Briggs Myers Personality Type
The Briggs Myers four personality trait dimensions are one way to categorize the personality types of different people. According to Briggs and Myers, there are four categories in which your personality type is determined. Each category has two options: Introversion versus extraversion, sensing versus intuition, thinking versus feeling, and judging versus perceiving. First I will focus on the “introvert versus extrovert” category. An introverted person is typically more focused on their inner world and they prefer focusing in depth on specific interests. Writing tends to be the preferred method of communication for an introvert. They may also be more private and enjoy reflecting on ideas. An extrovert, on the other hand, is more attuned to
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the world around them. They prefer verbal communication and enjoy talking through ideas, rather than reflecting on them. Unlike the introvert, who enjoys focusing on specific interests, extroverts are usually interested in many different things and tend to be rather social. Next is the “sensing versus intuition” category. Sensing individuals prefer to focus on what is happening in the present time and would rather focus on facts and concrete details. They would build their way towards a conclusion, rather than jumping towards conclusions. Experience is valuable to a sensing individual. People with an intuitive trait enjoy pondering future possibilities. Conclusions are based off of hunches and tend to be made quickly. Imagination and creativity are important to intuitive people. They may be drawn to patterns and meanings when trying to interpret data, which can help them to remember the facts. After the “sensing versus intuition” category is the “thinking versus feeling” category. People with the thinking trait are generally thought of as “tough-minded.” They are very logical people and prefer to evaluate situations with cause-and-effect reasoning, rather than basing their decision off of personal feelings and values. Thinking people work towards finding the truth and prefer that everyone is treated equally. In contrast, feeling people base their decisions on emotions and values. They have compassion and empathy for others, which leads them to work for individual treatment of everyone. The final category in the Briggs Myers personality types is “judging versus perceiving.” Judging individuals are the people who get pleasure from organization and planning. They tend to be very scheduled people in order to avoid procrastination. The spontaneous people who are always open to new ideas are known as perceiving people. These people are more relaxed and tend to worry less about organization. They view last minute tasks as a challenge that they must accomplish, which allows them to worry less. Understand the different Briggs Myers categories allows one to see that there is a large variety in personality types. According to the Jung typology test, my personality type is INTJ. During my critical life incident, I spent more time reflecting on what was happening, rather than talking to others about what was going on. Revealed in my Critical Life Incident essay was that, “After Jan’s death, it took me a long time to feel comfortable talking to my dad and Jan’s family again. It made me uncomfortable, because I was so used to her being there.” I believe that this supports my introverted personality. Throughout my life, I have always hated discussing upsetting topics with others. I would much rather work through the problem by myself. My introverted personality trait may have been noticeable during the time of the incident, but there were also matters that I dealt with in a way that contradicted my personality type. One quote from my Critical Life Incident essay that contradicts one personality trait is, “As time passed, I started to realize that these people were very important to me and I didn’t want to lose my relationship with them. Jan wouldn’t have wanted that to happen. I began making more of an effort to spend time with them and talk to them.” The decision to keep these people in my life was based off of my personal values, which is contradictory to my thinking personality trait. I also considered how my decision would affect others, rather than only using logic. This quote seems to show that I displayed the feeling personality trait during this particular incident, rather than the thinking personality trait. The Briggs Myers personality traits not only played a role in my critical life incident, but also in the advertisements I chose during part three of the self-awareness project. For my “greatest job” ad, I chose an Evian Water commercial. I believe this advertisement appealed most to my intuitive personality trait. The ad was very imaginative and creative. The roller-skating babies were a creative way to present youth, which I enjoyed. It was also oriented towards future possibilities, because it is implying that drinking Evian Water will allow you to have a more youthful and energetic future. The idea that drinking the water will make a person more youthful can also be viewed as cause and effect reasoning, which appeals to my thinking personality trait. In Appendix 3, my partner and I believed this ad appealed most to the ENTJ personality type. We rated it as a positive two on the extravert side, a negative one on the intuitive side, a positive two on the thinking side, and a positive one on the judging side. The ENTJ personality type is similar to my own personality type of INTJ.
Color versus Personality Type Some people believe that effective advertising is based off of color appeal, rather than personality appeal. In part three of the self-awareness project, we were asked to rate the most dominant color in the ad and give one emotion that we associated with the color. The dominant color in my “poorest job” ad was blue. I rated the color as a four on a scale of one to six, but the word I associated with the color was the word “boring.” Naz and Epps performed a study on ninety-eight college students to observe how color and emotion were related. As quoted from the Naz and Epps 2004 article, “Blue elicited a high number of positive emotional responses, including feelings of relazation and calmness, happiness, comfort, peace, and hope. Many participants associated the color blue with the ocean, beach, sky, or water, thus inducing relaxing and calming effect” (Naz and Epps 2004). While the color blue was associated with a positive emotion in the Naz and Epps article, I still found an ad with a dominant color of blue to be ineffective. An explanation for this could be that personality, rather than color, influenced my dislike for the ad. In part three of the self-awareness project, my partner and I described the Head On advertisement as trying to appeal to the sensing, thinking, and perceiving personality traits. There were no distinct characteristics of the ad that showed whether it tried to appeal to the introvert or extravert side. The fact that the advertisement had sensing and perceiving personality characteristics could be the reason I did not enjoy it. My intuitive personality trait makes me want ideas to be clarified before putting them into practice and it also makes me more drawn to creativity. The Head On commercial had neither clarification nor creativity.
