Discover Your Personality Type (MBTI)

Myers-Briggs personality types are based on the work of famed Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung who founded analytical psychology. I became interested in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) during my PhD studies, primarily due to the work of Prof. Walter Lowen, who wrote Dichotomies of the Mind. Another book that influenced me is Please Understand Me by David Kiersey.

I recently presented this material and collected and analysed the results of a "quick and dirty" personality test (from NASA)  that I gave to 75 members of  the Freedom Point Discussion Group and the Philosophy Club at The Villages, FL. (Note: The NASA site from which I obtained the test was at http://mijuno.larc.nasa.gov/dfc/mb.html but it no longer appears to be available for unknown reasons.)

The results are interesting!

The graphic above compares the test results for the entire set of 75 people (top pie) with Male-only (bottom left pie) and Female-only (bottom right pie) results. (REFERENCE DATA from a much larger sample are listed in the gray boxes.)

Note that:

• Males in The Villages have slightly higher representation among the "SJ" class (Sensing-Judging "Guardians" who are "Duty-Seeking") than Females, but 
• Females are considerably more represented among the "SP" class (Sensing-Perceiving "Artisans" who are "Stimulation-Seeking")

Note also that:

• Females in The Villages have a slightly higher representation among the "NF" (iNtuitive-Feeling "Idealists" who are "Meaning-Seeking"), but
• Males are considerably more represented among the "NT" (iNtuitive-Thinking "Rationals" who are "Knowledge-Seeking".

Of course, my sample is of only 75 people, all retirees here in Central Florida. Compare my results with a larger REFERENCE DATA sample from http://www.knowyourtype.com/myers-briggs-percentages/ and notice that:

• The Villages group has about the same percentage of "SJ" (46.7% vs 46.4%) as the REFERENCE DATA, but more than double the "SP" (38.0% vs 16.5%). 
• The Villages group has only slightly more "NF" (12.0% vs 10.4%) than the REFERENCE DATA, but only about 1/8th the percentage of "NT" (3.3% vs 27%)

The above results may be due to the fact that I used a "quick and dirty" test while the REFERENCE DATA made use of a more complete MBTI test protocol. The fact that The Villages group are all retirees and considerably older than average may also contribute to the differences.

You may download my PowerPoint Show that includes the test and detailed results at: this site. I hope you take the test and report your results and make comments to this blog posting. advTHANKSance!

By the way, my MBTI type is "ENTP" called the "Suspector" or "Inventor" (and part of the "NT" class). According to the REFERENCE DATA, only about 3.2% of the total population is "ENTP" (about 4% of Males and 2.4% of Females), so I am pretty rare! An interesting website (http://www.celebritytypes.com/) shows images of "Famous People" who are supposed to be of various MBTI types (although most of them could not have taken the actual MBTI test since they lived well before its advent). In any case, I was "proud" to be in the company of the "ENTP" folks pictured below:

(However, the current President of the United States is also supposed to be of the "ENTP" type by that website. OY! :^)

Ira Glickstein