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LESSON
Personality, Style,
Personality, Style, 2
and Interactions 2
and Interactions
Types of Personalities and Styles Quick Write
As you’ve grown, you’ve no doubt become more aware
that personality is a big part of who you are. Personality
includes your actions, opinions, beliefs, biases, desires, and
ambitions. It is the foundation of your attitudes and
behaviors. It’s what you are and what you show to others. Draw a big circle on a blank
Personality determines what you like to do in school as well sheet of paper. Label the circle
as in your spare time. It determines what you want to do in “Me.”Inside the circle, write
life. Your personality is a set of distinctive traits and behaviors five words that describe your
that make you the person you are. Just as no two people have personality. Are you outgoing
the same fingerprints, no two people have exactly the same or shy? Do you like to make
personality. You are different from every other human being plans or just hang loose?
who has ever existed. Do you try to analyze other
people and events, or are you
a “live-and-let-live” kind of
person? Then pair up with
someone in your class who
knows you pretty well. See
if that person agrees with
the personality traits you’ve
chosen.Which ones would
they change? Why?
Learn About...
B
• types of personalities
and styles
• a basic personality
model
Your personality is unique—you are different from every other • how personality type
human being who has ever existed. influences actions
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Psychologists, who study the mind and behavior, have long
Learn About... known that each person is unique. But these experts also
Bknow that people are similar in certain ways. They call these
• how personality similarities personality preferences. A preference is the way you
affects interactions tend to think and act. When personality preferences correspond
• the value of different to an identified pattern, they are called personality types.
kinds of personalities A personality type is a recognizable set of traits that psychologists
and styles believe can help you understand who you are and, to some extent,
predict the kind of life you’ll lead. You could think of it as a model
that people tend to follow in their thoughts and behaviors.
A personality type isn’t a crystal ball. It doesn’t predict the
future. It certainly shouldn’t dictate how you must live your
life. Nevertheless, personality-typing models can be useful
Vocabulary B tools. They can help you figure out which areas you might
really like or do well in. For this reason, personality typing can
• preference help you with important decisions, such as choosing a career.
• personality type Think of it this way: Say you like clothes—you enjoy
• extraverted everything about them. For the time being, that personality
• introverted type might make you a trendsetter. Your friends might turn
to you for fashion advice. So it might be natural for you to
• sensing think about working as a salesperson or manager in a clothing
• interaction store, as a clothing designer, a fashion model, or as a buyer for
a retail clothing chain. Or if you enjoy sports, you might want
to choose a career that would put you close to sports. You
could, of course, aim for a career as an NBA pro. But other,
more-realistic choices include coaching, owning a sporting-
goods store, or being the pro at the local golf course.
Your high-school guidance counselor might give you an opportunity
to take a personality assessment.
Courtesy of David Young-Wolff/PhotoEdit
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You feel comfortable doing what you like. That’s why personality typing is useful.
It helps you identify your preferences.
A Basic Personality Model
In the 1940s, Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katherine Cook Briggs, developed
® ®
the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator , or MBTI . They based the MBTI on the work
of a Swiss psychologist named Carl Jung. He believed that you could categorize
people’s personalities based on certain personality traits and on the ways in which
people describe their own motivations.
The MBTI helps people identify their personality preferences and therefore their
personality types. Businesses use the MBTI when they’re hiring. It helps them
know if there’s a good fit between a job applicant and their workplace. Schools
and universities use the MBTI for career counseling.
The MBTI is useful for high school students, too. It can help you understand
what type of person you are. It can help you better understand your strengths
and weaknesses. A counselor at your school might give you an opportunity to
take the MBTI assessment. It could help you decide what to major in at college
or which career path to follow.
Using the MBTI
To use the MBTI to figure out your personality type, you must first answer four
key questions. These questions are called dimensions. For each dimension, you choose
one of two options. After you select your four options, you assemble a four-letter
code (one letter representing each dimension) that describes your personality type.
Let’s look at the four dimensions and two choices that each dimension provides.
1. Where do you direct your energy?
If you are extraverted (E), you prefer to direct your energy to people, things, activities,
or the “outer world.” If you are introverted (I), you prefer to direct your energy to ideas,
information, explanations, and imagination, or the “inner world.”
Everyone is a mix of both: There’s no such thing as a complete extravert or introvert.
Most people, though, instinctively prefer the outer or the inner world. Which do
you prefer?
2. How do you like to process information?
If you’re like the detective who wants “just the facts, ma’am,” you prefer sensing (S).
A preference for sensing means you take in the world through sights, sounds, smells,
textures, and tastes. You base your thinking and behavior on what’s going on around
you. You’re interested in details.
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If you like to think about mysteries rather than actually go out on the streets and
solve them, you may have a preference for intuition (N). (Since the letter I has already
been used for “introverted,” the MBTI uses the letter N for “intuition”). Intuition
is a type of knowledge you get from thinking deeply and trusting your inner voice.
If you have a preference for intuition, you like to deal with ideas, look into the
unknown, generate possibilities, or make guesses. You seek to understand and
interpret. You’re more concerned about the big picture than with details.
Just as no one is a pure extravert or pure introvert, no one is all sensing or all
intuition. Each person, however, naturally favors one over the other. Which
do you favor?
3. How do you make decisions?
If you make decisions based on logic and analysis, you decide things using thinking (T).
You think about things in absolutes: black or white, true or false.
If you prefer to make decisions based on your values and personal beliefs, you decide
based on feeling (F). You see the world in shades of gray. You like to use your own ideas
as a basis for decisions.
Both thinking and feeling are in everyone’s personality. You use both kinds of decision
making, but you probably have a natural tendency to pick one style over the other.
Which is it?
4. How do you organize your life?
If you like your life to be well planned, you prefer to use judgment (J). You organize
your environment and you are always prepared. You like to sort your baseball cards
and categorize your CDs. You might keep a diary or daily log. You like making lists.
You like to make decisions.
If you prefer to be flexible and to take the world as it comes, you are apt to use
perception (P). You like to go with the flow. People say you’re open-minded. You
seek challenges. When plans change at the last minute, you easily adjust.
Everyone uses judgment and perception to organize daily life. No one could get along
without them. But even though you know planning is necessary, it might not come
naturally to you. If so, you might be a P. But if you love making “to do” lists and
checking off each task, you’re probably a J. Which one are you?
Once you’ve chosen your personality preferences in each of the four dimensions,
you combine the letters to get your own “unofficial” MBTI personality type.
If you put together the personality types in all their possible combinations, you get
16 four-letter MBTI codes. These 16 combinations are often presented in the form
of the following table.
For example, INTJ indicates that you prefer Introversion, iNtuition, Thinking,
and Judging.
150 CHAPTER 4 | Understanding Your Actions
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