Similarly if the personality is Introvert (1st letter I) and is alsoPerceiving (4th letter P) then the Perceiving Function (2nd letterSensing or iNtuition) will be the auxiliary function since this is the function used to deal with the outside world. The dominant function will be the other function, which the Introvert focuses on their inner world. For example, in the ISFJ type, the outside world approach indicated by the Judging preference (4th letter J) is Feeling, which because it is focused on the outside world in an Introvert is theauxiliary function. Therefore the other function, Sensing, is the dominant one focused on the Introvert's priority inner world.

There. That's the difficult bit. You may now take a break.

Here is additional explanation of MBTI® dominant functions. Having a second perspective can assist overall appreciation of any complex matter.

additional explanation of MBTI® function dominance

This additional explanation is kindly provided by Andrew Roughton, which is gratefully acknowledged. (I'm also grateful to Ian Mitchell for correcting an error in the ISTJ example above which was wrongly shown as ISTJ, and to Pierre Lemasson for correcting an error in 3b below - probably my typo, not Andrew's - which stated that the the remaining letter will be your auxiliary instead of dominant function.)

1) Your dominant function is found in either the 2nd or 3rd letter in your code. You also have an auxiliary (second) function.

a) If the 2nd letter is your dominant function then the 3rd is your auxiliary function and vice versa.

b) If the 3rd letter is your dominant function then the 2nd is your auxiliary function.

Remember the 2nd letter in your code relates to your Perceiving function. Do you perceive information through your senses (S) or through intuition (N)?

The 3rd letter in your code relates to your Judging function. Do you make judgements (decisions) through Thinking (T) or through Feeling (F)?

2) The 4th letter describes how you relate to the outside world. Do you prefer to deal with the world through your Judging function or through your Perceiving function?

a) If your 4th letter is J then we first look to the Judging functions - Thinking or Feeling.

i) If your code is ISFJ then we first look to the judging functions.

b) If your 4th letter is P then we first look to the Perceiving functions - Sensing or Intuition.

i) If your code is ENFP then we first look to the Perceiving functions.

3) The 1st letter in your code (E or I) tells you whether you will first find your dominant or your auxiliary function.

a) If your 1st letter is E (Extravert) then you will first identify your dominant function letter and the remaining letter will be your auxiliary function.

i) If your code is ENFP then you will find your dominant function. Because the 4th letter is P we look to the perceiving function letter in your code which in this case is N for Intuition. So your dominant function is Intuition. Your auxiliary function is represented by the remaining letter F for Feeling.

b) If your 1st letter is I (Introvert) then you will first identify your auxiliary code and the remaining letter will be your dominant function.

i) If your code is ISFJ you will first identify your auxiliary function. Because the 4th letter is J we look to the judging function letter in your code which in this case is F for Feeling. So your auxiliary function is Feeling. Your dominant function is represented by the remaining letter S for Sensing.

4) The reason for the different treatment for Extravert and Introvert is to do with the preference for the outer (E) or inner (I) world, and the 4th letter only identifies how they relate to the outer world. For the Introvert this will always be their auxiliary function because their dominant function must relate to their inner world.

a) Logically if the introvert relates to their outer world through, for example, their judging functions (thinking or feeling) then their remaining letter tells you which function they use in their inner world. This, for them, is their dominant function.

i) The ISFJ relates to the outer world through their Judging function (represented by the J) which in this case is Feeling (represented by the F). By elimination they must relate to their inner world through the Sensing function (represented by the S). Thus Sensing is the ISFJ's dominant function and Feeling is their auxiliary function.

b) Extraverts on the other hand use their dominant function to relate to the outer world and so the 4th letter identifies how you relate to the outer world.

i) The ENFP relates to the outer world through their Perceiving function (represented by the P) which is Intuition (represented by the N). Thus Intuition is the ENFP's dominant function and Feeling is their auxiliary function. 

Andrew Roughton, July 2006. 
National Principal
Vision College New Zealand

identifying 3rd and 4th function dominance

Logically according to Jung's theory, and Myers Briggs® interpretation, functional dominance can be extended beyond the superior (dominant) and auxiliary (secondary) functions to potential tertiary (3rd) and quarternary (4th) functions. This enables the identification of the order (relative strength or preference) of all four functions - Thinking, Feeling, Sensing and Intuition - within any given type. The process for doing this is simple, once you crack the dominant and auxiliary methodology. Here's how to determine 3rd and 4th functional dominance:

Remember Jung's principle of opposites and the four compass points. The most dominant or 'superior' function is balanced by its opposite in the unconscious, and will be correspondingly the least dominant just as the superior function is the most dominant, to whatever extent.

