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9/10/2021

MBTI: Personality Types - or preferences?

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Dr. Carl Jung (1875-1961)
Personality archetypes were suggested by Carl Jung in the 1960s (1).  Specifically, he thought that people could be categorized into groups based on their preferences, such as whether they prefer introversion or extroversion - or whether they prefer to make decisions based on logic or emotions (2).

Perhaps the best well known personality typing system is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which uses Jung’s ideas to place people into one of sixteen “types” based on a questionnaire.  It is worth noting that research psychologists have hated the MBTI since the 1960s because it doesn’t meet their rigorous standards for psychometrics (2), but that businesses and leadership coaches love it.  A key criticism of the MBTI is that when people's scores are lined up along an axis, such as introversion-extroversion, the scores do not cluster into two groups (2).

Does it help to know your type?

The notion of personality preferences is not controversial - we all have our likes and dislikes - but the notion that we fit into a "type" or a "style" is controversial because it suggests that once I know your type, I can make predictions about you.  It means that I can suggest what kind of world where you should live, work, and love in order to optimize your happiness and productivity (1).  People also resist personality typing because it means that they should fit into a box drawn by a dead white guy.

(It's worth noting that MBTI was created by a mother-daughter team and they had no training in psychology  Academics hate it for that reason too!)

Nonetheless, tests of styles, and types are very, very popular - especially in business, education, and fashion magazines.  There are tests for management styles, learning styles, attachment styles, productivity styles, conflict styles, leadership types, and so many more.  The idea that once you know your type or style, you can tailor your life to match it is big business!  
For example, when someone receives the results of their Myers-Briggs assessment, they do learn that the types describe preferences, not fixed personality traits. However, MBTI types are currently used to help people find the perfect career and the perfect mate and explain almost everything in between.  CPP, the organization that owns the MBTI assessment, brings in over $20 million in annual revenue and upwards of two million people take the MBTI assessment each year (3). 

Perhaps the most compelling argument against personality typing is that a lot of money is spent on assessments,  training, and books about type, but that there is very little rigorous study (3) to determine whether advice based on personality types or styles has any tangible benefit (4).
 
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References & Resources

  1. Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x
  2. Stricker, L. J., & Ross, J. (1964). Assessment of structural properties of Jungian personality type. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 68(1), 62–71. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2208901
  3. Cunningham, L. 2012. Does it pay to know your type?  The Washington Post 12-14-12
  4. I should admit that I have come to this understanding after being an MBTI aficionado for decades and after completing the MBTI Certified Practitioner training. 

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1/29/2019

I love visuals, but i don't call myself a "visual learner"

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  • I scroll all the way through websites to see if there is an infographic before I start reading. 
  • I skim academic journal papers to find figures that describe the experimental results immediately after I read the abstracts.
  • I browse photos rather than text descriptions when I am shopping online.

So, does this make me a “visual learner”?

When people talk about learning styles, they often refer to people who prefer to learn from visual information (i.e., drawings, photographs, diagrams, and illustrations) and people who prefer to learn from verbal information (i.e., spoken words, written stories, and text-based instructions).  Hence the suggestion of two learning styles: “visualizer” and “verbalizer”.  These two styles have received a lot of attention from academic researchers, parenting journals, and Facebook quizzes, but they are only two among dozens of learning styles have been described over the years (e.g., Myers-Briggs, Kolb’s Learning Styles, Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, etc.).  It seems to give people reassurance when they believe they know how they learn best.  Parents are also drawn to the idea that if their children are taught in their preferred learning style, they will do better in school and go on to live more successful lives.  However, the science suggests that it is not this simple (1).
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Educational psychologists have documented that people do indeed prefer visual or verbal information and to some degree these preferences are related to their cognitive ability with visual or verbal information (2).  Scientists determine someone’s preference by giving them a quiz that asks questions like: “when you read science lab manual, do you prefer to look at the diagrams or read the text?”  Once they know a person’s preferred style, they can validate that preference by offering them the choice of multiple types of information (i.e. diagrammatic or text-based help on a quiz) and determining if their choices match their preference (1).

Once researchers demonstrate that people reliably prefer one type of information over another, they need to figure out if people learn better in an environment that emphasizes the type of information that they prefer (3).  This distinction – switching from identifying the information I prefer to the information that helps me learn – is what separates a learning preference from a learning style.  Researchers call this the “meshing hypothesis” and is the most common way to test for the existence of learning styles (4).
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Tests of the meshing hypothesis have come up empty-handed.  Students do not score better on quizzes after they have been taught in their preferred style (5, 6).  In one study, the researchers found that all learners performed slightly better on a quiz about lightning formation when they were presented with visual information, regardless of their learning preference.  It seems that students can adapt to accommodate any type of information presentation.

While there is not much scientific support for the meshing hypothesis, there is support for the idea that the teaching method should match the content being taught (7).  For example, how effective would it be to teach:
  • color theory using only verbal descriptions and text? 
  • knot-tying using only diagrams and illustrations? 
  • dancing with photographs and written descriptions of people doing dance moves?
 
The idea of learning styles is very compelling because it speaks to our human desire to understand ourselves and be understood.  However, it is important to understand the difference between preferring visual information and learning more effectively from visual information because if you believe too strongly that you need visual information to learn, you could miss out on a lot of exciting ideas that are best described in only in words!

Resources & References

  1. Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2009). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x
  2. Mayer, R. E., & Massa, L. J. (2003). Three Facets of Visual and Verbal Learners: Cognitive Ability, Cognitive Style, and Learning Preference. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(4), 833–846. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.95.4.833
  3. Clarke, I., Flaherty, T. B., & Yankey, M. (2006). Teaching the visual learner: The use of visual summaries in marketing education. Journal of Marketing Education, 28(3), 218–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/0273475306291466
  4. Constantinidou, F., & Baker, S. (2002). Stimulus modality and verbal learning performance in normal aging. Brain and Language, 82(3), 296–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0093-934X(02)00018-4
  5. Massa, L. J., & Mayer, R. E. (2006). Testing the ATI hypothesis: Should multimedia instruction accommodate verbalizer-visualizer cognitive style? Learning and Individual Differences, 16(4), 321–335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2006.10.001
  6. Kollöffel, B. (2012). Exploring the relation between visualizer-verbalizer cognitive styles and performance with visual or verbal learning material. Computers and Education, 58(2), 697–706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.09.016
  7. Eitel, A., & Scheiter, K. (2014). Picture or Text First? Explaining Sequence Effects when Learning with Pictures and Text. Educational Psychology Review, 27(1), 153–180. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-014-9264-4

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    Angie B. Moline

    Dr. Moline is an ecologist and visual process facilitator who draws pictures to help clients think.  She is currently on a quest to understand why live drawings are so compelling and how to make them as sticky as possible in order to improve communication, understanding, and memory.  Follow here journey here!

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