1 Introduction

1.1 MBTI

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is an assessment of personality traits and preferences. While considered non-scientific, the MBTI type assessment remains in use by major corporations to help employees understand and communicate with each other more effectively.

1.2 Why MBTI matters

Although humans is one single species, there is sufficient variation among individuals to affect strategies to succeed in different contexts. This article is specific to being successful in a computer science program.

2 MBTI and Jungian functions

There is a one-to-one correspondence between the 16 MBTI categories and the 8 functions proposed by Carl Jung. In the analysis of personalities, the Jungian functions are more useful than the four letters of MBTI categories. However, most assessments report in MBTI letters.

MBTI categories are characterized by four letters:

• The first letter is about the dominant direction, E for extrovert, and I for introvert.
• The second letter is about the preferred way to gather information, N for intuitive, and S for sensing.
• The third letter is about the preferred way to evaluate, F for feeling, and T for thinking.
• The fourth letter is about whether the preference between evaluating versus gathering information, J for judging, and P for perceiving.

There are eight Jungian functions:

Carl Jung theorized that an individual is conscious of four functions, ranked dominant (dom), auxiliary (aux), tertiary (ter), and inferior (inf). Furthermore, there Carl Jung also theorized that there is a structure to how the four conscious functions are “stacked”.

The dom and inf functions should be both evaluation functions or both information gathering functions. Likewise, the aux and ter functions should also be both evaluation or information gathering functions. There are to be two evaluation functions, and two information gather functions.

For the two evaluation functions, one must be feeling, while the other one must be thinking. The directions must be opposite between these two functions.

For the two information gathering functions, one must be intuitive, while the other one must be sensing. The directions must opposite between these two functions.

With these structures, there is a one-to-one correspondence between MBTI categories and Jungian function stacks: