Introduction to Myers Briggs

This is the index page for the 'powerpoint' introduction to the Myers Briggs model of personality. If you want to review other Myers Briggs articles at our site, consult our Myers Briggs Compendium.

Presentation ContentsPersonality Type

The MBTI does not measure...

The MBTI measures...

We use many personas...

The intrepid explorer...

An overview of Sensing and iNtuition

An overview of Thinking and Feeling

Your favourite two mental muscles

We can use MMs in one of two worlds..

We use our two preferred MMs in each world

E/I says where we use our favourite...

E/I says where we use our favourite

Which MM do you use in the outer world?

The S & N Mental Muscles

Different approaches

In the workplace

Myers Briggs is also a "lens" that we can use to view the world

Typical applications...

The T & F Mental Muscles

Different Approaches

In the workplace

Your favourite mental muscle?

Where do you use your favourite MM?

Different Approaches

In the workplace

Which MM do you use in the outer world?

Which MM do you use in the outer world?

Different approaches

In the workplace

An overview of Sensing and iNtuition

An overview of Thinking and Feeling

Your favourite two mental muscles

We can use MMs in one of two worlds..

We use our two preferred MMs in each world

E/I says where we use our favourite...

E/I says where we use our favourite

Which MM do you use in the outer world?

Putting it all together

Putting it all together for an ENFP...

Putting it all together for an ISTJ...

Drawing the MMD for an ENFP

ENFP continued

ENFP                 "

ENFP                 "

ENFP                 "

ENFP                 "

Personality Types

a fun, graphical introduction to the MBTI

This 'fun' slide & text presentation on personality types will give you an introduction to the theory underlying the MBTI® or Myers Briggs Type Indicator®.

Isabel Briggs Myers' four letter code for personality types is more complex than it may first appear. These slides will explain that complexity. If, however, you want a shorter, simpler explanation, then just click on the "Myers Briggs" link at the bottom of the page to go to our popular description of the four letters.

Use the arrow button above to move to the next slide. There are 46 slides in total (the button above left is a full list of all the slides).

Underneath the descriptive text, on each page, there is a 'bad joke'. If you are of a nervous disposition, please don't read the jokes. We wouldn't want you to injure yourself laughing! If you have a refined sense of humour, we apologise in advance for the poor quality of jokes!

The slides used in this presentation form part of the Personality Types workshops run by Team Technology, based on the MBTI or Myers Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire.

Contrary to popular belief, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator is not a good questionnaire for selecting potential employees. In fact, there are lots of things that the Myers Briggs Type Indicator does not measure, a few examples of which are given in this slide.

Bad Joke: If someone with multiple personality disorder threatens to kill himself, is he also guilty of holding someone "hostage"?

The MBTI is intended to measure your inborn preferences, and no more than that. Understanding your preferences can help you in all sorts of ways, a few examples of which are given here.

The concept of preference is different from the concept of competence. Sometimes you are more competent in things that you prefer (e.g.: in writing with your preferred hand). However, you can - and do - develop competence in your non-preferences.

Bad Joke: Dr Watson's lack of competence in thinking was illustrated when he and Sherlock Holmes were camping. In the middle of the night, Holmes asked Watson what he could see. "Stars" said Watson. "And what does that tell you?" asked Holmes. "That we are small beings in the magnificence of the universe" replied Watson. "You oaf..." replied Holmes "...it should tell you that someone has stolen our tent!"

The MBTI does not dictate the way in which you or other people behave. You behave in different ways in different situations.

Whilst some questionnaires and personality models are concerned with behaviour, the Myers Briggs model of personality is concerned with your inborn preferences. Your behaviour often, but not always, indicates what those preferences are. Every individual is different.

You adapt your behaviour to suit the situation - when going to work, you might adopt your "professional" persona, for example. But at home, you might adopt your "parent" or "spouse" personas, depending on who is in the room.

