Fun on the Myers-Briggs Highway

Many people take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator at some point in their lives. It is a 4-dimension personality index. As a cognitive scientist I am normally opposed to such personality measures. However, I must admit that descriptions for my type (ENTP) are pretty accurate. One said, your middle name is "keep your options open." Right on. So anyway, I have been bugging people I know about their types and reading online. I have had some really good laughs. If you have never taken the MBTI, you answer a bunch of questions by filling out little bubble sheets, like a Scantron. But it is proprietary, so it costs money to take.

So one online observation listed famous ENTPs. One was Alexander the Great. I must tell you that I laughed out loud at the thought of Alexander the Great sitting down and filling out a bubble sheet. It just seemed so ludicrous. Har! Who spends their time analyzing dead people. Anyway, ENTPs are likely to be science types and inventors, so it fits.

Then, this morning, two friends had e-mailed me back about MBTI. These are two friends who I would consider similar in personality. And in perhaps the most awesome obsessive-compulsive testament, they both made reference to their type being located in a filing cabinet. Har. You can't write comedy better than this. Two people after my own heart. Because, of course, my own MBTI is located in a FILING CABINET. At any rate, these two friends had similar types (of course), and one was even a direct match. You see, we nerds find each other.

At any rate, the final bit of humor was that Friend #2 (anonymous) said, "My type is ENTP, but some might say PSYCHO." Har. I loved it.