** While these are easier to talk about in terms of binary dimensions, it is obvious, I think to all, that these are actually continua ranging from one extreme to another, and while many or most may be on one side or the other, there are also plenty of people who are somewhere in the middle, more or less.

Critiques of Myers and Briggs generally assert the inanity that binary classification is inappropriate on continuous dimensions. Obviously that is true but obviously we don't care, since obviously a gross, low resolution, big-picture understanding accurate for a large fraction of cases can rapidly and clearly emerge from a simplified categorization, even while finer resolution, more detail, and better understanding of intermediate cases, can also emerge later as one looks more closely. And obviously since people can be in the middle, people can be in the middle. Duh. So far I am not impressed with this critique.

The real question is not binary versus continuous dimensionality, but the significance of the dimensions themselves: can they or can they not be measured with some degree of reliability, and do they or do they not capture something significant about people, and do they or do they not provide universal, that is, uniform and excellent predictive power about everyone. I say Yes, Yes, and No.

If it calls me an Inventor two weeks after I reject my fiancé while calling myself an Inventor, then reliability and significance are obvious. You might call that anecdotal, but for me, it's not meaningless.

Universality is another question. It doesn't have to get everything about everybody to get a lot about a lot of people, and therefore to be Useful. And of course it gets a lot about many and is Useful, even while it doesn't capture everything or everyone.

Under volume control, you are "E" if you are more Extroverted and social, but you are "I" if you are more quiet, Introverted, reserved, or shy. So: Do you find yourself comfortably talking a lot to strangers at a party ("E") or does it take you more time to warm up ("I")? Do you sometimes dominate conversations ("E") or are you more of a listener ("I") than a talker ("E").

Under universe, you are "N" if you live in the iNner universe of abstractions or iNtuitions, and you are "S" if you live in the outer universe of reality, the world of the Senses, of concrete observeables, the times, names, places, things. So: Do you talk about principles and concepts and systems ("N") or intuitions about feelings and things that are hard to express (also "N") or do you talk in details about things you can see or sense, and think in terms of the down-to-earth facts of what's actually real ("S")?

Under head/heart balance, you are "T" if you live in your head as a Thinker, and "F" if you live more in your heart as a Feeler. So: Are you typically more tough-minded ("T")? Or more likely to feel your heart bleed("F")? Are you more committed to the idea that there's a right way to do things (your way, by default) ("T"), or do you assume that there are lots of ways to do things, so cooperating is the way to get things done ("F"). Will you lose sleep if you had to fire someone from their job ("F") or not be upset because some things just have to happen ("T"). Are you more constantly aware of your feelings ("F") or do you often not even know what your feelings are ("T").

Finally, under decision time, do you like your decisions done already ("J") or do you like to decide them later ("P"). "J" for Judging, "P" for Perceiving. So do you like to have things decided, laid out, planned, structured ("J")? Or undecided-for-now, open, spontaneous, and free ("P")? Do you look at your schedule full of activities and feel happy that you know what's coming ("J")? Or does your schedule make you feel less comfortable, perhaps constrained or suffering, seeing that you have fewer options and less flow or spontaneity ("P")? J's are schedulers, P's are non-schedulers.

That's the basics, E vs I, N vs S, T vs F, P vs J. Sorry for all the random capital letters, they are kind of historical at this point, but they are a useful shorthand to talk with people about: so and so sure is J isn't she! It's useful. So, have you got it? If not, please read this part again, more slowly; take a pause and think about different people you know as you go through this section. And yes, people can be in between, and also more or less f'ed up, but lots of people are clear cases in most or all dimensions, and it's easy to think about them using the clear cases, or using a couple clear cases where that person is in between the two, so at least you get the basic picture right, about what they might like in a lot of different kinds of circumstances. It's quite powerful.

First, simplicity supports insightful reasoning; therefore a low resolution view can help us understand from a global perspective. So with these four dimensions, and considering only two values for each (viewing it at low resolution rather than at higher resolution as multi-valued or continuous dimensions), there are therefore 2*2*2*2=16 total "types". Not to be exhaustive or perfect, but to get the basic idea. Keirsey gives us 16 names for them, and also puts them into four primary groups, which I used to organize the table below. If I think of this table as a sideways branching tree, with the root on the left and branches on the right, and if I add in the frequencies at each branch of the tree, it looks like this:

The table shows frequencies for each type in a 1998 MBTI sample of 3009 people. Five trends, exemplifying four principles, may be seen in these results. (It's not that the principles explain the trends, but that the trends call out for explanation, and for that I offer you these principles. You or others may offer better ones, and if so, let me know!) The trends are:

First, "E" vs "I" makes only small differences in population frequency; matching pairs are almost always closer to each other than to any others. Perhaps we just use the general population average as a cut point and then half are above and half below, when defining E vs I. That is, the stats don't tell us much about this dimension.

Second, "S" is more common than "N" by about 3 to 1 (73% to 27%). That makes sense; people that don't live in the real world probably don't survive or reproduce as easily in the real world, so natural selection could be the reason.

