Who are we? Why do we act the way we do? An overview of the Myers Briggs personality type indicator

Throughout the ages, people have attempted to understand, explain and/or categorize the similarities and differences of human behavior. The Ancient Greeks labeled individuals using the four designations of sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic and melancholic. The American Plains Indians categorized people according to the four points of the compass. Astrology's birth signs have for centuries been a popular system of labeling similar characteristics in human behavior. This paper is an introduction to the theory of classifying personality types first presented by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. In the 1920's, two Americans, Katherine Cook-Briggs and Isabel Briggs-Myers began their life-long study of individual differences which led to the development of the Myers-Briggs type indicator. This inventory of preferences has evolved to be a well-respected psychological tool that is perhaps the most widely used world-wide.