The 4th function therefore, available consciously in whatever degree, is always the opposite of the superior. For example, where a personality's superior or most dominant function is Thinking, logically its quaternary (or 4th or weakest function) function will beFeeling. Where a personality's superior function is Feeling, its 4th function will be Thinking. Where Intuition is dominant, so Sensingwill be least strong. Where Sensing is the superior function, soIntuition will be the weakest. And that's the full set.

Applying the same 'balancing opposites' principle, logically, the 3rd function is the opposite of the 2nd or auxiliary. Same pattern as for the 1st-4th correlations. Easy.

The extent to which any personality is able to make use of supporting functions depends on other factors. Some people are able to draw on the 3rd and 4th functions more ably than others (dominant and auxiliary as well for that matter).

From the perspective of understanding and describing each of the sixteen MBTI® personality types simply from their four-letter codes, identifying functional dominance - from superior or dominant, to auxiliary, to 3rd and to 4th functions - is a very useful technique. When you understand the methodology you can say a great deal about any personality type just by looking at its MBTI® four-letter code - because you can determine the preference (which implies prevalence and priority) of each of the four functions, two of which will not even be represented in the MBTI® four-letter code!

Below is the complete set of functional dominance mixtures, showing 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th preferred functions according to MBTI® type. By using this methodology we can also very usefully group the Myers Briggs® types according to their Jungian four dominant functions, which is a super matrix for understanding these theories, and for applying the thinking to team-building and job roles within teams, etc.

MBTI® types and functional dominance

The left column shows the MBTI® sixteen types, colour-coded as to Extravert or Introvert. These MBTI® types are grouped in four sets according to '1st functional dominance' ('superior' function) which are colour-coded in the middle and right columns accordingly. For each MBTI® type, the middle and right columns show the dominant (superior) function, followed by the 2nd (auxiliary) function, and then the 3rd and 4th functions, which are largely unconscious and can be accessed when required depending on the person. Note that each of the four main functional dominance groupings (Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, Intuition, represented by the four colours) contains only two different sequential 'dominance sets', and that each of these can be formed by both an Extraverted and an Introverted type.

The extent to which people are able to call upon and make use of their auxiliary, and particularly 3rd and 4th functions depends on the individual person, and is also the subject of continuing debate and ongoing research by psychologists. Most people are capable of developing their less strong functions to some degree or other. Knowing what they are and that they exist in us is the starting point.

Similarly everyone is capable of understanding their own functional dominance and how this style might be perceived by others. Using this matrix you might be able to have a good guess as to your own Myers Briggs® MBTI® type and your functional dominance. Look at the right column: ask yourself - and maybe also ask someone who knows you well - what order of preferences best represents your own personality? Having decided this, are you mainly extraverted or introverted? You might now have a reasonable idea of your own MBTI® personality type.

If anyone can suggest more clearly how to present all this I am very much open to suggestions. Please let me know any daft typos or errors in this. It's not an easy thing to explain.

Aside from using Myers Briggs® MBTI® model to understand one's own or other other people's personality types, the most important opportunity is that everyone can and should use systems such these to endeavour to access and develop their weaker functions.

This was central to Jung's motivation, and this opportunity and encouragement echoes through Myers Briggs'® ideas too. Awareness of the fact that we all possess these unconscious under-developed functions is the first step towards realising that they can be developed and used, alongside our natural preferences, brought into play consciously, where we see the need and possibility to do so.

The Myers Briggs® MBTI® system typically involves the use of MBTI® testing instruments to determine people's own types or 'profiles', the process and analysis of which is best administered by a suitably qualified person to give proper explanation and feedback to people being 'tested'.

There are significant commonalities between the Myers Briggs® personality model and that of David Keirsey. Both systems draw strongly on the work of Carl Jung and (Keirsey's more than Myers Briggs®) also to the Four Temperaments. Further comparisons are indicated in the Four Temperaments and Keirsey sections on this page, and these cross-references between models (notably Benziger) help with the understanding of each model independently, and also help to build up a variety of perspectives of oneself, and human personality and behaviour.

There are some differences between Myers Briggs® and Keirsey's interpretations. Not least, as Keirsey points out, Myers Briggs® is effectively an interpretation and extension of Jung's model - both of which focus on the minds and thinking types of people, whereas Keirsey's system, building on Myers Briggs®, Jung, and others, seeks to identify and point to what the different personality types can do well in different circumstances. In addition there are some detailed differences between certain type descriptions of Myers Briggs® and Keirsey, which concern complex interpretations that seem to me to be a matter of personal opinion, based on the experiences of the theorists themselves and not matters that can be proven one way or another. As we've already seen, this is not a perfect science, and when we drill down deeper than broad definitions the detail is open to different interpretation, which I encourage you to do yourself. Despite the best efforts of some of the providers in the psychometrics industry to convince us that all this is highly complex and impenetrable, you can hopefully see that much of the thinking is extremely accessible and within the grasp of ordinary folk.

