Personality is just one of many factors that guide our behavior, however. Our actions are also influenced by our environment, our experiences, and our individual goals.
On our website, we describe how people belonging to a specific personality type are likely to behave. We outline indicators and tendencies, however, not definitive guidelines or answers. Significant differences can exist even among people who share a personality type. The information on this website is meant to inspire personal growth and an improved understanding of yourself and your relationships – not to be taken as gospel.
Our approach has its roots in two different philosophies. One dates back to early 20th century and was the brainchild of Carl Gustav Jung, the father of analytical psychology.
Jung’s theory of psychological types is perhaps the most influential creation in personality typology, and it has inspired a number of different theories.
One of Jung’s key contributions was the development of the concept of Introversion and Extraversion – he theorized that each of us falls into one of these two categories, either focusing on the internal world (Introvert) or the outside world (Extravert).
Besides Introversion and Extraversion, Jung coined the concept of so-called cognitive functions, separated into Judging or Perceiving categories.
According to Jung, each person prefers one of these cognitive functions and may most naturally rely on it in everyday situations.
In the 1920s, Jung’s theory was noticed by Katharine Cook Briggs, who later co-authored a personality indicator still used today, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®). Briggs was a teacher with an avid interest in personality typing, having developed her own type theory before learning of Jung’s writings. Together with her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, they developed a convenient way to describe the order of each person’s Jungian preferences – this is how four-letter acronyms were born.
Of course, this is just a very simplified description of the Myers-Briggs theory.
Readers interested in learning more should read Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type by Isabel Briggs Myers. As we define personality traits and types differently in our model, we will not go deeper into Jungian concepts or related theories in this article.
Due to its simplicity and ease of use, the four-letter naming model has been embraced by a number of diverse theories and approaches over the last few decades, including frameworks such as Socionics, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, Linda Berens’ Interaction Styles, and many others.
While the acronyms used by these theories may be identical or very similar, however, their meanings do not always overlap.
One of the reasons behind such a lengthy introduction is that we want to make it clear that there is no single definition assigned to these type acronyms – each theory defines them in their own way and it is entirely possible that if you meet five people who all say “I am an INFJ”, their definitions of what INFJ means are going to differ.
types vs. traits
Regardless of its structure, any type-based theory will struggle to describe or characterize people whose scores lie near the dividing line.
A different way to look at personalities is through the lens of a trait-based rather than a type-based model. What do we mean by that?
Instead of creating an arbitrary number of categories and attempting to fit people within them, a trait-based model simply studies the degree to which people exhibit certain traits.
You may have heard the term Ambivert, which is a perfect example in this case.
Ambiversion means that someone falls in the middle of the Introversion-Extraversion scale, being neither too outgoing nor too withdrawn.
Trait-based theories would simply say that an Ambivert is moderately Extraverted or moderately Introverted and leave it at that, without assigning a personality type.
A trait-based approach makes it easier to reliably measure correlations between personality traits and other characteristics – for example, political attitudes.
This is why trait-based approaches dominate psychometric research, but that’s more or less the only area where these approaches are dominant.
Because they don’t offer types or categorizations, trait-based theories don’t translate as well as type-based theories into specific recommendations and takeaways.
Assigned categories such as Extravert or Introvert may be limiting, but they allow us to conceptualize human personality and create theories about why we do what we do –
something that a more scientifically reliable but colorless statement, such as you are 37% Extraverted, simply cannot do.
If you want to read more about why we behave as we behave feel free to click the button below!
