Beauty, and What It Means: Am I An Apple or a Pear, Part I: Body Types as Personality Test
I still like personality tests in the way I like astrology: It’s not so much that I believe being born on May 27 means that I’m adaptable, cerebral, and a bit inconsistent (moi?!); it’s that having a personality imprint in front of me gives me a baseline from which to compare, much the same way I never know where I want to go for dinner but can always pick when given the choice between pizza and Mexican. But when I came across Cult of Personality by Annie Murphy Paul, I paid attention. Her beef with personality tests—especially the sort that are administered by institutions to determine professional “fit”—is that they’re often “invalid, unreliable, and unfair,” more entertainment than science. Her argument is compelling, but since I largely approach them as entertainment already, what I got out of the book was a questioning of my own drive to compulsively categorize myself.
Just try to keep Living Colour out of your head.
