Science of Personality

So you’d like to gain an understanding of exactly how the Swiss 16 PT Personality Test works, and how you can benefit from knowing your personality type? You’ve come to the right place. Let’s get going!

According to the scientific theory, personality can be defined around four dimensions, each of which has two opposing extremes.

All of us can be placed on a scale between the following extremes:

Extraversion (E) vs. Introversion (I)
Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)
Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)
Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)

The “Extroversion-Introversion” dimension describes what you primarily focus on:

You either focus primarily on external events or internal events.

The “Sensing-Intuition” dimension describes how you take in information:

You either rely on pure facts, observations, and bodily sensations, or you take in information from patterns, big pictures, and ideas.

The “Judging-Perceiving” dimension describes your need for certainty and finalizing things:

You either prefer certainty and finalizing things quickly, or you prefer flexibility and leaving things open.

Every personality type has some inherent strengths and weaknesses associated with it. Knowing your personality type means you can take advantage of your strengths and mitigate the impact of your weaknesses. In addition, you can make a more informed decision when choosing a suitable career or a compatible life partner.

Getting to know your personality type will allow you to prepare yourself for the challenges of life. How so? For the most part, it will make it easier to adapt your default behavior to situations that call for a type of response that may not come naturally to you.

For example, if you are a “thinking” person and the situation calls for you to comfort a friend who has lost a parent, you should recognize that you need to use your “feeling” capabilities rather than merely offer logical advice.

Likewise, if you are a “feeling” person and the situation calls for you to make an important financial decision, you should recognize that you need to use your “thinking” skills rather than rely solely upon your intuition.

A word of caution, though! You should never fall into the trap of justifying inappropriate behavior because of your personality type.

If you are introverted, you should challenge yourself to participate in a healthy amount of interaction with others rather than rudely avoiding them. And, if you are extroverted, you should challenge yourself to let others speak rather than allow yourself to always dominate conversations.

Life becomes less challenging when you know and understand other people’s personality types, strengths and weaknesses, too, not only your own. For example, if you know someone is an ESFJ (The Caregiver), you can be sure that you will communicate with that person more effectively by complementing them rather pointing out what they did wrong.

If you are conscious of what your personality type is, you are more likely to choose responsibilities, careers, and partners that are best suited to your personality.

For example, if you are planning to launch a company and you are social (Extroverted) and adventurous (Perceiving), you might want to look for a business partner who has a structured (Judging) personality. Whether your partner is extroverted or introverted is not as important as having a counter-balance or complementary personality to your adventurous side.

Be aware, however, that a complementary but opposite personality type can pose challenges as opposite personality types may have difficulties in communicating and understanding one another.

All decisions are ultimately yours to take, but the knowledge associated with the existence of personality types gives you a great base that will make navigating life much easier!