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Unpacking Your “Top 5”: StrengthsQuest* and Social Identities

New Professionals and Graduate Students
January 3, 2017 Lauren Irwin

*Terminology note: I use StrengthsFinder to refer to the assessment and StrengthsQuest to refer to any corresponding educational efforts.

I work on a StrengthsQuest campus. A few years ago, my institution made a commitment to use StrengthsQuest as a tool for education across the curricular and co-curricular environments. Early StrengthsQuest efforts primarily originated in Student Affairs, and as a leadership educator, StrengthsQuest has quickly become a large component of my work. I love StrengthsQuest, and I have seen the benefits of StrengthsQuest education firsthand. As a result of several conversations with fellow student affairs professionals, I have some reservations about personality assessments. Despite the value of personality inventories and corresponding educational efforts, like StrengthsFinder, there is a need for further research on the relationship between the results of personality inventories and social and cultural identities.

Personality inventories, like StrengthsFinder, are excellent educational tools. Over the years, I have completed Myers-Briggs (ESTJ), StrengthsFinder (Achiever-Discipline-Learner-Input-Focus), True Colors (Gold), and more. Personality inventories can help people better understand themselves; how they interact with others; and how they tackle projects, academics, careers, and more. Inventories, like StrengthsFinder, are exciting because they give people a new framework and language to understand themselves and others. However, I am curious about how educators accept the results of personality inventories, like StrengthsFinder, at face value.   

The more work I’ve done with StrengthsQuest, the more questions I have about my understanding of the relationship between different identities and talent themes (or a person’s top five strengths). StengthsQuest and Gallup provide a lot of information about the assessment’s validity (Asplund, Lopez, Hodges, & Harter, 2007). However, research accounting for the influence of different identities on an individual’s talents is scarce (Louis, 2012). StrengthsQuest education is built on the idea that each individual has their own unique combination of talents, and by better understanding and leveraging those talents, people can be more successful in all aspects of their lives.

However, our lived experiences and social identities, like gender, race, and socioeconomic status shape how we navigate the world. Our meaning making filters are shaped by our intersectional experiences (Abes, Jones, & McEwen, 2007). As a student affairs professional, I worry that my acceptance of personality assessment results without critical analysis, leads to a colorblind approach to working with and supporting students. I am concerned that by overly relying on personality assessments as tools for navigating difference, I am inherently teaching students that race, gender, and other social identities do not matter.

Recently, I’ve been unpacking the relationship between talent themes and social identities. Thanks to a suggestion from a graduate school classmate, I have been utilizing a short, reflective activity to help people unpack the relationship between their talent themes and social identities. To start, participants select two of their top five talent themes before reflecting on the messages they’ve received about those talents. Then, participants identify any connections between their talents, messages about those talents, and social identities. 

My top five talent themes are Achiever-Discipline-Learner-Input-Focus. I identify as a White, cisgender, heterosexual, highly educated, middle class woman. My combination of talent themes means that I thrive on order and structure, I gain a sense of fulfillment by accomplishing things, and I am adept at organizing and gathering information to support my own learning. In some ways, I believe my social identities and subsequent socialization shaped my talents; but the relationship between talents and social identities is not always clearly defined. Below, I share a sample of my own reflection on the relationship between two of my talents and my social identities.

StrengthsQuest Talent Theme

Messages

Social Identity/Identities

Achiever

Hard work equals success, hard work determines your merit, and merit determines your opportunities

White racial identity, founded in the myth of meritocracy and colorblindness. Growing up White, I could believe that merit and hard work alone should determine a person’s success in life.

Focus

On one hand, Focus feeds achievement and merit – through Focus you will be able to meet your goals. On the other hand, people who are too focused are perceived as “cold,” “unemotional,” or overly ambitious.

Woman/ gender identity – balancing a desire to achieve and prove my worth, without being seen as overly ambitious or cold, as that could push people away or inhibit successful relationship building. People often say they want a “drive woman,” until they are intimidated by that person. However, the intersection of my racial and gender identities may influence the ways that I learned about Focus.

There is a need to complicate my critiques of personality assessments. On one hand, peoples’ ways of seeing themselves and the world are shaped by their lived experiences and social identities (Abes et al., 2007). Therefore, it’s possible a person’s StrengthsFinder results are influenced by their social identities. However, it is unreasonable to imply that every person with a shared social identity (e.g. all women, or all Black/African-American people) will have the same experiences or ways of understanding themselves and the world. The challenge is exploring how strong the relationship between identities and talents is and then unpacking those results. 

I welcome input and examples of how people are utilizing StrengthsQuest and other personality assessments in their educational efforts. I want to learn about how people are reconciling the seemingly one-size-fits-all nature of many personality assessments with the need for social justice in higher education. Student affairs educators must acknowledge, understand, and support diverse social identities rather than rely on personality assessments to as an easy way to support intrapersonal development and navigate interpersonal differences.

Do you have thoughts on this blog post? Share them with us on Facebook @NPGSKC, on Twitter @npgs_kc, or on Instagram @npgs_kc!

Lauren Irwin is the Coordinator of the Center for Leadership at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She’s a proud ginger who loves cheese, baseball, and leadership. Lauren can be reached on twitter at @Lauren_Irwin22 or via email at [email protected].

References

Abes, E. S., Jones, S. R., & McEwen, M. K. (2007). Reconceptualizing the model of multiple dimensions of identity: The role of meaning-making capacity in the construction of multiple identities. Journal of college student development48(1), 1-22.

Asplund, J., Lopez, S. J., Hodges, T., & Harter, J. (2007). The Clifton StrengthsFinder® 2.0 technical report: Development and validation. The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ.

California Polytechnic State University. (2016). Strengths at Cal Poly. Retrieved November 26, 2016, from http://strengths.calpoly.edu/

Louis, M. C. (2012). The Clifton StrengthsFinder® and student strengths development: A review of research. Omaha, NE: The Gallup Organization.

The Gallup Organization. (n.d.). All 34 CliftonStrengths Theme Descriptions. Retrieved November 26, 2016 from https://www.strengthsquest.com/193541/themes-full-description.aspx

The Gallup Organization. (n.d.). Develop Engaged and Thriving Students, On Campus and Beyond. Retrieved November 26, 2016, from http://www.strengthsquest.com/home.aspx?g_source=logo