Some of these personas may be close to the 'real you', whilst others may be quite different. The four letter Myers Briggs code is meant to reflect the "real you" and not just one of your personas.

Bad Joke:

What might seem to be the preferences of a tribal native, when that native is no good at "hunting"?

Finding out your inborn preferences can be quick and easy, or it can take a long time. Cultural, parental and employment expectations influence your behaviour just as much as your inborn preferences. So, if you have the opportunity to complete a questionnaire that indicates your personality type, remember that all questionnaires can be wrong - and this is true of any questionnaire that measures your Myers-Briggs or Jungian type.

If you want the Myers Briggs/Jungian model of personality to be useful to you, you will have to understand both the model and yourself. Doing the questionnaire, or reading these slides, is just one step in understanding yourself better.

Once you understand yourself better, then you can start to understand others in better and more useful ways. Self-awareness is the foundation for being more influential, being a better team player, enjoying life more and making a better contribution to society.

Bad Joke: Why does someone interested in "self-help" go to a "self-help group"?

The next few slides will give you an overview of the Myers Briggs/Jungian model of personality. Then each aspect of the model will be considered in a little more depth.

S, N, T and F are all functions, or "mental muscles" as we like to call them.

S and N are the mental muscles used for "perceiving information". The second letter of your four letter code shows which of these two mental muscles you prefer to use for perceiving information.

Bad Joke: This is how a skunk looks at philosophy: "I stink therefore I am"

Whilst S and N are mental muscles for PERCEIVING information, T and F are mental muscles for JUDGING or making decisions.

The third letter of your four-letter code shows which mental muscle you prefer to use when making decisions.

Bad Joke: A man went to see a doctor, saying "I may have difficult making decisions". The doctor questioned him and the man dithered over every one. "Yes, you're indecisive" concluded the doctor. "OK", said the man, "but can you give me the medical term so I can tell my wife".

You use all four mental muscles, but you tend to favour two, which are indicated by the middle two letters of your code.

Jung observed that survival in the world needs a balance between PERCEPTION (i.e. the S and N mental muscles) and JUDGEMENT (the T and F mental muscles).

Therefore, the 2 favourite mental muscles are never both Perception (i.e. S AND N) or Judgement (i.e. T AND F).

Think what would someone would be like if they hardly made any decisions. They might not even make the decision to get out of bed in the morning!

Therefore, having SN or TF as your two middle letters is discounted, because Jung observed that people need a balance between perception and judgement.

Bad Joke: A factory manager assembled his workforce (of 10 people) and said: "I have some good news - I've got a job to be done that doesn't need any decisions to be made; in fact, the laziest person in the world could do it; so could anyone who is lazy please step forward." 9 of the 10 employees stepped forward. "Why didn't you step forward?" the manager asked, to which the 10th employee replied "I couldn't be bothered".

You can use your mental muscles in one of two worlds: the inner world of thoughts and emotions or the outer world of actions and words

In the Mental Muscle Diagram (MMD), the inner world is shown to be to the left of the line, whilst the outer world is to right.

When drawing a MMD, mental muscles are usually drawn across the line. This is because we use mental muscles, to some extent, in both the inner and outer worlds.

However, Jung observed that people prefer to use them predominantly in one world or the other. That is, when you use the Thinking mental muscle, for example, you usually prefer to use it predominantly either to say or do things, or to develop ideas. Jung would not have expected your preference to be that you use it equally between both worlds.

This does not mean that you don't use Thinking equally between both worlds - your circumstances and training may have resulted in this being the case. Jung's view was that your inborn preference was for one or the other - your preference and actual behaviour are two separate things.

Bad Joke:

If people evolved genetically from apes, why do we still have apes?

Jung observed that, in order to achieve a reasonably balanced personality, you usually use one of your favourite mental muscles in the outer world, and the other in the inner world.

To put it another way, when you are thinking quietly to yourself, you tend to use one mental muscle, and when you are talking to other people you tend to use another mental muscle.

