The fervent desire to get to know oneself better. The pursuit of bettering oneself. The rise in mankind’s sickening obsession with self-improvement, constantly psychoanalysing ourselves to nit-pick and make sure that we are constantly striving towards perfection and more importantly, becoming what we deem as a “better person”. What better way to do so than through one of the world’s most widely used personality tests, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)? With the rise of MBTI’s popularity, many people are becoming more aware about how each personality interacts with one another. Compatibility tests between different MBTIs have started to form, with the most famous one being “Our Personality Chemistry” where people are able to enter their MBTI with another one of their close ones' to take a look at what their chemistry or compatibility looks like. This begs the question: What happens if all 16 MBTI personalities are in the same room?
Prima facie, if all MBTI personalities were in the same room, it would likely be a diverse and interesting gathering. The MBTI identifies 16 different personality types based on four dimensions: Extraversion (E) versus Introversion (I), Sensing (S) versus Intuition (I), Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F) and Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P). Unique combinations of these four dimensions are what form the 16 personality types.
Assuming that individuals are accurately categorised according to the MBTI, a gathering of all 16 types in the same room would feature people with different communication styles, ways of processing information and approaches in decision-making. While it is possible that some individuals may find it challenging to communicate with others whose personalities differ significantly from their own, the gathering could be an opportunity for individuals to learn from each other and gain new insights.
To better illustrate a part of this situation, I will be referencing the reality television series on Youtube: MBTI Inside, where 16 different individuals with 16 different personality types were forced to live together and complete missions.
In the first episode, individuals were separated into two rooms, one for Extraversion (E) and the other for Introversion (I). In the E room, the group of individuals had no problem with starting and carrying conversations. This group of people would express an overwhelming amount of enthusiasm whenever they spoke and the room was constantly filled with laughter. Most were not afraid of getting up to bust a few silly dance moves just to lighten the mood in front of a group of people they had just met. Their conversations were also more geared towards discussing differing opinions on a wide range of topics, which they were unafraid of talking about.
This was opposed to the Introversion (I) room, where individuals mostly sat quietly and had trouble engaging in small talk. There were multiple occasions where attempts were made, only for the conversation to die down within a few seconds. In retrospect, I believe that the main difference between the E and I room would be that E types tend to live in the moment and are hence unafraid to express whatever on their mind at any given moment, while I types tend to be much more reflective during the moment and are generally more cautious with how they drive conversations.
In the third episode, individuals were separated into Thinking (T) and Feeling (F) rooms and given the mission to discuss their biggest worries. While more philosophical questions like “why do humans exist” tend to arise in the F room, more theoretical questions like “what if I do not have the right to be humble” tend to arise in the T room. It is interesting that people in the F room tend to use more emotional words such as “feel” when they are trying to suggest a solution to the problem. They tend to come up with solutions on the basis of their emotions and tend to take things on a more personal level. On the other hand, individuals in the T room tend to use more words like “think” and come up with very rational solutions to the problems. These individuals would rationalise their feelings and go straight to pinpointing the root cause of their emotions. For example, unlike the Fs, Ts would be asking themselves “why do I feel angry” to find the root cause of their emotions, rather than thinking to themselves “i am angry”, in order to better come up with a solution with a clearer state of mind.
The differences between F and T personalities can be more easily differentiated using an everyday social situational challenge. Imagine this: you had just reached home from a rough day at work. The moment you set foot into your apartment, your partner tells you to take out the trash. How would you react to this situation?
Upon understanding the situation, the ISFJ and ISTJ had completely different answers from each other. The F individual started blurting her thoughts out without any hesitation, saying that she would “feel as if she liked her partner more than he liked her” and start getting emotional while taking out the trash. However, the T individual immediately questioned the core of the problem and asked “why didn’t he take out the trash despite being at home the whole day?” In a way, the F individual is someone who takes things more personally and acts based on their emotions rather than taking their time to think while the T individual is someone who would much rather detach themselves from the situation and question the root cause of the problem rather than taking it personally.
Long story short, the behaviour of individuals in this room would depend on a variety of factors, including the purpose of the gathering, the individuals themselves, and the context of the situation. While it is interesting to consider how different personality types might interact, it is important to remember that the MBTI is just one way of conceptualising personality types and should not be used to make assumptions about individuals or to stereotype people based on their personality type.
Written by: Charmaine Lee (22S77)
Edited by: Ng Chen Fong (22S63), Widyayuki Triyono (22S6D)
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