k-frances:
Using Myers-Briggs Personality Types for Characters
What is it?
Myers-Brings Personality...
Using Myers-Briggs Personality Types for Characters
What is it?
Myers-Brings Personality tests and types were created by psychologists to help measure and study different personality types. Having my bachelors in psychology myself, I feel the need to issue a disclaimer/explanation of the validity and reliability of something like this. Think of this test as a ruler, meant to help measure variables in a study. But in psychology, the rulers are complicated because instead of measuring something definite and lawful like distance, we are measuring many different elements that are not fixed or lawful, like personality. So, the moral of the story is, don’t take this test as proven law for yourself or your life.
That being said, this test has been… tested, and it took a lot of scientists smarter than most of us to put it together, so it’s a totally legit and valuable resource for your life, and especially for your writing, which is what I want to talk about!
How does it work?
Before you can use the personality types in your writing you have to understand how it works. If you already know about the types and how they’re broken down, you can skip this section and read the last bit.
The test breaks down personalities into four main principle areas of personality. They are:
-Extroversion vs. Introversion
-Sensing vs. Intuition
-Thinking vs. Feeling
-Judging vs. Perceiving
Click Here for a in depth explanation for what the four aspects of personality mean [however I don’t like this sights depictions of types so hang tight for that]. There is a full length [its long af] test that can be used to determine your [or a character if you take the test pretending to be them] personality type. The result will be a letter from each category combining to make a type that is one of 16 possible types. So ESTJ is a personality type for example, standing for Extroversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judging.
How Can I use this in my writing?
I do not recommend taking this test for every single one of your characters, or even any of them. It’s very long and time consuming, though it certainly can’t do any harm to give it a shot as an exercise to force yourself to think about your characters in new ways. However, I do not recommend you use these as the end all be all of your character. You should still delve into facts about them, habits they have, memories, things that changed them/made them. You should still have concrete ideas about their flaws and their strengths. These personality type can merely help you get there.
I do recommend that you click here [if you didn’t click on the last link] to read the explanation of the personality areas. This sight has each area defined in the order that it’s easiest to think about them. Read it, and as you’re reading it, see if you can come up with which letter your character would be given if they did take the test. Like I said before, the test is way too long to take for all your characters, but you are an unbiased narrator/creator so you should be able to assign the criterion that they would most likely fit into. For example, the first one is easy since the terms are fairly general and culturally understood already. If your character his outgoing, they would get an E as their first letter, for Extroversion. If they are shy and/or like to keep to themselves, they would get an I for Introversion.
Once you have a personality type [like ESTJ] that fits your character, click here for the official descriptions of their type. You can use this description to think of your character differently from the conflict/resolution model of thinking that most writers tend to use. After all, the most important parts of your character are the things that drive the plot forward, but doing this can really help flesh out a full character.
There are two different links in this article for a reason; I like the explanation of the personality areas in the first link, but their descriptions of the personality types are too long and too specific [I feel they take a lot of creative license with the original, more scientifically backed personality type descriptions that you can find in the second link.]
Here they are one more time in case you skimmed this article and missed it. This is the areas explained. This is the types defined.
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