more aware of my weaker strengths and that I must pay

more attention to these values in situations. Overall, I feel that this assessment is valid. My

personality is measured and examined through the degree to which I naturally exhibit specific

characteristics and values. I felt it described me rather well and can be helpful in understanding

what values I may need to put more effort towards.

16 PF

Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors was created by psychologist Raymond Cattell. According

to Cattell, personality is best explained in sixteen variables or personality traits. Cattell’s

assessment is designed in correlation with the trait theory which states: human personality is

composed of a number of broad traits. The sixteen traits in the assessment are: abstractedness,

apprehension, dominance, emotional stability, liveliness, openness to change, perfectionism,

privateness, reasoning, rule-consciousness, self-reliance, sensitivity, social boldness, tension,

vigilance, and warmth. This self-report survey consists of 164 choice statements which

individuals must indicate how accurately these apply to them based on a scale of (1) “disagree,”

(2) “slightly disagree,” (3) “neither agree nor disagree,” (4) “slightly agree,” (5) “agree.” In order

to find accurate results, the assessment uses factor analysis, which is a statistical method that is

used to describe variability among variables. Following the assessment, results are presented in

which all 16 personality traits are scored between 0 and 4. Four shows that you are higher in this

trait, while zero depicts a low level of the specific trait.

According to my results I appear to be highest in perfectionism at a 3.2. Perfectionism is

how high one holds standards for themselves. I do agree with this assessment of my personality

as I hold myself accountable and am constantly working to better my knowledge, health,

relationships, etc. I was also fairly high in warmth at a 3. This describes how nice I am to other
people. Being nice is something I pride myself on, so it is encouraging to see this reflected in my

results. My lowest score on the assessment was self-reliance with a 1. At first, this surprised me

because self-reliance is “how contained your needs are.” Those who score low are group-

oriented, while higher scores are individualistic and self-sufficient. I am an extravert and,

therefore, I understand my need for a group setting, but I am rather independent. This trait

confused me as I do feel self-sufficient but am also extraverted. I feel this trait could be better

defined to account for individuals who may be extroverted yet independent or introverted yet

dependent. Another trait that didn’t seem to fit was my score on dominance. I scored a 2.8 which

is rather high in comparison to my other scores. High scorers of dominance are assertive,

aggressive, bossy, etc. I would never describe myself in this way and when I asked friends and

family about this trait, they all believed me to be humble and cooperative. I am curious how my

answers to certain statements provided this result of dominance.

With further examination of the 16 PF personality assessment, I learned about the five

global factors. In order to simplify the findings of 16 personality traits, the five global factors

combine these results into groups of (1) extraversion, (2) anxiety, (3) tough-

mindedness/willpower, (4) independence, and (5) self-control. According to my results, I am

slightly extroverted. All factors from the 16PF that are used to identify extraversion relate to me,

except for privateness. In this case I am more private than the “average” extrovert. In relation to

anxiety, I appear to be fairly neutral in which I am more emotionally stable and less vigilant than

those characterized as anxious; however, I do appear to be apprehensive and tense which is

associated with the anxiety factor. I have a rather low level of tough-mindedness or willpower,

meaning I am more receptive and open-minded. In relation to independence my traits indicate

slightly above the middle in which I exhibit all the factors except for vigilance, which I appear
lower. Finally, I tend to be more self-controlled and inhibit impulses. This is shown with my

high level of rule-consciousness and perfectionism, and low level of abstraction.

These results are useful in identifying areas of development and revealing a rounded

picture of myself. From my results I can see how I vary in different factors. This may assist in

my future with career development as well as potential emotional relationships.

In my opinion the assessment was pretty accurate in defining personality traits of myself.

However, I do not believe that 16 traits are enough to completely assess an individual. I feel

there are more traits that can be examined in order to understand the personality of an individual.

Overall, the 16 PF test is valid in which the statements asked are able to gain a better

understanding of how one reacts to different situations. A repetitive behavior is a good sign of

identifying personality and even the degree to which an individual relates to the trait.

