PeopleMaps is a UK website which says that they are Number 1 in psychometric testing on the web. The offer a free introductory test which takes only ten minutes.

The test presents you with a series of four descriptions and prompts you to rank them. The test uses an innovative online technology above what I have seen so far, in that it presents you with further choices based on the choices you make. This speeds up the whole process and yet allows for a lot of information to be gathered.

When you have completed this process, you are presented with a free personality analysis report. Here is the summary portion of my report:

You can see that they got me right!

You purchase additional lengthy reports inexpensively. Reports available include:

• CVs & Interviews: Identify your personal strengths and weaknesses. Learn how to include them effectively in your CV and excel at your next interview.
• Career Planner: Planning is easier when you know what you're good at. Use Career Planner to achieve your potential. Includes actions you can take to win your chosen career.
• Be your own boss: Want to start your own business? Find out if you've got what it takes or where you might need help. more..
• Ideal Job: Everyone is looking for that elusive ideal job. Use PeopleMaps to help you to identify yours.
• 9rules: This massive report can be used in conjunction with the world leading "the9Rules" coaching tools

To get started with PeopleMaps, please visit this link.

Link for this Post: Give Your IQ a Lift

IQ Lift features of team of UK researchers offering a variety of scientifically based tools and technologies for improving intelligence ans its attributes. among these are:

• A free software program for increasing fluid intelligence
• Several well regarding online IQ tests offered at no charge
• The latest scientific knowledge in the burgeoning field of brain fitness

The site introduces itself this way:

Until 2008, psychologists believed your IQ level stabilized in childhood and then remained fixed throughout adulthood. Recent groundbreaking research in cognitive neuroscience proves you can in fact improve your IQ level and increase fluid intelligence - dramatically: training for 20 days with a carefully designed IQ training exercise or by taking the safe brain supplement creatine for 6 weeks gives you a 40% increase in intelligence on a valid fluid intelligence IQ test*. Interestingly, both the brain training exercise and the brain supplement resulted in the same gains in fluid intelligence. The peer reviewed scientific studies  can be found here.

The site is highly recommended for those who wish to give their IQ a lift.

Link for this Post: Free Brain Games on Brain Training 101

The Brain Training 101 blog features a great collection of online brain games that you can play for free. Here is how they describe the collection:

Free brain games are all the rage these days. We've put together a collection of online brain training games designed to sharpen your memory, increase brain processing speed, strengthen your reflexes and give your brain a bit of exercise. The brain training games here are an excellent start to your brain fitness program.

Link for this Post: Take the Keirsey Sorter Test

Here is another free and professional personality test for those that enjoy them. Although this one may see similar to some of the others, it makes a claim that others do not. It says that it will provide you with a description of your "temperament."

In psychology, the term "temperament" refers to that portion of your personality you were born with (see Wikipedia for more). This suggests that there is another component to personality which you are not born with but which is acquired through life experiences. Further, it claims that the characteristics it is measuring are indelibly stamped on you at birth and which cannot be erased by subsequent experiences.

The idea goes back to the Greeks who believed that there were four substances that make up the body (which they called humours) and that each of us in unbalanced in a way to favor each of these. From this imbalance, the Greeks said that there were four temperaments named for the most abundant substance -- sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic,

TheKeirsey  sorter also posits four inborn temperaments but uses different labels and the types are not consistent with the Greek model. But there are four of them.

You took the test 6 years ago and took it again today before writing this. My type had changed in the second session. I'm not sure if it was my unconscious mind influencing to change my answers enough to change the type or that I have actually changed that much.

Try it for yourself and post your impressions below.

The BBC Science and Nature features a variety free psychology tests. Recently updated is "What Am I Like" based on a BBC television program What Am I Like? The Personality Test. This is how the BBC describes the show which was hosted by the noted BBC television host and aired in 2005:

Join Nick Knowles in a unique interactive television event as he challenges the psychologists behind the most widely used personality test in the Western world to put their theories into practice.

