By: Sumaya Noor

What is personality typology?

Personality typology refers to distinguishing or categorizing people and animals due to their behavioral traits. It is an umbrella term that includes Myers-Briggs, Carl Jung, Enneagrams, and more.

Typology is claimed to be very accurate to the majority, and can either be studied for fun or to deeply understand one’s self or others. People’s behavior, beliefs and attitudes towards both their inner and outer world are analyzed and placed into many categories of personality types. For example, Myers-Briggs is one of the most famous personality type systems. Created by American author Isabel Briggs Myers, this type indicator is based on theories of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.

How do you determine your personality type?

There are many ways to find out your personality type. For people who want to do it for fun, there are plenty of assessments to take online or physically. After answering a series of questions based on your individual preferences, beliefs and morals, you would be given one of the 16 4 letter types. “I” standing for “Introvert”, “E” for “Extrovert”, “N” for “Intuitive”, “S” for “Sensing”, “T” for “Thinking”, “P” for “Perceiving”, and finally “J” for “Judging”. Each of these traits will be determined by your results.

For those who are serious about studying typology, there is a very extensive research on cognitive functions, which is a mental process that one uses throughout their life. Created by Carl Jung, these functions can be used to analyze a person’s thinking, choices, and feelings when faced with different situations.

They can also be used to better understand one’s self, as the system has been deemed very accurate. In an article by Christian Roseler, “These significant changes are reached by Jungian therapy with an average of 90 sessions, which makes Jungian psychotherapy an effective and cost-effective method. Process studies support Jungian theories on psychodynamics and elements of change in the therapeutic process. So finally, Jungian psychotherapy has reached the point where it can be called an empirically proven, effective method.”

Where can I test my personality type?

There are a variety of tests, but popular ones are:

• Keys2Cognition http://www.keys2cognition.com/
• 16 Personalities https://www.16personalities.com/

Please do note that these tests are not 100% accurate and are for fun.