By Tessa Hayward
The Myers-Brigg Type Indicator self-assessment is the leading questionnaire in regards to personality (Fernando & Faheem, 2010, p. 7). The test uses the participant’s answers to calculate their lean between four sets of traits, “Extroversion (E) and Introversion (I), Intuition (N) and Sensing (S), Thinking (T) and Feeling (F) amd Judgement (J) and Perception (P)” and sorts them into one of the 16 personality types (André, Baldoquín, & Acuña, 2011, sec. 10; Stephens, 2017, para. 13). Most MBTI test sites, like 16Personalities, have pages explaining the individual personalities in depth, which helps with understanding one’s own personality and communication style.
Knowing your own personality type is useful and helps one understand themselves in an in-depth way. The MBTI questionnaire gives its participants a sense of self-awareness regarding their personality, like whether they prefer to be to oneself or be surrounded by other people or if they prefer acting on their feelings or on facts and more (Stephens, 2017, para. 13). Understanding your own personality type “can help individuals develop acceptance…[in] themselves”, but also being aware of your different personality traits can help shape your approach of interaction and increase the possibility of success in the workforce (Morgan, 2011, para. 15; The Myers & Briggs Foundation, n.d.).
Understanding your own personality type can also help you understand and value other people’s personalities; which is especially useful when working in teams or doing group work. Pearl (as cited in Stephens, S., 2017) noted that (para. 15) the “choices during the MBTI assessment can help you learn how to enhance self-awareness of your own style and those of others around you” and are “less judgmental…to all personality and work styles.” Basically, by discovering your own personality type and understanding what it means regarding your strengths and weaknesses, you become more welcoming of others’ personalities that are different from yours, and can see diversity of personalities in teams as a way of repressing each other’s weaknesses for a more efficient and successful group. Some organisations even use personality testing as a way to determine what job will suit their employee, specifically, it is known that some software development organisations use personality questionnaires to decide which part of the development process they should assign to certain employees (Fernando & Faheem, 2010, p. 7).
Work cited
16Personalities. (2019). 16Personalities’ test and personality type pages [Screenshots]. Retrieved from https://www.16personalities.com/
André, M., Baldoquín, M. G., & Acuña, S. T. (2011). Formal model for assigning human resources to teams in software projects. Information and Software Technology, 53(3), 259–275.
Fernando, C. L., & Faheem, A. (2010). Making Sense of Software Development and Personality Types. IT Professional Magazine, 12(1), 6–13.
Hansel, L. (2019). A man working in a restaurant [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/qbC9hh0aRiY
Morgan, M. (2011). Leveraging Self-Awareness. Strategic Finance, 92(9), 21–23.
Stephens, S. (2017). Personality plus or minus? How to succeed when “everybody”s different’. Biomedical Instrumentation and Technology, 51(2), 135+.
The Myers & Briggs Foundation. (n.d.). The Myers & Briggs Foundation – Learning About Your MBTI®. Retrieved from https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-mbti-results/learning-about-your-mbti.htm?bhcp=1
Communicate the Right Way 