The 16 Personalities

The 16 Personalities, or Myers Brigg assessment, describes an individual’s personality in

four different functions. The first function, extraversion vs. introversion describes how an

individual “gains energy.” Extraverts gain energy through their environment and being with

other people, while introverts gain energy from spending time alone. The next function is sensing

vs. intuition which explains how an individual collects information. Sensors gather information

from their physical environment and surroundings, while intuitives examine patterns and

meaning behind the context. How one makes decisions is assessed based on thinking vs. feeling.

Thinkers look for a logical solution, while feelers base their decisions on emotions and

their personal values. The last function is judging vs. perceiving which explains how an

individual organizes their environment. Judgers prefer regulation and structure, while perceivers

prefer to be more flexible. Individuals are either one or the other for each of the four factors.
Based off of these four dichotomies, a “code” is formed which identifies an individual as one of

16 personality types. The 16 personality types are: the commander, mastermind, visionary,

architect, teacher, counselor, champion, supervisor, inspector, provider, protector, dynamo,

craftsperson, entertainer, and composer. Following results, individuals are able to read about

their strengths and weaknesses; romantic relationships; friendships; parenthood; career paths;

and workplace habits. The survey consists of statements in which individuals rank how strongly

they agree or disagree.

After taking the survey, I received results of ESFJ, or the consul. In addition to the four

dichotomies and the type that matches, my results also included the percentages of each

dichotomy. According to my results, I am 64% extrovert, 58% observant, 53% thinking, and

56% turbulent. A consul is people-focused and appear to be involved in their community. One

way I see this personality fitting me is through the variety of organizations I am a member of

within the Carolina community—social sorority, ambassadors, Sustainable Carolina, and

homecoming committee. Consul’s thrive on socialization and appear to encourage others around

them. For the most part these results are true and accurate for me. However, I do not believe

myself to be concerned about my social status, which is a trait of consuls. This and the concept

of “popular in high school” surprised me and do not really fit my personality. Nonetheless, I

generally feel this assessment is accurate in its findings. It can be difficult to group together all

individuals into only 16 personality types, but the Myers-Brigg categorizes this well.

With the additional information provided about personality type’s weaknesses, strengths,

personal relationships, and career habits or path, I find the assessment to be very useful. After

reading I can understand areas that I need to improve as well as where I thrive. Additionally, in

my future career it will be helpful to understand how I am most productive in the work

environment.
 I believe the 16 Personalities assessment is accurate in identifying an individual’s

personality in relation to the four dichotomies. The percentage that one exhibits a specific trait is

accurate in the representation of personality. Personally, I took this assessment three times. Once

in high school and then two times for this class. The reason being the results I got in high school

did not match my new results from the second exam. I then proceeded to take a third in which

these results were the same as what I got in high school. This makes me concerned for the

validity of the test and how one’s answer to the questions may vary in different stages of their

life. I am concerned that this assessment does not accurately reflect one’s constant personality.

Rather, this assessment may show how an individual’s personality does depend on their current

stage in life.

References

16PF factors. (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2020, from

https://www.changingminds.org/explanations/preferences/16pf.htm
Cattell's 16 Personality Factors. (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2020, from http://personality-

testing.info/tests/16PF.php

Consul Personality. (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2020, from

https://www.16personalities.com/esfj-personality

Free personality test. (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2020, from

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

Login: VIA Institute. (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2020, from

https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/surveys/finished/15471008?version=1

Myers & Briggs' Personality Typing, Explained. (2020, July 01). Retrieved September 11, 2020,

from https://www.truity.com/myers-briggs/about-myers-briggs-personality-typing

VIA Character Strengths Survey & Character Profile Reports. (n.d.). Retrieved September 11,

2020, from http://www.viacharacter.org/

Character Strengths and Virtues Results

16 PF Assessment Results
16 Personalities Results