Are Personality Tests Pseudoscience?

Short answer: some are, some aren't, and the line between them is sharper than most people realize.

Long answer: personality testing spans a spectrum from rigorous psychometric science to pure astrology-with-extra-steps. The problem is that they all look the same from the outside. Same format (answer these questions about yourself), same output (here's your personality), same confidence (this is who you really are). The actual scientific foundations couldn't be more different.

What Makes Something Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience isn't just "bad science" or "unproven science." It has specific features that distinguish it from legitimate inquiry.

Unfalsifiable claims. Real science makes predictions that could be proven wrong. Pseudoscience frames claims so that any outcome confirms the theory. If your Enneagram type predicts you'll struggle with X but you don't — "you're just in a healthy state of your type." If the prediction fails, the framework absorbs it without changing.

No mechanism. Real science explains how something works, not just that it correlates. Pseudoscience offers explanations that sound scientific but don't connect to any testable mechanism. "Mercury retrograde affects your communication style" has no physical mechanism. Neither does "your birth order determines your personality" once you control for confounding variables.

Resistance to disconfirming evidence. When data contradicts a real scientific theory, the theory gets revised or abandoned. When data contradicts pseudoscience, the data gets dismissed. "The study was flawed." "You have to experience it to understand." "Science can't measure everything."

Reliance on testimonials over data. "It was so accurate for me" is the backbone of pseudoscience. Individual experiences feel compelling but prove nothing about whether a system works reliably across populations.

With those criteria in hand, let's look at personality tests.

The Tests That Are Pseudoscience

Some popular personality frameworks fail every scientific standard. Not because the science is inconclusive — because there's no science to be inconclusive about.

Astrology-Based Personality Systems

Your star sign doesn't predict your personality. This has been tested extensively. Large-scale studies (Shawn Carlson's famous 1985 double-blind test, among others) consistently find no correlation between astrological signs and personality traits, behavior, or life outcomes.

The persistence of astrological personality typing comes down to the Barnum effect and confirmation bias. Descriptions are vague enough to fit anyone, and you remember the hits while forgetting the misses.

Verdict: pseudoscience. No debate.

Color Code / True Colors (Original Versions)

The original color-based personality systems — sort people into four colors based on motivations or temperaments — lacked psychometric development. No factor analysis confirming the four-category structure. No reliability studies. No predictive validity data. They were created by consultants, not researchers, and marketed before being tested.

Some modern adaptations have added psychometric work, but the original frameworks were built on intuition rather than evidence.

Blood Type Personality (Ketsueki-gata)

Massively popular in Japan and South Korea, blood type personality theory assigns personality traits based on ABO blood group. Multiple large-scale studies — including a 2005 analysis of over 10,000 people — found no significant relationship between blood type and personality traits.

The persistence is cultural, not scientific. It's Japan's equivalent of Western astrology: widespread, socially embedded, and empirically empty.

Random "What Type Are You" Internet Quizzes

Any quiz that assigns you a personality type based on 5-10 transparent questions with no psychometric development is pseudoscience by default. Not because the creators intended to deceive — most don't — but because calling something a "personality test" implies measurement, and these don't measure anything reliably.

The Tests in the Gray Zone

Here's where it gets nuanced. Several widely-used personality tests aren't pseudoscience exactly, but they make claims that outrun their evidence.

Myers-Briggs (MBTI)

MBTI is the most interesting case because it's built on a legitimate theoretical foundation (Carl Jung's cognitive functions) but implemented in a way that fails key scientific standards.

The science problems are well-documented:

• 50% of people get a different type within weeks
• Factor analysis doesn't consistently support the four dichotomies
• Type categories discard continuous variation in traits
• Predictive validity for job performance and career outcomes is weak

But calling MBTI "pseudoscience" isn't quite right either. The individual dimensions correlate with Big Five traits. The test does capture real personality variation — it just captures it badly, forcing spectrums into binaries and treating moderate tendencies like fundamental types.

MBTI is more like a low-resolution photograph. The image is real, but the resolution is too low to make reliable distinctions. Using it to make hiring decisions is irresponsible. Using it as a starting point for self-reflection is fine.

Read more: MBTI criticism: the full scientific case

Enneagram

The Enneagram has genuinely pseudoscientific origins — it draws from esoteric traditions including the teachings of Gurdjieff and Oscar Ichazo. That origin story makes scientists nervous, and fairly so.

However, the modern Enneagram community has increasingly pursued psychometric validation. The RHETI shows decent reliability. Some studies find that the nine types correspond to meaningful behavioral clusters. The motivational framework — personality organized around core fears and desires — offers a different lens than trait-based models.

