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    Your Secret Self: Understanding yourself and others using the Myers-Briggs personality test
    Your Secret Self: Understanding yourself and others using the Myers-Briggs personality test
    Your Secret Self: Understanding yourself and others using the Myers-Briggs personality test
    Ebook129 pages1 hour

    Your Secret Self: Understanding yourself and others using the Myers-Briggs personality test

    By Barbara G Cox

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    About this ebook

    Discover Your Secret Self
    Take the Myers-Briggs test, score it, and find your type. Each of the 16 types is described in a separate chapter at the end of the book. You’ll be surprised at the things you learn about yourself.
    You’ll discover your special gifts are and how to make the most of them. You’ll find out how to handle relationships better, make smarter decisions, and develop a more positive attitude toward situations that used to challenge you.

    Discover What Makes Other People Tick
    Just as important, you’ll discover what makes other people tick. In the chapters describing the 16 types, you’ll find people you know. If they’re loved ones, you’ll find ways to get the best from your relationships. If they’re difficult, you’ll learn how to handle them without confrontation.

    Conflicts with others can’t always be avoided, especially when two personality types are completely different. Let’s say you’re an INFP—an introvert who relies on hunches and insights, makes decisions on the basis of personal values, and is easy-going. The opposite type—ESTJ—may consider your introversion boring, your intuition strange, your feelings overdone, and your casual approach to appointments frustrating. You may find ESTJs’ tireless pursuit of socializing tiresome, their dependence on sensing functions unimaginative, their thinking cold and unfeeling, and their judging attitude demanding. Can you ever learn to get along with each other? You may not become best friends, but least you can minimize needless conflicts by understanding each other’s personality type.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarbara G Cox
    Release dateDec 1, 2016
    Your Secret Self: Understanding yourself and others using the Myers-Briggs personality test
    Author

    Barbara G Cox

    For more than forty years, Barbara has enjoyed a checkered career as a science writer, journalist, artist, and mental health counselor. She has written books and journal articles with basic scientists, physicians, and other health care professionals. Corporations have hired her to write and illustrate consumer education literature. She has worked on assignment for ad agencies, publishers, hospitals, private physicians, and government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health. She is also the sole author or co-author of over 100 books and articles. Over her professional career, Barbara served as an adjunct professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, staff consultant and faculty member at the Mayo Clinic and Medical School, and manager of biomedical communications at Abbott Laboratories. In the early 1980s she took time off for graduate studies at Ohio State University, pursuing a major in social sciences research. After getting an M.S. degree, she enrolled in a psychology graduate program at the University of Florida, where she received an Ed.S. degree, with a specialty in the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory. Following a year as a counselor on two college campuses, Barbara returned to her writing career and founded MedEdit Associates in Gainesville, Florida. She ran this successful agency until she retired in 2000 to write about her own interests and ideas. Currently, Barbara has three books in press: Your Secret Self—Understanding Yourself and Others Using the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory; Great Animal Escape Stories: True Adventures of Farm Animals; and Wild Dogs of the World. She is the anonymous author of a best-selling book about the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Since 2010, she has maintained a blog, “I Was Thinking,” on her website, BeaconStreetUSA.com. The blog focuses on interpretation of the Myers-Briggs test and gets over 30,000 visitors a month. The blogs are followed by thoughtful responses from over 200 readers. Barbara volunteers as a pro bono writer for a number of nonprofit organizations: PLAN International, Jungle Friends Primate Sanctuary, WildCare of Oklahoma, Mill Creek Retirement Home for Horses, Humane Farming, Gainesville Pet Rescue, and others. For many years, she has also funded them as a private donor. As an amateur musician, she started a weekly musical program at a preschool for low-income families near her home in Gainesville, Florida. Each week, she brought her accordion to school and played songs the children could sing, letting them experiment with her instrument afterward. She also founded the Gainesville Humane Society’s dog therapy program, taking her dog Rosie to a low-income nursing home regularly. The University of Florida’s Department of Journalism made a documentary film about their visits. Barbara has traveled with groups of three to ten people to Vietnam, Thailand, and Ecuador, as a PLAN emissary. As an ecotourist, she has visited Europe on a bicycle tour and Alaska and Antarctica on small nature cruises. Her interests include kayaking, wildlife-watching, playing musical instruments, and service work for Alcoholics Anonymous, of which she is a member. Born in 1932, Barbara grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. Her father was a firefighter and her mother a home economist. The author reports that her dad was introverted, judgmental and withdrawn, but protected her when she needed it. Her mother suffered from personality disorders and was mostly absent. Barbara had to find her own path to happiness and security after she left home. Perhaps her childhood sowed the seeds of compassion in her heart, because she has been a tireless worker for children, the elderly, and animals all her life.

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    • 4/5
      Great insights on the 16 personalities. I did find out that tags are different from the one I saw online after taking the test.

      For instance, INTJ is called the Architect online but tagged the Mastermind here. I'm sure they connot the same idea but it would have been great to have the same names to avoid confusion. That aside, it gave great insight.