As you learn about these concepts, see each model (Myers Briggs®, Jung, Keirsey, Four Temperaments, Eysenck, Benziger, etc) as self-sufficient and stand-alone. Note the common aspects between the models by all means because there are many: seeing the common aspects will greatly improve your overall understanding of the subject and of people; but do not try to overlay and match definitions and descriptions from model to model if the fit is not obvious and clear. Respect each model in isolation for what it is - a different perspective of the same highly complicated thing - the human mind.

More information about the Myers Briggs® organisation and MBTI® system and types descriptions is at myersbriggs.org.

Note that Myers Briggs®, MBTI® and other terminology is likely to be protected trademarked intellectual property for use in direct training and testing applications, so beware of using any of these terms for commercial purposes without a licence, or at least checking whether a licence is required or not.

david keirsey's personality model and the 'keirsey temperament sorter'

As mentioned above, David Keirsey's work refers significantly to the age-old 'Four Temperaments' model, and to the work of Carl Jung, and Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, who also drew strongly on Jung's work. Keirsey's key book (with Bates) was 'Please Understand Me', first published in 1978 and since revised and re-issued several times, more recently as 'Please Understand Me II', which is a wonderful book and includes a self-test to discover your detailed temperament type (of the sixteen types).

David Keirsey's ideas extend and develop the Four Temperaments and the ideas of Carl Jung, and also relate very directly to the Myers Briggs® MBTI® system.

In fact according to Keirsey the two systems - Keirsey and MBTI® - are quite similar. (Here's a good explanation of the similarities and differences between the Keirsey and Myers Briggs® systems.)

Keirsey's model has for many years underpinned a highly regarded personality assessment methodology, which Keirsey claims to be the most widely used in the world. Keirsey's model has also enabled the development of a considerable supporting business corporation, which markets his testing instruments and their associated training and accreditation.

Like Myers Briggs®, Keirsey's personality model analyses human personality according to sixteen types, which are compared below to the Myers Briggs® MBTI® equivalents. There are fundamental similarities between the Keirsey types and the Myers Briggs® types, but there are also some significant differences, so do not see the two systems as being the same thing.

keirsey/MBTI® types correlations

Keirsey's personality model is particularly helpful because of the meaningful personality 'type' descriptions, especially when used alongside Myers Briggs® abbreviated letter codes. The colour-coded groupings reflect Keirsey's view that certain categories of MBTI® or Keirsey types equate strongly to the Four Temperaments. Keirsey is a fan of the Four Temperaments. Not everyone is, particularly when it comes to categorising MBTI® types. This layout is shown because Keirsey favours it. The use of colours are purely to aid comparison with the Four Temperaments model shown earlier in this section. Other than an echo of Jung's 'Perceiving' and 'Judging' within the SP and SJ blocks, these colours do not relate to the colours used in the Jung and Myers Briggs® sections.

N.B. Again bear in mind that certain copyright protections apply to the MBTI® and Keirsey terms so I recommend that you be wary of using these in the provision of chargeable services or materials since under certain circumstances they are likely to be subject to licensing conditions.

A free 'lite' Keirsey personality test and descriptions of each of the Keirsey sixteen types is available via the Keirsey website at Keirsey.com. The 'lite' test indicates your dominant or preferred temperament of the four main types, but not your detailed type within the temperament, which is something you need to pay to discover. In my view the most enjoyable and useful way to do this is to buy a copy of Keirsey's book 'Please Understand Me II', which contains the 70-question Keirsey Temperament Sorter II personality test, which will in a few minutes reveal your detailed Keirsey personality type, and also provides a vast amount of descriptive information relating to your type and all the other fifteen types within the Keirsey model.

eysenck's personality inventory and the four temperaments

British psychologist Hans Jurgen Eysenck (1916-97) was born in Berlin. A Jewish sympathiser, he left Germany in 1934 for England, where he studied and later taught psychology at London University. He became a prolific writer in the field of clinical psychology and also had a great interest in psychometrics. He disagreed with the principles of psychoanalysis and preferred the (at times controversial) view that genetics (inherited factors - our genes) are significant in determining the psychological differences between people, and more besides.

Eysenck used extensive research and questionnaires to build a personality inventory which he related to Galen's Four Temperaments. The fit is not perfect with the more recent interpretations of the Four Temperaments (Keirsey, Myers Briggs®) but there are certainly many common aspects between the Eysenck and Galen models.

Eysenck's concepts are particularly interesting, and provide a valuable additional perspective compared to the Four Temperaments, Jung, Myers Briggs®, and Keirsey, because they explore and analyse a personality dimension related to emotional stability.

