Personality Test

Title: Know Thyself—gnōthi sauton
Class: Theory of Knowledge
Category: In Class

            We think we know who we are, but do we really? In our theory of knowledge class, we took a personality test from two sites, www.humanmetrics.com and www.kisa.ca/personality/. Before we took these tests, we had to write a short paragraph of who we thought we are. I wrote that I considered myself to be an outgoing and susceptible person, easily influenced by the people I am surrounded by. I find happiness when I know I am of service to other people and consider other’s opinions before mine which works as both an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage would be that because of this, I am a caring person but the disadvantage would be that I am susceptible to other people’s judgments and thoughts. People tell me I care too much about what other people think and so I am easily hurt. I know who I am through what other people tell me. For example, because my friends tell me I care too much about what other people think, I know I am a sensitive and susceptible person.

             With this idea of my personality in mind, I took these personality tests. Both of these tests concluded that I had the personality trait of ESFJ. The letters stand for extroverted sensing, feeling and judging. This meant that I was an extrovert, meaning that I was outgoing but I still valued feelings and is the type of person who go by the rules and rely on facts. I am the person who depends on empirical knowledge; I like to see it to believe it or sense it with the other four senses that I have. Because the personality tests matched my understanding of who I am, I believe that I have a clear idea of who I am. However, I still wonder, is this who I really am? Could this personality be a mask that I pretend to be because I’m afraid to show the others who I really am? If this is a mask, have I become too attached to it that I have begun to think that this mask of personality is the true ‘me’? How do I really know? Are these test taking sites reliable? With all these questions in mind, I come to think, ‘so do I really know who I really am? Or do I just think I know?’ Do we ever really know who we are? Or do we just believe in our thoughts?