(A Myers-Briggs Love Story), I'm still here!
To quote the great American humorist Mark Twain (1835-1910), "The rumors of my death (or in my case abandonment of blogging) have been greatly exaggerated." Though the last time I published a post on this site was October 3, 2017
(A Myers-Briggs Love Story), I'm still here!
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Have you ever asked the question "What personality type should I marry, or make sure I don't marry?" Or if you are already married, did you ever ask it while single?
Of all the questions asked on websites or in other publications about personality type, this is probably the most common. It's certainly the one I've seen the most! There seem to be almost as many supposed type - related keys to a successful marriage as there are type preferences. For instance some people say Introverted and Extraverted types are best together. Others say that two people should have the same middle two letters and that their other two letters should be opposites, as in the pairing of INFJ and ENFP. Have you ever thought about what, if any, influence your personality type might have on your behavior as a voter, including which candidates you vote for? Whoa, don't panic! This will not be a post on politics, who I voted for, or who I think you or anyone else should have voted for. In fact, no candidates at all will be named in this post, so you can relax! I will, however,
share a few thoughts about what the recent election has taught me about myself and about the influence of my type preferences on my voting behavior. Have you ever come upon a scene that just did not make any sense, and was confusing to the point of being funny? I took this amusing photo in August during a popular jazz festival, held behind one of San Antonio's malls for several Friday nights each summer. During intermission the interior of the mall provides the audience with a respite from the often brutal South Texas heat, as well as some interesting shopping. It was during intermission one night that I saw a business owner closing up and apparently forgetting to take down the Open sign. This scene not only gave me a photo and a good laugh, but a quick reminder of a personality type truth: Judging types enjoy closure while Perceiving types enjoy keeping their options open. Judging types are most comfortable with closure, when life is settled and decided. They like a sense of being in control of their lives through planning, setting goals, organizing, scheduling and deciding. Surprises may not be welcome, though I am referring more to something like an unforeseen change in office policies than to a surprise birthday party. Those who prefer Judging want closure even when their data are not yet complete. Take the case of a high school Senior, for instance. A Judging student will be more comfortable and relaxed once the decision about which college to attend has been made. He or she may even be in a hurry to choose a college when there are still many good and interesting ones to be researched. In contrast, those with preferences for Perceiving are most comfortable keeping their options open and taking a flexible and tentative approach to life. They enjoy a sense of letting life happen and experiencing it through being spontaneous and through inquiring, absorbing, adapting and being undaunted by surprises. They tend to resist closure, wanting instead to gather more data. Our high school student, should Perceiving be his or her preference, would be happiest continuing to research colleges and waiting as long as possible to decide even after several strong possibilities present themselves. Perceiving types, wanting more and more data before making a decision, could be called information junkies! On the other hand those with a preference for Judging can be much quicker to make a decision with much less information. It would be interesting to know the type preferences of the hundreds of people who waited an average of 1 1/2 hours in line during the first day of early voting last week in San Antonio. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the majority of these people who already had sufficient information to vote and wanted to get it over with have a preference for Judging. The Judging - Perceiving dichotomy tells us much more than how flexible or quick to make decisions someone is, however. For instance knowing which pole of the dichotomy someone's preference falls on will help us determine the different types of work, and types of tasks inherent in all work, one will be most comfortable and satisfied with. A table on p. 288 of the MBTI(R) Manual illustrates this nicely. (Myers, Isabel Briggs, Mary H. McCaulley, Naomi L. Quenk and Allen L. Hammer. MBTI(R) Manual. Mountain View, CA: CPP, Inc., 2009.) Judging types work best when they can plan their work and follow the plan. They like to get things settled and finished, may decide things too quickly, and may not like to interrupt the project they are on for a more urgent one. On the other hand those with a preference for Perceiving adapt well to changing situations. They prefer leaving things open for alterations, may unduly postpone decisions, and may start too many projects and have difficulty finishing them. Which of these lists sounds like you? I can definitely relate to the Judging list! The Manual also contains similar tables describing how the other dichotomies (Extraversion - Introversion, Sensing - Intuition, and Thinking - Feeling) effect work situations. Is it any wonder that one of the MBTI tool's major uses is in career counseling? Sometimes we can see type preferences in our animal friends. In the animal world I see the dog as a Judging type. When a dog performs tricks or obeys his master in expectation of receiving a reward, he is in a sense following a plan in hope of achieving a goal. That goal is to receive a treat or other reward in exchange for a desired behavior. As an illustration of Perceiving types, the first animal to come to my mind is the cat. This is far from a perfect comparison since cats do NOT like changes in their environments or routines. But it would be hard to think of a more curious and investigative animal than the cat. We've all heard the expression "Curiosity killed the cat"! The contrast between Judging and Perceiving can also be compared to a living room window at someone's home or apartment. When the room is comfortable with an agreeable temperature and smell, the window is kept shut or opened just a bit so that the room's pleasant ambiance can remain unchanged. This is like a Judging type who wants fairly quick closure so the comfortable characteristics of his life won't be disturbed or changed. Getting a little bit of new data is like letting in just a bit of air. But when a room is too hot or stuffy and in need of some fresh air, the window is opened wide so breezes and smells which might make it more pleasant are free to enter, creating new and exciting sensory possibilities. The window may be left open for quite a while if the outside environment is pleasant. This is like a Perceiving type feeding his or her seemingly endless appetite for new data. The letter J or P at the end of our type code does more than tell us whether the Closed or Open part of the sign in my photo best describes our personality. By telling us whether we prefer Judging or Perceiving, it also tells us whether our Judging preference (the third letter in our type code, T or F) or Perceiving preference (the second letter, S or N) is visible to the outside world. In the case of those who prefer Introversion, the letter pointed to is our auxiliary preference which helps us navigate the outside world while our dominant preference operates in our inner world. Those who prefer Extraversion, on the other hand, readily show everyone their dominant preference which is at home in the outside world. This is why those who prefer Introversion can, not necessarily deliberately, often fool people into thinking they prefer Extraversion. We all extravert either our Perceiving or Judging preference, and that is what the world sees. This can sometimes give the impression that Introverts with extraverted Feeling (such as ISFJ or INFJ), which allows them to connect well with others, are Extraverts. But an Introvert is really extraverting his or her auxiliary or secondary self, which is like a passenger helping the driver of a car navigate. The driver or dominant preference is hidden in the person's inner world. The reverse rarely happens, though. Extraverts are unlikely to be mistaken for Introverts since their dominant preference is extraverted. "What you see is what you get".
