MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator)

I had a lovely dinner this evening with a friend who has just finished up her graduate work here and is moving on to Chicago in pursuit of bigger and better things.  While at the dinner, I met several of her friends who I didn’t know beforehand.

One interesting topic that came up a couple of different times was that of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (essentially a personality type classification scheme).  Apparently, a couple of them are really interested in it.  I then go home and find out that Em had just read a few articles about the MBTI test and librarians.

I had taken this at least a couple of times, but it has been a while (years).  But since it happened to come up twice in the same night, I decided that now was as good a time as any to find a free online test to give me my personality type.

So it turns out that I am an ENTJ:

• Extrovert over introvert – distinct (67%)
• Intuition over sensing – moderate (25%)
• Thinking over feeling – slight (12%)
• Judging over perceiving – moderate (33%)

Now, of course, there are problems with these kinds of tests.  Sometimes individuals answer how they think they are or how they want to be instead of how they are.  Many of these questions could be interpreted in multiple ways – given a specific situation for some of the questions, I could have easily answered many of them in different ways.  Some of them are worded in ways which might bias individuals in one direction of another.  This also doesn’t address a lot of the complexities of different individuals (though a 16-type scheme is fairly complex).

All that being said, it was still a fun and interesting little test to take.  According to the website, I should be pursuing business management, management of education, politics, law, counseling, or higher/post-secondary education.  Seems fitting?

Try out the test!

What are you??

Do you buy the whole idea of the MBTI?