The PT/Berkeley Personality Test

Is your self-image in sync with other people's take on you? This exclusive test will tell you.

By K. Harary, E. Harary, published on May 01, 1992 - last reviewed on October 01, 2009

Your Inner, Outer, Ideal, and Feared Selves all play central roles in influencing your sense of well-being and your behavior. Your Inner Self represents your personal values and guides your sense of how to act in any given situation. Your Outer Self helps you to develop strategies for meeting your own priorities in interactions with others. It allows you to adapt in order to navigate the real-world constraints imposed by the way you believe your actions will be interpreted by others.

In addition, by exploring the ways in which your Inner and Outer Selves relate to your possible selves -- both Feared and Ideal -- you can gain further insights into your personality. According to Hazel Markus, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, thinking about our Ideal and Feared Selves helps us to establish specific, step-by-step plans to reach our long-range goals and avoid disaster. By exploring the relationship between your Actual and Ideal personality, you may begin to develop strategies to meet your goals: becoming more (or less) work-oriented, or more (or less) expressive of your emotions, etc. And by also examining the relationship between your Actual and Feared Selves, you may develop strategies to avoid becoming far removed from the person you would ultimately like to be.

Note: The 35 items in the following questionnaire were developed in research conducted at the University of California at Berkeley by Oliver P. John, Ph.D., Eileen Donahue, Ph.D., and Robert Kentle (copyright 1991, Oliver P. John; used by permission). In an effort to develop short but effective measures of the Big Five personality dimensions, the team began with large sets of trait adjectives, then developed short questionnaire items that were more detailed and easier for people to understand. Based on statistical analysis of the responses of hundreds of research participants (who were asked to rate the extent to which they felt each item accurately described their own personality), the 35 items that provided the best measures were selected and used in the PT/Berkeley Personality Profile.

A word of caution: The PT/Berkeley Personality Profile is not intended as a means of assessing the state of your mental health and does not provide any form of psychotherapy. We urge those who have a history of emotional and other psychological problems to check with qualified professionals before proceeding.

HOW TO TAKE AND SCORE THE TEST

Begin by cutting out the four vertical, multicolored scorecards along the dotted line. Place scorecards #1 and #2 alongside the 35 statements in the left-hand column. Mark your responses to the statements in the coresponding spaces on scorecard #1, rating as honestly as possible the degree to which you agree or disagree with each statement as a description of your personality. In each case, marking the number in the far left-hand column would mean that you strongly disagree with the particular statement; marking the number in the far right-hand column would mean that you strongly agree. You may, of course, mark any number in between those two poles, indicating varying degrees of agreement. Mark only one number per item on the scorecard.

Take a five-minute break and then use scorecard #2 to respond to the same 35 statements according to the way you believe others see you. Then, take another break and use scorecard #3 to respond to the statement according to the kind of personality you would ideally like to have; and after another break, to the kind of personality you fear becoming. (Fill out each scorecard without referring to any of the others.)

When you have completed all four cards, use the Scoring Guide on page 73 to analyze your results. On each of the three scoring charts, the bottom row (following the boldface type) will indicate the score needed for the Interpretation Guide as well as the 900-number hotline. (A 900-number prep box can be found on page 72.)

To interpret the meaning of your senses, simply follow the color-coded Interpretation Guide found on page 74. This guide briefly summarizes how you have described the way you see yourself in relation to your possible selves.

The PT/Berkeley Personality Profile: Possible Selves

This test lists 35 statements that can be used to describe your personality from a variety of perspectives. On each scorecard, honestly rate the extent to which you agree that each statement applies to your personality when you examine it from a given point of view.

Legend:

a = DISAGREE STRONGLY

b = DISAGREE A LITTLE

c = NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE

d = AGREE A LITTLE

e = AGREE STRONGLY

(f) = Expressive Style/Orange

(g) = Interpersonal Style/Green

(h) = Work Style/Yellow

(i) = Emotional Style/Pink

(j) = Intellectual style/Blue

(k) = Biggest role rating for each item.