Character Creation, Myers, and Briggs: A Guide

[Pinstripe]

WARNING: THIS GUIDE IS MERELY A QUICK GLANCE AT THE MBTI, AND SHOULD NO WAY BE TREATED AS A FULL REFERENCE. DO SOME FURTHER READING TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THIS SYSTEM.

I can also help you in understanding the system. If you need help with creating a character with this outline, drop me a PM, and I'll be sure to help.

A character is a hard thing to create. It's a person, living, breathing, thinking. A good character is always dynamic, though tends to stick to certain core functions, their psychic makeup(not literally. Read on to figure out what this means). It's a daunting task, but many people have different ways of dealing with this. One way I have recently discovered is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI. Now, this sounds like a bloodwork thing, doesn't it? Not really. The MBTI is a useful, albeit complex system of determining someone's personality at a glance. Emphasis on at a glance. This system is only used for creating a good outline for a person or character, and should not be used to create the whole character itself. This guide will run through the history of the MBTI, and how to use it.

HISTORY:

The original concept of the MBTI was created by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, in 1910, in his book Psychological Types. The original concepts were further expanded in the 1940s by a mother-daughter team of Katherine Cook Briggs, and Isabel Briggs Myers. Their improved concept was used during wartime, for women to determine which field of work they would be best suited to. It was a success, as evident by the efficiency of the American workforce of the period. The two soon published their concept in the 1960s, and the MBTI is now used worldwide as a characteristic guide.

DETAILS:

The MBTI consists of 4 different categories, consisting of two opposite parts(these are known as dichotomies):

-Attitude: Introverted v. Extroverted

These two terms are somewhat different than what is normally known in this case; introverts find energy alone, or in small groups, and extroverts find energy in large crowds, or in large group work. Now, both types can work in each others' environments, but they find it tiring, and naturally, they would seek what they find familiar.

-Functions: Sensing v. Intuition and Thinking v. Feeling

These four terms are all the most major part of the MBTI, and affect most parts of the other sections.

People(or characters) who sense, rather than use their intuition, like to examine data and information, and distrust hunches, rather gathering conclusions based on solid fact. People who use intuition work with their gut feeling, sometimes being able to make conclusions before even knowing why these conclusions were made. The caveat to this, though, is that sometimes, their hunches can steer them in the wrong ways. Sometimes to horrible results.

Thinkers tend to come to logical conclusions, theirs being calculated, almost cold, distant. Let me use an example; a man who is a "thinker" is a manager of a factory. His boss tells him that his factory needs to ramp up production. He would work to improve the machines of the factory, leaving the workers to do their job as is. He believes that the problems lie in the machines themselves. However, a feeler would talk to the workers of the factory floor, trying to figure out errors in communication. The machines are doing just fine, they're designed that way. The problem lies in the involved parties. A tactful person, the feeler would soon mediate between the workforce, and his boss, allowing them to communicate better, thus solving the proble

-Lifestyle: Judging v. Perception

Generally, these terms are used to describe how the person appears in the outside world. Someone who judges tends to use the more "logical" options, namely thinking, and sensing. They appear to prefer "having matters settled." Someone who percieves tends to look more empathetic, using the more "abstract" options, like intuition, and feeling. They come off as preferring to "keep their options open."

CATEGORIES(or, confusing stuff)

There are 16 total outcomes to the MBTI, all of them involve two sets of four letters:

(Extraversion)E-I(Introversion)

(Sensing)S-N(Intuition)

(Thinking)T-F(Feeling)

(Judging)J-P(Perception)

These letters can be combined to create an outcome, like INFP, which, coincidentally, is the outline of Fluttershy.

In a party, an INFP would feel generally uncomfortable in the centre of the party. He/She would back out of the party, if it seems to get out of hand for him/her, maybe to catch up with his/her old friend, in private, and maybe talk about "the good old days," when they lived in simpler times. Notice how each action of the person works with the classification. Introverts dislike large groups, in this case, the party, and how he/she used their gut feeling to back out of the party. They felt it was an opportunity to chat with their old friend, and reminisce about the past, and how they thought those were better times.

Now, this system is in NO way used to make characters dull. Just to connect the dots to make a pretty good outline of what the character would do in a situation. Also, this system is not meant to restrain the character in any way, as growing out of it, like the introvert trying to interact in the party, is character development. Perhaps that introvert learns to like large company, or maybe they still prefer to hang back. The details are up to you.