Your type of type

What makes you tick? How do you see reality? How do you interact with others?

The PERSONALITY TYPES of modern psychology go back to Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. As with much of personality psychology, the types are not empirically grounded but they contain some instructive ideas. In other words, they are not based on exact measurements but that doesn't stop them from being helpful. The personality types can help us to think about the questions above, become more self-aware and work out career paths.

On the other hand, personality typology has found an unhelpful home in pop culture. Some people online put too much stock in type analysis and seem to think that it is the key to matching themselves up with Mr or Mrs Right. Pop psychology focuses on self-help, self-empowerment and success and many people believe they can perfect themselves and their world by applying the right psychological techniques. This deceptive way of thinking is a danger for Christians too: just look at the catalogue of Koorong!

Now to the fun stuff. Jung's types were used to develop the Myers-Briggs test that is in wide use today. I recently got myself a score and a type to boot: INTJ (Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging). Find some descriptions here and here. The "simple arrogance", the perfectionism, the drive for improvement and innovation and the "system building" all appear to describe me pretty well.

You can take a free sample test to get some idea of what your type might be. Once you've scored your test, use the links to find out the characteristics of your type.