Ten Myths of Personality Type 1. All personality “tests” are the same.
Certainly not true; although I’m sure this is not that obvious to most. The phrase “personality test” is throw around so much for that reason alone personality test can be confusing to say nothing of the fact that most personality tests will have a specific purpose. Sometimes a better understanding of what we want to determine can help us better understand which test to use.
For instance, the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator (MBTI) will identify the core of who you are. That may be a dramatic statement but what the MBTI will determine is the instinctive imprint each of us has for preferring certain behaviors psychologically over others.
Compare that with oh let’s say the Thompson-cling-man Indicator....which is used to determine how one’s co-workers see you perform in the work place. This information can help in determining how one is leading, identify leadership challenges and suggest improvement opportunities. This information is not identifying the basic instinct you may have for behaving, just how you’ve learned to behave in the workplace, which may or may not be instinctive. It is a very valid and useful tool but different from the MBTI.
Then take the “DISC” instrument which is used to evaluate one’ tendency to react emotionally in certain settings. Again, that is not the core of who you are. It is important information and when used with the Myers-Briggs let’s say can yield valuable insight into your total behavior.
The point here is that each of these can be called a “personality” test if you will but each measures different things. Of the three the Myers-Briggs gets at the core, before you were even born, imprinted preferences for behaviors that will serve as a foundation for the other two above mentioned tests.
In addition, none of the above, for example, and all other personality tests per se will use the same research, in some cases they will use different statistical and quantifiable research protocols...so by many measures, not all personality tests are the same. One should consider what each one is used for then what you are trying to determine then make the choice.
Please don’t for a moment believe that the Myers-Briggs results will be the same as the “DISC” or the “Ennegram” as examples....because they won’t. They are each different, with the DISC not a “personality” test at all!!
2. My personality has changed.
If you are considering classic, clinical personality and “healthy” personality to boot...the answer is no. Your personality type does not change. Now I am a practitioner of the Myers-Briggs approach so that is my reference. In fact this is one of the beauties and strengths of the MBTI....you’re personality type cannot change! You were imprinted before you were born and that makes it “instinctive” within you. Therefore you will be the same personality type for all of your life! This is very good news really. We have some information about ourselves that is very positive, your instinctive behavioral preferences, and it will never change!
Now, we do experience and use if you will all kinds of behaviors. That means behaviors not our instinctive favorites as well as those that are. So this is like being oh let’s say, right handed but using my left hand also. That really is a good, albeit imperfect, analogy to what personality use is like.
So depending upon many factors, work demands, relationship demands, social demands....all kinds of demands and the realities of your life you may use many behaviors. The ones imprinted in you to be your favorites will be the easiest to use and you will be the best at them. Now if you’re using less preferred, non-instinctive behaviors for whatever reasons overly much....whatever that might mean in your life....you may begin to feel/believe that your personality type changed. No, you’re just using a non-preferred behavior a very great deal!!
Look, if your right handed and you work out in the gym with your left hand only for the next 20 years....guess what.....you’ll be real good/strong with your left hand....but your still right handed!!! And if and when the “chips” are down...you’ll revert to your instinctive preference!! In this case your right hand.
3. All personality types can smoothly and equally co-exist with all other types.
Definitely not true! Now wait a minute...a couple of quick things here to understand. I’m talking about the Myers-Briggs 16 types for starters and then we are emphasizing the basic difference between clinically getting along with all the 16 types and nicely, easily getting along....which is what most folks just assume or expect to be the case.
Each of the 16 types can a do get along with each of the remaining 15 types....of course....but not with the same degree of ease and smoothness. In fact, some types need to think 3 or 4 times before they decide to spend a lifetime with certain other types!!
Don’t have the space to go into all the details of why this is the case; but believe me some of these personality differences which are easy to identify are so opposite that they present a natural obstacle to talking, reasoning, seeing things, choosing activities to participate in, love making, etc....on and on!
Now as wonderful as “opposites” can be; psychologically they can and do present instinctive barriers to many things and since they are instinctive...they don’t change. Do you see that? In other words if you marry, let’s say, someone who represents certain “core” personality differences you can and may powerfully love them until the day you die but there will always be....I say again....always be certain differences so basic that obstacles to communication will naturally always be there!! That is OK let me quickly add, because we can learn to overcome them, accept them....whatever.
You can also choose someone with very much similar personality “traits” let us say and you may find fewer obstacles to communication and other personality-related obstacles in your path!
