Guru or Mastermind?

It won't take a lifetime of living and learning to get to know the intricacies of your personality.

A website founded by Harvard students that has been providing reading period procrastination fodder claims it might not even take four years of study and introspection in college.

Instead, thespark.com says, four minutes and the high speed Internet connection in your dorm room should do quite nicely.

The site's personality test has gotten 4,283,704 hits since it went online on Sept. 1, 2000.

Test takers fill in the 52 bubbles on its personality test, answering questions like "Do you make small talk with cute waiters?" and "Aren't babies incredibly special?"

The test then designates participants one of 16 distinct personality types.

"I took it twice, a month apart. I was bored and it was entertaining," says Christi D. Tran '04. She was pleased to be labeled a "guru" the first time she took the test but thought the second result--"the shy one who sat in the corner"--wasn't as accurate. Tran says the test is popular among her dorm-mates.

Eduardo A. Frigola '01 says he thought the test was "pretty accurate." It labeled Frigola a "mastermind" and said he matched 100 percent with most of his friends.

The test isn't all that scientific, admits its creator, Christian T. Rudder '98, managing editor of thespark.com.

"We just kind of made it up on the fly. There was a lot of hand wringing involved coming up with the four axes because we wanted it to be right," he says.

The list Rudder created consists of four pairs of opposing personality traits: dominant/submissive, introverted/extroverted, abstract/concrete, and thinker/feeler. The 16 different possible combinations each yield a separate personality type.

A guru--a submissive, extroverted, abstract feeler--is the most common result, according to Rudder.

A guru is "kind, knowing, giving. Like Buddha of old, you can be a persuasive speaker," the website says.

Generally, the descriptions are warm and fuzzy, Rudder says. But he says they tried to make them funny, as well. The gurus are warned: "be careful that your friends don't take advantage of your relaxed nature, that's what happened to Jesus."

Once Rudder and Chris R. Coyne '99 established the axes, they crafted the questions and personality types based on their own observations and other personality tests they had seen.

Rudder says he does not know why this new procrastination fodder strikes a chord with Harvard students.

"They're probably bored. It's fun," he says. "There's nothing to do online so that's the void we are trying to fill."

Spark fans can take heart, however, that in the realm of time-wasting activities, theirs is far from the worst, according to a Bureau of Study Counsel official.

"Once you're in front of the computer you're already over one of the hurdles of procrastination--I mean, at least you're in front of the computer," says M. Suzanne Renna, the associate director of the Bureau.

--Staff writer Rachel E. Dry can be reached at dry@fas.harvard.edu.