Wednesday, May 4

Decoding your Four Letter Personality Type

I sometimes forget myself and start using a lot of jargon that not everybody is familiar with. Meanwhile, I just get so caught up in what I'm saying that I just assume everybody knows what I’m talking about. Silly me.

βΣЋ has expressed a desire for more information and has inspired be to do an impromptu explanation of and some linking to information about Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicators (MBTI).

According to MBTI, which is based on Jungian Psychology, there are four major personality dimensions. For each of these dimensions, we prefer to do things in one of two ways. By determining which of the two you prefer for each of these personality dimensions you create one of 16 possible four-letter codes. This code is used to describe people who prefer to do things the same way you prefer to do them. It does not mean that people with the same code are all alike. There are many other factors and dimensions that make us unique. However, people with the same code do share certain characteristics.

For example, you may notice in my sidebar a list of INFJ Blogs from TypeBlogs. Each of these lovely bloggers share the same 4 letter code that I have, but if you take a peak at our blogs you can see we are still quite unique. Our polar opposite is the ESTP. MC Hendrick, nutmeg, and Woodge are all ESTPs. They are still quite unique from one another, but look at how different they are from the INFJs. Your MBTI type really is simple descriptor, which allows people familiar with the theory to get a idea of how you think and behave. Let me add here that no preference or set of preferences is better to have. It’s best is to have an accurate picture and understanding of your own personality type, so that you my use that understanding for self-enrichment.

Since it is past my bedtime and this has the potential to get very long, I’m just going to link and let what other’s have already written do the actual explaining.

So what type of personality type are you? While that question would be best determined by a through evaluation conducted by a trained administrator of MBTI, we do way other ways of getting a good enough answer to that question.

Don't rely on one of the silly little quizes I like to post. Instead take something that's a little more tried and true, or this, or this. By now you should be getting a pattern. Even if you get different answers on each test, some of the letter's will be reaccuring.

Read Personality Page’s explanation of the Four Preferences. How do you think the real you fits into these categories? This page gives a list of each of the 16 personality types and links to more information about that personality type’s patterns. Read through the profiles on the types that your test results said you are. Which best describes you? It may take you a little while to figure out which type you really are while others figure it out immediately.

Once you have determined your type go on over and sign up with TypeBlogs.com, it’s a good way of connecting with people who think like you do and for finding out more about personality typing in general. I tend to find that the blogs I enjoy reading the most are those whose type differs by no more than two letters from mine.

That was a long answer to a simple question, but believe be things can get much more complicated than that. I think I’ll save why I think learning about personality type's is important for a post sometime in the near future.

4 comments:

Solarusmoon said...

Hey! I took one of the tests (on the advisorteam website) and it says I'm an Idealist - I probably won't pay the $15 to find out what type of idealist I am... But, I haven't looked at the other links you have up, yet, so maybe I'll be able to figure that out somewhere else...

BTW - yes, I do think you & I have a lot in common! :o) Very nice to meet, you (I'm Beth) and live in Portland, Oregon.

I only have a tiny bit of time at the moment to post this, but will post more later (once my two boys are in bed)... and will look at the rest of the links!

Julie said...

My sister and I did these a while ago, and I'm an INFJ too. We rock!

Lora said...

Beth-
If your an idealist, then you are an NF, in one form or the other.

Julie-
Another INFJ! We abound in this cyper neverland. I encourage you to sign up with Typeblogs; that will also but you in my Blogroll

Anonymous said...

isn't that funny. That is just what I've been doing this week two. I haven't done two of the ones you mentioned so I'll zip right over there. My latest entry says which ones I am tested as.