The MBTI® Test and Emotional Intelligence

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The MBTI® and Emotional Intelligence

Every person’s emotions develop differently, but learning about how your MBTI® test personality type’s emotional intelligence is formed can help you use your strengths to your advantage.

A person’s emotional intelligence can be defined as “a complex ability to regulate [their] impulses, empathize with others, and persist and be resilient in the face of obstacles.” (Pearman, 2002, CPP) This emotional intelligence is composed of various components based on your type, and your MBTI type is a reflection of “how you see and act on these components.” (Pearman, 2002, CPP)

Over the course of the next sixteen weeks, you can learn how your specific Myers-Briggs Type Indictor® personality type works with your emotional intelligence, and how certain components of your type (in particular, introversion or extraversion) contribute to the overall development of your emotional intelligence. Certain desired end results—in this case, consider commitment, satisfaction, leadership, and performance—are directly affected by your level of emotional intelligence and your tendencies toward introversion or extraversion (Pearman, 2002, CPP). Learning about how your emotions relate to personality type can help you in developing your emotional intelligence, helping you reach your goals in the above areas and others.

Both introversion and extraversion are beneficial for emotional intelligence in different ways, and each Myers-Briggs personality type holds a different combination of these intrapersonal and interpersonal attributes (Pearman, 2002, CPP). Learning what intrapersonal and interpersonal abilities your type is usually attributed with—and especially what areas your type could use some work in—can help you develop those areas of your emotional intelligence. See below for common areas of emotional intelligence often aligned with introversion and extraversion (Pearman, 2002, CPP):

• Intrapersonal attributes (Introversion): self-awareness, self-regulation, emotional self-control, flexibility, motivation, achievement, resilience, and well-being and stress management.
• Interpersonal attributes (Extraversion): demonstrative empathy, energy, social skill, tolerance, persuasiveness, and ability to lead

Furthermore, each Myers-Briggs test personality type describes how you mentally process information, depending on Sensing, Intuition, Thinking, and Feeling preferences. The combination of these processes and whether or not your type is primarily Introverted or Extraverted creates what is called a mental function (for example, Sensing and Introverted or Feeling and Extraverted), which describes how you process information and how you deal with that information. These mental functions also reflect eight distinct areas of awareness, which build up your personality. Discovering your primary mental function, including how you can overuse or underuse it, can further help you in understanding and developing your emotional intelligence.

Once you’ve learned about your Myers-Briggs personality type’s emotional intelligence and intrapersonal and interpersonal strengths or weaknesses, you’ll obtain a greater sense of how you process your emotions and the emotions of others, and how you can tweak or develop these aspects of your emotional intelligence to further yourself professionally and personally.

Whether you seek greater understanding of your personal mental processes or you wish to understand those of others, learning about the emotional intelligence of your MBTI test personality type is a great start toward leading a more self-aware and fulfilling life.

Discover how your personality best manages conflict, how the different parts of your personality work together to make decisions or gather information, how your personality type best communicates with others, and how you best deal with change in your life.

Learn to communicate more efficiently by understanding how your personality type best interacts with others with the MBTI test below:

References

Introduction To Type® and Emotional Intelligence. (Pearman, R. CPP, 2002)

Click On Your Personality Type & Read About Your Emotional Intelligence: