What makes you tick?

Personality type theory is much more complex than suggested by 16 stereotypes. It describes a complex personality landscape between the stereotypes that is dynamic - continually changing and developing. In your personality there are four functions that interact (sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling) to differing degrees across two domains (the outer world of people/things and the inner world of ideas/information).

Type Dynamics

Your use of these four functions can change when you move from one situation to another. Also, they develop in various ways over the course of your lifetime. The functions are analogous to physical muscles, and the Mental Muscle Diagram is a snapshot of how you are using them at present:

• The larger the bubble, the more you tend to use that function.
• When the bubble is to the left of the dotted line you are using it in the inner world of ideas and information (introversion).
• When the bubble is to the right, you are using the function in the outer world (extraversion).
• When bubbles are higher up, they have more influence on your personality.
• The function at the top of the diagram is the one in control (the 'dominant' function) and has a disproportionate effect on the whole personality.

To illustrate this, consider the analogy of someone walking a lively dog on a path through a park. If the owner is in control, the dog may try to run off the path - but the owner keeps tight hold of the lead and they stay on track. If the dog is in control, it pulls the owner off the path and they end up on the grass rather than the path.

There are also two different ways of looking at type dynamics, based on the version of the theory developed by C.G. Jung or by Isabel Briggs Myers.

Type Dynamics Report

There is a Type Dynamics Report in the optional Full Report Pack that takes an advanced look at your personality. It looks at how each of the functions takes a different form as a result of the position in the hierarchy. It examines how your personality is viewed differently from the perspective of the two versions of the theory developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and Carl Gustav Jung. It also introduces some additional terms, such as 'true type', 'best fit type', and 'individuation'.