Personality Analysis: Understanding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

This report analyzes personality types using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) theory. It explains the theory and its different psychological functions, attitudes, and types. The report includes an analysis of the author's personality type and its compatibility with other types. It also discusses the effectiveness and credibility of the MBTI tool.

Running head: PERSONALITY ANALYSIS
PERSONALITY ANALYSIS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
Analysis of personality has been a long time interest of humans. With the growth of the
psychological theories to understand the mental psyche of individuals there had been several
theories trying to explain the psychological diversities among individuals. This report will aim to
understand the different psychological types of an individual based on the theory of Myers and
Brigs and will attempt to make a self analysis using the Myers-Brigs Type Indicator (MBTI).
The theory is based on analyzing individuals according to four major psychological functions
that influence our social behaviour. The psychological functions that would mould the type of an
individual are dependent on the sensation, intuition, thinking and feeling. It is believed that an
individual’s motivation is based on the any of the four cognitive functions and is generally
inclined to one of them. The report will be sub divided into three different sections and will
discuss the theory in brief in the first section. The second sector will analyse my personality type
with respect to the MBIT and identify three types that are compatible with my character. The
section will also compare the contrasting quality traits as compared to the ones similar to mine.
Finally, the section will conclude to give a review about the effectiveness of the tool and about
the credibility of the results obtained from the test.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
The MBTI theory.........................................................................................................................4
Analyzing self using the MBTI:......................................................................................................7
My personality type: ENFJ..........................................................................................................8
Cognitive functions of ENJF...................................................................................................8
Personality types compatible with my type.....................................................................................9
Personality types not compatible with my type.............................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

Running head: PERSONALITY ANALYSIS
Introduction
The Meyers-Briggs Type indicator is a psycho analysis tool that helps in understanding
the various types of personalities that are existing among individuals and understand the kind of
person an individual is. The tool is based on the conceptual theory proposed by eminent
psychologist Carl Jung and have been further developed by the mother and daughter duo
Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. The theory was first developed in an around
1944 and was published as the Briggs Meyer type Indicator Handbook. This was later modified
into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or simply the MBTI. The first recorded publication of the
MBIT in the form of a manual was done in 1956 under the patronage of the Educational Testing
Service. The report will be self analysis of the personality type and its analysis will be done with
as per the MBIT. The identification of the type will be compared with the contrasting types of
personalities. Though this analysis of personality is based on a questionnaire the results derived
out of the interview identifies only the type of the personality and does not compare one type to
another. The MBTI basically categorizes individuals into a set of different personality types
trying to identify the differences in them (Furnham, 2017).
Discussion
The MBTI theory
The Meyer-Briggs Type indicator is developed upon the Jungian Theory of Conceptual
psychology and is largely based on the two distinct pair of cognitive functions. These are
namely,
 The rational or judging functions; these are mostly guided by the thinking and feeling.
 The irrational or perceiving functions; these are mostly guided by sensation and intuition.

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The MBTI identifies Judging as Inductive functions and Perception as Deductive functions,
which is just a variant of the terms used by Carl Jung. The usage of the terms in analyzing the
types has got references to psychological terminology. The theory however is sustained more on
assumption and concept rather than being scientifically approved. Since the indicator is based on
theory of Carl Jung, it also categorises individuals on the basis of extraversion and introversion.
It does not however identify the degree of extraversion or introversion. It simply recognizes the
inclination of individual in being either introvert or extrovert. These are again judged on the 16
typical sets of functions defining human cognitive behaviour (Tananchai, 2017).
The Types: Since the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator is based on the theory of Carl Jung, it is
highly categorized in the pattern of distinct choices. It is assumed that people are either born with
certain ways of perceiving the external world, or they might develop the various adaptations in
perceiving and reacting to the outer world. The MBTI differentiates these types into sixteen
different pairs of opposite or contrasting traits which have been reduced from 32 of the Jungian
theory.
The behaviour or attitudes are expressed in abbreviated forms of the behaviours. These can be
summed as follows,
 E- Extraversion
 S- sensing
 T- Thinking
 J- Judgment
 The contrasting to this set is the INFP as follows
 I- Introversion