Third, "P" vs "J" has two trends. Depending on the universe you live in, you are more likely to be scheduled or not. One trend here is that reality-based S people are more frequently found to be J/schedulers than P/non-schedulers (thus Guardians are almost twice as common as Artisans; 46% to 27%). The other trend is that the inner-universe people ("N") are more likely to go with the flow and be non-schedulers ("P") than to be schedulers (so there are twice as many P Rationals as J Rationals, and more than three times as many P Idealists as J Idealists).

One might understand these two trends through a principle of contrast. That is, the generally unchanging quality of real things, the constancy of reality, leads reality-based people to more often be comfortable with the constancy of decisions already made. In contrast, the inconstancy of inner thoughts and feelings leads more of the inner-worlds "N" types to be comfortable with the flow and spontaneity of their thoughts and feelings -- and more so for feelings than thoughts. Thus the P trend for "N" folks is even stronger for NFs than for NTs. As we may all observe, feelings being often so changeable, even more so than thoughts, the feelings-based Idealists are even more commonly P than J in the population. To summarize, reality is more decisive in contrast to inner worlds which are more fluid.

Do I need to emphasize that these principles are not categorical, but statistical? That they are general influences, rather than absolute or governing laws? Obviously there are people of all types, each as normal as any other in a balanced population of talkers and listeners, of more feelers and fewer thinkers (but still plenty), of more people who are reality based and fewer (but still plenty) in the inner worlds, and of more deciders in the real world and more explorers in the inner world.

The results are 5 primary dimensions they labelled Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism, forming an acronym, OCEAN. In this theory individuals are best modelled as some linear combination of these five dimensions.

So there are two caveats to this work. First, the information is people rating other people using words. Obviously this accesses information about how people instrumentally represent other people. When you use words to describe someone, you are instrumentally representing them, and using your tools to characterize what they are like, to work or play with, in social life, that is, operationally. Similarly, yes, if you want to push a barrel up a slope, your instrumental understanding has to do with how heavy is it and how round is it, not what is inside it, so your factor analysis about barrels would not say much about their contents. As it turns out, people are not actually entirely reducible to barrels, even when they are somewhat understood by other people for the purpose of interacting with them. People have different stuff on the inside. Just ask a man and a woman in a relationship whether they understand the true interior life of their opposite number, or not.

So for example, the Big 5 Extraversion-Introversion dimension is, I'd say, more about volume control and how much talking you do, how you interact with others and how they see you operationally in social interaction with them, more than it is about interior processing, such as, Do you rest, recover, and gain energy through solitude as opposed to through talking with others, which some claim is the essence of the Myers Briggs or perhaps Jungian Extraversion/Introversion dimension. These are correlated, but not the same. The Big 5 system loses the information about what's going on inside a person. Well, how surprising is that, it also loses the whole idea that people can live in inner universes of abstraction and intuition (Universe, 'N') and that that is an important dimension of long term personality. The N/S dimension is absent in the OCEAN model. So both those losses are understandable based on what Big 5 research is based on, instrumental data; unfortunately it's not a big win for the Big 5, in my book.

The second caveat might be my own ignorance, but given that the factor analysis methodology uses a linear combination of inferred underlying factors, they are to be considered independent and their power is strongest in a 50-50 split. But first, Universe or N/S is a 27/73 split, so it isn't as highly valued by this statistical methodology even if the dimension is a powerful predictor. And second the significance of the other dimensions is dependent on it, as discussed above. A mixed linear and multiplicative model, using data not guaranteed to exclude the outcome, might reveal deeper patterns than the linear Big 5 sum. That is, better methodology and a better model might resolve these issues; until then we may be stuck with alternative models, with their different, respective, appropriate uses.

I compare the two models like this. Big 5 includes a volume control and head/heart balance dimension quite like those of Myers Briggs, but removes the the "Universe" or N/S dimension, and inserts a neuroticism dimension, and finally it divides the single MB dimension of decision time, into two dimensions which it calls Openness and Conscientiousness. Decision time (MB P vs J) is about a temperamental preference that decisions be made already (J), or that decisions be made in the future (P). Big 5's Openness dimension correlates with MB P, since obviously openness to experience requires postponement of decision since more experience is unnecessary once a decision is made. Big 5 O and MB P/J are almost the same dimension, viewed from this angle. Big 5's Conscientiousness dimension, on the other hand, only makes sense in the context of commitments: decisions already made. Thus if P/J is represented as positives in two different dimensions rather than positive and negative on a single dimension, then in this respect Big 5 can be seen as a subtle elaboration of Myers Briggs.

Finally, Big 5 is distorted by moral judgement. Each dimension has a "Good" end and a "Bad" end, according to the input data, because people judge others most fundamentally with negative or non-negative judgement. The case for four of the five is clear. Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness are all unambigious virtues. Neuroticism is the opposite, but a virtue times -1 is still a dimension of virtue, no different but for a relabelling of the endpoints. Whereas extraversion might seem to be morally neutral; still, my introverted family members and loved ones have uniformly declared their experience of prejudice against them and their struggle with having their introversion be taken positively in society. This may be cultural; would you say Japan is culturally introverted? It may not be unreasonable to assert that in our society there exists a general, vernacular theme of negative moral judgement against introversion. If so, all the Big 5 dimensions are moral dimensions, consistent with the source of the data: human judgements of others. It is no surprise if moral judgement colors human judgement. Yet, is that what we want to use to characterize all people, dimensions in which half of all people for half of the qualities that as a population they have, they are basically bad for the way they are? Seems a bit questionable.

Big 5 is a reification of the vernacular moral judgements people make of others. It's not the final result of ultimate science if you want to know about the temperament and character of yourself and others. Big 5 describes the space of moral judgements made by humans about humans: a superficial and instrumentally skewed subset perspective rather than an inclusive or deeply-penetrating view of the heart of humanity. If you want to know how people are likely to judge you, great, find your place in the Big 5 space. But if you want to know about your true inner character, your overriding maturational and growth directions of unfolding and of actualization, then maybe Big 5 won't quite help that much, and you could look at some different, maybe some deeper, things like MB also. Just my opinion.

I myself would have added a dimension for the degree of personal actualization, or conversely of brokenness as a person, where addicts would be low and saints high, to a richer system. This separates out the negativity aspect within all the Big 5 dimensions into a single negative dimension, and instead of making it an external moral judgement quality, it identifies this with the inner growth (or lack thereof) of a person. Perhaps this view suffers from an excess of political correctness, but the opposite view, that half of everybody is bad, seems an excess of political hostility toward the species.

I tend to consider that if half the species has some quality, then it's not a fact about their bad character, but a fact about the variation within the species. If some dogs lick their balls because they can, it doesn't make them a bad dog, but simply a dog. Big 5 makes us out as bad dogs. I don't think so.

Here's maybe why. Big 5 suffers from a thick layer of attribution bias, the normal human psychological view that negative qualities of others are more typically characterological, whereas of oneself are more typically situational. All the judgements which are input to the factor analysis are characterological judgements of others. Sure explains things.

So I'm not ready to give up on Myers and Briggs. Anyway I have an independent reason to accept it: it called me Inventor, just after I did so myself. Think about it yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Lessons from Myers and Briggs

But my point here is to go beyond the rationale and the power of it, and just point out some non-obvious but very strong lessons that we ought to learn from this.

How much complaining, fighting, criticizing, negativity, and social misery comes from the Myers Briggs dimensions?

When two people are in conflict, how often is it due to a difference between their personality types that is one of these dimensions? It's a lot.

I hear a lot of heavy advice to non-schedulers about how they should make schedules and lists and live a more structured life. I hear a lot of (lighter) opposing advice from non-schedulers suggesting that happiness may be found through openness to possibilities. These are P and J people each telling the other that the other should be like him or herself.

I see a lot of issues that never get discussed, but simmer unresolved. These are very often between "I" people who don't talk about the problem. Two avoiders; both win! But then the avoided problem destroys the relationship later. Or between "E" people, fighting over who gets to talk. Conversation-dominators. Balance!

N and S people don't much understand each other. There's often a lot of contempt in dialog between these types: N people think that S people don't have a brain, don't have a concept or an intuition, can't relate to what's important. S people think that N people are not in the real world, couldn't survive on their own, are too absent minded or too airy-fairy to even be in the room here with them. "The devil is in the details, and it's all details" is an S comment, telling everyone to be like them.

To me, these differences are the majority of human conflicts. Maybe it's 85%. What frequency do you put on it? To you, dear reader, try to notice the issues you see people arguing about, and see if you can understand them in terms of some of these Myers Briggs dimensions. In general, people are always telling other people to be like them.

"How come you can't be more sensitive (F)!", complains an F daughter to her T mother. Come down from the clouds (N) and do your homework (J)! says the SJ parent to their NP child. Why won't you say something! says the E partner to the I partner. That jerk!, always acting like I don't have anything to say, thinks the I partner about the E partner.

I hear these issues come up all the time. I really do think it's way more than half of all human conflict. And I am not immune; I still have an emotional reaction to my sister's dismissive intonation, even when it comes from the mouth of a five year old girl.

But if I can try to understand a conflict or difficulty between people as involving one of these issues (E/I, N/S, T/F, J/P), then I can see it as being part of that person's nature, part of their long-term temperament and personality, which more than a hundred million other people around the world share with them. And that means they are perfectly normal, even if they are totally different from me. And that I have no cause to complain or get upset or angry about them being that way, because a matter of temperament is essentially a matter of fate. You are what you are, and nothing is really going to change it. So give up the complaining, fighting, and misery.

More: Take a learning attitude, and orient positively toward your opposite. (Or is that my NFP quality telling others to be like me?)