Isabel Briggs Myers, in her book Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Types defines the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is an introspective self-report questionnaire designed to indicate psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.
MBTI builds on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types, according to which people can be typified by the following main functions: 2 functions of perception – Sensation and Intuition and 2 functions of judging – Thinking and Feeling and their preference for these as affected by their attitude type of Extraversion or Introversion. Every person shows a preference for either of these functions and that governs his or her interaction with the world at all times.
Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katherine Briggs developed this idea further to identify 16 personality types based on combinations of an individual’s tendency towards Extraversion or Introversion [E or I], and preference of Sensing or Intuition for perceiving information [S or N], Thinking or Feeling to process it and make decisions [T or F] and Judging or Perceiving for implementation in the real world [J or P].
These are not absolute choices but a range of questions can help determine what you lean towards. Usually people have been found to prefer one of the overall possible combinations. As such these 16 types are
| ESTJ | ISTJ | ENTJ | INTJ |
| ESTP | ISTP | ENTP | INTP |
| ESFJ | ISFJ | ENFJ | INFJ |
| ESFP | ISFP | ENFP | INFP |
Once you know which of these 16 types defines you, you will be able to understand how that shapes your responses to everything that happens in your life, your communication, your relationships and even your way of looking at the world. This understanding can be very helpful in determining your life situation and identifying how you can achieve your life goals. While people are using MBTI to figure out their careers and what will suit them the best, many companies are also using these tests to identify their employee’s personalities and helping them find suitable roles in order to maximise success. An added benefit is when you understand the personality type of the people you are working with, you can better understand their behaviour and also have better and more productive communication.
Have you taken the MBTI test yet? What is your personality type and does it match your chosen path in life?
