Divergent and Psychological Testing

The divergent series, although not as successful as other movies about a dystopian world, still generated many responses and interest when it was released last year, and I personally really enjoyed the plot of the movie and learning about how it related to personality traits and testing.

As we see at the beginning of the movie, all the young people in this “society” must go through a series of aptitude testing when they become of age, and will be divided into 5 different factions according to their test results: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. In their world, the few individuals who possess ability in more than one trait are looked down upon and seeing as having some sort of problem; they’re categorized as “divergent”, and can easily fall into the dreaded “factionless” category, which signifies that they are not accepted by any single faction and must live in the slums. I think their way of testing for aptitude is really interesting in the movie, because instead of doing a traditional questionnaire or survey, they actually put the candidates into a simulation scenario by injecting a serum into their blood, and they have to respond to situations that are happening in their minds. Although it would be unrealistic, and probably a bit inhumane, to do in real-life aptitude tests, I do think it’s a pretty accurate way of measuring how someone responds to very urgent and critical situations.

The interesting part is that although all the young candidates were given results of their aptitude testing, they still had the power to choose which faction they wish to belong to. One boy could be shown to have strong ability in Dauntless, but chooses to stay with his original faction of Abnegation because that is where his family is. In this sense, these tests are not deterministic and the individuals were still given agency in their preferences. This demonstrates that even in their dystopian society, the leaders still acknowledged other factors outside of aptitude testing, such as familial ties and attachment to certain traits they value. It is important therefore to take these aptitude tests with a grain of salt and know that they can be a helpful indicator of a person’s traits, but does not speak about the entirety of their personality and character.