This article is more than 5 years old.
On Friday, March 26th, Andrea Ellis of the the Professional Development Center led a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator workshop for 18 faculty and staff. The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people’s lives.
Types are indicated by four letters representing your preferences. A preference clarity index shows where individuals fall along a continuum in each category.
- Where you focus your attention: (E)xtraversion or (I)ntroversion
- The way you take in information: (S)ensing or I(N)tuition
- The way you make decisions: (T)hinking or (F)eeling
- How you deal with the outer world: (J)udging or (P)erceiving
We started the workshop with a brief description of each type and were asked to self-assess. Then we broke into groups and worked on projects that helped us learn about each category. After that we were given the results of our MBTI test that we were assigned to take online prior to the workshop. I was surprised to learn that even though I had tested as an ENTJ many years ago, I now tested as an ENFP.
This two-hour workshop was both fun and enlightening. Learning not only about my own type but also other types will hopefully help me better understand myself and others. The Professional Development Center can also do a Myers-Briggs workshop for specific departments.
5 Comments on ‘Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ®’
I confess to being INTJ, which I’ve heard is only 2% of the general population but an alarming percentage of library directors. Worse, I’m married to another INTJ and spawned three children who are probably the same. Scary.
I always come out INTJ on these things, even when I try to answer differently! I would expect it to be a pretty popular option for academic librarians, but I didn’t realize it was only 2% of the general population. This may explain why many of my friends and family think I’m a bit odd.
Love it! I’ve been a strong INTP since high school. I’m still nearly 100% I and N, but I’m drifting towards center on the T and P indicators… I’ve always found the test to be really useful, but I’ve also assumed that I think that because I was such an extreme case on each of the letters. 🙂
I learned in library school management class circa 1993 that the most common MBTI in librarians is INFJ. I’ve tested twice an ENTP.
I took the MBTI twice, about ten years apart, and tested as an INFJ both times. According to statistics, this type is found in 1-3% of the population.