Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Character Development and Personality Type: Part III

For our final post in the series on personality types and character development, I will be digging into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

To be honest, I’ve been a bit intimidated to write this post as this particular system is more complicated than the other two we’ve talked about.

A Quick Recap

Moving from the introduction, where we looked at introversion and extroversion (or extrAversion), we went on to explore the Four Temperaments, a typing system that goes back to ancient times, and the Personality Compass, which focuses on decision-making and interactions.

How it Works

The Myers-Briggs system was created by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Briggs, with the purpose of making Carl Jung’s theories of personality more accessible.

One thing immediately setting this system apart from the Four Temperaments and the Personality Compass is that here we have sixteen personality types rather than twelve.

Just like the other systems, these types operate along a spectrum: they are not absolutes or extremes. Different people, including yourself and your characters, will lean more strongly in a direction on some of the spectrums than others.

Four Preference Types

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator evaluates personal preference, temperament, or tendency (however you’d like to think about it) in the following four areas:

Favorite World

Information

Decisions

and Structure

Each of these break down into two possibilities that, again, are a spectrum, not opposites. For the purposes of ease and clarity, I’ve written the questions below in second person, but it should be relatively simple to switch the language around internally to read “your character” instead of “you.”

Favorite World: Introversion (I) and Extraversion (E)—do you prefer, or gain more energy, from the world inside your own mind or the outside world?

Information: Sensing (S) and Intuition (N)—do you base your impressions and understanding about the world on what information you take in, or do you prefer to interpret the world around you and add meaning to what you gather?

Decisions: Thinking (T) and Feeling (F)—in order to make a decision, do you turn to logic and what’s going to be the case the majority of the time or to people and unique circumstances?

Structure: Judging (J) and Perceiving (P)—when you’re dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to make a decision or stay open to different possibilities?

Quick note: Something that’s been bothering me as I’ve been thinking about this post is that I know multiple people who mis-type themselves. In each of these instances, a woman I’m close to identifies herself as an F when I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she’s a T. I’ve seen something similar, though perhaps not as noticeable, with N and S.

I haven’t talked to a very wide selection of people about typing and how they identify, but I am curious how much social gendering affects people’s perception of their own personality and the personality type they feel like they’re supposed to have.

Reminder: As in each of the systems we’ve talked about, no one type of preference is better than another. I’m just wanting to share a trend I’ve noticed that I find really interesting but haven’t gotten to the bottom of yet.

Also, it’s usually not a good idea to type other people if that means you are putting them in a box. They will reject those limitations, as well they should. Keep in mind that these are tools to help understand basic preferences of yourself and others and, in our case, your characters.

How the Types Combine

First, the four different preferences combine to create sixteen different personality types:

ISTJ ISFJ INFJ INTJ

ISTP ISFP INFP INTP

ESTP ESFP ENFP ENTP

ESTJ ESFJ ENFJ ENTJ

Four Temperaments in Myers-Briggs

David Keirsey, among others, posits four basic categories, or temperaments of the Myers-Briggs types. Interestingly, he brings together the Four Temperaments (going back to Hippocrates) and Jung’s studies of personality.

Keirsey breaks down the four temperaments into: Artisans, Guardians, Idealists, and Rationals.

I briefly cover each of these by asking what drives them, since this is one of the most important questions we can answer about a character.

“What do they want?”

“What do they desire?”

What drives your character?

What’s their “why”?

Rationals (NT): Intuition and Thinking—Seek mastery and self-control; driven to increase their own knowledge and competence

Idealists (NF): Intuition and Feeling—Seek meaning and significance; driven to find their own unique identity and pursue personal growth

Guardians (SJ): Sensing and Judging—Seek security and belonging; driven by a sense of responsibility and duty

Artisans (SP): Sensing and Perceiving—Seek stimulation and excellence; driven to make an impact

One website that I really like for sorting through the different types is 16 Personalities; their terminology is a bit different than Keirsey’s, but I find their names incredibly helpful for thinking about fictional characters.

