Researchers and psychologists have developed an array of questionnaires that can be used as tools for self-awareness. The Meyers Briggs Personality Type Indicator is an instrument developed by two brilliant women at the beginning of the twentieth century. What is the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator and what does it tell you about how you show up?
Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Meyers were a mother and daughter team who began creating a test based upon the work of Carl Jung in the 1910s and first published Briggs Myers Type Indicator Handbook in 1944. Carl Jung’s work identified four different cognitive areas and an orientation of introversion or extroversion.
The origins of the Meyers-Briggs test were revealed in a 2018 NPR story are fascinating. Katharine Cook Briggs was a college-educated homemaker who wrote and administered questionnaires to parents of children in her social circle. She compiled the answers and used the data to create types. As Briggs struggled with the transition of her life after her daughter Isabel left for college, she found out about the work Carl Jung, a psychoanalyst from Switzerland and even wrote him to clarify questions about his work. As a result of Briggs’s work, takers of the test would learn which of the 16 personality types they had.
Isabel Briggs Meyer developed a version of the test that people–especially women–could use to analyze the type of work they were most suited for based on their type. Today, the Meyer-Briggs Type Indicator is popular and a widely-used by everyone from secondary school guidance counselors, intuitive healers and career counselors. It’s also a way to participate in challenges and social media. In fact, once you know your type you can even buy any form of merchandise to proudly declare your type.
The test asks many questions from four key areas that determine whether your cognitive learning styles are:
Introverted or Extroverted; Sensing or Intuition; Thinking or Feeling; Judging or Perceiving.
Those of you who aced statistics class (showing out!) will have already figured out that are 16 possible combinations. They are:
| ISTJ | ISFJ | INFJ | INTJ |
| ISTP | ISFP | INFP | INTP |
| ESTP | ESFP | ENFP | ENTP |
| ESTJ | ESFJ | ENFJ | ENTJ |
You can take the test for free in many places around the web and many state workforce employment offices and college placement offices offer it as well.
Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels.