You therefore need to decide for yourself what your personality type is. Your conclusion may be the same or different to this report. It may also be different to other questionnaires. It is estimated that the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, for example, produces a wrong result in one out of every three or four cases.This questionnaire, the MMDI, is currently in development, so does not have anywhere near the same degree of research behind it as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and is probably not as reliable or valid.

This is because working out your personality type is not an easy task. Much of personality is 'unconscious'. Sigmund Freud used the analogy of an iceberg, suggesting that most of personality is out of sight under the water. Also, people are complex, full of contradictions. That can make finding out your personality type a bit like trying to find a black cat in the dark, whilst wearing sunglasses! Such difficulty is quite normal. Even some 'experts' in the field of personality have found it difficult to find out their type.

So, finding out your personality type is more of an art than a science. Questionnaires can help you help in your quest, and so can other people. But they don't always have the right answers. The only real expert in your personality is you.

To help you find out your type, we have matched the pattern of answers you gave to the MMDI questionnaire with the 'standard' patterns of the 16 personality types. The table below shows the percentage fit with each personality type.

From this table, you can see that the two highest scoring types are ISTP and INTP. This doesn't rule out the other types. But those are the two that are closest when we 'pattern match' your questionnaire results with each of the 16 personality types

Differences between ISTP and INTP

It may help you work out your type if we compare the similarities and differences between ISTP and INTP.

One important thing to look at is which preferences 'dominate' the personality. Carl Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers said there is a 'dominant function'. What this means, in simple terms, is that two of the letters in the type code are much more important than the others.

For people with ISTP preferences, the most important letters are I and T. For people with INTP preferences, the most important letters are also I and T. This means that ISTP and INTP have something important in common. The same two letters are particularly important for them both, so they share the same 'dominant function'.

The Dominant Function

For ISTP and INTP the most important preferences are Introverted Thinking. Your 'dominant function' is Thinking, oriented towards the inner world. You provide explanation of how and why things happen. You bring structure and organisation into the inner world of ideas and understanding. You analyse things, formulating hypotheses and explanations of how they function. You gather evidence to assess how true those explanations are. You produce mental models that replicate how particular aspects of the world work. You try to understand the full complexity of any situation.

Both your top-scoring types share the same dominant function. The characteristics of these two types are therefore very similar.

Preference Differences

ISTP and INTP differ in Sensing/Intuition. This preference is about the type of information you like to deal with. If you prefer facts, what you know, to have clarity, or to describe what you see, then your preference is for Sensing. If you prefer to deal with ideas, look into the unknown, to generate new possibilities or to anticipate what isn't obvious, then your preference is for Intuition.

Everybody uses both sides of the preferences at times, depending on the circumstances. But the difference between the two personality types is your natural inclination. That is, which would you prefer to do in a situation of free choice?

'Whole Type' Differences

Another way to help decide between two (or more) personality types is to look at the descriptions of each one.

As an analogy, you can't always tell which country someone comes from by listening to the words they use. If they use French words when speaking, they might be from France or Belgium or Canada or many other countries. To work out where someone comes from you have to listen to the whole person: the language, the accent, the behaviour, etc..

In a similar way, sometimes you cannot tell someone's personality type by looking at individual behaviours. You need to look at the whole person. You can then work out your type by comparison with some descriptions of the personality types.

Final Notes

Carl Jung said: 'every individual is an exception to the rule'.

You are a unique individual. The personality types can help you to orient yourself as you find your way around your personality. They also provide a language (a label) that helps you explore your identity.

However, personality types are not meant to put you in a box. Some people misuse the concept of personality type by saying that if you are ABC type, then you must be good at doing XYZ. Some people also make judgements about others on the basis of their personality type, e.g.: in recruitment. Such judgements are mistakes, made through ignorance.

Key

This radar report shows the distribution of your preferences:

You prefer lighter areas, you tend to avoid darker ones

Sensing is top, Intuition is bottom

Thinking is left, Feeling is right

Extraversion is outer, Introversion is inner

Opposite sides of the wheel, and inside/outside, are opposite in Jung's theory

Judgement and Perception are not labelled on the radar because Carl Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers used the terms differently. The diagram above right shows the relationship between the personality radar and Isabel Briggs Myers' types. For a full explanation of how the radar is constructed, and the relationship with Carl Jung's types, see Steve Myers' blog archive.

