Myers-Briggs Type Indicator — The 16 Personality Types
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator — The 16 Personality Types
The Definitive Guide
Are your personality traits holding you back?
What if there was a way to know what those traits are, and how they affect you, so that you could make the most of them or work around the worst ones?
What if there was a way to understand more about yourself and others, too?
If you want to:
- Understand who you are, and how you interact with the world around you
- Understand your strengths and weaknesses
- Find answers based on science, rather than guesswork or intuition alone
You’ll find my comprehensive guide on The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) extremely informative and beneficial.
Let’s get started!
Contents
Chapter 2
An Overview & Purpose of MBTI
Chapter 3
Perks & Pitfalls of MBTI
Chapter 1:
The Fundamentals of Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator
Knowledge about the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator can help guide decisions about your career, relationships, parenting style, or even finding out what kind of pet might be right for you!
In this chapter, I will explore the fundamentals of MBTI.
I’ll also be delving into a brief history of its development, and explore how it works in practice.
What is Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI)?
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a self-report questionnaire designed to indicate psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.
The MBTI was constructed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers.
It’s based on the idea of psychologist Carl Jung that there are four principal psychological functions by which humans experience the world — sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking.
The Myers-Briggs test sorts these psychological functions into four opposite pairs, or "dichotomies," with a resulting combination of one letter in each category — E or I; S or N; F or T; J or P.
So, for example, you could be an ENFJ, which means your personality type is Extroverted Intuitive Feeling Judging.
I will discuss each type in detail in Chapter 4 of this guide.
History of MBTI
Myers and Briggs were intrigued by Jung's theory of psychological types, which they considered might have practical applications.
They began researching and developing an indicator to help people understand their distinctive qualities during World War II.
Myers and Briggs thought that informing people about themselves might assist them in selecting jobs that were best suited to their personality types, leading to happier, healthier lives.
Myers created the first version of the inventory in 1940, and then two women who had a fervent interest in personality — Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs — continued to develop it.
They tested it on friends and family during this time, fully developing it over the next 20 years.
Chapter 2:
An Overview of Myers-Briggs Personality Test
Its long history of development, coupled with how easy the test is to take, has succeeded in making Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test one of the most popular (or most widely-used) personality tests in the world.
In this chapter, I will provide an overview and explore the purpose of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test.
I will explain in detail the four dichotomies — Extroverted or Introverted; Sensing or Intuitive; Feeling or Thinking; Judging or Perceiving — that form the basis of 16 different personality types of MBTI test.
Moreover, by the end of this chapter, you will be able to understand not only how the test works, but also what it is used for.
Let’s jump right into it.
An Overview of the Myers-Briggs Personality Test
There are 16 different categories into which people can be sorted with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test.
You will answer 4 main dichotomies, and based on your responses, you'll get put into a certain category.
The MBTI personality inventory is an easy-to-use tool that helps respondents explore and understand their personalities, including likes/dislikes in addition to strengths or weaknesses.
The goal here isn't just self-awareness.
Understanding others' preferences can also help people find compatible relationships, and lead them down the path of job satisfaction!
There is no such thing as a "best" personality type. It isn't a diagnostic instrument that looks for flaws or abnormalities.
The MBTI test’s objective is to assist you in learning more about yourself, not to find problems or anomalies.
There are four separate scales in the questionnaire:
Extroverted (E) or Introverted (I)
If you're an extrovert, you are energized by interacting with people and the outside world.
There is no need to be alone to achieve that!
Introverts are reserved with people they don't know well. Spending time alone recharges them.
Intuitive (N) or Sensing (S)
Intuitive people focus on abstract patterns and possibilities; they