Eysenck's approach to personality assessment was the first popular scalable mathematical methodology. Previous theories generally placed a person within one of the defining types, or between two types, or attributed a mixture of types to a person's personality.

Eysenck's 1950s theory (he later added a third dimension) measures personality using two scales:

• introversion-extraversion
• stability-instability (unemotional-emotional*)

Eysenck's theory also refers to instability as unstable, emotionally unstable, or neurotic.

*While Eysenck's scientific headings of 'stable' and 'unstable' or 'neurotic' can be seen as judgemental (good or bad) it's important not to see them in this way. Academics (including Eysenck) tend to write for other academics and forget or disregard that certain language carries negative meanings and stigmas in normal life, such as the words unstable and neurotic. Eysenck did not use the words to convey a sense of good or bad - he used them because he felt scientifically comfortable with the terms. If discussing these concepts with people who might be sensitive to words like 'unstable' or 'neurotic' it can be helpful to interpret Eysenck's 'instability' or 'neuroticism' to mean 'emotional', and for 'stable' to equate to 'unemotional'. 'Unemotional-emotional' was not Eysenck's alternative scale, it's my suggested alternative for seeing that this scale is not a question of good or bad.

By surveying many thousands of people, using many and various adjectives (traits) representing behaviours and types, Eysenck built a scalable model which also formed the basis of what became the Eysenck personality test.

Eysenck's theory regards the choleric and melancholictemperaments as being emotionally unstable (let's say 'emotional'), and the sanguine and phlegmatic temperaments as being emotionally stable (unemotional). The theory sees the phlegmaticand melancholic temperaments as being introverted, and thecholeric and sangine temperaments as being extraverted. At this point there is clear divergence from the Eysenck model and certain recent interpretations of the Four Temperaments, since, for example, Keirsey and Myers Briggs® clearly assert that introversion and extraversion appear in each of the four temperaments. Eysenck's ideas are a part-fit with MBTI® and Keirsey, but certainly not a direct overlay.

The Eysenck theory produces four main types types of personality, which he said resembled Galen's Four Temperaments:

• unstable-introverted (emotional-introverted) = melancholic
• unstable-extraverted (emotional-extraverted) = choleric
• stable-introverted (unemotional-introverted) = phlegmatic
• stable-extraverted (unemotional-extraverted) = sanguine

Within which are several key words of graduated significance relative to the heading elements (Eysenck presented this as a four-quadrant circle containing his describing words, rather than the matrix shown here). The colours merely reflect those used in the Four Temperaments section for ease of comparison and do not appear in Eysenck's theory:

Can you see yourself, and others perhaps, in this model? Could you define yourself according to a mixture of these characteristics? Perhaps you can see in yourself a leading 'type' with one or two supporting types? (This is not how Eysenck intended the model to be used, but seeing it in this way can be helpful for understanding your own and others' personality types.)

Again note that the fit is not perfect between Eysenck's model and recent interpretations of the Four Temperaments such as Keirsey and Myers Briggs®, but there are certainly many common aspects between Eysenck and Galen.

The significant difference between Eysenck's ideas and the Four Temperaments interpretations of Galen and the older theorists is that Eysenck's (1950s) theory measures personality according to two scalable dimensions, introversion-extraversion and stability-instability; whereas traditional Four Temperaments ideas simply seek to define personality according to one of the four temperaments. In this respect Eysenck's model is far more sophisticated, and indeed add an extra dimension (stable-unstable) that is not found at all in popular systems such as Keirsey and Myers Briggs®. In this respect Eysenck's model offers a highly significant and helpful additional perspective to the Four Temperaments, Jung's Psychological Types, and the Keirsey and Myers Briggs® systems on which they were based.

Eysenck's ideas have been developed and supported using studies and surveys of many thousands of people. Eysenck was one of the most prolific researchers and writers on the subject of personality and its measurement, and yet he continued to strive for improved understanding and interpretation into the 1990s, having worked for 60 years in the field. Proof, if any were needed, that this is indeed a complex area, and one which we are still a long long way from fully comprehending.

It is interesting to note also that Eysenck's 1950s key words feature strongly in at least one modern version of the DISC personality testing system, which testifies to the enduring importance of Eysenck's work, and which provides yet another indication of the similarity and common themes between many of these 'different' personality models.

Eysenck later theorised about a third dimension: psychoticism, from his studies of mentally disturbed people, and which can be related to risk-taking and eccentricity. In his later life Eysenck also developed better scientific understanding of Jung's introversion and extraversion 'attitudes', which, along with his other ideas helped Katherine Benzigerdevelop her own ideas of personality and behaviour.

Hans Eysenck's key books include: Uses and Abuses of Psychology (1953); Know Your Own IQ (1962); Race, Intelligence and Education (1971), and the autobiographical Rebel without a Cause (1990).
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