Personality and Work: A Myers Briggs Perspective

This essay provides a deep insight into the Myers-Briggs personality type and Dr. David Keirsey theory of temperament that helps the individual in making self-assessment and further helps in making the best career choice.

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Personality and work: a Myers Briggs
perspective
Student’s Name

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The personality test is a self-report that helps the person to measure its personality and
behavior. A questionnaire describes the personality of human and the behavior of the person
in different situations. It provides the opportunity for the person to make the self-analysis and
take the decision that is the most favorable ones. This essay will provide a deep insight into
the Myers- Briggs personality type and Dr. David Keirsey theory of temperament that helps
the individual in making self-assessment and further helps in making the best career choice. It
provides the opportunity to grow and develop the skills that help in living happier lives.
The Myers- Briggs Personality Type Pointer is the personal–report portfolio to recognize
the individual’s preferences, powers, and kinds. Isabel Myers and her mother Katherine
Briggs developed the questionnaire, which was based upon Carl Jung’s theory of personality
types. This indicator helps to analyze the individual differences and further helps in selecting
the occupation that suits the best to their character types and leads contented lives. According
to the answers of the questionnaire formed it analyze people are of 16 personality types. It
helps the individual’s in analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes. It helps in
making the career preferences and determines compatibility with others. This indicator helps
people in understanding themselves (Hancock, 2016).
The questionnaire entails of four diverse scales.
Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I)
Jung uses this dichotomy in its theory to define how people react and interrelate with the
world. Extraverts are the people, who are action-taker, and relish having social
communication and feel thrilled when they spend time with the people. Introverts are the
people who do not involve much in social interactions and feel energized when they spend
alone time. This type of quality helps in analyzing the career based upon the dichotomy the
person includes. Having the introversion personality type it chooses the career where

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sufficient time is given to plan and analyze the situation; it creates a peaceful working
environment. Such people spend more time searching for new ideas because the mind
constantly works and do not demand parties or collaborating with the other teams.
Extroversions are the people who choose the career that involves more social interaction,
collaborating with the teams and are more action-oriented (Furnham, 2017).
Sensing (S) -Intuition (N)
This dichotomy focuses on how the person gathers the information from the outside world.
The people have the personality of sensing and intuiting depending upon the current situation
of the person. Some individuals prefer to use sensing to determine reality and make the
decision based on their own senses. This indicator mainly focuses on the facts and the
figures. While in the case of intuiting indicator the person thinks about the possibilities,
imagines the future actions and abstract theories. This dichotomy helps the individual in
choosing their career wisely. This indicator specifies the possibilities of adopting a specific
career (Prather and Bates, 2015).
Thinking (T) - Feeling (F)
In this indicator, the person makes the important decision based on the information gathered
from the above indicator. If the person uses thinking it majorly, emphasize the facts and the
objective data. It makes the decision based upon the logic and by being impersonal while if
the person uses feeling indicator it involves people and emotions in making decisions.
Adopting the thinking indicator helps in analyzing the career that is most suitable for the
individual by analyzing the realities and the facts and makes the decision that is most suitable
for the person (Rashid and Duys, 2015).
Judging (J) – Perceiving (P)

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It defines the way people handle the outside world situation. It people judges the outside
world they prefer structure and takes the firm decisions while if the individual has the
perceiving character the person is more adaptable, flexible and open to the world. It is
analyzed that all the people are extraverts for some period. The judging and perceiving scale
determine the extent of extravert while taking the decisions and gathering of information
from the outside world (Haley, 2017).
By developing the 16 personality types combination the person can analyze its strength and
weakness and make the self-analysis of its personality. This personality type test helps the
individual in analyzing its future actions and pursues the career that provides the opportunity
to become successful and happy (Kaur, 2017).
This personality type test is merely not a test because it does not specifies any wrong or right
and does not compare the score of one person with the other to make any comparisons but
provide the unique combination of the personality and helps in better understanding of the
individual. It does not species that one combination is better from the other and makes the
specific 16 combinations to analyze the personality type (Bales, 2016).
This personality type indicator is getting most popular because it follows up the result and
consists of 93 compulsory choice questions in the North American form and 88 forced choice
questions in the European form. It consists of two options to analyze the personality of the
individual (Bales, 2016).
Conducting this personality type provides the awareness of the learning style of the
individual and however, helps the person to choose the education field according to learning
style analyzed. It helps in selecting the career field that is most suitable to its personality.
Analyzing the personality types helps the person to solve the complex challenges in the job

