Newsletter #48

In this issue:

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and Communicating with ENTJs

About the Strong Interest Inventory®: Artistic Theme & College Majors

About the FIRO-B™: Team Development – Wanted Affection

The 16PF®– The 16 Personality Factors: Correlations with Myers-Briggs, Part II - Introversion

Communicating with ENTJs

ENTJs prefer people who are focused on the future and long-term consequences of their actions. They like logic, efficiency, precision, and people who can make tough decisions. Many ENTJs like a "hearty" discussion. Others might see the same discussion as a battle of wits or a bitter argument. Like other Intuitives, ENTJs often like concepts, models, strategic thinking, and theory. Competency is another issue for most ENTJs: they want to deal only with those they perceive as competent and knowledgeable. ENTJs frequently like people who get straight to the point, and can back up their claims with facts. You can expect most ENTJs to challenge and freely criticize your statements. If you are sensitive, you might find ENTJs to be harsh, demanding, and direct. ENTJs expect people to honor their commitments, come to meeting prepared, and to meet deadlines.

When communicating with ENTJs, you'll want to avoid appeals to his or her emotions or feelings. If you frequently change your mind or position, or take too long to decide, you're likely to make an ENTJ angry. Anything that remotely appears illogical will not sway ENTJs. Avoid redundancy. Likewise, they will seldom listen to you "just because" or "just trust me on this." If your plans are unclear or lack structure, most ENTJs will ignore them. Overloading an ENTJ with useless facts, minutiae, and hearsay will also make them impatient, and they will ignore that information. You can expect most ENTJs to resist any attempts to control them, order them around, or tell them how something "should" be done. Top

About the Strong Interest Inventory: Artistic Theme & College Majors

The latest version of the Strong was released in December 2004. One study looked at the relationship between themes on the Strong and the college majors chosen by the participants. This time we’ll look at those who scored highest on the Artistic scale.

Let’s start with the men. The top college majors for this group were Marketing, Psychology, Biological Sciences, Computers & IS, Political Science, Engineering, Computer Technology, and Management.

For women, the list included Literature, Applied Art & Design, Performance and Fine Arts, Journalism, Communications, Foreign Languages, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology. Interestingly, women made up the first eleven spots in the list, so it would appear that in college, Artistic types are more frequently women than men.

As with all statistics, these results cannot predict how any one individual will respond to the Strong based on his or her major alone. It’s also true that people with the same majors had different top themes on the Strong. Therefore, no one should pick or drop a major because his or her top theme on the Strong might indicate it’s not as popular with the group. Top

The FIRO-B: Team Development – Wanted Affection

When working with teams, the FIRO-B can provide useful insights into how each person likes to work with others. The items below are quite likely to be true for you the higher your score on a scale is. If you scored at seven or above, you probably demonstrate these behaviors very often. If you scored two or less, you probably rarely do these things. Of course, those in the middle will likely do them to varying degrees, depending on the situation.

This month we'll discuss Wanted Affection and how people with high scores are likely to act on a team.

Those who score highest on Wanted Affection will likely reveal many personal details about themselves to the rest of the group, listen carefully to other team members, try to reconcile group differences, suggest compromises, and ask for feedback. They are likely to moan and groan about the group's tasks and spend time commiserating with the others. High scorers on this scale will probably mention examples of other teams with great loyalty, cohesion, "family" attitude, and support. They will usually provide positive feedback, have a positive attitude, and show gratitude to other team members. Likewise, they will encourage others to contribute to the group, to be open and frank, and help out.

Most people will share the above traits to some degree. However, it's likely that this style will dominate for some people more than others. Your score on the scales should indicate which style is the preferred one for you. Top

The 16 Personality Factors: Correlations with Myers-Briggs, Part II

This time we'll look at how the 16 scales correlate to the scale on the Myers-Briggs. A positive correlation means that as the score on one scale goes up, the score on the other scale goes up also. A negative correlation means the opposite. For example, someone with a low score on Factor A is likely to show up on the Introverted side of the MBTI. Someone with a high score on Factor B probably would too.

For Introversion on the Myers-Briggs, here are the correlations from the 16PF:

Factor A (Warmth): Negative

Factor B (Reasoning): Positive

Factor C (Emotional Stability): Negative

Factor E (Dominance): Negative

Factor F (Liveliness): Negative

Factor G (Rule-Consciousness): Positive

Factor H (Social Boldness): Negative

Factor I (Sensitivity): Positive

Factor L (Vigilance): Positive

Factor M (Abstractedness): Positive

Factor N (Privateness): Positive

Factor O (Apprehension): Positive

Factor Q1 (Openness to Change): Negative

Factor Q2 (Self-Reliance): Positive

Factor Q3 (Perfectionism): Positive

Factor Q4 (Tension): Positive

The factors with the greatest positive correlation to Introversion are Q2, N, and G A. Those with the greatest negative correlation are H, F, and A.