Personality Questionnaires: Proust to Colbert

Many of today’s best personality questionnaires are based on the ones French writer Marcel Proust (1871-1922) often played in parlor games. The Guardian, for example, has a Proustian-type questionnaire for celeb interviews, as has Vanity Fair. And Stephen Colbert does a fun version, The Colbert Questionert, on his talk show.

For a list of the original Proust questions, as well as how he answered some of them, see this Wikipedia page.

Examples of what’s asked in The Guardian‘s personality questionnaires:

• What was your most embarrassing moment?
• What is the closest you’ve come to death?
• Tell us a joke.
• What has been your greatest disappointment?
• What do you consider your greatest achievement?
• What’s the worst thing anyone’s said to you?
• To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?

In their Proust-like questionnaires, Vanity Fair has included the following:

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
2. What is your greatest fear?
3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
5. Which living person do you most admire?
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
7. What is your current state of mind?
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
9. On what occasion do you lie?
10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
11. Which living person do you most despise?
12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
16. When and where were you happiest?
17. Which talent would you most like to have?
18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
21. Where would you most like to live?
22. What is your most treasured possession?
23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
24. What is your favorite occupation?
25. What is your most marked characteristic?
26. What do you most value in your friends?
27. Who are your favorite writers?
28. Who is your hero of fiction?
29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
30. Who are your heroes in real life?
31. What are your favorite names?
32. What is it that you most dislike?
33. What is your greatest regret?
34. How would you like to die?
35. What is your motto?

The Colbert Questionert intends to “plumb the depths of a guest’s soul.” Although this claim is tongue-in-cheek, could Colbert’s personality questionnaires be the actual path toward getting to know someone better?

1. Best sandwich?
2. First concert?
3. What is the scariest animal?
4. Apples or oranges?
5. Have you ever asked someone for their autograph?
6. What do you think happens when we die?
7. Favorite action movie?
8. Window or aisle?
9. Favorite smell?
10. Least favorite smell?
11. Earliest memory?
12. Cats or dogs?
13. You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it?
14. What number am I thinking of?
15. Describe the rest of your life in 5 words?

Three that used to be on the 15-question list:

1. Exercise: worth it?
2. Flat or sparkling?
3. Most used app on your phone?

Another icebreaker, game, or exercise—not a questionnaire—used nowadays to get to know someone better is Two Truths and a Lie.  Participants each share two true things about themselves plus one lie that they want to come across as believable. Which one is the lie? Repeat as often as you’d like.