Myers Briggs Personality Types

The Myers Briggs personality type system is based on the earlier work of the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. It's development is the story of an American family in the 20th century who initially had no formal qualifications in their field yet were driven by a passion to help people understand the similarities and differences between human beings.

Over three generations, Katharine C. Briggs, daughter Isabel Briggs Myers and in turn her son Peter B. Myers created the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). The MBTI helps individuals work out their natural personality preferences within the system by answering a series of questions.

Later developments include the MBTI2 and CAPT (The Center for Applications of Phsychological Type)which carries out research in this field.

Jungian Preferences

The basic system helps to initially classify a person on 4 scales of preference between opposing facets of mental function (dichotomies). These are E/I (Extraversion / Introversion), S/N (Sensing / Intuiting), T/F (Thinking / Feeling), J/P (Judging/Perceiving). In a person these preferences combine to give a four letter type, of which there are 16 in total.

Knowing your type can lead on to great personal insight and applications of the system are vast, including areas such as careers and relationships. There is much research into the behaviour patterns of the 16 types and the dynamics between the types.

Details

Published on Thursday, 03 May 2012 11:06

Written by Richard