Drs. Bill
and Lynn Kirby have recently retired from
UW-SP's School of Education and have very
generously allowed me to copy their materials on
learning and personality styles so that these
valuable resources remain active. Bill and Lynn
were both trained in the True Colors
TM
system and so preferred that method of
personality classification to others. I
have revised some of the information and I have
taken out personal references to their styles,
but left the rest of the material in tact. Thank
you Bill and Lynn.
Myers Briggs (MBTI) and
Keirsey's Temperaments
Adapted by Leslie Wilson from the
work of Lynn and Bill Kirby with permission
Why bother?
Understanding
personality types can be a very useful tool in
all aspects of life -- personal, social,
professional. This information can be especially
helpful in professions that require high levels
of interpersonal interactions. With this
knowledge you can become more aware of your own
characteristics and traits, strengths and
weaknesses. You can also better understand the
different talents and perspectives of others as
understanding personality types can smooth
working and personal relations through improved
levels of communication and interactions.
There are a few things that are very important
to understand about personality
distinctions.
-
However, there may be personality traits
that are more suited for certain aspects
of designated jobs. For instance, if a
person were extremely introverted and
private, even though he/she may be able
to be an excellent salesperson, this may
be an unpleasant job for him/her due to
his/her need to draw energy from
within. Indeed, both the military and
business have used personality
indicators to helping place workers in
optimal vocational situations for over
1/2 century.
-
Everyone has
all the personality
characteristics, but we develop
preferences. These preferences become
somewhat set around the early to
mid-twenties, and may be due to either
genetic predispositions, contact with
strong role models, or parental or
environmental demands. But, it is
important to remember that everyone has
the ability to use all 4 sets of
polarities - both I and E, S and N, T
and F, and J and P. There is no such
thing as a personality or learning style
disability.
Some of the particulars:
The Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator is related to work by Carl Jung, and
has 16 distinct, but interrelated, personality
types. These types are based on four main
variables:
-
introvert/extrovert (I/E)
-
sensor/intuitive (S/N)
-
feeling/thinking (F/T)
-
judger/perceiver (J/P)
Most people develop
preferences for one or the other of each of
these pairs, for instance being more extraverted
than introverted. Within the MBTI
classifications there are16 possible
combinations from four sets of traits.
Here is Bill Kirby's
interpretation of looking at
and describing the 16 types.
For more information on
the variables, see the Kirby's
Notes on
Myers-Briggs personality variables.
Collapsed versions of the
MBTI:
David Keirsey has worked
extensively in this area and has a very
comprehensive website devoted to promoting his
work. You can take an abbreviated version of his
test on the Internet,
The Keirsey Temperament Sorter II. Look
in the top right hand area for free test info.
Do not register for a fee.
There are two other free
online tests you might be interested in taking:
one from
HumanMetrics (73 questions). From this
information, and by reading the varied
descriptors you can estimate your type, which is
typically expressed in four letters, such as
ESTJ or INFP.
TypeLogic (a commercial site offering
products for sale) gives good descriptions of
each of the 16 types, as well.
Like many other personality
style developers Keirsey collapsed the original
MBTI 16 types into four main temperaments,
Guardians, Artisans, Idealists, and Rationals.
He based this on the combinations of certain
pairs of letters, as such:
-
Guardians = Myer-Briggs letters
of xSxJ
-
Artisans = Myer-Briggs
letters of xSxP
-
Idealists = Myer-Briggs
letters of xNFx
-
Rationals = Myer-Briggs
letters of xNTx
For some people,
thinking in terms of simplified 4 temperaments
is a quicker and
easier way to understand other people.
Teachers, may use
personality inventories, theories, related
research, and representative learning strategies
as a tool to monitor their interactions with
students and to make sure they are offering
balanced instructional choices.
However, using
these materials comes with a warning.
Because students are in the process of becoming
and at different developmental stages they are
exploring the varied aspects and dimensions of
their personalities before settling on their own
set of preferences. Indeed, preferences are not
thought to settle until the early to
mid-twenties. The job of good teachers is
not to make students like them, nr to pigeon
hole students into some type, the job of a good
teacher is to learn how to best reach all types
of students
and make an attempt to learn about the students'
different realities and stylistic preferences.
The best teachers use
personality and related learning style theories
to help students reach their full innate
potential, and to offer varied and diverse
instructional choices that are balanced to a
number of learning styles. This approach helps
students explore the nooks and crannies of their
unique metacognitive structures, it aids
students in finding study skills and
intellectual habits that are effective at
individual levels, and this process helps
facilitate life-long learning. These are the
reasons why personality theories and learning
styles are important things for teachers to know
and understand.
Other
Resources
- Please
Understand Me II
by Keirsey
- Type Talk
by Kroeger and Thuesen
- Type Talk
at Work by Kroeger and Thuesen
- Gifts Differing
by Myers-Briggs, I.
- People types and
tiger stripes by
Lawerence, G
- Understanding
yourself and others: An introduction to
temperament by
Berens, L.V.
- Dynamics of
personality type: Understanding and applying
Jung's cognitive processes
by Berens, L.V.
-
Bill Kirby's MBTI
Matrix
- Also see my many
resources in this area at -
learning styles and personality styles
adapted from the
materials of William H. Kirby, original
copyright, 1997
