Here, we will be examining my intellectual traits, my attachment style, and also my personality. It is important to understand the qualities you do and do not possess in order to better yourself in the areas that are lacking. By self-analysis, I will test myself to determine my particular type of intelligence. Also, my attachment style will be tested and cross referenced with my own account of my upbringing and parent’s parenting style. It is interesting to see how, even at such an early age, past experiences can shape the mental and physical traits displayed by someone. Not only impacting themselves, but this in-turn impacts how they raise their own children. This results in a snow-ball effect of sorts on future generations. Understanding your own intellectual, attachment, and personality traits and how they originated is important to further develop yourself.
Intellectual Traits
Psychologist, Howard Gardner, theorizes that there are several distinct types of intelligence. He proposes nine different types to be exact. These types of intelligence are thought of almost different kinds of languages for the mind. After taking the Multiple Intelligences Assessment through LiteracyNet, the test determined that I excelled in both Musical and Kinesthetics. Other minor traits that I possessed were Interpersonal, Spatial, and Social. While I agree with the majority of the assessment, I do believe that it had arranged my traits incorrectly. Both sections of Musical and Kinesthetics I scored a 4.8 out of a possible 5 points. However, in Interpersonal, I only scored a 3.9.
I am one who relies heavily on introspection of oneself. While I am not narcissistic, I can be given the trait of someone who understands myself and my emotions. Although music and sports are a major part of my life, I have found that I find greater enjoyment from working alone. Nevertheless, I have been playing guitar and also participating in sports since I can remember. Even upon graduating high school, I still coach basketball and lift weights. My lowest trait it determined was Nature. This I would whole-heartedly agree with. Although I enjoy nature for photography, I could care less about understanding it. Thus, I would give this assessment a fair rating. This test is not thorough enough to be entirely accurate, but I would say it was fairly accurate, considering the depth of the test, in determining my intellectual traits.
Attachment Style
The attachment theory postulates that there are two different types of attachment styles: anxiety and avoidance. Anxiety is related to how worrisome you are about whether your friends and family love you as much as you do them. Anxiety related attachment also fears rejection, especially from those you love. Avoidance related attachment however, deals with how open you are with people. If you are attachment-avoidance, you tend to be uncomfortable opening up to people that care about your feelings and situations.
I took the Attachment Style Assessment designed by R. Chris Fraley and found very interesting results. According to the test, my attachment style is fearful-avoidant. It states on the test that, “People who are fearfully avoidant in their relationships are uncomfortable depending on others and serving as an 'attachment figure’” (Fraley, n.d.). While I see myself as someone who is not very confident in relationships with friends, I am confident in the major relationships. My anxiety score for my relationships with my father, mother, and my girlfriend scored a low 1 out of 7. However, it was with my best friend that the score spiked. I scored a medium 4 out of 7 in regards to my anxiety with our relationship
Although my anxiety scores were low, my avoidance scores were hitting the midway point. My avoidance score for both parents were a 3.17 out of 7. This is likely for the fact that, growing up, the parenting style used by my parents was not usually one of openness. They encouraged being open, however, I never felt inclined to. That was mostly out of fear of being lectured on issues that I would open up about. Still today I find it hard to talk about certain issues due to the misunderstanding of my parents. Although the score with my parents is high, the score with my “romantic partner” is a low 2. This is due to being less judged when I open up than compared to my parents and even my best friend. With friends, I feel that it is not so much an anxiety issue that is causing the high score, but a masculine issue that prohibits both of us to open up about our feelings. This attachment test was surprisingly accurate in determining my attachment style.
Personality Trait
One of the last tests that we are looking at is the Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test. This test attempts to determine the qualities that make up your personality. Through a series of multiple choice questions, it makes an assumption of your personality traits. Although this is a decent summarization of your personality, it can only be so precise. This test only pinpoints the central traits and forgoes an attempt at determining the secondary traits possessed by the participant. However, by using factor analysis, this assessment can make assumptions of your source traits.
At the conclusions of this test, it determined that I possessed the personality type of ENTJ, or Extravert, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging. It concluded that I had a slight preference of being an extravert over an introvert and a moderate preference of being intuitive over sensing, thinking over feeling, and judging over perceiving. The assessment states that, “ENTJs have a natural tendency to marshal and direct. This may be expressed with the charm and finesse of a world leader or with the insensitivity of a cult leader. The ENTJ requires little encouragement to make a plan” (Butt, n.d.). I see this as being very similar to how I view my personality. For example, I am the only one in my group project for CST 100 that is getting together a plan. I have also found myself leading the group by pure natural instinct without any prior intent on doing so.
Lastly, The Locus of Control is a quick 13 question test that attempts to determine a distinguishing between an external and internal locus of control. A locus of control is a view of fate and predestination. The test states that, “People with an internal locus of control believe that their own actions determine the rewards that they obtain, while those with an external locus of control believe that their own behavior doesn't matter much and that rewards in life are generally outside of their control” (The Locus of Control, n.d.). In this test, it was concluded that I had an internal locus of control. That of which I believe to be true.
Conclusion
Intellectual traits, attachment styles, and personality qualities are all important attributes in determining you as a person. It is also incredibly important in determining what areas of yourself you need to improve on. Not one person is perfect and no one ever will be. However, everyone can be improving. You might discover yourself to be an amazing communicator but lack the necessary emotional attachment qualities to form meaningful relationships. No matter the case, it can prove beneficial to test yourself of these qualities and see for yourself.