Analysts (NT)

Architect (INTJ): has a plan

Logician (INTP): hungry for knowledge

Commander (ENTJ): finds or makes a way

Debater (ENTP): loves an intellectual challenge

Diplomats (NF)

Advocate (INFJ): enigmatic, inspiring idealist

Mediator (INFP): eager to help a good cause

Protagonist (ENFJ): charismatic leader

Campaigner (ENFP): optimistic free spirits

Sentinels (SJ)

Logistician (ISTJ): practical and reliable

Defender (ISFJ): warm protector

Executive (ESTJ): unsurpassed administrator

Consul (ESFJ): social, popular, ready to help others

Explorers (SP)

Virtuoso (ISTP): master of tools; inventive

Adventurer (ISFP): flexible artist seeking something new

Entrepreneur (ESTP): energetic and perceptive risk-taker

Entertainer (ESFP): spontaneous and enthusiastic

Order for Processing Information

Part of what makes this system so intricate is that the four preferences’ various combinations change the order that individuals take in and process information.

INFJ vs INFP, For Example

To explore this idea, let’s take the two types that tend to be confused most often and, to make matters more complicated, are usually the most interested in personality typing to begin with: INFJ and INFP.

With the NF designation, Intuition and Feeling, both of these types are part of the Diplomat group, also called Visionary or Idealist.

Order and Direction of Information

The INFJ begins sifting through information with Introverted Intuition, while the INFP begins with Introverted Feeling.

The first, according to a really interesting article by Personality Hacker, is an introverted learning process where the INFJ notices patterns of patterns over time and uses those meta-patterns to sort through information. The second involves more of a check-in, where the INFP evaluates decisions to make sure that they’re in line with their values, feelings, and identity.

INFJs’ feeling process, where they make decisions, is secondary, so it’s going to happen after the patterns of patterns sorting. It’s also an extroverted process. Instead of asking “Is this in line with my values and therefore honoring to the world as well?” like the INFP, the INFJ asks, “Does this serve others’ needs in order to serve mine too?”

Processing Others’ Emotions

Another place where these decision-making patterns diverge is in how these two types interact with others. INFJs literally absorb others’ emotions and energy, whether they want to or not.

INFPs are so in tune with their own emotional state, and have been over the course of their life, that they ask themselves, “How would this make me feel?” and use that to mirror the other person’s emotions back to them.

Since this is their primary information processing function, it’s likely unconscious. So it’s not “your pain in my heart,” like the INFJ’s processing, but instead working through how the INFP would feel if they were in the other person’s situation.

For the INFJ, this process has to happen in real time, whereas the INFP can have this experience removed from its actual occurrence, such as in a novel, film, or piece of art.

Persuading Others

As a final note, as this is likely too much detail already, the two types also diverge in how they lead and inspire others. INFJs will offer a variety of perspectives to someone else, trying to help them understand where the other people are coming from. INFPs, emotional masters that they are, will tend to redirect others’ emotional energy to inspire a different emotional state in the person they’re interacting with. The INFJ is trying to provide insight, the INFP to create inspiration.

Application to D&D and Character Development

As this already feels like quite a bit of information to absorb, the application portion here will be brief. Using the four overarching categories—Artisans, Guardians, Idealists, and Rationals—probably already divides up the preferences of your party’s members and their allies. Using the four instead of the sixteen, at least at first, should simplify your evaluation as well.

The four categories also line up, in some ways, with character classes.

The wizard class, for example, more readily falls into the “Rationals” group, driven by Intuition and Thinking. Bards, on the other hand, stand an equal likelihood of being an Artisan or an Idealist, especially depending on their subclass and, more importantly, on their motivations and character.

Paladins could easily be categorized as Guardians, but depending on the expression and centrality of their faith, perhaps your paladin is more of an Idealist.

As you may have read in our March Update, later this month, we’re launching a somewhat broader-reaching project, Grove Guardian Press, that aims to help and inspire writers and storytellers. One thing I’ve been considering, for Grove Guardian and/or D&D Duet, would be sets of characters, backstories, and locations that could be easily dropped into homebrew campaigns or WotC modules.

So for now, I will leave you with the challenge to reflect on your own information processing and to observe (or intuit, whichever is more natural for you) others’ processes. What are they seeking? How do they make sense of the world around them? What drives their interactions? What do they desire?

We also discuss balancing your central party in terms of class and alignment if you’re interested in learning more!

Let me know in the comments below how you might like to see this conversation proceed and what would be most useful in your duet!

If you like what you’re reading, please consider supporting the blog by purchasing our adventures and supplements in our shop or sponsoring us on Patreon. We appreciate you so much! Thank you for joining us on this adventure! – Beth and Jonathan