FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions about BAAPT
What Is "Type"?

"Type" refers to personality models that are neutral regarding emotional health, intellectual functioning, and psychological adaptation.  Every personality type identifies normal and valuable behavior, and each type is equally necessary and good.  Personality type approaches are different from trait approaches which measure the quantity of a characteristic that a person has in his/her personality. Personality type does not measure variation along a continuum, but instead, identifies a person’s inborn preferences relating to his/her way of taking in information, making decisions, and relating to the world. 

Type inventories such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® do not "tell" a person who she or he is; rather, they indicate preferences, and each person must self-determine a best-fit type for himself or herself.  The MBTI® is not a test; it is a person’s self-assessment of their preferences. 

The Ethical Use of Type

It is ethical only for Certified MBTI® Practitioners to assist individuals in this self-discovery process. See additional ethics policies. 

How can Type enhance my life?

Type provides insights to personal development, career choice, effective learning, and family relations, teamwork, conflict resolution, communication, problem-solving, change and stress, spirituality and culture.
What exactly is the MBTI?

"The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung (1875-1961) understandable and useful in people’s lives.  The essence of the theory is that much seemingly random variation in behavior is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the way individuals prefer to use their perception and judgment.  In developing the MBTI®, the aim of Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Briggs, was to make the insights of type theory accessible to individuals and groups." — MBTI® Manual, 3rd edition, page 3

  • MBTI Step I™ results indicate preferences for one of the 16 types.
  • MBTI Step II™ results fulfill Isabel Myers' plan to provide people with individualized type reports that reflect the distinctive ways they express their type preferences. Step II reports a person’s preferences for five facets or subscales for each of the four MBTI dichotomies.
  • MBTI Step III™ analysis actualizes Myers' goal of helping people use their natural types as effectively as possible.

Related Personality Models

  • Temperament explains the reasons why people behave as they do, sorting personality types by communication (abstract versus concrete language) and actions (utilitarian versus cooperative roles).
  • Interaction Styles explains the ways people behave innately, sorting personality types by influence (informing versus directing communication) and relationships (initiating versus responding roles).
  • DISC explains behavior of people in specific situations, sorting personality types by assertiveness (extraversion versus introversion) and openness (social focus versus task focus).
  • True Colors is a metaphor of Temperament.
  • Enneagram is a psychospiritual model of personality type, describing nine distinctive and habitual patterns of thinking and emotions.