Mr. Personality. That's me!

I'm free-spirited, creative and pessimistic -- according to Signal Patterns, that is.  But do you know what?  That seems pretty spot-on.

There are lots and lots of online personality tests, but last night I played with Signal Patterns, a personality profiling tool that is in private beta right now (you need to request an invite.) The company conducts research and builds online survey tools that aim to unlock the connections between personality, behavior and preferences.  In doing so, they hope to help members learn more about themselves and get to know their friends and connections better.  I look their basic personality tests (you know, the kind that has you pondering whether you agree or disagree with statements like, "I talk a lot and enjoy being the center of attention at parties") and Signal Patterns declared me free-spirited, creative and pessimistic based on what my responses reveal about 45 different personality traits.  The tool also produces some nice data visualizations, like this one that plots my top 10 traits around a personality wheel:

Of course, my own perceptions of myself may be skewed and people have a tendency to represent themselves the way they hope to be perceived rather than the way they actually are.  So here's where Signal Patterns gets interesting.  They are developing surveys, grounded in science, that help members learn more about themselves and their personalities based on preferences like the books they read, the music they listen to and the movies they enjoy.  In other words, Signal Patterns is looking to bridge the potentially wide gap between what people say and what people actually do. That could be pretty cool.

Now, take it all, link it up with your Facebook profile, and maybe you have a more substantial basis for forming and maintaining online connections than 'you have 17 friends on common.'

You can request a beta invite here, but regardless of whether you have the chance to test the tools yourself, you might want to check out the Signal Patterns blog for some interesting content about personality, the company's research and, of course, their applications and plans for roll out.