Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) is a test developed in the 1940s by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, based on the theories of Carl Jung set out in his 1921 book Psychological Types.

The famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst argued that people experience the world through four main psychological functions: sensation, intuition, feeling and thinking, and that one of these four is dominant in a person most of the time.

The core idea is that much behaviour that seems random is in fact orderly and consistent, because people differ in the way they perceive the world around them and make decisions.

The MBTI assumes that each of us has specific preferences in how we interpret our experiences, and that these preferences shape our interests, needs, values and motivation.

The MBTI questionnaire has between 93 and 144 questions, depending on the version, and it shows a person’s preferences when faced with pairs of opposites (dichotomies). The system divides personality into four areas, each with two poles. Let us look at these four areas in more detail.

1) Focus of Attention: Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I)

This aspect shows how you interact with others. Introverts tend to prefer solitary activities, think before they speak and lose energy in social interactions. Extraverts tend to prefer group activities, speak before they think and feel recharged by social interactions.

2) Way of Taking in Information: Sensing (S) or Intuition (N)

This aspect determines how you see the world and process information. People who focus on Sensing are more down to earth, rely on their senses, are busy with practical activities and concentrate on the present. Intuitive people are imaginative, trust their insights, are absorbed in their ideas and focus on future possibilities.

3) Way of Making Decisions: Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)

This aspect determines how you make decisions and react to emotions. People who focus on Thinking follow logic and value objectivity and rationality. People who focus on Feeling are sensitive, follow their hearts and value harmony and cooperation.

4) Way of Dealing with the Outer World: Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)

This aspect reflects your approach to work, planning and decision-making. People who focus on Judging are determined and prefer clear rules and guidelines: for them, deadlines are sacred. People who focus on Perceiving are very good at improvising and prefer to keep their options open. They are relaxed at work and seek freedom.

In this way, the MBTI identifies 16 personality types, starting from the two opposite poles on each of the four axes. A test gives the result as four letters, the initials of each of the four preferences.

How the Four Letters Work

To be more precise:

• the first letter indicates whether the person is an introvert or an extravert (I or E);
• the fourth letter indicates the function that the person shows to the outside world: perceiving or judging (P or J);
• if the person obtains a result of ExxP or IxxJ type, the dominant function is the second letter;
• if the person obtains a result of IxxP or ExxJ type, the dominant function is the third letter.

The MBTI allows us to determine:

• a dominant function and an auxiliary function;
• a tertiary function (the opposite of the auxiliary function) and an inferior function (the opposite of the dominant function).

If this is not clear, take a look at the example below.

Take a person with the personality type INTP. The fourth letter, P, tells us that the function this person shows to the outside world is perceiving, which here is intuition (N). The first letter, I, tells us that the dominant function is introverted. Since it is an IxxP type, the dominant function is the third letter, T: introverted thinking. The auxiliary function is extraverted intuition (N).

A word of caution: the MBTI is widely used, but it is not a precise measurement. Psychologists have criticised it because retesting after a few weeks often gives a different type, and because most people score close to the middle of each scale, not at one of the two extremes. Use it as a starting point to reflect on how you trade, not as a verdict.

Let us now look in more detail at all the various personality types resulting from the combination of the four groups seen above.

The 16 personalities can be grouped into four categories, as shown in the next four posts.