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Personality Type Misconception 2:

Personality Type Misconception 2:

By Donna Dunning

Your Personality Type Defines You

Many people have taken an inventory to identify their personality type preferences. Unfortunately, sometimes a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing as there are several common misconceptions about personality type. These misconceptions can occur when personality type concepts are introduced quickly or in a superficial way.

One of the most common misconceptions is thinking that personality type defines you. The erroneous thinking goes like this: You ARE an XXXX (substitute your four letter type code here for the Xs) therefore you ARE like this (add in a description here).

More accurately, personality type theory goes like this:

You have XXXX preferences and likely enjoy or naturally approach situations by (add descriptors here).

What’s The Difference?

The erroneous thinking assumes you can be described and understood when someone knows your personality type preferences.

People are much more complicated than that. Everyone has grown up in a specific time and culture. They have emerged from a constellation of factors including family structure, birth order, physical appearance, gender, interests, values, cognitive abilities, and environmental conditions. They have been exposed to societal structures and institutions and have had thousands upon thousands of life experiences that have affected who they are and how they have adapted.

If we look at people as “types” we are doing them a disservice. Knowing personality type preferences can help us to understand how people prefer to orient themselves to the world, take in information, and make decisions. The model provides one piece to help us figure out who a person is and how they operate.

More information on this topic:

Don’t Box Me In

Getting to Know Yourself

Connecting Personality Type to Your Career Choice

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2012 at 9:47 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Personality Type Misconception 2:”

  1. JeniRae says:

    This is spot-on. The “I AM”-speak is one of those things that yanks my Practitioner Piss-Chain.
    It has gotten to me so much that I hesitate to even use the “letters” and, instead, lean toward using the functions-in-attitude (i.e.: “Ne Ti” etc.) If people can’t “figure it out,” that tells me LOADS about their own proficiency with Type Theory.

    Please, everyone. Do the type-community a favor and use “I PREFER” or “MY PREFERENCES ARE” when referencing your Myers-Briggs types…

  2. Hauwa says:

    When I was reintroduced to personality type through the Myers Briggs Type Indicator in the late 1980s, I was in my early 40s. Understanding my preferences, and thus, my strengths, was very powerful for me and explained the why of so many things I’d experienced thus far in my life. I set about learning everything I could about personality type and am very grateful for that decision. I truly believe that everyone needs to know about their preferences because it makes such a difference in how you go about living your life. I’ve made it my life mission to teach personality type. I love it and am so grateful to Dr. Carl Jung for his contribution to type theory.

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