The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

This increasingly popular personality test was developed by Katherine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers (Champagne & Hogan, 1979) during World War II and is currently being used to test two millions people annually (Hanley, 2007). The test presents a series of questions designed to find out our natural personality type, specifically, where we prefer to direct our energy (extroversion or introversion), how we process information (sensing or intuition), how we make decisions (thinking or feeling), and how we prefer to organise our life (judging or perceiving).

Firstly, I attained a high score for the introversion dimension. This suggests that I have a strong preference for introversion over extroversion. Individuals with a preference for introversion are quiet, diligent at working alone, and socially reserved (Champagne & Hogan, 1979). In my case, I do prefer to keep quiet instead of talking and I also am comfortable with working alone. Champagne & Hogan (1979) also states that introverts need time alone to formulate ideas before presenting them. This description really matches my personality and communication style. For instance, when a teacher asks the whole class a question, even though I pretty much know the answer but I would be cautious before answering and confirm the answer in my head. Before I could raise my hand another student has taken my chance. Therefore according to Champagne & Hogan (1979), introverts have strengths in being independent, careful of planning and before acting. Their weaknesses are easily being misunderstood by others and losing opportunities to act.

Secondly, my score for the sensing dimension was slightly higher than the intuition one. These dimensions describe how individuals would perceive information. The sensing type prefers the concrete, factual, structured, becoming impatient with theory and the abstract (Champagne & Hogan, 1979). Their strong points lie in their