Table of Contents
A concise repository of the best resources I've found regarding the various personality typology systems I enjoy.
This page is a work in progress. I might tweak it over time.
Should you trust personality typology? #
I enjoy personality typology systems a great deal. I find them to be useful tools for self-knowledge and personal development as well as fun conceptual toolboxes to play around with.
Although I haven't written much about them on this blog for the moment, I've made quite a few YouTube videos on the topic. They're split into two main categories: meta-commentary and systems overviews.
Since typology systems often come under fire for their flaws, I've dedicated some time to acknowledge and address the different objections they face. That's the meta-commentary. If you're interested, you can check out my video, Should you trust personality frameworks that weighs the pros and cons of using them. In a nutshell, although I acknowledge their pitfalls and recommend taking those into consideration, I believe they contain great potential. I've talked more about this in Are you a lost cause or are you simply different? I've also offered additional thoughts on disentangling valuable insight from decisive truth in my post What it can spark isn't bound by what it is.
Typology systems #
Overview #
Here is a list of the main systems I'm interested in and that I've talked about.
- Jungian Typology (MBTI & Socionics): pretty famous, contested, fairly complex, type-based. My favorite system, but it is quite controversial. Depending on the variant, it has the most rigorously defined theoretical system, although it remains non-scientific speculation. Fairly complex and harder to learn than most of the others. Has a really interesting focus on the psychology behind philosophy.
- The Enneagram: pretty famous, contested, fairly simple, type-based. It's perhaps the system with the biggest emphasis on archetypal personal growth, and it is quite intuitive. This one is also non-scientific speculation.
- Attachment styles: famous, well-regarded, fairly simple, type-based. Not usually considered as a personality system, but it's based on one of the most trusted psychological theories out there. Best system to analyze relational patterns.
- The Big Five: famous, well-regarded, fairly simple, trait-based. Good for comparing how people are different, not so much why, though. Not much emphasis on personal growth either.
Honorable mentions:
- Attitudinal Psyche: shares a decent amount of similarity to Socionics but in a simplified form that's not based on Jungian concepts. Some really cool concepts, although I'm not super well versed in it.
- Gretchen Rubin's four tendencies: four types derived from two dichotomies centered on people's main sources of motivation.
- Clutterbug: four types derived from two dichotomies on how people like to organize their space (mentioned in passing in Are you a lost cause or are you simply different?)
- Ayurveda: interesting exploration of the links between personality and morphology. Another hotly controversial one, though, and I only know about it in passing.
For funsies, you can check out people debating over real and fictional people's types across almost all typology systems on Personality Database. That being said, the consensus and many arguments tend to lean towards the lowest common denominator of stereotype pattern matching rather than rigorous analysis.
Jungian Typology #
In 2024, I switched from the MBTI to Socionics as my preferred Jungian personality system, and I would recommend it over the former. As I see it, these different variants contradict each other and yet share too many common concepts and namespaces to mutually coexist. Only one of them can be "true" or none are. That being said, you can usually still "translate" valuable insights from one school of thought to another since they're based on many common building blocks.
Furthermore, it might be easier to learn the MBTI, which is less complex, first and then "upgrade" to Socionics. This will probably make everyone mad, though. The MBTI people will resent the framing, and the Socionics people will probably argue you'll learn the wrong habits doing it this way.
Socionics #
As far as I'm aware, the most comprehensive source of Socionics knowledge available online is the Wikisocion archive. However, it is very dense, and the onboarding experience will be rough for a complete neophyte (I speak from experience).
I would strongly recommend Jack Aaron (World Socionics Society)'s excellent breakdown of the entire system in his YouTube playlist Jungian Type Explained Correctly. In my opinion, it makes for both the smoothest onboarding experience as well as the most rigorously and consistently defined explanation.
The YouTube channel Brain's Journey also has good videos explaining the foundational building blocks of the theory.
MBTI #
If you're brand new to the MBTI I'd recommend starting with Personality Junkie's introductory posts:
- Personality Type Basics (Typology 101)
- The 8 Functions: Roles, Images & Characteristics (Typology 201)
- The “Functional Stack” (Typology 301)
It's a good typology blog overall, so don't hesitate to check out more of their content.
The best website to estimate your type out there is Michael Caloz's cognitive functions test in my opinion.
Michael Pierce's YouTube channel is also a great resource to learn more about the MBTI in general once you've got the basics down. For starters, I would recommend his playlist that describes each of the 16 personality profiles as well as his series of typing advice.
You might also be interested in my video on deducing the cognitive functions from a four letter type and conversely.
If you're looking for something that's a bit more of an acquired taste, I also enjoy Skimmerlit's channel for original insights on the topic.
Bonus tip: If you're an INTP
- Buy and read The INTP + The INTP Quest e-book bundle by A.J. Drenth (one of the authors of the aforementioned Personality Junkie blog). Especially, if you're still fairly young (late teens / early twenties) and feel somewhat lost. They're two short e-books of concentrated guidance and recommendations from an older version of yourself. Trust me, for 10 dollars, it's one of the best returns on investment you'll ever make. Thank me later.
- Once you've read the basic theory and a couple of INTP profile descriptions, watch these videos:
The Enneagram #
The Wikipedia page table is a pretty decent, concise summary of the entire theory. Personality Database also has a wiki section dedicated to it if you want to go a bit more in-depth.
I would recommend checking out Kathrine Fauvre's tritypes as a valuable add-on to the base theory: YouTube / Website.
If, like me, you like crunchier theoretical underpinnings, you might be interested to check out the directional theory, which reverse engineers some of the dichotomies the Enneagram could be built upon.
If you're looking for a test, the one from Eclectic Energies is decent. Cate Hall also has an interesting Enneagram-inspired test designed to identify your biggest blind spot, although she doesn't refer to the Enneagram and its types explicitly.
Speaking of Cate Hall, she's written a few interesting articles with her own spin on the Ennegram:
Attachment styles #
For an overview of attachment theory and attachment in adults, you can check out the respective Wikipedia pages.
To learn more about your specific style, I would recommend Thaïs Gibson's YouTube channel. You can start with her overview of the 4 styles. She also has made a test on her website. That being said, whereas I endorse her educational material, I'm less enthusiastic about her marketing tactics, but you can always unsubscribe to her newsletter once you're done with the test.
The Big Five #
Don't have that much to say here, as I said it's not the most interesting system to me.
I would recommend this online test. It's very good, and you can compare the results of other people against yours in detail.
You might be interested in the SLOAN notation as a shorthand to name Big Five "types" by summarizing which side of each polarity they lean on.
You can check out the Wikipedia articles on The Big Five, NEO PI-R (the main test for it), and HEXACO (an alternative).
Michael Pierce made a four-video series critique of the Big Five. Sakinorva also has a funny post sharing some grievances with the Big Five.