Learning
Classical Conditioning Up to this point, I have only discussed personality; however, as mentioned in the introduction, learning also plays an important role in who a person is. Classical condition is a type of learning that is defined as a process in which an originally neutral stimulus comes to elicit an automatic emotional or reflex response that was originally given to another stimulus. The four parts to classical conditioning are the unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response. In my critical life incident, I had been classically conditioned to have feelings of sadness whenever I saw Jan or thought about her. The unconditioned stimulus during the time of Jan’s illness was seeing her in pain or hearing about her being in pain. This unconditioned stimulus led to the unconditioned response of sadness whenever I saw her in pain or heard about her being in pain. The conditioned stimulus during this time was seeing or thinking about Jan in general, which led to the conditioned response of feeling sadness whenever I saw or thought about her in general.
Operant Conditioning Another type of learning is operant conditioning.
Unlike classical conditioning, operant conditioning is voluntary. There are four types of operant conditioning: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, time-out, and punishment. To become a balanced individual, it is important that we do not let any of our personality traits become skewed too far to one side. For example, my strongest personality trait in thinking, which is at thirty-eight percent. I could use operant conditioning to make myself more balanced between thinking and feeling. Using positive reinforcement, I could try to become more compassionate towards others, which would be my initial response, or R. The initial response would lead to the positive response of making others feel good, which would be the unconditioned stimulus. My unconditioned response would be to continue being more compassionate towards others because it makes them feel good. An example of negative reinforcement would be to start with my initial response, or R, as thinking less analytically. This would lead to a decrease in stress from always thinking analytically, which is my unconditioned stimulus. The decrease in stress would lead me to increase my less analytical thinking, which would be my unconditioned response. An example of time-out would start with the initial response, or R, of being tough-minded. This tough-mindedness would lead to the negative response of losing friends, which is the unconditioned stimulus. My loss of friends would lead to a decrease in my tough-minded behavior, which is the unconditioned response. The last type of operant conditioning is punishment. An example of using punishment to become more balanced would be to start with in initial response, or R, as only thinking reasonably and having no compassion when a friend tells me a problem they are having. This would result in the unconditioned stimulus of my friend yelling at me. My unconditioned response to this situation would be to decrease my
reasonable thinking.
the world around them. They prefer verbal communication and enjoy talking through ideas, rather than reflecting on them. Unlike the introvert, who enjoys focusing on specific interests, extroverts are usually interested in many different things and tend to be rather social. Next is the “sensing versus intuition” category. Sensing individuals prefer to focus on what is happening in the present time and would rather focus on facts and concrete details. They would build their way towards a conclusion, rather than jumping towards conclusions. Experience is valuable to a sensing individual. People with an intuitive trait enjoy pondering future possibilities. Conclusions are based off of hunches and tend to be made quickly. Imagination and creativity are important to intuitive people. They may be drawn to patterns and meanings when trying to interpret data, which can help them to remember the facts. After the “sensing versus intuition” category is the “thinking versus feeling” category. People with the thinking trait are generally thought of as “tough-minded.” They are very logical people and prefer to evaluate situations with cause-and-effect reasoning, rather than basing their decision off of personal feelings and values. Thinking people work towards finding the truth and prefer that everyone is treated equally. In contrast, feeling people base their decisions on emotions and values. They have compassion and empathy for others, which leads them to work for individual treatment of everyone. The final category in the Briggs Myers personality types is “judging versus perceiving.” Judging individuals are the people who get pleasure from organization and planning. They tend to be very scheduled people in order to avoid procrastination. The spontaneous people who are always open to new ideas are known as perceiving people. These people are more relaxed and tend to worry less about organization. They view last minute tasks as a challenge that they must accomplish, which allows them to worry less. Understand the different Briggs Myers categories allows one to see that there is a large variety in personality types. According to the Jung typology test, my personality type is INTJ. During my critical life incident, I spent more time reflecting on what was happening, rather than talking to others about what was going on. Revealed in my Critical Life Incident essay was that, “After Jan’s death, it took me a long time to feel comfortable talking to my dad and Jan’s family again. It made me uncomfortable, because I was so used to her being there.” I believe that this supports my introverted personality. Throughout my life, I have always hated discussing upsetting topics with others. I would much rather work through the problem by myself. My introverted personality trait may have been noticeable during the time of the incident, but there were also matters that I dealt with in a way that contradicted my personality type. One quote from my Critical Life Incident essay that contradicts one personality trait is, “As time passed, I started to realize that these people were very important to me and I didn’t want to lose my relationship with them. Jan wouldn’t have wanted that to happen. I began making more of an effort to spend time with them and talk to them.” The decision to keep these people in my life was based off of my personal values, which is contradictory to my thinking personality trait. I also considered how my decision would affect others, rather than only using logic. This quote seems to show that I displayed the feeling personality trait during this particular incident, rather than the thinking personality trait. The Briggs Myers personality traits not only played a role in my critical life incident, but also in the advertisements I chose during part three of the self-awareness project. For my “greatest job” ad, I chose an Evian Water commercial. I believe this advertisement appealed most to my intuitive personality trait. The ad was very imaginative and creative. The roller-skating babies were a creative way to present youth, which I enjoyed. It was also oriented towards future possibilities, because it is implying that drinking Evian Water will allow you to have a more youthful and energetic future. The idea that drinking the water will make a person more youthful can also be viewed as cause and effect reasoning, which appeals to my thinking personality trait. In Appendix 3, my partner and I believed this ad appealed most to the ENTJ personality type. We rated it as a positive two on the extravert side, a negative one on the intuitive side, a positive two on the thinking side, and a positive one on the judging side. The ENTJ personality type is similar to my own personality type of INTJ.
