Personality Testing

Personality Testing

Amy Williams

PSY 330

Professor Ma

July 31, 2011

What is personality type? Webster dictionary states personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of people. There are so many different types of personalities so when different personalities come together for a common goal it can be balanced or disorganized. Being able to understand the different personality types can help the group balance the different personalities in the group. It is important to have different personalities in the group to have us look outside our own comfort zones.

Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine Cook Briggs developed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. They wanted an instrument that would put into use Carl Jung’s work. Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who wanted to understand the differences among people. Jung’s instrument is one of the most widely used for understanding personality differences and would put into effect for self understanding, team building, problem solving, counseling, and diversity.

Jung believed that our personalities had two major attitudes extroversion and introversion. Introverted people respond mainly to internally oriented stimuli and their own ideas and inner thoughts. Extroverted people responded mainly to external stimuli such as social situations and ideas from other people. Introverted people have their feelings hurt easily, regularly daydream, and worry a great deal, blush easily, worry about what others think of them, and are not comfortable in social situations. Extroverted people do not easily have feeling hurt, make friends easily, like being the center of attention, don’t worry too much, not worried about what people think of them, and they usually laugh quite often.

The personality test separates the traits into one of eight categories that are paired with four dimensions that contain two opposite traits. The purpose of the test is discovering whether or not a...