Personality Assessments: Myers-Briggs vs. The VIA Survey

http://www.viacharacterblog.org/whats-the-difference-between-myers-briggs-and-the-via-survey/

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MYERS-BRIGGS AND THE VIA SURVEY?

May 20, 2014 By Dr. Ryan Niemiec Leave a Comment

This is a common question we get here at VIA, so we decided to compare these two popular personality tests. Learn the answer below!

Whether you are a practitioner, career counselor, clergyperson, avid reader, or layperson, you probably know your “type” according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). You know whether you prefer to be more introverted or extraverted, thinking or feeling, sensing or intuiting, or judging or perceiving. The MBTI has been one of the most popular tests in pop psychology for decades. People who have taken the test love to guess one another’s type (I’m an ENFP turned ENFJ).

Another test that has emerged as the main research-based test of strengths in the world is theVIA Survey. The VIA measures strengths of character and in a short period of time has had over 2.6 million takers reaching every country. The 24 character strengths measured have been found to be universal across countries, cultures, and beliefs. These include strengths such as fairness, social intelligence, kindness, curiosity, bravery, and humility. Like MBTI fanatics, people particularly love to spot character strengths in others. A few of my highest strengths are hope, curiosity, love, and perspective.

If you are a practitioner, you will encounter clients who have taken these tests or would like to. Understanding some of the similarities, differences, and potential ways to integrate the two tests can be useful to you, both personally and professionally. Let’s take a closer look at each:

Similarities

• Both address personality traits (although MBTI calls these “types”).
• Both inform one’s self-knowledge.
• Both are used widely with “normal” populations, and used extensively by general consumers and professionals
• Results on either test are not “good or bad” or “right or wrong,” nor do they reveal problems or psychopathologies.
• Both are translated into over 20 languages.
• Both reveal results that are immediately understandable and user-friendly.
• All people have unique preferences (MBTI) or strengths (VIA) which color their perceptions and underlie their values, interests, needs, and motivations.

Differences

• What is measured:
  • MBTI: measures preferences and how people perceive their world.
  • VIA: measures character strengths, core positive capacities for thinking, feeling, and behaving in ways that benefit others and oneself.
• What traits are valued?
  • MBTI: your personal type (you receive 4 letters which stand for your traits/preferences).
  • VIA: all 24 character strengths are valued, but the biggest value are your signature strengths – those highest in your profile and most essential to who you are.
• History:
  • MBTI: decades long tradition
  • VIA: one decade history

Approach:

• MBTI: categorical approach, like the DSM. Individuals are given a type – a label.
• VIA: dimensional approach – you have more or less of each character strength.

Scientific support/peer-review:

• MBTI: minimal scientific support. Rarely mentioned in scholarly journals. When it has been, it has been highly criticized.
  • Comments and critique by Adam Grant, Wharton professor.
  • Comments and critique by Susan Krauss Whitbourne, UMass professor.

• VIA: based in science, significant scientific support; about 200 peer-reviewed papers on the VIA Survey/VIA character strengths since its onset in 2004.

Theory:

• MBTI: based on a specific theory (Carl Jung’s type theory from a century ago).
• VIA: explicitly was not created as a taxonomy of strengths (rather, it is a “classification” system) and by definition, is not based in theory.

Big 5:

• Personality researchers focus extensively on a model of personality called the Big 5 which refers to a handful of general, personality characteristics in people (you can be high or low in extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism).
• MBTI: Research has found that the MBTI scales are generally subsumed within the Big 5 traits and therefore do not have much additive value.
• VIA: New research has found that VIA adds something important (referred to as incremental validity) over and above what the Big 5 predicts about human beings.

Morality and goodness:

• MBTI: measures traits that are morally neutral (extraversion/introversion; sensing/intuiting).
• VIA: many strengths have a significant moral component; all are slanted toward being positive (even though all can be overused); the strengths can be used to facilitate goodness.

Cost:

• MBTI instrument: Fees to use the test. E.g., $120+ to take the test and receive a report/consultation.
• VIA Survey: Free.

Positive psychology:

• The flagship conference in the field is the biennial International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) which focuses on disseminating the latest science and evidenced-based practices in positive psychology. The science shared at this conference can be seen as an indicator of what is most important in the field, current trends, areas with the most substance and interest, etc.
• MBTI: At the most recent IPPA conference (2013), MBTI was noted in the title of 0 presentations.
• VIA: At the most recent IPPA conference (2013), VIA character strengths (or specific VIA strengths) were part of approximately 133 presentations.

Deliberate intervention impact:

• MBTI: there is less purpose/desire for using deliberate interventions to impact one’s type.
• VIA: there is significant interest across professional disciplines in directing interventions to improve strengths of character. Character strengths can be impacted by deliberate interventions (e.g., boosting the strength of gratitude by counting blessings or writing a gratitude letter).

Interaction/Integration

There is currently no precise approach for integrating the MBTI and VIA nor is there consensus on who would benefit most from such an approach. Studies and discussions are needed. Here are some starting points:

• As I said in an earlier post that compared the VIA Survey and StrengthsFinder: It’s very difficult to conceive of a scenario where using the VIA Survey to assess, explore, and intervene around strengths would not be useful. In addition, in some situations, there is benefit to adding StrengthsFinder, MBTI, or another test to complement the VIA Survey. Whichever test one adds will probably be based on one’s training, interest areas, and needs/goals of the client.
• The MBTI sixteen “types” can each have different character strength profiles, distinct from one another and within one another. For example, not only can an INFP have a different character strengths profile from an INTJ, but all INFPs can have entirely different character strength profiles from one another.
• Jung believed that all preferences could be modified by working on their shadows (with the exception of the Extroversion/Introversion which he noted is fundamental to a person’s personality). Perhaps a person’s signature strengths can be used to work with one’s shadow? Does a person’s shadow reflect the overuse and underuse of character strengths?
• Certain types or dimensions of MBTI might be expressed through character strengths. For example, a person high on Feeling or on Thinking can look at the emotional or cognitive expression of any of the 24 strengths. What does my signature strength of creativity feel like? What are the thoughts associated with my gratitude or bravery strengths? Those who are high on Feeling or on Thinking will be well-equipped to take this approach with their strengths.
• It can be interesting for any person to reflect on how their character strengths map out onto their MBTI type. E.g., how is my signature strength of curiosity expressed in my type?
• Research findings using MBTI and the VIA Survey:
• From Choong & Britton (2007):
• We found significant covariations between 10 character strengths with single type dimensions namely, creativity (intuition), open-mindedness (thinking), love of learning(introversion), integrity (sensing and thinking), persistence (judging), vitality (extraversion),love (extraversion and feeling), fairness (sensing), and gratitude (extraversion). Love, integrity, and gratitude also covaried with multiple paired type combinations while curiositycovaried only with one paired type combination (introverted intuition). (p. 9)

From Munro, Chilimanzi, & O’Neill (2012):

• Significant differences were found between five of the 24 VIA-IS character strengths and three of the four bipolar categories of MBTI type. In particular, when compared withintroverts, extraverts reported significantly stronger scores for the character strengths ofcuriosity and humour, while the character strength of appreciation of beauty and excellence was significantly higher in the MBTI preference of intuition (when compared with sensing). Finally, the character strengths of capacity to love and be loved andgratitude were stronger for those with the MBTI category of feeling (when compared with those in the category thinking). (p. 15)

Take Action

Learn more about character strengths or about the MBTI.

How Can I Figure Out What I Really Want to Do With My Life?

If you are in transition or thinking of a transition, check out this recent Time Magazine article:

http://time.com/2799361/how-can-i-figure-out-what-i-really-want-to-do-with-my-life/

How Can I Figure Out What I Really Want to Do With My Life?

May 30, 2014

by Oliver Emberton, founder of Silktid

You know how anyone can be anything they want, right? Well, they can’t.

Had Bill Gates been born in a different time – or just a different town – he might have spent his days as an illiterate peasant scooping up potatoes with his hands.

Your circumstances matter.Bill’s real childhood had what mattered most: the opportunity to stumble upon what he was born to do, and to go completely bananas doing it.

Few are so lucky, but there’s still hope for the rest of us.

Kids are geniuses

We rarely prize people for acting like a child. The world is forever telling us to “grow up” and “take responsibility”, as if anything else is a bug in the system. On the contrary – childish behaviour can be quite brilliant. Kids try many things. Stupid things, like eating soil or rollerskating on ice. But they’re fearless and relentless.

Kids don’t know what they don’t know. So they question everything.

Kids are easily bored. They live in fantasy worlds because present reality is limiting.

Such behaviour is spectacularly good at figuring out the world and your part in it. Acting like a kid is a brilliant way to explore your boundaries and deduce your strengths. Ideally, your childhood is when you stumble upon your passions, leaving your adult years to focus on them.

Unfortunately many of us – like Bill the Potato Farmer – aren’t so lucky. The good news is, modern life gives you more chances than ever to fix that.

Grown-up children

Childlike behaviour is generally frowned upon as an adult.

The great advantage of being an adult is you can direct yourself. Children don’t have the freedom or the awareness to steer their own development. Maybe your childhood wasn’t what it could have been – but you can fix it now: Play. 

The first time baby John Lennon picked up a guitar, I doubt he seriously ran a cost benefit analysis. If you’re trying something out, don’t be in too much of a hurry to take it seriously. Aim to simply enjoy. The effort will come if the passion is there.

Get reckless. 

If you really don’t know what you want to do,you’re going to have to try things you haven’t done yet. And you’re going to fail – a lot – trying many different things, most of which won’t work. Kids find this a lot easier because they don’t worry about consequences. I encourage you to do the same. If it helps, make it a proud part of your identity: you’re making a point out of fearlessly trying as many things as possible, you sexy roguish daredevil you.

Question everything. You know how everyone knew the world was flat until it wasn’t? You have similarly limiting beliefs in your head right now – probably things like “artists can’t earn a living” or “I’m not smart enough to do this”. Maybe, but have you checked? Have you tried – really tried, like a gun is pointed at your kneecaps – to find an alternative? Most really successful people didn’t just find a way, they created one.

Ignore reality. 

You know how kids always dream of becoming astronauts, pop stars and giant transforming robots? Barriers don’t apply when you’re five years old. And whilst that seems like a stupid habit that you’d be wise to grow out of, if you’re not sure what you want to do, don’t be in such a hurry to shut your dreams down. Explore the impossible. Often it doesn’t lead to exactly what you’re after (say walking on the moon) but it finds something else instead (like a love of science that starts a whole career). You can’t know this in advance. Just dare to follow where your heart takes you.

Chances are, even if you don’t know what you want, that your childhood at least left you some hints. Are there things you think of fondly, but never find the time for? Start there.

The great solace you have is that – by virtue of reading this – you automatically have better options than potato farmer Bill. Access to the entirety of human knowledge (The Google) for one. Better economics for another. And more freedom than most of your grandparents could ever conceive of.

Now get outside and play!