    Book preview

    Your Secret Self - Barbara G Cox

    Discover Your Hidden Strengths and

    Learn How to Overcome Obstacles in Your Life

    Feel like you don’t fit in?

    Have trouble with personal or work relationships?

    Wonder what career direction to take?

    Learning about your unique personality type can help you uncover your special gifts and find out what traits could be blocking your happiness.

    Maybe you’ve heard of the Myers-Briggs personality test, but you’re not sure how it works. This book reveals the secrets of personality theory. You’ll discover things about yourself that you may not already know. If you take the test in Chapter 3 and use the scoring key, you’ll find out which of the sixteen types fits you best. There’s a separate chapter describing each type.

    Find Out How to Turn Even Negative Traits Into Valuable Gifts

    Understanding the subtle aspects of your type will help you become a better adjusted, happier person. If you’re an introvert who feels like an outsider, you’ll learn about the benefits of a rich internal life. If you’re a feeling type, you’ll see that the world needs and values your compassion. Each Myers-Briggs type has special gifts. This book shows you how to make the most of them. You’ll learn to appreciate even the traits you thought were negative and find ways to turn them into gifts.

    Learn How to Handle Difficult People With Ease and Improve Your Relationships

    Just as important, you’ll find out what makes other people tick. You can look up chapters describing people you know. If they’re partners or family members, you’ll learn to appreciate them more and make the most of your relationship. The book will also prepare you to deal with difficult people. Maybe you’re an INFP—an introvert who relies on hunches and insights, makes decisions on the basis of personal values, and is easy-going. The opposite type—ESTJ—whether at home or at work, can make you uncomfortable until you figure out why they act the way they do and learn to interact with them without losing your cool.

    Take the full test in Chapter 3, score your results using the key provided, and read the chapter devoted to your type to start improving your life right now.

    Get Your Free Gift

    As a thank-you for downloading our ebook, we invite you to visit our website and get instant access to over 20 full-length articles about the impact of personality type on relationships and daily living.

    You can view over 200 entries that readers have posted in our Myers-Briggs blog. Join the discussion! Got a question about your type? The author responds to requests for advice. Visit http://windhorsebooks.com/yss.

    Table of Contents

    Psychological Tests and the Secrets They Expose

    How the Myers-Briggs Test Works

    Energy Preferences

    Attention Preferences

    Decision Preferences

    Attitude Preferences

    Sixteen Types Overview

    Take the Myers-Briggs Personality Test

    ENFJ—The Mentor

    ENFP—The Campaigner

    ENTJ—The Leader

    ENTP—The Explorer

    ESFJ—The Caretaker

    ESFP—The Performer

    ESTJ—The Supervisor

    ESTP—The Promoter

    INFJ—The Counselor

    INFP—The Healer

    INTJ—The Mastermind

    INTP—The Problem Solver

    ISFJ—The Protector

    ISFP—The Artist

    ISTJ—The Worker

    ISTP—The Artisan

    What’s Your Type?

    The Four Trait Pairs

    Heredity vs. Environment

    Balance

    Cultural Influence and Prevalence

    Learning More

    Chapter 1

    Psychological Tests and the Secrets They Expose

    The Myers-Briggs Type Inventory is one of many psychological tests developed in the U.S. since the early 1900s. You’ve probably taken several over the years—tests measuring your intelligence, emotional balance, motivation, and so on. There’s almost nothing about your mind that psychological tests can’t measure—from intelligence to character. In the last few decades, personality inventories have become popular with educators and employers as a way to evaluate people’s work styles and ability to get along with others.

    Most Popular Psychological Tests

    Some of the most widely used psychological tests are the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Rorschach Inkblot Test, Enneagram, and Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular.

    Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test

    Intelligence tests first appeared in France in 1912, created by a Paris psychologist. The Binet test was imported to the United States, translated into English, and refined at Stanford University in 1916. As the test developed over the years, a score of 100 was taken to be average for any given age. People scoring below 90 were thought to be delayed cognitively. Those with scores above 145 were considered gifted.

    Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

    The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is used to evaluate mental health problems. With over 500 questions, the test identifies symptoms of depression, anxiety, passivity, and even addiction potential. Topics covered by the inventory include religion, politics, sex, health, family life, education, work, and other social issues. Not only do responses show facets of the test-taker’s personality, they reveal inconsistent or deceptive answers. The MMPI is a useful diagnostic tool, as well as a guide to treatment.

    Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

    The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was developed as a projective psychological test. Subjects are given a series of unlabeled drawings and asked to make up a story about each. The pictures are ambiguous in meaning. The stories reveal the test-takers’ motivations, concerns, and ways of looking at the social world. Since its introduction in the mid-1900s, the TAT has been widely used to evaluate attitudes and emotions in people from the ages of seven and up.

    Rorschach Inkblot Test

    The Rorschach Inkblot Test is another projective tool. It consists of mirror images of complex inkblots that can suggest any number of themes. Test-takers are asked to tell the psychologist what they see in the various images. The results are believed to

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