Abstract
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTITM) is widely used in Christian churches as an aid to deeper understanding of one’s own personality and that of one’s fellow believers. It is also presented as a guide to those practices that will be most helpful in developing a Christian’s spiritual life and discipleship. The article examines and critiques the latter notion, concluding that it is unwise to displace and ignore tried-and-tested classical spiritual disciplines on the grounds of incompatibility with one’s personality. Instead, knowing one’s Personality Type should help identify the spiritual disciplines that are attractive and congenial and also those equally important but less congenial disciplines, which may well require determined effort.
Introduction
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTITM) will have been encountered by many if not most readers of Theology. Its approach to classifying the human personality is widely used in the corporate world as an aid to staff development. Knowing one’s own Psychological Type is claimed to aid self-understanding and, by appreciating the personality differences among their colleagues, to enhance effective team-working.
Psychological Type theory was first presented publicly in 1980 by Isobel Myers in her Gifts Differing. 1 The conscious borrowing of St Paul’s notable phrase may have facilitated its early acceptance in Christian circles, and for over four subsequent decades the MBTITM has been used extensively in ministerial training and more generally with church congregations. This was not without some resistance and trenchant criticism, which I evaluated in 2007. 2 Subsequently, 3 I considered whether the self-knowledge engendered by Psychological Type can aid Christians in their growth in the biblically commended qualities of wisdom and maturity.
Psychological Type proposes that human personality comprises four key elements, each of which has two contrasting polarities. These are identified as Extravert/Introvert, Sensing/Intuitive, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving. These terms are somewhat opaque without further definition, but this is provided in Gifts Differing and many other readily accessible sources. Each individual person is deemed to prefer one or other of these contrasting pairs, so by inference there are 16 distinct Psychological Types, each one designated by a four-letter label. Thus, the present author is INFJ, because his preferences are for Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling and Judging.
Psychological Type theory is not well regarded by academic psychologists, who prefer another analysis of the human personality, the so-called Five-Factor Model. I have examined this antagonism in some detail over the past decade 4 and have come to two conclusions. First (and surprisingly) that the two models are strikingly similar to each other; second, that both involve some usually unacknowledged assumptions. I have recently proposed 5 how the two schemes can be reconciled if both camps make some concessions to their belief systems.
In the present article I focus on Christian discipleship, which in recent decades has been a major concern of many authors. Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline 6 inaugurated a new stream of writing that has continued with notable contributions from Eugene Peterson, 7 Dallas Willard, 8 and, most recently, Christopher Hall. 9 For these authors, Christian discipleship comprises a conscious effort to emulate the life patterns of Jesus Christ: an alternation and interdependence of withdrawal from and engagement with the world. Another common feature is the need for determination and effort on the disciple’s part, as well as a reliance on the grace of God. We must work out God’s gift of salvation if we are to grow in Christian maturity: it will not come about otherwise.
Pray Your Way
Pray Your Way is the title of a book published in 1993. 10 It has many valuable insights. Its main theme, encapsulated in its title, is that most guides to the spiritual life are written by introverts, focusing on the value – indeed the necessity – of learning to use solitude, silence and meditation to develop a personal relationship with God. Extraverts, by contrast, find silence and solitude threatening: they need other approaches, particularly group activities.
The 1980s and 1990s saw a spate of books on Psychological Type and spirituality. Most of them took a similar line to Pray Your Way. Here are some of the titles: Who We Are Is How We Pray, 11 Your Personality and the Spiritual Life, 12 Prayer and Temperament, 13 Knowing Me, Knowing God. 14 The common theme is that one mode of spirituality does not suit everyone. We should choose those approaches that match our personality. Interestingly, this stream of writing seems to have dried up: rather little has been written since the turn of the century. However, its common message remains influential.
Dr Steve Glowinkowski is a chartered psychologist who teaches and advocates practices aimed to improve the quality of leadership in the world of business. His first book presses home the notion that what makes a good leader is his or her behaviour. People should not be recruited because of their personalities, but because of their competencies, what they do. Hence the book’s title: It’s Behaviour, Stupid.
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Here are some key quotations: When an organisation homes in on developing behaviours, its people’s performance rises significantly. Enhanced competency delivery results in more effective management of the ‘leadership dynamic’. Excellent behavioural delivery by managers and leaders creates the right conditions to enable the organisation’s broader population to lift its behavioural game. Climate will improve, so will performance. Helping people deliver their behavioural competencies provides a great opportunity for them to achieve their full career potential.
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Predispositions are our natural personal characteristics. These are differentiated from delivered behaviours, which represent what people actually do. More often than not, jobs throw up situations that require different behaviours to be delivered than those that represent our character or personality. For instance, naturally reserved types will need to overcome their shyness when their job requires them to engage with others. Organizations pay for delivered behaviours, not preferred ones.
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Reading this second book with Personality Type in mind, it is striking that the behaviours identified as necessary in an outstanding leader, Directive and Concerned, map precisely to those behaviours Myers-Briggs labels as characterizing Thinking and Feeling, which in type theory are the opposite polarities of the same function. And crucially, if Personality Type theory is correct, no individual’s preference is for both Thinking and Feeling (Directive and Concerned): each person prefers either Thinking or Feeling. And so, to be an outstanding leader, full rein must be given to one’s preferred function and one must also display the behaviour of its converse. Consequently, the leader will need to work at what he or she is not naturally good at, at what tires rather than energizes, as well as deploying the function that comes easily and naturally.
