WHEN YOU CROSS CULTURES - World Evangelical Alliance

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
ASSESSING PERSONALITY
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Personality assessment can help Christian workers understand themselves.
They can determine which aspects of their personality need growth and
change. With increased understanding and motivation, workers can learn to
develop their strengths and minimise weaknesses.
In relation to cross-cultural stress, workers need to know how their
personalities affect their responses, their use of defence mechanisms, and their
efforts to adjust to the environment, to people and to tasks. This knowledge
will help them handle stressful situations better.
There are various kinds of personality tests. But there is no perfect
assessment system for the totality of human personality. The more helpful ones
would show how aspects of our personality affect our sources of emotional
satisfaction, our degree of sensitivity to people, our environment, our work,
our ease in adapting to social relationships and changing circumstances.
A PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT SYSTEM
In the following personality assessment system, we can measure three
aspects of personality. This system has been used by cross-cultural candidates
for self assessment.
Husbands and wives have found it helpful to discuss each other’s traits.
Field supervisors have also assisted in discussions related to cross-cultural
adjustments and stresses that may be experienced according to different
personality traits.
Those who assess themselves or others should avoid the dogmatic
categorising of one another. We cannot easily deduce accurate knowledge of
ourselves and others, even with input from the people concerned. During
assessment, we should avoid making moral judgments which congratulate or
condemn traits. We should be careful not to attach moral value to psychological
factors.
Assessments should be made prayerfully in dependence on the Holy
Spirit. Honest communication is also important. After personal study and
thought, husbands and wives or close friends could assess each other’s