In the Mental Muscle Diagram, this is shown by drawing one of the two preferred mental muscles mostly to the right of the line, and the other mostly to the left.

Bad Joke: I used to be schizophrenic, but we're alright now.

The first letter of your four-letter type code says in which world you like to use your favourite mental muscle.

In this slide, the first letter is "E", which means that the favourite mental muscle is used in the outer world.

In this example, that mental muscle happens to be N - but it could be S or T or F.

Bad Joke: The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts as soon as you get up in the morning and doesn't stop until you get into the office.

In this slide, the first letter of the four-letter code is "I", so the favourite mental muscle is used in the inner world.

In the example, the favourite mental muscle is F, but it could be T or S or N.

Bad Joke: An introvert husband and extravert wife were having difficulties in their relationship. One night, the introvert husband went to bed early and wrote a note for his extravert wife saying "please wake me at 5am, as I have to catch a flight". The next morning, he woke up at 9am, and realised he had missed his flight. He was about to get angry with his wife when he noticed a piece of paper by his side of the bed, that said "it's 5am: wake up".

The fourth letter of your type code says which mental muscle (of your two favourites) you prefer to use in the outer world.

That is, which mental muscle is to the right of the line.

To put it another way: when speaking or doing things, do you tend to use your preferred Judgement mental muscle (T or F), or your preferred Perception mental muscle (S or N)? A preference for using the Judgement mental muscle in the outer world often leads to a planned and organised lifestyle. A preference for using the Perceptive mental muscle in the outer world often leads to a flexible lifestyle that goes with the flow.

Bad Joke: An airline planned it's flights to the last detail so that no human intervention was required. This system reassured passengers greatly, until on one flight a standard announcement message said "you are now being flown at 30,000 feet by the most automated system in the world. We can assure you that nothing can go wron... can go wron... can go wron... can go wron..."

The four letter code invented by Briggs and Briggs-Myers is a cryptic code that reflects a person's inborn preferences for using each of the four mental muscles (S, N, T or F) in each of the two worlds (I - inner, or E - outer)

This may seem a little complicated, but we'll revise the code again, after looking at the meaning of each of the letters in a bit more detail, starting with S and N (on this slide)

Bad Joke: Some men and women have a keen sense of humour: the more you humour them the more they like it.

You use both the Sensing and iNtuition mental muscles.

If you look at the descriptions on this slide, you will see that you use all of these behaviours at some time or other. However, you will tend to use certain behaviours more than others.

Your inborn preferences influence which of these behaviours you use - but so do your upbringing, your training, social/cultural expectations and your employment requirements. You might find it difficult, therefore, to work out whether your inborn preference is for S or for N. This is because (a) you use both S and N and (b) cultural, social and employment expectations, together with your upbringing and training, have also influenced your behaviour.

Bad Joke: Robert F Kennedy once said: "My views on birth control are somewhat distorted by the fact that I was seventh of nine children"

The workplace is just one setting (though a very important one) where your behaviour can be influenced by personality type.

Your preferences may or may not be the biggest influencer of your behaviour at work.

As an analogy, you cannot tell whether someone is left or right handed by seeing which hand they use to change gear in a car. This is dictated by the design of the car itself, and personal preferences have very little influence.

Similarly, circumstances at work may dictate that you behave in certain ways in order to be successful, have good appraisals, etc. etc.. Therefore, looking at your behaviour alone is not sufficient to work out what your preferences are.

Nevertheless, if you can come to understand your inborn preferences, perhaps there may be opportunity to choose or restructure your work so that it plays to your preferences and becomes more enjoyable for you.

Bad Joke: If you are planning to go somewhere, get a large road map. It will tell you everything you need to know... except how to fold it back up again.

Whilst the Myers-Briggs/Jungian model of personality describes certain mental functions, it can also be used as a set of "eyeglasses" to view the world.

Just as you can use red/green glasses to view a 3-D movie, you can also use the Myers Briggs dimensions as a way of viewing human personality more clearly.

