MBTI & Social Styles
- This dichotomy identified by Jung determines whether an individual is inwardly or outwardly focused: introverted or extroverted. Extroverted individuals tend to love attention and being actively involved in a variety of events or activities. They enjoy groups and have wide social circles. Introverted people have stronger tendencies toward solitary behavior, or they enjoy doing things more with one or two others they feel comfortable with. Introverts tend to be highly reflective and prefer getting to know a few people very well over having a large pool of acquaintances.
- The MBTI suggests that there are two leading ways in which we can process information: sensing or intuition. Someone who is identified as a "sensing" individual pays close attention to his five senses and the physical reality around him. These individuals tend to be pragmatic and experience oriented. When solving problems, they examine tangible facts first before forming the big picture. "Intuitive" individuals pay closest attention to meaning between the lines or patterns of information. They prefer to think problems through over hands-on approaches. These individuals tend to see the big picture first and then find out the facts. Sensing types tend to have more difficulty than intuitives in reading the subtext of certain conversations or social situations, but intuitives can get more bogged down in new possibilities when problem solving.
- The MBTI identifies two leading methods for decision making: thinking and feeling. Thinkers prefer to be consistent and logical when making decisions, analyzing the facts and listing pros and cons. They often believe the truth is more important than tact, and this can occasionally lead to conflict. Thinkers can at times be seen as too task oriented and not empathetic enough to other people involved in the problem solving. Feeling individuals, on the other hand, are more interested in achieving interpersonal harmony and are chiefly concerned with finding the best compromise for all individuals involved in a problem. Valuing compassion, they are sometimes judged as too mushy or idealistic in their personal relationships.
- Judging and perceiving make up the MBTI dichotomy governing how individuals like to live their outer lives. This dichotomy deals with how people are oriented to the outer world and thus how they act in the outer world when making decisions or taking in information. Judging individuals are less spontaneous than perceiving people, and they prefer to have their world more ordered and in control. Often very responsible, judgers also tend to have rigid routines that can make spur-of-the-moment planning of social activities difficult. On the opposite end, perceivers tend to be more loose and casual and rarely plan. This makes them more open to spontaneous events but also more difficult to plan ahead with.