The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

I've always been obsessed with personality assessment. As a child I would visit the library and return home with piles of books on the topic. None of them had any scientific validity, though I neither knew nor cared. My favorite was The Color Code by Taylor Hartman, which I practically knew by heart. And although it wasn't scientifically based, I learned much about myself and others through its pages.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me and is familiar with the book that I am a white-blue, with a little red and no yellow. I have always been drawn to other people who are white-blue combinations. They are kind, empathetic, and reflective. I've always disliked reds and desperately try to avoid them. Their narcissism and controlling attitudes are distasteful to me. As for yellows, I neither like nor dislike them, having no common ground to forge a relationship. That being said, I have good friends from both the yellow and red groups, but their dominant color is toned down by either blue or white aspects of their personalities.

My latest obsession in personality assessment is the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory. I first became acquainted with it as a college student, but my interest was recently rekindled when I discovered of a book co-written by one of the original test designers, Isabel Briggs Myers. Like most personality tests, the MBTI has little scientific basis. However, it has been widely used in both career counseling and corporate setings.

According to Myers, people differ primarily on four measures: Introversion (I) vs. Extroversion (E), Intuition (N) vs. Sensing (S), Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F), and Judgement (J) vs. Perception (P). The various combinations create 16 basic personality types.

Although I've probably never taken the official Myer-Briggs test, I have taken several online copycats. I always get the same results: INFJ. Jared and Makenna have taken the tests with the same results. The crazy thing is that supposedly only 1% of the population are INFJs.

According to the test authors, INFJs-

*Are driven by their inner vision of the possibilites

*Are determined to the point of stubborness

*Are intensely individualistic but take pains to harmonize their individualism to their environment.

*Are deeply discontented in a routine job that offers no scope for inspiration.

*Are gifted, at their best, with fine insight into the deeper meaning of things and with a great deal of drive.

The graphs below contain some basic information about the 16 personality types.