The insight gained can help you to take action in order to improve your enjoyment of work. One example, in this slide, concerns work objectives. The insight gained from Myers Briggs could help you understand what types of objectives would be most enjoyable for you. If so, perhaps you could renegotiate your work objectives with your boss.

On the other hand, if you are a boss, then the Myers Briggs model of personality might help you to understand why it is that some employees don't find certain objectives motivating - even if you yourself find them motivating.

For example, an N boss might provide a broad, general objective, leaving room for creativity and innovation. However, this might be demotivating for an S subordinate, who sees the objective as too vague and unclear.

The insight provided by Myers Briggs could provide a language and terminology that enables the boss and subordinate to discuss how they can set objectives that keeps them both happy (rather than just one of them being happy, and the other being dissatisfied).

Bad Joke: Before modern improvements in communication, half the world didn't know how the other half lived. Now that communication has improved, half the world doesn't care.

Enjoyment of work is just one area where the Myers-Briggs/Jungian model of personality can help you.

There are many, many books on how an understanding of personality can help you in particular aspects of life, a few examples of which are given on this slide.

To find out what books are available, go to an on-line bookstore and do a search on "Myers Briggs".

Bad Joke: If you found yourself marooned on a desert island, what book would you prefer to have, to read?

There is only one answer to this question...

...no doubt, this particular book crossed your mind immediately...

The book you would prefer to have is: "Boat building for beginners"

The Thinking and Feeling mental muscles are ways of making decisions, or alternative forms of "Judgement".

You need to make judgements very frequently, whether it is a minor decision, such as "shall I get up or stay in bed?" or a major decision such as "do I like this person enough to marry him/her?"

Bad Joke: A young child watched her single mother voting at the polls. As they left, the child said "you voted for someone you loved". The mother asked "why do you say that?". The child replied: "because you put a kiss by his name".

You use all four mental muscles - Sensing, iNtuition, Thinking and Feeling - irrespective of what is written in your four letter code.

However, according to Jung's theory, you are born with a preference for using certain mental muscles more than others.

You will therefore exhibit all the behaviours listed on this slide at some time or other - the important question (from the Myers Briggs perspective) is "what is your inborn preference?"

Bad Joke: Heredity is something people believe in if they have a bright child.

In the workplace, you may or may not be given opportunity to use your preferred mental muscles.

Sometimes, the job demands that you behave in a certain way, or that you use certain mental muscles when dealing with work issues.

The four letter code does not say how competent you are in using each mental muscle, it just says what your inborn preference is.

You may have produced a four letter code by completing a questionnaire - but remember that all questionnaires can be wrong. What is important is your own conclusion about your inborn preferences. This is much more important that the result of the questionnaire.

Bad Joke: You have to do your own growing up, no matter how tall your grandpa was.

Jung observed that people tend to prefer using one mental muscle above all the others. This slide shows, for each Myers Briggs type, which is the preferred mental muscle.

The preferred mental muscle can be deduced from the four-letter code. However, it is a little bit complicated - the four letter code is just that: a "code" that needs to be deciphered.

How to decipher the code will be explained on the next few slides, and particularly where we discuss the meaning of E/I and J/P.

Bad Joke: People may be able to use all five senses and their sixth sense. But to be successful, you need a seventh: "common".

Your Myers Briggs personality type is a cryptic code that tells you what your favourite mental muscle is.

The code does not give you this information explicitly, but you have to work it out.

There are four mental muscles: S, N, T and F. Which one is your favourite? You can narrow the choice down to two immediately by looking at the middle two letters of your code. For example, if your code is -NF-, then you know that N and F are your two favourite mental muscles. However, what you do not know (yet) is which of those is your favourite.

To work out which of the two middle letters is your favourite, you can use one of two methods. The first is:

Look at the first and last letters:

The SECOND letter is favourite if the code includes: E--P or I--J;

The THIRD letter is favourite if the code includes: E--J or I--P.

