By understanding and accepting our own personal qualities, we not only function and feel better ourselves, but we also begin to appreciate how others around us are similarly bound up within their own personality characteristics. Just as it would be impossible for you to change some deeply ingrained aspect of your personality, so it would be for them. And… nobody is “right” or “normal” – or actually, we are all “right” and “normal”.
Coming to an understanding of the personalities of those around you, and how your personality traits fit with theirs, can make you a much more happy and successful member of a team, a family, a workforce, and so on.
One established method for identifying personality types is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) personality inventory, based on the work of Carl Jung. Taking the true full-scale inventory can only be done through psychological professionals. However, there are mini versions of the test that you can take online for free. So, here we go!
A. Finding your type
1. Go to Human Metrics, read the instructions at the top, and then take the test. Answer truthfully and thoughtfully, but if there is a question that you aren’t sure about, go with what your most typical answer would be. If you need help understanding a question, please ask.
2. Submitting your test brings up a new page with your type at the top. It will look something like this.
Do not close the browser! Make a screen capture of this part of your page. (command-shift-4)
B. Understanding your type
3. Now go The Myers-Briggs Foundation , find your type, read it carefully, and then make a screen capture of it also. Is it you?
4. Study this more detailed info about the type scales that can help you understand:
From The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
The test itself is made up of four different scales:
1. Extraversion (E) - Introversion (I): The extraversion-introversion dichotomy was first explored by Jung in his theory of personality types as a way to describe how people respond and interact with the world around them. While these terms are familiar to most people, the way in which they are used here differs somewhat from their popular usage. Extraverts are "outward-turning" and tend to be action-oriented, enjoy more frequent social interaction and feel energized after spending time with other people. Introverts are "inward-turning" and tend to be thought-oriented, enjoy deep and meaningful social interactions and feel recharged after spending time alone. We all exhibit extraversion and introversion to some degree, but most of us tend have an overall preference for one or the other.
2. Sensing (S) - Intuition (N): This scale involves looking at how people gather information from the world around them. Just like with extraversion and introversion, all people spend some time sensing and intuiting depending on the situation. According to the MBTI, people tend be dominant in one area or the other. People who prefer sensing tend to pay a great deal of attention to reality, particularly to what they can learn from their own senses. They tend to focus on facts and details and enjoy getting hands-on experience. Those who prefer intuition pay more attention to things like patterns and impressions. They enjoy thinking about possibilities, imagining the future and abstract theories.
3. Thinking (T) - Feeling (F): This scale focuses on how people make decisions based on the information that they gathered from their sensing or intuition functions. People who prefer thinking place a greater emphasis on facts and objective data. They tend to be consistent, logical and impersonal when weighing a decision. Those to prefer feeling are more likely to consider people and emotions when arriving at a conclusion.
4. Judging (J) - Perceiving (P): The final scale involves how people tend to deal with the outside world. Those who lean toward judging prefer structure and firm decisions. People who lean toward perceiving are more open, flexible and adaptable. These two tendencies interact with the other scales. Remember, all people at least spend some time extraverting. The judging-perceiving scale helps describe whether you extravert when you are taking in new information (sensing and intuiting) or when you are making decisions (thinking and feeling).
And some more from Personality Pathways
6. Now go to Discover Your Personality Type, find and click on your type, and read the page about your type. Make another screen capture of as much of the page as you can.
7. Go to Celebrity Types, and Personality Types of Famous People to see what famous people share your personality type. You are in good company!
C. Communicating your type.
1. Log into your Blogger blog. Make a new post titled My Personality Type.
2. Write a paragraph telling what your Myers-Briggs personality type is, and giving a summary of it in your own words. What famous person shares your type?
3. Include the 3 screen captures you made in your post. Keep them fairly small as thumbnail images, but clicking on them should bring up the full-size image. You can get creative with floating these thumbnail images left or right so that your text wraps around them.
4. Answer each of the following questions in its own paragraph. Try to make your paragraphs flow as if you are just writing an entire piece and not answering individual questions.
a. How well do you think your type description describes you? Give an example of part that is “right on”, and another part that is maybe “not so much.”
b. Does your personality type description help you to better understand why you are the way you are – and to understand why you gravitate towards some types of work, play, or activities over others? Explain.
c. In what ways does your personality type clarify for you the role you tend to take when on a team, as part of your family, or in any other setting requiring interaction with a group? What happens when the role you need to fill matches up with your personality type? What happens when it doesn’t?
d. In what ways do you think other people have misunderstood you in the past, due to your personality type? Are there people in your life that you “have issues” with, that could at least partially be explained by the two of you not understanding or not accepting each other’s personality types? Examples!
e. What have you learned about yourself by doing this assignment?
