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by Dr. Daniel J. Heller
In Part 1 of this 5-part series, we introduced the Myers–Briggs Personality Indicator and its first pair of characteristics, Introversion and Extroversion. Part 2 covered the second pair, Intuition and Sensation; Part 3 the third pair, Thinking and Feeling; and Part 4 the fourth pair, Perception and Judgement. Remember that everyone, to varying degrees, has both of the characteristics described in each of the pairs of attributes. Here in Part 5 we provide some shorthand tips for interpreting and applying this remarkable tool to everyday life.
You need not be able to make complete sense of this acronym jumble to receive some benefit from the insights of Carl Jung and Myers and Briggs. The most important point is to realize that some of your more intransigent characteristics may simply be part of you—they’re innate, almost like the color of your eyes or your unique fingerprint—and that rather than trying to change or alter them, it’s best to accept them. Then, should they cause trouble for you, you’ll know you can learn about the opposing characteristic, and try to cultivate those qualities in yourself. They are there already, you just need to find them and nurture them. This can help you to become more accepting of others as well as yourself, and this usually leads to better and more peaceful relationships.
Fundamentally, it’s a big help to understand and recognize introversion and extroversion in yourself and others. Simply knowing that extroverts get energy from being with people, that introverts need time alone to recharge their batteries, and that extroverts outnumber introverts in this world, can be quite valuable.
As important as the I/E pair is, you don’t even need it to recognize the main types of people in the world. Interestingly, just four combinations of the S/N, J/P, and T/F pairs determine all the main personality types. In extreme shorthand:
Remember, everyone has each of these eight tendencies to varying degrees. You can think of them as existing on a range from zero to one hundred, with more people falling into the middle 40–60 range than the extreme 80 or 90 range for any given trait. MBTI is a useful guide to understanding yourself and others, but needs to be interpreted and applied flexibly, not rigidly. Now, which MBTI characteristic is that?
Learn More
Visit the website of the Myers–Briggs Foundation »
Of the many excellent books and articles that explore MBTI to varying degree, What Type Am I? Discover Who You Really Are does a great job of simplifying the Myers-Briggs tool, making it easy to understand and apply to your own life »
by Dr. Daniel J. Heller
In Part 1, we introduced the Myers–Briggs Personality Indicator and the first pair of characteristics, Introversion and Extroversion. In Part 2 we covered the second pair, Intuition and Sensation, and in Part 3 the third pair, Thinking and Feeling. Here in Part 4 we explore the fourth pair, Perception and Judgement. Remember that everyone has, to varying degrees, both of the characteristics described in each of the pairs of attributes. The descriptions here are of extremes that rarely apply to real individuals, but rather indicate tendencies we all can recognize in ourselves and in others.
The fourth pair: Perception versus Judgement
If you’ve read prior posts in this 5-part series, you know that Carl Jung’s choice of descriptors can be somewhat problematic to our understanding the eight character traits he identified. With this fourth and final pair, we again need to blur the usual meaning of these words. The P and J characteristics differ from what we usually think of as perception and judgement.
The P here could sometimes stand for procrastinator. That, at least, is how it can appear on the surface. What the P type really indicates is a person who wants to gather as much information about a situation as possible before deciding or acting. They really do believe that an essential fact or opportunity may be revealed, right up until the final moment before a decision must be rendered or an action taken. This means that P types have, overall, a fairly high tolerance for uncertainty, because they are willing to leave things open-ended as long as possible, and don’t mind changing their minds.
The potential ramifications of this aren’t always desirable. Very broadly, a P type is somewhat more likely to be disorganized, to be chronically late, and to be indecisive (though this varies, as with all MBTI types, as everyone has all eight characteristics to a varying extent.) We could surmise that P types are probably the ones with the messy desks and messy rooms. And they can be frustrating to deal with, since they might seem hard to pin down, don’t want to commit, or are always thinking something better might come along. Come to think of it, this describes a lot of relationship problems, doesn’t it?
On the positive side, Ps can be refreshingly spontaneous, because they don’t make their minds up way in advance. They can be thoughtful, because they’re open to new information. And Ps are eminently flexible, which can be a very good thing—because sometimes, new information does comes up and new opportunities do arise, “late in the game.”
J types, by contrast, do not like uncertainty, at all. They want to collect the minimum amount of information necessary (within their own way of thinking and behaving) to make a decision or to take action, and then close the door. Indeed, judgement is an accurate descriptor for these people in the sense that they are in a rush to judgment, or at least to reach a decision. The hardest thing for a J type to bear is the time between having to make a decision, and making one.
Obviously, J types are decisive, an admirable quality. However, a compulsion to make decisions with inadequate information is a liability, not a strength. At their worst, J types go off half-cocked, and because they’re convinced they are right (they dislike changing their minds because it means having to admit new information), others might be left picking up the pieces that result from imprudent decisions.