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 N- Intuition
 F- Feeling
 P- Perception
These four pair of types is measured on a scale based on set of forced questions type patterns.
The answers derived are then analysed to understand the preferences and thereby the qualitative
type of an individual in categorized on the basis of their preferences and are arranged
accordingly to determine the type of the individual.
The Attitudes: The preferences of being extravert or introvert are termed as Attitudes.
Individuals who are extrovert in nature are believed to be highly active in their surrounding and
their sole source of motivation remains in their activity. Being inactive for a considerable time
makes them demotivated towards life. On the other hand people who have introvert attitudes
believe to reflect and learn from their thinking. They get exhausted easily if they are
continuously exposed to work and tend be demotivated in their life. Introverts refresh their selves
by reflecting on their actions and from their events in life.
The basic qualities of an extrovert and an introvert can be identified with the following
observations,
 Extroverts are more active as compared to Introverts
 Extroverts find relief in working environments while Introverts find the same in
reflection
 Extrovert people are more outward and interactive while Introverts tend be less
interactive and believe in introspection.
 Extroverts are directed by action while Introverts are directed by their thoughts.

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The Functions: as defined by Carl Jung, there are two different types of psychological functions.
These generally refer to the cognitive behaviours of an individual and explain how an individual
would think and perceive the world around himself or herself. The types of cognitive functions
are classified as Perception and Judgment. The kinds of perception are sensing and intuition,
while the kinds of Judgment are thinking and feeling.
The thinking or perception defines the way an individual perceives the environment around him.
Depending on the basis of the perception and individual reacts either in an extravert or an
introvert way. Individuals who perceive by sensing are much more dependent upon their senses
and perceive the surrounding based on their understanding from the senses. While people who
perceive on the basis of their intuition depend more on the surrealistic realm and might have a
abstract meaning behind the concrete facts or information.
The decision making or judging function relate to the way people react or decide to the external
world are influenced by either reflecting or feeling about the actions or events. These are
influenced by their perception as well. A person who decides on thinking will be more rational
and practical, while decisions made out of feeling tend to be more sympathetic or empathetic
depending on the situation (Sample, 2017).
Analyzing self using the MBTI:
An online survey was attempted to make an analysis of myself on the MBTI parameters and the
results derived were critically evaluated to understand the Type of personality being possessed
by me. The online survey was carried out with the help of free online tools analyzing the types
following the MBTI pattern. The following are the results which have been derived out of the
tests and subsequent three similar types have been identified (Rashid, & Duys, 2015).

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My personality type: ENFJ
This ENJF type refers to Extraversion, Intuition, Feeling and Judgment. Depending on the four
pair of cognitive functions and attitudes, the result has been derived as ENJF. This refers to the
type as E; Extraversion to Introversion. N; refers to making decisions that are based more on
intuition than to senses. F; refers to my feelings which depend more on social implication than to
logical constructs and J; refers to the decisions that I take are based more on analysis and
judgments rather than perceptions.
Cognitive functions of ENJF
As per the derivation from the MBTI theory, it is obvious that there will be a hierarchy in the
manner of the cognitive functions of sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling. This actually
represents the person’s behavioral pattern. The functions are categorized with the being
dominant, the auxiliary, the tertiary function which is less developed as compare to the former
two types and lastly the inferior type which is mostly the weakness of an individual. The
dominant function is believed to be the most comfortable role that an individual plays. The
Auxiliary functions support the dominant functions to perform their preferred personality type.
The tertiary and the inferior functions are the weakness of an individual and dosent exert much
influence to the character type of the person.
Dominant function: The dominant function for my type the (ENJF) is Extraverted feeling or Fe,
which refers to the extraversion form of the same and indicates that I have a conflict in
prioritizing the feeling of myself and the feeling of others.
Auxiliary Function: The auxiliary refers to the decision making capacity of myself, with respect
to thinking or feeling. My auxiliary is Introverted intuition or Ni, which supports my dominant