So as you see, the terms Judging and Perceiving, the letters J and P, have quite a bit hidden behind them. In fact, one's whole approach to the outer world is revealed by these words and letters. Once we know the fourth letter of someone's type code, the mystery of his or her orientation to the outer world is no longer an open case. In the words of Sherlock Holmes, it becomes elementary. There will be no need for both the signs in my photo, only the one at the top. Case closed! Do you ever wonder what the concepts of personality type look like in real life? I love those moments when I witness someone saying or doing something that just screams out the characteristics of one preference or another.
I recently had a conversation with a coworker which I thought beautifully illustrated the differing perspectives of Sensing and Intuitive types. I don't actually know the type preferences of my coworker, but thought what he said was the embodiment of how a Sensing type views life. Since the majority of people do prefer Sensing, it would probably be safe to guess that he does as well! How does a woman go, in a matter of weeks, from being passed over for a part - time job at a fast food restaurant chain for which she once worked, to being hired as a blogger for one of the Web's most popular personality type sites? It's an amazing, amusing story, and best of all, true! But perhaps we should start at the beginning......
The Big Five, or Five Factor Model, is a popular personality assessment which is very different from the MBTI(R) tool. It causes a lot of confusion about what the MBTI assessment is and what's really important in a personality assessment. Do you think it is more important to know whether you prefer Extraversion or Introversion, which you can learn with the help of the MBTI tool, for example, or how high your score on Extraversion is on the Big Five? How about whether you prefer Sensing or Intuition, or how high your openness to experience score is?
It's enough to make a grown woman (or man) cry, or at least scratch our heads as they spin in confusion. Help! But don't despair. This barrage of seemingly confusing and contradictory concepts is easier to make sense of than it looks! Step II(TM) the Land Without Pigeonholes or Stereotypes - the Land of the Step II(TM) Assessment!6/28/2016 Most of us who are familiar with the MBTI(R) personality inventory probably hate the possibility of being pigeonholed, defined by my dictionary as being assigned to a definite place in an orderly system, on the basis of our type preferences. We hate hearing the Indicator accused of pigeonholing, because we know that's absolutely not what it's all about. We probably also hate Pigeonhole's close relative, Stereotype, who stays busy making judgments about us on the basis of our four-letter type codes or individual preferences.
The perfect antidote to this is found in going deeper into personality than our four-letter type codes. In my last post I mentioned the MBTI(R) Step II(TM) tool, which provides useful individualized type results. Perhaps you saw this, found it intriguing and made a mental note to Google Step II(TM) and learn more about it. Wait! I'll join you to take a closer look at this awesome assessment. So let's Step II(TM) it! Lachman, Gary. Jung the Mystic. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2010.
While shopping at Half Price Books on February 5, 2014, I saw an intriguing book called Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimension of Carl Jung's Life and Teachings. Despite having a degree in psychology, at the time I had never read a biography of Jung, the renowned Swiss psychiatrist whose name is often mentioned in the same breath as Freud's, and could count on one hand the facts I knew about him. Among these was the role that the translation of his work on psychological types into English, in 1923, had in helping spur the mother - daughter team of Briggs and Myers to develop the personality assessment named after them. The time seemed right to buy a biography of Jung and finally this spring was the right time to begin reading it. For someone like me who wanted to flesh out my scanty knowledge of Jung's life, which extended from July 26, 1875 to June 6, 1961, the book proved an admirable assistant. It covers his family of origin, his youth, education and early career, his marriage and children, his writings, his rise to fame, and his relationships with other notable people such as Freud. It concludes by covering his old age, death, and how his teachings are continuing to live on, including a discussion of the publication of Jung's The Red Book in 2009. One of the best - kept secrets about getting older is the beautiful blossoming and balancing that takes place in healthy personalities as we move through life. People who, as high school students, had a very clear preference for Introversion, perhaps to the point of shyness and discomfort around others, will enjoy the company of other people more as they approach middle age. They may even learn what it's like to desire the life of a social butterfly - for an hour or two, anyway!
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Gayle Weinraub is a resident of San Antonio, Texas who has been passionate about
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