Color versus Personality Type Some people believe that effective advertising is based off of color appeal, rather than personality appeal. In part three of the self-awareness project, we were asked to rate the most dominant color in the ad and give one emotion that we associated with the color. The dominant color in my “poorest job” ad was blue. I rated the color as a four on a scale of one to six, but the word I associated with the color was the word “boring.” Naz and Epps performed a study on ninety-eight college students to observe how color and emotion were related. As quoted from the Naz and Epps 2004 article, “Blue elicited a high number of positive emotional responses, including feelings of relazation and calmness, happiness, comfort, peace, and hope. Many participants associated the color blue with the ocean, beach, sky, or water, thus inducing relaxing and calming effect” (Naz and Epps 2004). While the color blue was associated with a positive emotion in the Naz and Epps article, I still found an ad with a dominant color of blue to be ineffective. An explanation for this could be that personality, rather than color, influenced my dislike for the ad. In part three of the self-awareness project, my partner and I described the Head On advertisement as trying to appeal to the sensing, thinking, and perceiving personality traits. There were no distinct characteristics of the ad that showed whether it tried to appeal to the introvert or extravert side. The fact that the advertisement had sensing and perceiving personality characteristics could be the reason I did not enjoy it. My intuitive personality trait makes me want ideas to be clarified before putting them into practice and it also makes me more drawn to creativity. The Head On commercial had neither clarification nor creativity.
Learning
Classical Conditioning Up to this point, I have only discussed personality; however, as mentioned in the introduction, learning also plays an important role in who a person is. Classical condition is a type of learning that is defined as a process in which an originally neutral stimulus comes to elicit an automatic emotional or reflex response that was originally given to another stimulus. The four parts to classical conditioning are the unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response. In my critical life incident, I had been classically conditioned to have feelings of sadness whenever I saw Jan or thought about her. The unconditioned stimulus during the time of Jan’s illness was seeing her in pain or hearing about her being in pain. This unconditioned stimulus led to the unconditioned response of sadness whenever I saw her in pain or heard about her being in pain. The conditioned stimulus during this time was seeing or thinking about Jan in general, which led to the conditioned response of feeling sadness whenever I saw or thought about her in general.
Operant Conditioning Another type of learning is operant conditioning.
Unlike classical conditioning, operant conditioning is voluntary. There are four types of operant conditioning: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, time-out, and punishment. To become a balanced individual, it is important that we do not let any of our personality traits become skewed too far to one side. For example, my strongest personality trait in thinking, which is at thirty-eight percent. I could use operant conditioning to make myself more balanced between thinking and feeling. Using positive reinforcement, I could try to become more compassionate towards others, which would be my initial response, or R. The initial response would lead to the positive response of making others feel good, which would be the unconditioned stimulus. My unconditioned response would be to continue being more compassionate towards others because it makes them feel good. An example of negative reinforcement would be to start with my initial response, or R, as thinking less analytically. This would lead to a decrease in stress from always thinking analytically, which is my unconditioned stimulus. The decrease in stress would lead me to increase my less analytical thinking, which would be my unconditioned response. An example of time-out would start with the initial response, or R, of being tough-minded. This tough-mindedness would lead to the negative response of losing friends, which is the unconditioned stimulus. My loss of friends would lead to a decrease in my tough-minded behavior, which is the unconditioned response. The last type of operant conditioning is punishment. An example of using punishment to become more balanced would be to start with in initial response, or R, as only thinking reasonably and having no compassion when a friend tells me a problem they are having. This would result in the unconditioned stimulus of my friend yelling at me. My unconditioned response to this situation would be to decrease my
reasonable thinking.