Of all the characteristic pairs, this one is the biggest potential deal breaker in relationships. This could be as simple as one partner interpreting the other’s chronic lateness as disrespect, or a lack of caring, or selfishness. Whereas the P may be late for their own funeral: there was just too much other interesting stuff going on! It could also manifest as messiness vs neatness; differing views on commitment; or a fairly rigid J-type trying to live with an uber-flexible P-type.
Learn More
Visit the website of the Myers–Briggs Foundation »
Of the many excellent books and articles that explore MBTI to varying degree, What Type Am I? Discover Who You Really Are does a great job of simplifying the Myers-Briggs tool, making it easy to understand and apply to your own life »
by Dr. Daniel J. Heller
In Part 1, we introduced the Myers–Briggs Personality Indicator® and the first pair of characteristics, Introversion and Extroversion. In Part 2 we explored the second pair, Intuition and Sensation, and here in Part 3, we take a look at the third pair, Thinking and Feeling. Remember that everyone has, to varying degrees, both of the characteristics described in each of the pairs of attributes. The descriptions here are of extremes that rarely apply to real individuals, but rather indicate tendencies we all can recognize in ourselves and in others.
The third pair: Thinking versus Feeling
Here we have another instance where Jung chose fairly imprecise words to describe the types he’d identified: in MBTI, thinking doesn’t mean thinking, and feeling doesn’t mean feeling! Instead, MBTI Thinker types tend to evaluate situations based on a set of rules. This rule-based view means that, to a Thinker, there are established rights and wrongs, norms, and hierarchies that are true and that determine the correct and best way to behave and proceed in a given situation. To a Thinker, these rules can lend structure to areas of life that might otherwise seem chaotic and difficult to navigate. The Thinker’s rules could be, but aren’t always, moral or religious; they could simply be “the way things should be done”—at least, from their perspective.
Feeling types, on the other hand, are more likely to view relationships as the essential guiding factor in evaluating a situation. In other words, how will this situation impact the people involved, and the relationships of the people involved? You can imagine that this might be a much more fluid and “hard to nail down” approach to life’s situations. People and relationships are constantly shifting and evolving, each individual is in relationships with many others, and every relationship holds a web-like connection to innumerable factors such as family, work, religion, culture, and so forth. Naturally, a Feeling type cannot possibly consider every permutation of these relationships; the main point is that Feeling is an entirely different way of relating to the world, and navigating life, than that of the rule-based Thinker.
At its best, the Thinking modality can be a great asset to organizations and to making life’s inevitable chaos manageable. At the extreme end, Thinkers can seem somewhat heartless, always sticking to a predetermined set of rules that they consider right and true, while appearing to ignore the impact of decisions and actions on people and relationships. Feelers would say—and from a certain perspective it’s hard to dispute the point—that any given situation is nothing more than the people and relationships that comprise it. Feelers, at their best, bring “heart” to their evaluations, and realize that fostering the best in people and relationships very often brings out the best in any situation. At the extreme end, Feeling types can end up making organizational and procedural objectives more difficult to attain than they might otherwise be. An F-type’s focus on people and relationships could interfere with important and necessary goals that might best be served by some degree of adherence to the rules, procedures, and established norms that a T takes to naturally.
Learn More
Visit the website of the Myers–Briggs Foundation »
Of the many excellent books and articles that explore MBTI to varying degree, What Type Am I? Discover Who You Really Are does a great job of simplifying the Myers-Briggs tool, making it easy to understand and apply to your own life »
by Dr. Daniel J. Heller
by Dr. Daniel J. Heller
In Part 1, we introduced the Myers–Briggs Personality Indicator® and the first pair of characteristics, Introversion and Extroversion. Here we explore the second pair, Intuition and Sensation. Remember that everyone has, to varying degrees, both of the characteristics described in each of the pairs of attributes. The descriptions here are of extremes that rarely apply to real individuals, but rather indicate tendencies we all can recognize in ourselves and in others.
The second pair: INtuition versus Sensation
The second letter designation in MBTI is N, which stands for iNtuition, or S, which stands for Sensation. This can be one of the more difficult distinctions to understand, but there is a relatively simple way to understand it.
Sensors gather information from the world around them on the basis of their five senses. Thus, the S type is generally one who is very grounded in the real world, and who basically thinks things are more or less (or exactly) as they appear, sound, feel, smell, taste. S types are eminently practical. Their tendency is not to spend a great deal of time pondering hypotheticals or wondering about the deeper meaning of things. Why would they? To a sensor type, things are what they seem, and they may well believe it is a waste of time to dwell in introspection or pondering “what ifs.” An S type is more likely to regard these activities as “contemplating your navel.”
It is something of a mystery why Carl Jung called this other quality iNtuition, because the word’s other meanings confuse this subject. A simple yet accurate way to think of an iNtuitive’s take on the world is that they don’t think things are necessarily as they seem. It’s not that they don’t gather information through their senses, but that they are more likely to look for underlying or “invisible” meaning than to rely solely on their eyes, ears, fingertips, and so on. It’s possible that Jung chose the word intuition to point to the fact that when Ns look beyond their senses for additional information about the world, they are most likely to look to their own thoughts and feelings.
