How much meaning can you squeeze into four letters? Obscenities aside, here’s an example: ENTP. If you’re in the know, then I just gave you several clues about how I function in the world. You can now tell that I’m argumentative and chatty, that I love abstractions and that I find it almost impossible to make solid decisions.
If you’re in the know, then you understand exactly why I’d roll my eyes at the mention of an ISTJ, why I’d caution an ENFP friend against getting too attached to a new love interest, why the idea of an INTP in public office is hilarious.
Want in? I’m talking about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a funny little personality test that claims—using only four dichotomous factors (Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perceiving)—to classify people into distinct personality types.
The MBTI is often offered—for instance, by the Career Center—as a means to “help improve work and personal relationships, increase productivity and identify [students’] leadership and interpersonal communication preferences,” according to Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc, which owns the rights to the test. All you have to do is answer a slew of multiple-choice questions, and presto: The intricacies of your nature will be delivered to you in the form of a several-page report. You know exactly what kind of person you are, who your friends should be and what you should do with your life.
Don’t buy it? If you’re skeptical, here’s why: You think people are “complex.” You don’t believe personalities can be broken into factors. You distinctly recall your kindergarten teacher at the chalkboard and the many times she repeated, “Everyone is unique, like a snowflake.”
You’re right, to an extent. Personality assessments such as the MBTI are shortcuts. The test offers only four dichotomies, allowing room for 16 different kinds of people. In a sense, the MBTI represents an impulse toward categorization that our socialization tries to beat out of us from early childhood. Drawing distinctions and acknowledging dissimilarities is an anathema to the worldly, politically correct mindset toward which we’re all taught to strive.
College students are especially fed the ideal of endless acceptance. Understand and befriend everyone! Look at these brochures and realize that we should all sit on the quad meaningfully reconciling our various backgrounds. What, you don’t like everyone? You must be a misanthrope. Here, go on a retreat, attend a workshop, listen to a lecture to fix your deficiencies.
But there exist two separate imperatives for the typical college student. One is the broadening of horizons, implicit in this the breaking down of prejudices. We meet people of diverse backgrounds, shed our biases and acknowledge the validity of other viewpoints.
The other is a construction of the self; the discovery of personal values and preferences. It’s all well and good to be open-minded, but the task of placing yourself among a collection of viewpoints is also necessary.
The other day, a friend said something in conversation that puzzled me. I was trying to grasp what was actually at stake in a recent argument I’d had. I mentioned the possibility that my extraversion could be incompatible with a certain type of introversion, and that maybe this conflict was irreconcilable. “Why do you do that?” my friend asked with a hint of disdain. “You’re always analyzing and labeling. Not everyone does that.”
My friend’s reaction was gentle, but his insinuation—that I should stop being so judgmental—is a common criticism. He meant that I should stop imposing so much meaning on these differences. I should be more tolerant, as it were.
But how else to make sense of the multitude of opinions and approaches found on a college campus? Can we really just accept every value system we come across and stop there, without acknowledging the discord? Admittedly, the MBTI offers only a framework of generalizations that may not explain every nuance of personality, but isn’t it a start to comprehending the underlying differences between us?
It’s comforting to think that personalities escape classification, but it’s also naïve. We’re not all potential best friends. We don’t all have the same values. We can’t resolve every clash of preferences by “tolerating” each other. The truth is—and there’s no innocuous, politically correct way to say it—my values keep me from getting too close to certain types of people.
Yes, snap judgments are unfair. It’s dangerous to pigeonhole. But it’s equally dangerous to lose yourself in the jumble of assigning everyone else’s values equal weight, to become nihilistic in the face of complexity. We must organize if we are to locate ourselves among the chaos, if we are at all interested in effectively “finding ourselves.”
As a trend-obsessed, logically-inclined ENTP, I strongly encourage you to give the MBTI a whirl.
Shining Li is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Monday.
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