By Jill Williamson
Writing about fictional archetypes on Tuesday made me think of real ones.
In 1920, a Swiss physician Carl Jung wrote in his book Psychological Types that people have an archetype that drives them from within, that defines how they see the world and make decisions. There are several archetypes, and no one is more important than another. People are different. And that is a good thing.
Isabel Myers and her mother, Kathryn Briggs created a questionnaire inspired by Jung’s psychology and published the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in 1962. This testing is still used today. I find it fascinating and choose a personality type for each of my main characters in every book I write these days. Like the Five Love Languages, understanding personality types can be a valuable tool in real life relationships and in your fiction.
I’d like to highly recommend the book Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey. This book goes into detail on each personality type. But you don’t need a book to get the Myers-Briggs information these days. It’s all online. Be careful, you could get so caught up in learning about these personalities that you don’t write for months!
There are sixteen combinations that fall into one of four categories. Here is the breakdown:
Artesians (SPs) Guardians (SJs) Idealists (NFs) Rationals (NTs)
Click on each type above to read a full description from another website. Keep in mind, the author on this website doesn’t always title each personality the way that Davis Keirsey does. But the letter combinations are the same and I love her definitions. I’ve printed them all out and put them in a binder to use when I’m thinking up new characters.
Very quickly, the four types tend to be:
Artesians (SPs)- Adventurous, action-oriented, spontaneous.
Guardians (SJs)- Dependable, traditional, loyal.
Idealists (NFs)- Romantic, empathetic, authentic, creative, impassioned.
Rationals (NTs)- Technical, competent, ingenious, skeptical, innovative, non-conformist.
What the letters mean:
E=Extroverted —or— I=Introvert
S=Sensory —or— N=Intuitive
T=Thinking —or— F=Feeling
J=Judging —or— P=Perceiving
Take the test yourself and see what you discover. It’s pretty fun. You can test here: http://www.personalitypage.com/html/indicate.html
or try here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
or try here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
I’m an INFP Healer to the point that reading the description out loud makes my family laugh. But the test didn’t get me there. Reading the descriptions pegged me. Some people just can’t take tests, I guess.
Which one are you?
How might understanding your character at such a depth be helpful?