This may sound as though Ns are deeper thinkers and more profound people than S’s, but this is not the case. These are just different ways of processing information, and relating to the world. What it does mean is that an N’s view of the world is likely to be more idiosyncratic, iconoclastic—in other words, unique, because to an N things are not necessarily as they seem. An S’s worldview, on the other hand, is grounded in perceptions that are much more likely to be shared (at least within the same culture). The catchphrase “think outside the box” could have been invented by an N, and thinking outside the box is much more of an N than an S quality.
Sensors are a much more common type than iNtuitives, and conflict can arise from an S’s impatience with, and lack of understanding an N’s mode of information gathering and processing. Sometimes it boils down to S’s thinking that Ns are impractical, which they might be. In fact, as a society we need the gifts and qualities of both types, and in any individual it is fortunate when there is a nice balance of the two tendencies—because, simply put, sometimes things are as they seem, and sometimes they are not.
Learn More
Visit the website of the Myers–Briggs Foundation »
Of the many excellent books and articles that explore MBTI to varying degree, What Type Am I? Discover Who You Really Are does a great job of simplifying the Myers-Briggs tool, making it easy to understand and apply to your own life »
by Dr. Daniel J. Heller
Have you ever heard people describe themselves or others using acronyms like INFP or ESTJ and wondered what they meant? The Myers–Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI®)test allows people to be characterized according to eight contrasting personality tendencies, yielding 16 different personality types. It is a remarkably accurate and helpful system, based on the insights of the early psychoanalyst Carl Jung. MBTI is used in corporations and organizations to help people improve their productivity and reduce interpersonal conflicts, and by therapists and counselors to help clients better understand themselves. It is a potentially intricate system, and it’s not possible to do it justice here. But it is worthwhile to understand its basics, because of what it can reveal about our inborn character and tendencies.
Some parts of us never really change. They are part of us, it seems, almost from the moment of birth. Understanding these aspects of who we are as revealed by MBTI can lead to greater self-acceptance, which can reduce stress by helping us to realize that we needn’t fight against our innate characteristics. It can also help us become more accepting of others, when we understand they, too, have an innate type.
“Understanding our personality type can lead to greater self-acceptance, which reduces the stress of fighting against our innate tendencies.”
Keep in mind that there are gradations of these characteristics in every individual. No one is purely one or another extreme. Everyone has some of all eight characteristics within themselves; some people are at the extreme range of one of the characteristics, while more are probably closer to the middle. But everyone has a “type,” a dominant mode of being and relating in the world.
The first pair: Introversion versus Extroversion
The first pair of letters in an MBTI type description is either I or E. Within MBTI, as opposed to the common usage of these terms, this doesn’t mean being shy or outgoing, though there are some parallels. MBTI introversion/extroversion has more to do with energy level and one’s preferred mode of interacting with people. Extroverts derive energy from being around people, and seek out company to sustain their vitality. Extroverts thrive on meeting new people, on being around people often, and on social stimulation. At parties, a “strong” extrovert will often meet nearly everyone at the party, having brief conversations with most of the guests. Rather than finding this form of interaction draining, an extrovert would find this fascinating and invigorating.
Introverts, in contrast, generally find that social interaction is draining. The more people they have to interact with or even be around, the more draining it will be. Concerts and stadiums are usually not among most introverts’ favorite places. An introvert is much more likely, at a party, to find one or two people they really like or are interested in, and spend the entire time having an in-depth conversation with mostly those few. Of course, an introvert might well prefer to stay home and entertain themselves to going to a party at all.
Introverts can have a bit of hard time in the world. Life and work have everything to do with social interaction, and if you find that drains you of energy, you may think you have a fatigue or attitude problem (something extroverts may be quick to point out!), when what you really have is an imbalance between your true needs, and what the world expects of you. Others may think you’re a little anti-social, a conflict that can pose difficulty in a marriage between an extreme extrovert and an extreme introvert. (Though it would be something of a marvel for two such different people to make it to the altar, plenty of incompatible couples do tie the knot.)
What’s more, our culture on the whole—as exemplified by popular media images—celebrates extroverts and extroversion, their sociability, outgoingness, and energy, which can make us think that everyone should be this way: always active, seeking more stimulation, and interacting with a large social circle.
In fact, usually introverts can deal with people just fine, but in a different way from extroverts. Introverts prefer deeper connections with a smaller social circle. They need time alone to restore and recharge their batteries (whereas extroverts recharge their batteries by being around more people and being more active).
Introversion is a less common trait than extroversion, making introverts something of a misunderstood minority in the world and in society. Recognizing these tendencies in yourself and in others—in most cases they won’t be quite as extreme as described above—can lead to greater acceptance of yourself and others. And that is an essential ingredient for coming to peace with yourself, your relationships, and the world.
Learn More
Visit the website of the Myers–Briggs Foundation »
Of the many excellent books and articles that explore MBTI to varying degree, What Type Am I? Discover Who You Really Are does a great job of simplifying the Myers-Briggs tool, making it easy to understand and apply to your own life »