Dynamics Report

In the MMDI Basic Report your pattern most closely matched that of ISTP. The dominant function-attitude of an ISTP is Ti, and the auxiliary function-attitude is Se. In the Type Dynamics analysis, your highest scoring function-attitude was Ti and the second-highest was Si (see full table, above right).

So, comparing the two sets of results, we see that the top-scoring function-attitude reported in the MMDI Type Dynamics analysis is as expected in an ISTP, but the second one is different.

Your dominant function is reported as Ti, Thinking oriented towards the inner world. You provide explanation of how and why things happen. You bring structure and organisation into the inner world of ideas and understanding. You analyse things, formulating hypotheses and explanations of how they function. You gather evidence to assess how true those explanations are. You produce mental models that replicate how particular aspects of the world works. You try to understand the full complexity of any situation.

Your auxiliary function is reported as being Si, introverted Sensing. You bring clarity to the inner world of information, ideas and understanding. You collect or produce facts, to build up useful knowledge and experience.

Characteristics of the Hierarchy

There are some important differences between function-attitudes that appear at the top of the list and those that appear further down.

The first is consciousness. This isn't talking about whether you are asleep. Rather it refers to the degree of awareness of how parts of your own psyche are operating. The function-attitudes at the top tend to be conscious and the ones at the bottom unconscious.

The second is how active the function-attitude is. Those at the top tend to be active and creative, producing something. Those at the bottom tend to be passive, simplying noticing what is happening rather than making things happen. Perhaps, right at the bottom, they don't even notice things.

The third is how differentiated the function-attitude is. This refers to the extent to which that function-attitude has been separated from other functions and can be used separately. This is associated with the function-attitude being used in an 'abstract' way. This refers to the ability to consciously draw out - abstract - certain types of information from a situation that are relevant to that function and that function alone. Eg: Feeling abstracts things that are of value, Thinking abstracts the logical principles, etc..

In your type dynamics hiearchy, extraverted Thinking is moderately high on the list. You can see when things are badly organised and try to get things sorted when you can. This function-attitude is still relatively conscious and active, it is somewhat differentiated so you have some control over it and can be creative with it.

The same is also true to some degree of extraverted Sensing. You like things to be dealt with as and when they crop up.

You may also tend to notice, though not do a great deal about, other perspectives and radical ideas, as well as personal values and priorities. (This is because introverted Intuition and introverted Feeling are in the middle area, between your conscious realm and the unconscious.)

The Unconscious

We now start moving into the shadow parts of your personality. These are the parts that are difficult to see in yourself, though others may see them in you.

A function-attitude that is relatively unconscious for you is extraverted Intuition. This means that you may not pay enough attention to the possible benefits there may be in new situations. As a result, you may be failing to try new things that could be of significant benefit to you/the team. Also relatively unconscious is extraverted Feeling. You may also not be paying enough attention to harmony and the feelings of others you deal with. As a result, you may be causing an emotional reaction in others without realising it.

Final Points

There are some more caveats that should be placed on the above report.

As has already been stated, no personality questionnaire is 100% accurate, so the results of any report can be wrong. The value of the information above is in asking the question rather than giving an answer. Could this be true for you? Are there parts of it that act as a mirror to your personality?

Also, people are complex and individual. Sometimes generalised questionnaires like the MMDI work and are useful, other times they don't and the results should be discarded (using the horses for courses principle).

And there are lots of hidden assumptions in this report that may not hold true for you. For example, the assumption is made (above) that your preferred functions are more conscious and your non-preferred functions are unconscious. But we should note the words of Carl Jung, who produced the theory on which the Myers Briggs model of personality is based. He said, when talking about levels of self-awareness, that many people were unconscious and others have a high degree of consciousness. If you are one of those people, then the above report may not fit you very well, as it assumes an average position: that some parts of your personality are conscious and others unconsciousness.

If you want further information to help interpret the results, unfortunately we are unable to enter in to individual correspondence. However, there are various online forums where there are people knowledgable about type dynamics. There are also some excellent books that cover type dynamics (eg: 'Personality Type: An Owner's Manual' by Lenore Thomson Bentz). The best option, however, is to engage the services of a qualified practitioner for the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (or a compatible questionnaire).