16 Types Part 1: What is the 16 Types personality system?

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you sign up to receive a free self-typing guide for the 16 Types personality system. This guide will give you examples of each letter we’re going to look at to help you better identify your natural preferences and overcome any preconceived ideas you may already have about what each letter means.

More than meets the eye

A comment I often hear about this personality type system is, “Wow, I didn’t know it could be so complex!” What I hope to share with you through this series is how much you can uncover by finding your accurate 16 Types personality. You’ll learn how you can use your type in this system to focus on what matters most so you can live more intentionally and purposefully on a daily basis.

How it began

In 1921, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung published a massive text called Psychological Types. While this book is an excellent paper weight due to its size, Jung also introduced us to two important and popular terms: Introvert and Extravert.

In Psychological Types, Jung also identifies four mental functions that describe the ways in which we make decisions (or judge) and learn information (or perceive). The two functions related to how we “judge” or make decisions are Thinking and Feeling, and the two functions related to how we learn or perceive things are Sensing and Intuition.

Each of these four functions has an extraverted version and an introverted version. This means that Jung’s psychological theory identified eight different mental functions that explain differences in brain wiring among different people. We’ll get deeper into these functions in Part 3 of this series.

In the United States, Katharine Cook Briggs read Psychological Types as she began to take note of the ways in which people were different from one another. Jung’s ideas were further developed than her own, but she also saw the potential for making his theories more understandable for the general population.

Ms. Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, created The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) or the Myers-Briggs personality test, in the early 1940s by creating questions based on a simplified version Carl Jung’s psychological theory. Since this was during the time of World War II, Briggs and Myers wanted help people understand themselves and each other better. They hoped this increased understanding would lead to less conflict and ultimately less war. The responses to the questions on the MBTI® identify a person’s personality type with four letters.

A four-letter personality type code

The four letters of your Myers-Briggs® personality type indicate the natural preferences of your brain wiring from the following dichotomies:

  • E or I - Your natural preference for Extraversion or Introversion

  • S or N - Your natural preference for Sensing or Intuition when learning (perceiving)

  • T or F - Your natural preference for Thinking or Feeling when making decisions (judging)

  • J or P - Your natural preference when it comes to Judging (decision-making) or Perceiving (learning/perceiving)

The 16 Types system

There are many free online tests available based on the official MBTI®. While any of these tests may be able to provide a starting point for your own personality type exploration, the results from these tools should be held lightly until you’ve done your own self-observation and exploration.

While I’m an accredited MBTI® practitioner, and I have used this tool with clients in the past, I found that this assessment was missing the depth and nuance offered by Jung’s mental functions. This is why I use a combination of the work from Myers and Briggs as well as Carl Jung when I help people find their accurate personality type through a conversational typing method (available as part of the 16 Types Level 1 package).

What I’m calling the “16 Types” personality system is based on the four-letter type Myers-Briggs® type as well as the top four mental functions—identified and described by Jung—that you rely upon most.

In your 16 Types personality, your top four mental functions are listed in the following order:

  • First (Dominant)

  • Second (Auxiliary)

  • Third (Tertiary)

  • Fourth (Inferior)

If there are eight mental functions, and each person’s type includes four of those functions in a particular order, there are 16 different combinations of personality types. You’ll learn more about these mental functions in later in this series (Article 3).

How to approach your 16 types Personality

Many people are familiar with taking a Myers-Briggs like personality test that provides a four-letter personality type code such as ESTJ. They typically read about the behaviors of the type identified by the test and either agree, disagree, or shrug it off as interesting but not very impactful in their day-to-day life. Most people stop with this surface-level understanding of the letters in their personality type and don’t investigate what lies beneath (Jung’s mental functions) or whether or not this type is accurate.

To live each day with more purpose and intention, you’ll want to accurately identify your personality type and dig below the surface to gain a deep and nuanced understanding of your automatic behaviors.

By the end of this series, and after learning more about Jung’s mental functions, I think you’ll see a completely different side of this personality type system.

As you read, keep in mind that it’s ok if you need to read some articles more than once to fully digest the content—especially if all of this is new to you. Take your time, and I promise your commitment to understanding and observing the depths of your personality type in this system will be worth it.

Ready for the next article? Click here to read Part 2 »

16 Types (Myers-Briggs)Leslie McDaniel