4. We are born with a blank slate and our personality is then added by our experiences of life.
Again, not true. We have overwhelming scientific evidence showing that our personality is “blueprinted” within us while we are still in the womb of our mothers! I emphasized the word “blueprinted” because I believe that is a very good way of describing what happens. Another good word might be “imprinted” in some fashion we are imprinted, with a natural tendency to prefer certain behaviors over others while we are in the womb. The “how” and the “why” and maybe even the “who” of it is not what I talk about but can make for exciting and stimulating conversation and is loaded with emotion so I don’t discuss it. Just take my word for it, or don’t; but, by the time we are born we have unpolished, very rough, but very existent preferences for behaving in certain ways that will become known as our personality. So, what does life do to that blueprint? Well, I’m glad you asked. Life impacts us in every way one can think of and in so doing allows our instinctive behavioral preferences to be used or not. Actually variations of that last statement, I think everyone uses their personalities it is just that some folks, because of things that happen to them that they cannot control may not get as much chance to express their true imprinting (personality) as others....that is what life does. Life does not create our personality, it was already there, but life will mold it, color it, mature it....help it along in so many ways that are probably impossible to catalogue...well I can’t catalogue them anyway.
5. My children will have the same personality as I do.
No, but man do I wish this one were true! It might help parenting....I mean if we knew that our kids were just like us think of all the possibilities! Unfortunately or otherwise actually, it is wonderful to help in the creation of unique individuals; most children do not share the same personality type as their parents. There may be and certainly are some similarities; kids may share one or two or sometimes even three “psychological functions” that comprise personality with their parents but typically we see allot of opposites.
6. All personality types can smoothly and equally co-exist with all other types.
No, but I wish this one were true. In fact because all personality DO NOT EASILY co-exist or get along with all the other types, we need to understand everything we can about our personality type and the type of the other person we are relating with. I’ve written about this at length on my web site but suffice it to say this is one of the key areas of understanding that can really help our everyday lives be better, happier or at least understood better. Because of the very nature of what type is, instinctive preference for certain psychological behaviors over others, if we are relating to someone of a different behavioral preference the difference can be so strong that we are naturally irritated by the difference we encounter. While true that all the 16 types can get along with or co-exist with the other remaining types this is a clinical reality. When you get right down to actual everyday living with someone of another type, depending upon their type and your type differences, the relationship can be very difficult....and it will always be like that!! The differences won’t change, that is what I mean when I say it will always be like that. We can learn and should learn to understand the natural differences and work with them, allow them to be....even grow to value them and, wonder of wonders....actually need them! But in the mean time personality differences are the largest single natural reason people don’t get along.
So, in this practitioner’s opinion we ignore personality differences at our own peril!!
7. The different personality types are evenly distributed across the population.
No again but this one is kind of fun. There are estimates of the distribution of the 16 types in America’s culture that can be referred to. On my website I provide a link to such a chart so you can check it out. The reality of uneven distribution can be very impactful. For example, my type, INFJ is the rarest of all the 16 types. Indeed, I’m a man and less than 1%, it is estimated by the type gurus, of all the men in the world are my type. So, on a pretty regular basis I’m not too surprised that most folks I meet and interact with do not understand me!!
Poor baby....well not exactly....each type has wonderful strengths and weakness to them and mine is no different...it actually helps me in my life to know how rare my type is.
8. Some personality types are “better” than others.
Maybe yes for some specific events, activities, certainly jobs and relationships....but clinically and technically absolutely NO. Each of the 16 types has their own strengths that are common to their nature with their attendant weaknesses also; but, no it is not better to be one type rather than another, there is no “preferred” type. And in a way this is one of the strengths of the Myers-Briggs approach. Each individual is unique within their type because of the social structure added onto the clinical reality of their particular type; but all types are good, each of the 16 is strong. There are 16 ways of “brain” or thinking if you will; 16 ways of leading, managing, etc.
9. The entire idea of a personality type is just academic and theory only.
Believe what you want but since we have historical records indicating that people have been studying and researching what we are calling “personality” for almost 4,000yrs....I believe it is more than academic or, frankly, theoretical. Now, as a Myers-Briggs practitioner I’m sure I’ll get criticized for saying that; but, I can say the Myers-Briggs is a reflection of Jungian psychological theory just like the next guy but you know what, this stuff works. Many things “theoretical” don’t work when applied to real life. Twenty plus years of Myers-Briggs application tells me this stuff works...it is not academic....it is not, in my opinion, theoretical. Now, if one just studies it or sits at a MBTI seminar and does nothing with the understanding they gain this is hardly the fault of the MBTI....once again it is the person who decides to use truth or not.
10. Some people don’t have any personality.
You know sometimes I’m thinking this also! I’ve met with and worked with some folks who don’t seem to exhibit much of what we might want to call a “personality”. However, the truth is everyone has a personality, clinically and from the MBTI perspective....in fact it is the MBTI knowledge and understanding that can better help us to not only identify those who don’t seem to have much of what we might call personality but we can better work with them and indeed help them and be helped by them!