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and efficiently handle the fluctuations. Using the sensing and intuiting scale the individual
can analyze the best job and helps in evaluating the opportunity (Bales, 2016).
Contrary to the above theory, the temperament theory of Dr. David Keirsey describes
temperament as the configuration of noticeable personality characters, attitudes, morals, and
talent of the individuals. It describes the manner the individual communicates to the other.
The temperament describes how the individual perceives itself and to the others. Analyzing
the temperament helps in analyzing our personality and develops effective ways to
communicate with others. This theory helps the individual in developing the personality that
helps to achieve the dreams and the aspirations of the individual. Analyzing the self-
temperament helps the person to be self-aware and can better know about loved ones
(Personality Hacker, 2018).
It includes four temperaments:
The SPs – (Sensing/Perceiving)
The personality is also recognized as ‘artisan’ in line for natural capability or propensity to
outshine in arts. It includes performing of the military, industry, political or the fine arts. It
describes the characteristic of the individual to respond spontaneously to the prevailing
situation. It describes the autonomy to act at the spur of the moment whenever the occasion
arises. It includes the characteristics, which the individual possess, includes adaptability to
the changing situations, ability to see the needs of the moment, and is stimulation seeking
(Gartstein et al, 2016).
The individuals who possess the characteristics of artisan are the individuals who believe to
achieve the goals. They do not focus on the details and aims to get the things done. They

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value the personal relationships but majorly focus to achieve success at the time of intense
competition (Gartstein et al, 2016).
The SJs – (Sensing/Judging)
The people with this personality are known as ‘guardians’ since they proactively serve and
focus to fulfill the needs of the social institutions. They focus on protecting the surrounding
environment and ensure that the needs of the surroundings are met. They have the capabilities
of effectively managing the goods and the services. They have the characteristics of being
conservative, consistent and have the routine to effectively manage the complexities. These
people are hardworking and make sensible decisions that protect the interest of the
surrounding environment. The person with this temperament ensures that all the actions are in
accordance with needs and effectively manages to fulfill all the needs (Reinhold, 2018).
The individuals who possess the qualities of guardians deserve the special authority and
respect in the organization. They are the people who are loyal to the organization and reduce
the potential risk to the organization by developing the methods, channels that provide the
best solutions to the organization (Reinhold, 2018).
The NFs – (Intuitive/Feeling)
The individuals with this temperament are considered as ‘idealist’. These individuals have a
desire for personal growth and development. They are fully concerned with developing the
capabilities and making self-improvement and considers as a motivating power for the
achievement of the actions. According to Dr. David Keirsey, the individual who possesses the
temperament of NFs are concerned about their friends, families and the other groups. They
aim to resolve the interpersonal conflicts and have belongingness with all the other people.
The individual possesses characteristics such as intuitive, creative, and subjective. The person

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is enthusiastic and is sympathetic to others. It has the characteristics of religious and
humanity (Chang, 2019).
The individuals who are idealist aim to achieve the targets by effectively contributing and
aim to maintain harmony and individual growth. It dislikes the organizational structures and
the processes that disrespect the value of the people. It majorly focuses on fulfilling the needs
of the individuals (Chang, 2019).
The NTs (Intuitive/Thinking)
This is the last temperament, which is described under the temperament theory. The
individuals who possess the NTs temperament are considered as ‘rationals’. They possess
problem-solving skills and have a keen interest in learning how to operate the system. These
people are logical in nature and place a greater emphasis on the value objectivity in others.
The individuals possess the characteristic of being introspective and are tough-minded in
solving the problems of the people. They are the people who think rational in everything they
do and make logical decisions. The characteristics that NTs possess include logical,
independent, inventive. These individuals have the analytical skills and efficiently achieve
the objectives. They work in a systematic way and draws logical conclusions (Keirsey, 2018)
This temperament helps the person in searching the better ways to move forward. It is a
process of continuously questioning the status quo and involves the important decisions taken
to attain better things in life. Analysis of the four temperaments helps in understanding the
self-temperament and understanding the temperament of others to effectively communicate
and develop good relations with others. It helps in forming the self-image and defines our
values. It majorly focuses on analyzing the self-image and creating better relations with other
people (Kun, Kiss, and Kapitany, 2015).

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The temperament theory describes the behavior of the individual and helps in analyzing the
career that suits best to its personality. It helps the individual to choose the career where the
person can give maximum output. It provides the opportunity for individuals to be self-aware
and choose their career according to the fulfillment of their needs (Linden, 2016).
From the above discussion, it is analyzed that Myers- Briggs Personality Type is constructed
on the cognitive roles while the Keirsey's model of temperament is centered upon the core
needs of the individuals of being competent and useful. It needs to attain freedom. The Myers
personality type centers on how the people ponder and sense while the temperament theory
focuses on the behavior of the people. It describes the conduct of the people. Another
imperative variance is that Myers practices a linear four-factor model in her clarifications
while Keirsey routines a systems field theory model in his explanations. Keirsey reflects that
whether somebody is attentive or is thoughtful is a much additional significant difference
than whether somebody is sensitive (somewhat interrelated to extroverted) or observant
(somewhat connected to introverted). On the other hand, Myers positioned the utmost
importance on whether or not somebody is extraverted or introverted. The other difference is
the variance amongst ‘function outlooks’ in Myers-Briggs and temperament varieties in
Keirsey’s models (Carbon, 2016).
Therefore, it is concluded that the Myers- Briggs personality type is constructed upon two
dichotomies i.e. rational and irrational functions. It develops 16 types of personalities. It
describes that a person is born or develops a certain way of perception and decision-making.
The Keirsey theory of temperament focuses on behavior rather than thoughts. Both the
models help in choosing the career plan, growth and the development of the humans and
helps in developing the self-awareness of the personality and choosing the career plan
accordingly.

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