One hundred members of the public are put through a variety of tests that, according to top psychologists, will show what personality type they are and even enable them to predict the behavior of each individual. With 16 different personality types to choose from, the psychologists reckon they can get at least 75% accuracy.

You can take the same test used on the show by taking the test online. The "What Am I Like" Personality test is a free test similar to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire. These kind sf test are based on Carl Jung's model of personality which identified 16 types of people. These types are the result on  an individual's mix in preferences for using four different qualities of personality.

Note: Image above first appeared on the psychology department website of the University of Wisconson, Stevens Point.

Link for this Post: Visit Psychologist World

Psychologist World is a new site that provides interesting and in depth exploration into a variety of areas of relevance to human psychology are explored. Those of you interested in psychology either as a scientific study or as a method of self exploration will find it worth you while to visit this free site, which includes many interesting areas of which the following are a few examples that caught my attention:

• Personality Tests: Try free online interactive test discover more about your personality and characteristics...
• Psychology of Emotions Why do people and animals experience emotions, and what makes us experience different types of emotions. Psychologist Ian Heath explores emotional states (right) and the link between the sub-conscious and our feelings...
• Dreams & Dream Interpretation: Information on why we dream, meanings of dreams in the Dreams Dictionary and more...
• Memory Psychology: Theories of Memory, how we remember, forgetting and how to improve your memory
• Body Language: What it is? how to read it, ways to refine your own body language

According to the folks at Psychologist World:

Human communication is 20% verbal and 80% non-verbal so if you are saying something to a person but your body language says the opposite then you're not getting your message across. This section contains a range of resources to help you master body language, understand what signals mean and to improve the signals you want to give out to convey ideas.

Psychologist World does a good job of communicating on difficult to understand areas of the human mind!

I just got finished taking the Art and Personality test which is actually an ongoing psychological experiment on the BBC Science and Nature website. 

In the first section of the study, you view and are asked to rate a series of paintings from a variety of periods and styles including Impressionism, Abstract, Japanese art, Islamic art, Northern Renaissance and Cubism.

You are shown a series of paintings from each of these genres and asked to state your preferences.

The aim of the study is to discover correlations between people's preferences for art and their personality. 

In the second portion of the study,  you answer questions about your personality.

The results guide you through your preferences among the various art genres. Then you get a personality analysis based on Five Factor Model. According to the researchers,

The Five Factor Model is one of the most reliable scales in personality research. It has good reliability across time – people's scores don't change much over the course of a day (as moods change) and remain reasonably consistent over many years.

The personality questionnaire takes about 10 minutes to finish. The length of the entire questionnaire is 15 minutes.

After you are finished, you get a complete analysis of your personality based on the Five Factor Model. Your art preference is also revealed. Based on the results of your personalty profile, examples of the genres of art most common to your personality type, based on the results of the study so far.

I enjoyed this brief excursion into the world of art and personality and recommend it..

Download a Free Personality Quiz Windows Software (click here and save zip file, decompress and run)

Builder.Com explains this Free Personality Quiz for Career Advancement

According to the developers of this test, "This free  ... personality quiz gives you a detailed printable report with a high-level view of your personality.

The personalty analysis is based on the five trait "Big Five" test of personality. The traits it looks at are

• Openness: High scorers are open to new values and opinions. Low scorers tend to be conservative.
• Conscientiousness: High scorers are dutiful, while low scorers tend to be less so.
• Extroversion: High scorers are generally sociable, talkative. Low scorers tend to keep in the background.
• Agreeableness: High scorers are friendly and warm, while low scorers tend to be rude.
• Negative emotionality: High scorers are emotionally less stable than low scorers, who are more quiet and calm.

This is a screen shot of the test:

The test is only 30 questions and takes 5-10 minutes to complete. The software is safe to download and run. People can post their impression of the test here as comments.