learning-styles

Section 5
Stable personality type
LSRC reference
page 46/47
Introduction
The instruments and models grouped in this family
have a common focus upon learning style as one part
of the observable expression of a relatively stable
personality type, a theory primarily influenced by the
work of Jung (1968). The most prominent theorists who
operate ‘at the interface of intelligence and personality’
(Grigorenko and Sternberg 1995) are Myers-Briggs
(Myers and McCaulley 1985) and Jackson (2002),
although they share certain key characteristics with
measures developed by Bates and Keirsey (1978),
Harrison and Bramson, (1982, 1988) and Miller (1991).
While debates continue within psychology about
the appropriate descriptors for personality traits
and, indeed, how many factors underpin individual
differences (see eg Furnham 1995; Jackson et al.
2000), the theorists in this family are concerned
with constructing instruments which embed learning
styles within an understanding of the personality traits
that shape all aspects of an individual’s interaction
with the world.
The descriptors of personality are, in taxonomic
terms, polythetic – that is, grouping together observed
phenomena with shared features, but not excluding
from groups phenomena which share some, but not all,
of the relevant features (Eysenck 1997). This approach
is both a strength, since it allows for reasonable
variation, and a weakness, since ‘numerical solutions
are essentially indeterminate in the absence of causal
relations’ (Eysenck 1997, 23). Eysenck makes the
argument for a distinction between the reliability
of personality factors, such as those in the ‘big five’
(see Section 5.1 below), which is relatively consistent
and their validity, which is dependent upon a theoretical
construction which allows for the causal nature
of personality factors to be experimentally tested.
An alternative approach – to explore genetic markers
for specific, observable personality traits – has proved,
as yet, elusive (Stevenson 1997) and it is therefore
more difficult to trace the heritability of personality
compared, for example, to measures of IQ, though
there are some indications that strong traits towards
extraversion overcome environmental effects in
adoption and twin studies (Loehlin 1992).
5.1
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) ®8
Introduction
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was designed
by Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel
Briggs Myers. They began to develop their instrument
in the early 1940s with the avowed aim of making
Jung’s theory of human personality understandable
and useful in everyday life: ‘Jung saw his theory as
an aid to self-understanding, but the application of the
theory (like the theory itself) extends beyond the point
where Jung was content to stop.’ (Myers, quoted by
Mosley 2001, 8). This resulted in the publication of the
first MBTI manual in 1962, the subsequent versions
of which (Myers and McCaulley 1985, 1998) are most
frequently referred to in studies drawn on for this review.
The MBTI focuses more upon the description of normally
observed types, rather than idealised theoretical
types which, as Jung himself argued, would rarely be
met in everyday life (Jung, quoted by Mosley 2001, 3).
In terms of academic heritage, the MBTI has often
been strongly linked to personality instruments
using the ‘big five’ personality factors (extraversion,
openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness and
neuroticism – the last of which is not included in
the MBTI), exemplified by the most popular instrument
in personality testing in the UK and the US, the
NEO-Personality Inventory (McCrae and Costa 1987).
However, the MBTI differs strongly from the NEO-PI
and other instruments in that it is, according to
Quenck (2003):
a theory-based instrument grounded in Jung’s typology
rather than an empirically derived trait instrument …
neuroticism is not part of the MBTI because Jung did
not include such a dimension in his typology, which was
meant to reflect normal, non-pathological personality
differences. It is for that reason that the opposite
poles of each of the dichotomies are conceptualized
as qualitatively distinct and opposite to each other,
with each pole defined as legitimate in its own right.
One pole is never described as indicating a ‘deficit’
in the opposite pole, or [as being] more valued than
the other pole, as is the case in the NEO-PI and other
trait conceptions of personality.
8
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and MBTI are registered trademarks of CPP Inc,
Palo Alto, California.