eHarmony’s online dating advertisements claim a unique personality profiling system matching people according to personality traits. Being a Psych major, I decided to look into it. I quickly recognized eHarmony was modeling their personality profiling system off the “big five” personality traits found in psychology.
The Big Five factors and their constituent traits can be summarized as follows:
* Openness - appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience.
* Conscientiousness - a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behavior.
* Extraversion - energy, positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.
* Agreeableness - a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.
* Neuroticism - a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability.
When scored for individual feedback, these traits are frequently presented as percentile scores. For example, a Conscientiousness rating in the 80th percentile indicates a relatively strong sense of responsibility and orderliness, whereas an Extraversion rating in the 5th percentile indicates an exceptional need for solitude and quiet.
Although these trait clusters are statistical aggregates, exceptions may exist on individual personality profiles. On average, people who register high in Openness are intellectually curious, open to emotion, interested in art, and willing to try new things. A particular individual, however, may have a high overall Openness score and be interested in learning and exploring new cultures. Yet he or she might have no great interest in art or poetry. Situational influences also exist, as even extraverts may occasionally need time away from people.
(source: Wikipedia)
In completing the eHarmony personality report and comparing it with that of the traditional “big five” personality test versions I’ve found the eHarmony personality report has an extremely high degree of accuracy. Honestly, I was blown away with how dead on it was compared with other personality reports. It is free to take the eHarmony personality test and view the detailed reports.
Understanding ourselves, knowing our strengths and weaknesses, is an excellent way help ourselves in all aspects our lives. People with different personality types are more compatible with others. Understanding how we react to people with differing personality traits helps us better understand each other. The list goes on about how valuable knowing your personality is.
Something to note: eHarmony refers to “neuroticism” as “emotional stability” in their report. This change is more appropriate given the negative connotation often associated with “neurotic” and the this report being targeted at the masses.
I’m not advocating the dating portion of the service; my emphasis is on the free personality profile report. Go take the eHarmony personality test now - you won’t be disappointed! I guarantee you’ll learn something about yourself you didn’t know.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
The problem is you have to register, which I don’t like doing on sites like that…
Also, I find it instantly irritating that a site like that is evidently only offering its services to heterosexuals. Considering I know one of their ads shows two female symbols holding hands briefly, I find that kind of surprising.
For discovering things you don’t know about yourself, sometimes asking other people is the way to go:
http://kevan.org/nohari
http://kevan.org/johari
June 7th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Heather: The “nohari” looks interesting. It’s always interesting to learn about another test and what/how it measures. There is no shortage of tests from self reports to ink blots that measure a different dimension of the human psyche. The “big five” is by far the most widely used and easy to standardized test to administer. The nohari and johari can be subjective which make them less reliable and prone to error. Very fun though!
The test reminds me of the “looking glass theory” which states what you think people think about you is really what you think about yourself. When asked “how you think your friends see you” is really a different way of asking “how do you see yourself” but easier to ask because the question is projectable.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Heather: I did a bit of follow up reading and there are a lot of people criticizing eHarmony for not support gay couples. For a second I thought it would be a difficult thing to incorporate into a self report test but it’s easy. eHarmony asks questions on ethnicity and religious questions - sexual orientation would be simple to include.
Only just recently the psychology clinical tests stopped using homosexuality as a sign of neurosis/psychosis. They considered it a mental condition like schizophrenia - how the times have changed. Still a lot of bigots out there I guess.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
We’d love to get your feedback! We recently started an Online Dating Forum and would be interested in hearing about your experiences.
Please feel free to share your reviews about eHarmony.com or any online dating service you are using - or may have used in the past. Hopefully, your feedback will help others navigate through the endless array of online dating services and help them avoid mistakes when it comes to online dating.