Sally the Scientist/Mastermind

In the last 10-15 years, I have taken the Myers Briggs personality test (MBTI) several times, both in its freebie book and online forms and in its full professional form about four times associated with work, and have always come out very strongly as a particular type. (This past year alone, I’ve taken it twice in different leadership training programs.) I won’t belabor the details of the MBTI but point you to the Wikipedia article that has some good information if you want to refresh your knowledge of the test. This web site also has an online version of the test available for $5 if you want to throw a couple dollars at taking the test yourself (though I cannot vouch for how well the results will match up against the full form test administered by a expert). If you google “MBTI” or "Myers Briggs" I’m sure you will find other variants on the test also, perhaps something for free. Anyway, I am not personally wedded to the MBTI as being some deeply true, psychometrically valid personality test, but I do find it interesting and think that the results I get sound very much like me. (And more to the point, the results I don’t get sound very much not like me. I don’t get that astrological sign experience, where the description sounds kind of like you until you realize you were looking at the wrong one, and then the birthdate appropriate one sounds kind of like you also.)


So as any of you familiar with the test might expect, I come out as a strong INTJ every time. I liked a short description that came with my set of results from the class I am taking in Colorado:

INTJ
“Everything has room for improvement”
Theory Based – Skeptical – “My Way” – High Need for Competency – Sees World as a Chessboard
MOST INDEPENDENT

By contrast, you can see what a poor match my opposite type would be:

ESFP
“You only go around once in life”
Sociable – Spontaneous – Loves Surprises – Cuts Red Tape – Juggles Multiple Projects/Events – Quip Master
MOST GENEROUS

The results I got back from the training at work were a lot more valuable than I’d seen before because they included a breakdown of various dimensions that make up each of the four primary aspects being measured. So for example, Introversion was divided into the dimensions of Receiving (vs. Initiating), Contained (vs. Expressive), Intimate (vs. Gregarious), Reflective (vs. Active), and Quiet (vs. Enthusiastic). Apparently this “Type II” test is a fairly recent (2001) development to the test.

Here are some snapshots of my results. (I’m posting them in this photo form because the charts are easier to follow than text would be.)

Here’s my overall type INTJ. As usual, I am strongly Introverted, moderately Intuitive, very strongly Thinking, and very strongly Judging.




My least Introverted aspect is the Contained vs. Expressive category. So naturally, I am writing all about myself on the Internet where only a few people who are close to me will read it.



I really love this Intuition graph. It shows that I am strongly Imaginative and Theoretical and moderately Abstract and Original. But I am in the exact middle on the Realistic vs. Imaginative line. This sense of realism is the thing that makes me regularly criticize people whom I see as terribly misguided in their belief that they can make their Ursula Le Guin Fantasy World™ a reality by strength of will. (It’s probably the reason that I am not a truer libertarian than I am. I cannot base decisions about the real world on fantastical constructions that come down to something like “assume all new humans will spring fully-formed out of Milton Friedman’s head” or on impossible necessary conditions like “first, we privatize all the roads.”)




This Thinking graph makes me look like a potential emotional cretin, but though it does reflect much about my preferences, it does not mean that I am incapable of empathy, tact, or giving praise. Nor do I not have feelings of my own. I mean, come on, I love bunnies! What could be more gentle-hearted than that.




I am a hard core Judger, famous in my own mind for saying “I wonder how many people who say they work best under pressure have never tried it any other way.” But I would be a healthier and ultimately more productive person, I suspect, if I could cultivate a little bit more of the flexibility of the Perceiver. But only a little. A little Perceiving (especially in the Pressure Prompted category) goes a long way.




Has anyone else here taken the MBTI? What did you think of it? Do you find it a useful way to think about differences in personality types? Is there something you wish you could change about your own personality in reference to this categorization scheme?