The gray zone: Enneagram theory makes many claims (wings, integration/disintegration lines, instinctual variants) that haven't been rigorously tested. The parts that have been tested show mixed results. It's a framework with some empirical support and a lot of unvalidated superstructure.

Not pseudoscience. Not fully validated science either. Somewhere in between.

DISC

William Marston created the DISC framework in 1928 based on his own theoretical model, not empirical research. Modern DISC instruments have been psychometrically developed and show acceptable reliability. But the four-factor structure is a simplification — personality research consistently finds five or six dimensions, not four.

DISC works as a practical communication and teamwork tool. Its claims to measure fundamental personality dimensions are on shakier ground.

The Tests That Are Legitimate Science

Several personality assessment approaches meet full scientific standards. They're not pseudoscience by any definition.

Big Five / OCEAN

The most validated personality model in existence. Five dimensions emerged from empirical research (factor analysis of trait descriptors across languages), not from anyone's theory. Thousands of studies across 50+ cultures confirm the structure. Predicts job performance, health outcomes, relationship quality, and longevity.

The Big Five isn't a theory someone proposed and then tested. It's a pattern that was discovered independently by multiple research groups using different methods and datasets. That's the difference between real science and everything else on this list.

Read more: Big Five personality test | OCEAN test

HEXACO

Six-factor model with strong psychometric properties. Built using the same lexical approach as the Big Five but with broader cross-linguistic analysis. The sixth factor (Honesty-Humility) captures variance in ethical behavior that the Big Five misses.

Fewer studies than the Big Five but consistently rigorous ones. No pseudoscience here.

Read more: HEXACO personality test

Clinical Instruments (MMPI-3, PAI)

Clinical personality inventories like the MMPI-3 and PAI are built to detect psychopathology, not to describe normal personality variation. They're extensively validated, legally defensible, and used in forensic and clinical settings where accuracy has real consequences.

You won't take these for fun. They require professional administration and interpretation. But they represent the highest standard of personality assessment science.

How to Spot Pseudoscience in Personality Testing

A few reliable tells:

The test assigns you to a type without dimensional scores. Real personality variation is continuous. Any test that flattens that into a category is sacrificing accuracy for simplicity.

The result description is entirely positive. Legitimate personality assessment reveals trade-offs. High Conscientiousness predicts job performance but also rigidity and workaholism. If your result reads like a horoscope — all strengths, no costs — it's marketing, not measurement.

No published psychometric data. Legitimate tests publish their reliability and validity data. If a test claims scientific backing but doesn't cite specific studies or psychometric properties, it's likely trading on the word "scientific" without earning it.

Results are unfalsifiable. If any behavior can be explained by your "type" — if the framework can never be wrong about you — that's a pseudoscience red flag. Real personality dimensions make specific, testable predictions that sometimes fail.

The creator is a coach or consultant, not a researcher. This isn't automatically disqualifying, but personality assessment instruments that emerge from consulting practices rather than research programs tend to skip the validation work that separates science from speculation.

The Real Question Behind the Question

When people ask "are personality tests pseudoscience," they're usually asking something more personal: can I trust what this test told me about myself?

The answer depends on three things:

1. Which test? Big Five — probably yes. Random internet quiz — probably no. MBTI — the broad strokes, maybe; the specific type label, less so.

2. How you use the results. Even a less rigorous test can spark genuine self-reflection. The danger is when people use test results to limit themselves ("I'm an introvert so I can't lead") or excuse behavior ("I'm a Thinker so I don't do emotions").

3. Whether you hold results lightly. A personality test result is a hypothesis about yourself, not a diagnosis. The most scientifically valid tests give you probabilities and dimensions, not certainties and labels. Treat them accordingly.

A Middle Path: Rigorous Methodology, Practical Insight

If you want personality assessment that takes science seriously without being as dry as a Big Five percentile readout, adaptive drive-based models offer a middle ground.

The SoulTrace assessment maps five psychological drives using Bayesian adaptive methodology — each question dynamically selected to maximize information about your specific pattern. The output is a probability distribution across drives, not a type label. That's the scientific approach (dimensional, probabilistic, uncertainty-aware) applied to something more psychologically rich than trait percentiles.

No email required. No paywall for core results. About 8 minutes of adaptive questions.

It won't tell you you're a specific "type." It'll show you where your psychological energy actually goes — which is more useful and more honest than any four-letter code.

Other Articles You Might Find Interesting

• Most scientifically valid personality test: ranked by evidence — Which tests have the strongest research backing
• Personality tests that actually work — A practical guide to choosing the right test
• MBTI criticism: why psychologists are skeptical — The specific scientific case against Myers-Briggs
• Scientific personality test: the four standards that matter — What "scientific" actually requires