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I’m not a fan (understatement) of pop-psych, but of all the tests and profiles that various employers put me through during my career, one stands out as actually practical and useful: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®. I have consistently found it to be uncannily accurate in explaining and predicting human behavior, particularly interpersonal behavior. In our families, the MBTI® can promote understanding, enhance communication, and fuel patience and forgiveness that we might not otherwise be able to muster.

Based on the work of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, the MBTI was created by Katharine Cook Briggs (1875-1968) and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers (1897-1979). In this article I’ll barely scratch the surface of the behavioral model, so apologies to the psychologists and psychiatrists among my readers who would justifiably quibble with my treatment and usage. But here goes.

The MBTI groups people into personality “types” based on four behaviors or dimensions:

a.            How we get our energy
b.            How we gather information
c.             How we make decisions
d.            How we order our lives

Within each of these four behavioral dimensions there is a range or continuum which describes our “preference”.

The first behavioral dimension is: How we get our energy. The continuum ranges from what Jung called Extraversion at one end of the spectrum to Introversion at the other, the so-called ‘E-I Preference‘. Note that the first is spelled Extraversion, not extroversion. It’s not about how we behave outwardly, i.e. whether we’re socially extroverted or introverted. It’s more about how we respond to others and whether interpersonal engagement energizes or depletes us.

At a party, for example, the individuals with the E preference gain energy by being around others. As the night wears on, they seem to get perkier and perkier (with or without alcohol) while those who are natural I’s become more and more exhausted.

It’s probably a good idea to emphasize here that no-one is either always Extraverted, nor Introverted and this is true vis-à-vis the other three dimensions as well. Whether a person is a so-called “E” or a so-called “I” is relative. E or I is a preference and we can be both. It’s just that we’re born, as the theory goes, with a natural tendency or “preference” one way or the other. Fold your arms. You have a natural preference for which arm goes over the top. Now fold them the other way. You can DO it, but you clearly prefer and have a preference to do it the other way right? That’s what we mean when speaking of preference in behavior.

The second behavioral dimension describes How we soak up information. The preference continuum here extends from Sensor to Intuitive. I like to explain this dimension by telling the story of the two people sitting side by side in a plane approaching their destination airport. The plane is in thick clouds and the plane is bump, jumping up and down in the turbulence. The two people have their eyes glued on the window, but all they can see is grey. Suddenly, they burst out of the clouds and the airport is plainly visible below. The Intuitive says, “Ah, we’re there.” The Sensor replies, “Not until we’re on the ground we’re not!”

For the Sensor sees precisely ‘what is’ while the intuitive sees ‘what could be’. Where we fit on this preference continuum has a major impact on how we take in information. The ‘S’ and the ‘N’ individuals as they’re called, can be presented with the exact same set of facts or sensory input and interpret them 180 degrees apart! Not surprisingly, 70% of men are S’s while 70% of women are N’s. (Hence the term ‘women’s intuition’!)

The third behavioral dimension is How we make decisions. The preference continuum here is Thinking at one end and Feeling at the other. In recent years we’re heard a lot about “Emotional Intelligence”. In a way I believe that concept gives support to the argument that decisions don’t have to be made in our left brains all the time. They can also be made in the gut, and they’re just as valid. But ‘T’s are all about laying out the evidence, analyzing it, coming to an incisive and informed decision. ‘F’s are about unconsciously mulling things over viscerally and making their decisions based on how they ‘feel’ about them. Needless to say, most scientists are T’s, and the majority of men are T’s, while the majority of women are F’s.

The final behavioral dimension is How we order our lives. The preferences range from Judgers on one end and Perceivers at the other. Judgers are ordered. They make lists. If they accomplish a task that they didn’t put on the list, they’ll write it on the list after the fact and cross it out! Perceivers prefer to ‘go with the flow’, and are spontaneous and accepting of whatever comes at them. This preference, in my opinion, causes people who are strongly opposite to make each other crazy!

With four behavioral dimensions and two end points on the preference continuum each there are 16 possible combinations of Dimensions and Preferences and we tend to, upon testing with the MBTI, fall into one of the 16. So, in one corner of the matrix for example we have an ESTJ person: the Extraverted Sensor Thinker Judger. At an opposite corner we might have the INFP, the Introverted Intuitive Feeler Perceiver.

