A Brief History of Personality Tests

Introduction

The human quest to answer "Who am I?" has never ceased. From ancient Greek philosophers to modern psychologists, people have continuously sought ways to understand and classify personality. The MBTI test you can take in minutes today is backed by over two thousand years of intellectual evolution.

This article traces the key milestones of personality testing — from ancient temperament theories to Jung's psychological types, from the birth of MBTI to the rise of the Big Five, and into contemporary trends.

Antiquity: The Origins of Temperament Theory

The Four Humors

The earliest attempts at personality classification date back to ancient Greece. In the 5th century BCE, Hippocrates proposed the "four humors" theory, suggesting that four bodily fluids determine a person's temperament:

• Sanguine (blood) — optimistic, lively, sociable
• Choleric (yellow bile) — impulsive, decisive, energetic
• Phlegmatic (phlegm) — calm, steady, even-tempered
• Melancholic (black bile) — sensitive, thoughtful, emotional

In the 2nd century CE, the Roman physician Galen further systematized this theory. Although the physiological basis of the four humors has long been disproven, the approach of classifying personality into fundamental types profoundly influenced later theories.

Eastern Wisdom

In the East, ancient Chinese medicine classified people into constitutional types based on Yin-Yang and the Five Elements, as described in the Huangdi Neijing. Buddhist psychology also offered detailed analyses of mental traits. Though the paths differed, these traditions reflect a shared human desire to understand individual differences.

Late 19th – Early 20th Century: The Dawn of Modern Psychology

The Rise of Experimental Psychology

In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt established the world's first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, marking psychology's emergence as an independent science. Wundt also proposed his own temperament classification using two dimensions: emotional intensity and rate of emotional change.

Francis Galton and the Lexical Hypothesis

In 1884, British scientist Francis Galton introduced a far-reaching idea: if a personality trait is important enough to humans, language must contain words to describe it. This "Lexical Hypothesis" later became the theoretical cornerstone of the Big Five personality model.

Jung and Psychological Types

The Birth of Psychological Types

In 1921, Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung published his landmark work Psychological Types. Jung proposed:

• Two fundamental attitudes: Extraversion and Introversion
• Four basic psychological functions: Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, and Intuition
• Thinking and Feeling are "judging functions"; Sensing and Intuition are "perceiving functions"

Jung believed each person has a dominant function and an auxiliary function, whose combination forms distinct psychological types. This theory directly gave rise to MBTI.

The Birth and Growth of MBTI

A Mother-Daughter Mission

Katharine Briggs had been studying personality types even before encountering Jung's work. After reading Psychological Types, she was deeply inspired and began systematically studying Jung's theory. Her daughter Isabel Myers inherited this passion.

During World War II, Isabel saw many women entering the workforce for the first time and wanted to develop a tool to help people find jobs suited to their personalities. This became the direct impetus for creating MBTI.

Key Timeline

• 1943: First version of the MBTI questionnaire completed
• 1962: Educational Testing Service (ETS) begins publishing MBTI
• 1975: CPP (now The Myers-Briggs Company) takes over publication
• 1980s: MBTI gains widespread adoption in corporate training
• 2010s: Internet era brings explosive growth on social media

Today, over 2 million people take the official MBTI annually, making it one of the world's most widely used personality tests. Curious about the scientific debate? Read Is MBTI Scientific?

The Rise of the Big Five

From Words to Model

The Big Five's development was a long process of academic accumulation:

• 1936: Allport and Odbert identified approximately 4,500 personality-describing English words from the dictionary
• 1940s–60s: Cattell reduced these to 16 personality factors (16PF)
• 1961: Tupes and Christal discovered five recurring factors through factor analysis
• 1981: Goldberg formally coined the term "Big Five"
• 1985: Costa and McCrae published the NEO Personality Inventory, bringing the model into wide use
• 1990s: Extensive cross-cultural research confirmed the universality of the five-factor structure

The Academic "Gold Standard"

Unlike MBTI, the Big Five "emerged" from data rather than being "derived" from theory. This bottom-up approach gave it a stronger empirical foundation. Today, the Big Five is considered the gold standard in personality psychology research. For a detailed comparison, read MBTI vs Big Five: What's the Difference?

Other Notable Personality Tests

Beyond MBTI and the Big Five, personality testing history includes many important milestones:

• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI, 1943) — one of the earliest standardized personality tests, primarily for clinical diagnosis
• Cattell's 16PF (1949) — a factor-analysis-based 16-factor questionnaire
• Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ, 1975) — proposed three dimensions: Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism
• DISC Behavioral Style (1928 theory / 1970s tool) — widely used in business management
• Enneagram — disputed origins, popular in spiritual and personal growth circles since the 20th century

Contemporary Trends: The Future of Personality Assessment

Digitization and Online Access

The internet has transformed how personality tests are distributed. Tools that once required professional administration can now be completed by anyone online — lowering barriers but also raising concerns about test quality.

Big Data and AI

Modern technology is opening new possibilities:

• Personality prediction from social media data
• Natural language processing to detect personality traits in text
• Adaptive testing for improved efficiency and precision

Cross-Cultural Adaptation

As globalization deepens, cross-cultural applicability of personality tests receives increasing attention. Researchers work to develop instruments that are valid across diverse cultural contexts.

Integration

Future personality assessment may move beyond single models, integrating multiple theories and methods to provide more comprehensive, personalized personality profiles.

Conclusion

From Hippocrates' four humors to today's AI personality analysis, the human effort to understand ourselves has never stopped. Each personality theory and test is a signpost on this journey — each has limitations, but all contribute unique perspectives to our understanding of personality's complexity.

Understanding this history helps us view any personality test more rationally: they are products of human ingenuity and tools that continue to evolve.

Ready to explore your personality? Try the MindTypo 16 Personalities Test and begin your own journey of self-discovery, built on two millennia of personality exploration.