Running head: PERSONALITY ANALYSIS
function in shaping my cognitive functions. Introverted intuition refers to my thinking through
intuition rather than sensing.
Tertiary Function: My tertiary function is Extraverted sensing or Se, which refers that my
thinking is weaker with respect to sensing of the physical world and to the perception of the
senses. This is the section that will require development from my inner self.
Auxiliary Function: My auxiliary function is Introverted thinking or Ti, which refers to that I
pay less importance to logical reasoning while explaining the external world and give importance
to the bigger picture that lay behind a situation. This is the most inferior function and would
probably require more of an attention to develop my personality.
Personality types compatible with my type
The types that would be compatible with my type need to have the opposite of the dominant
characters that I have (Charilaos, 2014). Since my dominant function is Fe or Extraverted
feeling, the ones with Introverted feeling will be highly compatible with my types. The
compatible types of my character would include the
 INFP which have the dominant function as Introversion, opposite to my type of
extroverted dominance.
 ISFP also has dominant function as Introversion, and auxiliary as sensing, feeling,
perception
 INFJ is similarly compatible with my type, their dominant being introversion, and
auxiliary as intuition, feeling, and judging

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Personality types not compatible with my type
The following have extroversion as their dominant function as extroversion and auxiliary as
sensing, thinking and judging.
 ESTJ- Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging
 ESTP- Extroversion, Sensing, Thinking, Perception
 ISTP- Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Perception
These types are mostly contradictory in nature to the type of ENJF as they are dominant in
extroverted sensing but their auxiliary is generally introverted, thinking and judgment and
perception. These types of personalities generally have opposite thinking and cognitive
behaviours as compared to those of ENJFs.
However the theory of the MBTI has faced severe criticism due to its incapacity to address
certain issues and failing to establish the validity of the theory. Many of the studies that construct
their validity with the MBTI model lack scientific approach and justification of the same. The
terminology of the model has also been put to question arguing the credibility of the assessment.
The choice of types is brief and not precise. Since the options of categorizing are based on
preferences of one over another, there is chance that the exact identification of types might not
be possible to be represented. The MBTI also generates different results owing to the tests being
taken under different conditions. This rejects the validity of such tests in practical usage.
Conclusion
Though there are several drawbacks to the theory yet the theory attempts to categorise the
various personality types of individuals and had been widely studied during the late half of the
20th century. The report helped me to analyse my character type based on the MBTI model

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enabling the theory to use. The attitudes and functions by which an individual is analysed seem
interesting and provide several combinations character types to analyse individuals. The
speculation of Myers and Briggs, that an individual perceives the world around with their
cognitive behaviours and thereby react to them on the basis of their perception, decide their
identity is in fact a considerable option to analyse human personality types.

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References
Capretz, L. F., Varona, D., & Raza, A. (2015). Influence of personality types in software tasks
choices. Computers in Human behavior, 52, 373-378.
Charilaos, M. (2014). Analysis of networking characteristics of different personality types. arXiv
preprint arXiv:1406.3663.
Furnham, A. (2017). Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). In Encyclopedia of Personality and
Individual Differences (pp. 1-4). Springer International Publishing.
Rashid, G. J., & Duys, D. K. (2015). Counselor Cognitive Complexity: Correlating and
Comparing the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator With the Role Category
Questionnaire. Journal of Employment Counseling, 52(2), 77-86.
Sample, J. (2017). A Review of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in Public Affairs
Education. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 23(4), 979-992.
Tananchai, A. (2017). The Personality of Students Studying the Social Etiquette and Personality
Development Course by Myers Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI) Theory. AJE, 3(2).

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16Personalities. (2018). ENFJ Personality (“The Protagonist”) | 16Personalities. [online]
Available at: https://www.16personalities.com/enfj-personality [Accessed 14 Sep. 2018].