E.g.: in an ESFJ, the third letter is favourite (i.e. F).

Confused?

Well, the second method is even more confusing. It involves looking at the meaning of E/I and J/P, and then combining the results together with an additional piece of information:

The E/I of the Myers Briggs code answers the question: do you prefer to use your favourite mental muscle in the outer world (E) or the inner world (I).

The J/P answers the question: is your extraverted function a judging one or a perceptive one?

Additionally, we also know that, of the two preferred functions, one is always extraverted and the other introverted (and one is always a perceptive function, and the other a judging function).

From this information it should be possible to logically deduce the "dominant function" or favourite mental muscle for each four letter code. However, , we once gave this logical conundrum to a group of 17 computer analysts and programmers in a bank - and after 20 minutes they still couldn’t worked it out.

This complexity behind the Myers Briggs code is too hard even for many MBTI practitioners.

Bad Joke: The world spins so fast that no one sits on top of it for very long.

Your favourite mental muscle often dominates your personality (in fact, the technical term for it is: the "dominant" function).

So, as it tends to dominate your personality, whether you use it in the inner or the outer world also has a big impact on your behaviour - and some of the differences between Es and Is are listed on this slide.

When a mental muscle is "dominant", it is the 'boss' of your personality.

Bad Joke: The only male who is "boss" of the family is under three years of age.

We can all Introvert or Extrovert when required. Often, however, we can do the most, best or most enjoyable work when we are using our preferences, rather than our non-preferences.

Being E or I does not mean that we extravert or introvert all the time - it simply means that we probably spend more time extroverting than introverting (or vice-versa). Even an extravert needs time to be alone, and an introvert needs interaction with people. But Is usually need more time alone, and vice-versa for Es.

Bad Joke:

Judge: "What evidence does your client have to support his claim that he is an extravert?"

Lawyer: "His wife will testify that when he has been fishing all day alone, and not got a single bite... he'll admit it openly, your honour".

The final letter of the cryptic code describes which mental muscle is to the right of the line (or, which mental muscle you tend to use when dealing with people).

P means that you tend to use your preferred Perception mental muscle when dealing with people. If your preference is for N, then you use iNtuition when dealing with people. If your preference is for S, then you use Sensing when dealing with people.

Bad Joke: A happily-married man always deals with his wife in the same way: "OK, buy it" or “Yes, my love”.

On the other hand, if your final letter is "J", then you prefer to use your Judgement mental muscle when dealing with people.

If your preference is for T, then you prefer to use Thinking when dealing with people. If your preference is for F, then you prefer to use Feeling when dealing with people.

You now have enough information to work out the favourite mental muscle from the four letter code - though it is not easy (at first)...

(1) The middle two letters describe your two favourite mental muscles.

(2) The J/P letter says which of the two favourites is to the right of the line (and therefore the other one is to the left)

(3) The E/I says whether the favourite mental muscle is on the right of the line (E) or the left (I).

Bad Joke:

Are things that are opposite always opposite?

If the answer is "yes", why do "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing?

Using a Judgement mental muscle in dealing with people tends to lead to a decisive lifestyle. (Judgement does not mean "judgmental" - that is something quite different).

On the other had, using a Perception mental muscle tends to lead to a more flexible lifestyle.

Bad Joke:

A police office once made the error of arresting a judge who went to a party dressed as a convict. The episode taught the cop a valuable lesson - that you should never book a judge by his cover.

This preference also leads to a difference in preferred work style.

Remember: your personality type reflects your preference, not competence.

For example, Ps can be good at planning, and often agree with the importance of plans in certain situations. However, their preference would often be to tackle work in a more flexible manner, if circumstances allowed.

Bad Joke:

A driver was tired and took a break at a motorway service station. As he started to sleep, someone knocked on the window and asked the time. "It's 8:15" he answered.

He tried to go back to sleep and was almost there when there was another knock at the window. "What's the time"? "8:30" the tired driver answered.

