The MBTI® Step II™ test Decision-Making Styles

In MBTI, Personality Type by Jonathan Bollag, Owner and Founder

The MBTI® Step II™ Test Decision-Making Styles

The MBTI Step I™ Assessment contains a pair of opposite personality preferences called The Thinking-Feeling Dichotomy. It is this part of an individual’s personality that is used when one comes to a conclusion or makes a decision. Usually, if a person prefers Feeling, then the person would base his or her decisions more so on how the result of the decision would affect others while those that prefer thinking would generally make logic based decisions. Both decision-making styles have their value and both are equally important and valid.

In this blog we will take this a step further to include The MBTI Step II Assessment. The MBTI Step II test takes the four dichotomies or pairs of opposites included in The MBTI Step I test, and adds 20 facets or components, five facets to each pair. These facets give an assessment taker a much more detailed account of who they are and what their personality entails. Each facet is scored within the MBTI Step II test as each personality pair is scored using the MBTI Step I test.

In order to focus on decision-making we must go further into the persona, while venturing into the first two facets that coincide with The Thinking-Feeling Dichotomy.

According to The MBTI Step II User’s Guide, all five facets that belong to Thinking and Feeling play a role in decision-making, however it is the first two facets that can be combined to form six very distinct decision-making styles and how we come to make decisions specifically (Quenk, et al. 2011. CPP).

The Six Decision-Making Styles Are:

  • Logical and Reasonable
  • Empathetic and Compassionate
  • Empathetic and Reasonable
  • Logical and Compassionate
  • Midzone Underlying Feeling
  • Midzone Underlying Thinking

Each individual uses a different decision-making style. The amount of people who use each style is laid out below in the form of a percentage as depicted in The Step II User’s Guide in accordance with a U.S. population sample:

  • Logical and Reasonable 27%
  • Empathetic and Compassionate 36%
  • Empathetic and Reasonable    5%
  • Logical and Compassionate    3%
  • Midzone Underlying Feeling 20%
  • Midzone Underlying Thinking    9%

It is important to understand how we as individuals make decisions as to better understand ourselves and to see that there are other people like us who come to conclusions in similar manners. It is also important to understand the people around us so that we may be aware of and accept our differences as to be more patient with the people in our lives. With this said, the following are explanations in more detail of each of the six MBTI Step II decision-making styles:

The MBTI Step II Logic and Reasonable Style

People who use the logical and reasonable decision-making style tend to:

  • Step back from the situation
  • Objectively analyze the information they have
  • Identify any principles or standards and decide which are relevant
  • Identify the pros and cons of each choice and examine how they measure up to key principles and standards
  • Make a decision consistent with the foregoing logical analysis

The MBTI Step II Empathetic and Compassionate Style

 People who use the empathetic and compassionate decision-making style tend to:

  • Get involved in the situation and tune into how others might be affected by a decision
  • Focus on how decisions relate to their own and other’s needs and values
  • Want the decision to be okay for everyone involved if possible
  • Deem decisions unacceptable if it ignores people’s needs
  • Make the decision that causes the least harm and does the most good

The MBTI Step II Empathetic and Reasonable Style

 People who use the empathetic and reasonable decision-making style tend to:

  • First look at the values and the people involved and determine what will benefit most people
  • Pay attention to what feels right based on their own values
  • Use empathy as much as possible when there are no other variables to consider
  • Use their reasonability by choosing the good of a larger entity or principle over the welfare of an individual
  • Report considerable internal tension when the choice is between the good of an individual and the larger principle

The MBTI Step II Logical and Compassionate Style 

People who use the logical and compassionate decision-making style tend to:

  • Logically analyze the facts and possibilities
  • When making a final decision place the utmost importance on the impact the decision will have on people and the values involved
  • People’s individual needs and circumstances override the logic and the principles
  • Appear to play favorites and backtrack on what they had originally stated and appeared to have decided
  • Confuse people with what seems to be arbitrary decision-making

The following decision-making styles include midzone results. To understand these styles we will very briefly discuss what a midzone result is.

An MBTI Step II midzone result is an out-of-preference score, or a score on one of the facet scales that lies in the middle of the scoring scale and does not tip to one side and therefore would represent a situation where an assessment taker would use both or either of two opposite preferences such as Initiating or receiving in different situations. While someone who scores more towards a particular preference or facet, such as initiating, would tend to use that preference much more often in situations then the opposite of initiating being receiving.

Moreover, a midzone result can usually be explained by an overuse of a facet that one was not born to prefer and the continued use of this less preferred facet encourage some people to vary their responses perhaps muting the aspect of a natural preference of which they were born (Quenk, et al. 2011. CPP).

The MBTI Step II Midzone with Underlying Feeling Style

 People who use the midzone with underlying feeling decision-making style tend to:

  • Recognize how their choices will affect others and themselves
  • Recognize the logical principles involved
  • Break the midzone tie between their thinking and feeling preferences by relying more on their feeling preference

The MBTI Step II Midzone with Underlying Thinking

 People who use the midzone with underlying thinking decision-making style tend to:

  • Recognize how their choices will affect others and themselves
  • Recognize the logical principles involved
  • Make decisions relatively quickly if the situation is clear-cut

(Quenk, et al. 2011. CPP)

One can take The MBTI Step II Interpretive Report by clicking on the forementioned link directly, or checking it out in our personality assessent page or MBTI assessment page.