The genius of Myers-Briggs
An outstanding insight of the Psychological Type understanding of personality is that each of the pairs of polar opposites is a good and valuable attribute. Extraversion is a positive characteristic, and so is Introversion. They are complementary albeit contrasting. Likewise Sensing and Intuition – both are real gifts, to the individual and to the community. By contrast, the Five-Factor Model identifies, for example, the attraction and usefulness of Extraversion, but sees Introversion merely as a deficiency in a socially valuable characteristic. It is hardly surprising that, in the corporate world, Myers-Briggs is overwhelmingly the more popular model.
Type theory celebrates each of the 16 Psychological Types, allowing each person to recognize and name their own pattern of giftedness. Type provides a guide to choice of career and to those leisure activities and friendships that will prove the most satisfying. It encourages joyfulness at the diversity of persons in one’s circle of colleagues and acquaintances.
The innate bias towards one of each of the four polarities also identifies and explains our deficiencies, which are as real as our strengths: my Type encompasses handicaps as well as strengths, hindrance as well as help.
Type and the life of faith
The introduction referred to the spate of books published at the end of the last century on how to structure one’s prayer life around one’s Psychological Type. I now think that this is the wrong approach. In short, I submit, we are wisest if we seek to practise the classic Christian disciplines that have been taught with remarkable consistency by spiritual guides over the past 2,000 years and right up to the present. We should learn from those Christian disciples who have discovered how to develop their relationship with God and live faithfully. As we try to follow their recommended practices, we will discover that some fit our personality preferences and some go against them. So we must rejoice when they fit and persist when they don’t: we may be clumsy at first. The recent book by Christopher A. Hall includes a chapter entitled ‘Work at what you’re not good at’. 20
We now consider some specifics.
Extraversion and Introversion
Withdrawing from the busy, noisy world, for times of prayer and meditation, has been urged by spiritual guides from St Anthony to present-day writers. All of them draw attention to Jesus, who prioritized his regular prayer times, alone and most often at night. Jesus needed this. And if he did, then so do we.
Christian Introverts know this by experience. Times of solitude and silence enable them to sense and enjoy God’s nearness. They love to get up early or stay up late, or get right away, to experience a time of reflection, listening and self-offering.
What of the Extraverts? Solitude and silence are things they instinctively shun. They are stimulated by having other people around them. But if they do not go against their predisposition, rarely seeking to encounter God in silence and solitude, they will be immeasurably impoverished. A relatively recent writer, Henri Nouwen, put it bluntly: ‘Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.’ 21 Thus, a predisposition to Extraversion is a hindrance. As with leadership skills, it’s behaviour that counts: what one does rather than what one prefers doing. Extraverts need to practise solitude and silence, steadily learning to benefit from them, and even come to enjoy them.
Conversely, Introverts need to ask whether their experience of God would be enhanced by choosing some more extraverted practices. The two great commandments – to love God (Introversion) and love my neighbour (Extraversion) – are for every disciple of Christ.
Thinking and Feeling
Glowinkowski teaches that an outstanding leader must display behaviours that he labels Directive and Concerned. The opposite of Directive is Passive; the opposite of Concerned is Indifferent. As noted above, Directive maps well to Myers-Briggs Thinking; Concerned maps to Feeling.
In Myers-Briggs terms, Thinking and Feeling are the so-called Judging functions. One’s preferred mode of evaluating situations is either dispassionately, on the basis of facts (Thinking), or empathetically, on the basis of one’s emotional response (Feeling). But the wise and mature Christian, whether Thinking or Feeling by predisposition, needs to exhibit behaviours that deploy both Thinking and Feeling.
As recorded by the four Gospels, Jesus was a compassionate man, whose ministry was full of stories and teaching about the compassion of God. And yet, when confronted by outright evil or hypocrisy, he was very direct and blunt. Jesus used both Thinking and Feeling, as appropriate. The prologue to John’s Gospel captures it perfectly: Jesus was ‘full of grace and truth’.
The other MBTITM preferences
These are Sensing/iNtuitive and Judging/Perceiving. I have written elsewhere 22 about the benefits and pitfalls of these predispositions. I noted an asymmetry between Sensing and Intuitive personalities: Intuitives have no choice but to learn and deploy Sensing skills – daily life demands it – whereas people who prefer Sensing can avoid tangling with the intellectual and theoretical. However, in the life of faith, both Sensing and Intuition have given rise to rich traditions of worship, learning and service.
Likewise with Judging and Perceiving. As noted previously, 23 those with a Judging preference are prone to premature closure in decision making, whereas those with a Perceiving preference are tempted to procrastination. Also, Perceiving types are bored and feel constrained by routine, whereas Judging types can be overly attached to it. Both types need to be aware of the negative impact these features of their personalities can have on Christian discipleship.
Conclusions and summary
The starting point of this exploration is a desire to grow in spiritual maturity in the knowledge of God and in the way one lives.
What counts is what one does, not what one prefers. The eight Myers-Briggs functions are all positive qualities; expressing them appropriately in one’s behaviour will enhance one’s discipleship. A person’s preferences/predispositions entail four of the eight functions, resulting in behaviours they find easy and natural. Expressing them will be a pleasure. The other four behaviours are ones they find difficult or at least uncongenial. We must ‘practise what we are not good at’. One’s Psychological Type is both a help and a hindrance. It is profitable to review one’s spiritual life, with a view to identifying downsides that result from simply following one’s predispositions. The journey towards spiritual maturity is most surely guided by wisdom from those who have travelled this way before. It will mean practising the classical spiritual disciplines. One’s type preferences are a secondary matter. Paul can have the last word, with his own nod to each believer’s individuality: ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. God is working in you to both desire and do what pleases him.’