He tried to go back to sleep again, but there was another knock on the window. "Could you tell me the time, please?" he was asked. "It is 8:45" the tired driver replied.

Then he wrote on a piece of paper "I do not know the time" and put it in the window. Having deterred people from asking the time, he then went to sleep.

10 minutes later there was another knock at the window. "Hey, there" the voice said, "it's nearly nine o'clock"!

Having been through each of the four letters in a little more detail, let us now revise the overview, and then continue to "unlock" the four letter cryptic code....

S, N, T and F are mental muscles

S and N are ways of Perceiving

T and F are ways of Judging

You use all four mental muscles, but you tend to favour two, which are indicated by the middle two letters of your code.

You can't tell directly from the code which is your favourite and which is your 2nd favourite. However, this can be deduced from the 1st and last letters, which act as a "formula" to help you work out which is the favourite.

The first letter of your four-letter code describes where you use your favourite mental muscle: in the inner world of thoughts and emotions or the outer world of actions and words

E.g.: if your favourite mental muscle is Thinking, do you use it in the outer world, spontaneously saying and doing things, or do you use it in the inner world, spontaneously cogitating and developing thoughts and ideas (without saying or doing anything about them)

Suppose someone has a type code that includes: -NF-. Jung observed that, because of the need for balance in one's life, one of those functions tends to be used mostly in the outer world, and the other in the inner world.

In the example on this slide, N is used in the outer world and F in the inner.

The first letter of the code says where we use our favourite mental muscle.

In this example, the first letter is E.

The ellipse in the outer world is therefore drawn bigger and higher-up than the one in the inner world, to show that it is used more often.

In this example, the first letter of the type code is I, so the ellipse in the inner world is drawn higher and bigger than the other one, to show that it is used more often.

The last letter of the code shows which mental muscle appears to the right of the line. That is:

If J, then (T or F) appears to the right

If P, then (S or N) appears to the right

Bad Joke:

A lady arrived at a train station to catch a train at 5:20. The clock outside the station said "5:12", so she went and bought a coffee.

Two minutes later she walked on to the platform, to see the train departing and the platform clock showing "5:22". She asked the platform attendant why the clock showed the wrong time, to which he replied: "why would we need two clocks if they showed the same time?"

The four letter code therefore provides cryptic answers to four questions. Although the code does not say specifically which is your favourite mental muscle, it can be deduced.

In this example, ENFP, the favourite mental muscle is N.

This is deduced by saying:

(1) N and F are the two favourite mental muscles

(2) The P says that the perception mental muscle (i.e. N) is in the outer world

(3) The E says that the mental muscle in the outer world is the favourite one

As N is in the outer world, N is therefore the favourite.

In this example, ISTJ, the favourite mental muscle is S.

This is deduced by saying:

(1) S and T are the two favourite mental muscles

(2) The J says that the judgement mental muscle (i.e. T) is in the outer world

(3) The I says that the mental muscle in the inner world is the favourite one

As T is in the outer world, S is therefore in the inner world, and S is therefore the favourite.

The next few slides show you how to draw the Mental Muscle Diagram, using ENFP as an example.

Step 1: Draw a dotted line down the centre of the page

Step 2: If the first letter is E, draw a big ellipse at the top right. If the first letter is I, draw the big ellipse at the top left

Step 3: Draw the next ellipse on the other side of the line, a bit smaller, and a bit lower down

Step 4: If the last letter is P, write the 2nd letter of the code in the ellipse on the right. If the last letter is J, write the 3rd letter of the code in the ellipse on the right.

Step 5: Whichever of the middle two letters you have not yet used, write it in the other ellipse.

Steps 6 and 7: Draw 2 more ellipses, getting smaller down the page, and alternating on either side of the line.

Write in the remaining mental muscles - putting the one 'opposite' the favourite in the ellipse at the bottom. e.g.: if the favourite is N, put S at the bottom; if the favourite is T, put F at the bottom.

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