SPOTLIGHT

Personality Testing, Cognitive Functions, and Learning Styles
By Christiana Minardi and Stacy Padula
 

Every individual has his or her own strengths and weaknesses that dictate what he or she is “good at.” By gaining some insight into your personality and unconscious thought processes, you can most effectively utilize your natural traits and talents. The Myers-Briggs personality test has been used to place people in appropriate jobs based on their skill sets, as well as in human resources and employee management. On an interpersonal level, personality testing can allow individuals to better communicate and understand one another. Additionally, personality testing can be a key component of defining or pinpointing learning styles. By understanding how a child thinks, an educator can better tailor lesson plans to fit the needs of the student. All too often, traditional classroom education only capitalizes on one or a few different types of intelligences, thus losing the attention of a majority of the students. By differentiating lesson plans to fit the
learning styles of more students, teachers will find that more children experience success. For example, in an Earth Science class, by taking students outdoors and showing them the aspects of nature they are learning about, the teacher is more likely to engage students who are naturalistic or kinesthetic learners. 

The Myers-Briggs personality test results break down into four components, with two potential tendencies for each. Someone can be either extroverted(e) or introverted (i), sensing(s) or intuitive(i), thinking(t) or feeling(f), and judging(j) or perceiving(p). It is important to note that no preference is ever 100%, but there is usually one that dominates an individual’s thought process. After completing the test, people receive four letter codes that define their personality within the terminology of the test. There are sixteen different potential combinations that reveal a “stack” of traits ordered from one to eight, with the first being someone’s most dominant trait and the eighth being his or her least dominant trait. The extraverted traits are directed outwardly and are broad in scope, while the introverted traits are directed internally and are narrow and intensive in scope. 

Thinking (t) and feeling (f) are considered judging (j) functions, while sensing (s) and intuition (i) are considered perceiving (p) functions. The perceiving functions allow people to take in and retrieve information, while the judging functions allow people to draw conclusions or make decisions. For example, let’s break down an individual who is an ESFJ. The “E” stands for extroverted, meaning that his or her dominant function is an extraverted one. The final character, “J” stands for judging, and is the determinant of the most dominant extraverted trait, which is the third character of the code: “F,” which stands for feeling. In this case, extraverted feeling is this person’s most dominant trait since an ESFJ is naturally an extravert. If the final character were a “P,” meaning perceiving, the dominant extraverted trait would be the second character, which would be “S” (sensing). If the person were an introvert (code starting with an “I”), then his or her most dominant extraverted trait would actually be their second most dominant trait. Therefore, the last letter of an introvert’s Myers-Briggs code denotes his or her second, not primary, cognitive function (ie. an INFJ is actually a dominant perceiver and an INFP is actually a dominant judger). 

There are many benefits to personality and intelligence testing. Understanding other people’s functional stacks in a classroom or workplace can improve communication and productivity.