Going back to the party. The ESTJ or ENTJ commands attention, some would say ‘holding court’. He or she has an opinion on everything and anything and will tell you about it. When offered a tray of cocktails they might first select the martini, then in a split second put it down and instead take a gin and tonic. They will of course take a cocktail napkin and hold it under the drink as they bring it to their lips. The INFP, meanwhile, is politely smiling as someone bends their ear. They nod, they listen actively and intently. When the cocktail tray comes by they ask the waiter to describe the contents of each drink. They put their fist to their chin and take quite a few seconds to mull over what they want. Once they make up their mind, however, they take the drink and will not change it two seconds later like the ESTJ did.

By the way, the ESTJ is attracted (opposites attract right?) to the INFP because they display the qualities the ESTJ does not. The opposite is of course true of the INFP, who admires and values the ‘strength of character’ of the ESTJ.

For fun, I’ll stipulate that the ESTJ is a guy and the INFP is a gal. They get married because they are, in fact, opposites attracted to one another. However, fast forward a few years and it’s inevitable, in my experience, that that opposite-ness causes tremendous conflict. That’s not to suggest that they shouldn’t have gotten married. It’s almost inevitable, however, that they really have to work at their relationship.

Meanwhile, two ESTJ’s get married. They constantly bang heads and argue and fight, but they go to separate corners and unwaveringly come back at it until they come to some sort of truce, compromise or shared understanding. Two INFP’s get married and they’ll sit silently in a room together and simply enjoy and be completely satisfied in one another’s company. Eventually, they’ll fall off a cliff holding hands but won’t argue while doing so. And they’ll end up on their feet anyway!

One of the things I like about the MBTI is that it doesn’t make judgments good or bad, positive or negative about these preferences. In fact, the seminal work on the model is called “Gifts Differing”, suggesting that each of the 16 personality types has gifts or talents, and there is no right or wrong among them. They’re just, well, different.

Here’s an example of how an understanding of “Type” can be useful. The ESTJ and the INFP are sipping the last of their wine at the end of dinner on a Sunday evening in August. The ESTJ husband says, “Hey Hon, how about we go skiing as a family next February.” The INFP wife, after a pause, says, “That’s not a bad idea.” The husband takes that answer as a thumbs up and a month later he’s got a whole family ski trip planned out. Along the way, he’s checked in with his wife, “What do you think of this condo, or that kids instruction package?” He repeatedly gets an answer similar to the first, “That’s not a bad idea.”

The family takes the vacation, has a great time and ten years later in family counseling the wife brings up this episode, emphatic that she never wanted to go on that trip! Struggling to remember the details, the husband says, “Hey, I checked with you at the outset and every step of the way in planning that trip! Why didn’t you speak up?” The wife replies, “Because you never gave me any time to think about it!”

Had the ESTJ husband understood Type, he would have realized that asking what seemed like a straightforward question of his INFP wife was not straightforward at all to her. Rather, the INFP needed to process the question: take in the idea and internally explore it (the “N” in her), then mull it over at the gut level (the “F” in her), and finally take time to consider the whole concept and come to a complete and clear decision (the “P” in her). By the time she’d done that, the ESTJ husband was miles down the planning road!

The patience required of polar opposite husband and wife to reach a mutually satisfying compromise decision is huge, emotionally draining and if that kind of difference in approaching life is tested many times a day, one will understand why opposites attract but inevitably have to work so hard to have a good relationship!

I could go on and on sharing anecdote after anecdote of how the very opposite personality types deal with one another within families, in the workplace, among friends, among strangers, in public, in private…how an understanding of the personality type of someone with whom we’re dealing could help us achieve whatever goal we have with that interaction, or how it is that when one is under stress one tends to behave as if they are the exact opposite of who they are when not under stress.

Instead, I urge you to read Gifts Differing, and if you’re still working or thinking about your career, the book named “Do What You Are“.  I’ve also provided below a cheat sheet (credit to Jake Beech) that pithily summarizes the 16 MBTI types.

HAVE FUN WITH THIS!

By Jake Beech – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30859659