Building Blocks of Personality Type: A Guide to Discovering the Hidden Secrets of the Personality Type Code

by Leona Haas, Leona Haas, Mark Hunziker

Take the next step in understanding personality differences!

Building Blocks of Personality Type is a one-of-a-kind resource, helping you understand how you process information, make decisions, and interact with the world around you. Authors Leona Haas and Mark Hunziker's simple approach brings to life a practical understanding of the 16 personality types-first brought to life by Isabel Myers with the creation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® instrument. Whether you are exploring personality type for the first time or consider yourself a "type practitioner," Building Blocks of Personality Type is an essential element in your toolkit for understanding personality differences.

Highlights . . .
- Complete introduction to personality type
- Dedicated chapter for each mental process
- Glossary of terms for greater clarity

Beyond the basics with applications to . . .
- Managing Conflict
- Making Decisions
- Improving Communication
- Managing change and transition
- Parenting and education
- Career Development

Praise for Building Blocks of Personality Type: A Guide to Discovering the Hidden Secrets of the Personality Type Code

"This is a must-read for anyone who is serious about gaining a deeper understanding of personality type and type development. Leona and Mark have incorporated all of the critical elements and are able to present very complex material with clarity. I highly recommend this book for all practitioners who use personality type in organizations."
―Todd Wilhelm, Senior Manager, Fortune 500 Company

"This new work is not only interesting and illuminating, it is the most accurate explanation of the eight-function Jungian type model that I have come across. This book gives us a sound basis for the assessment of all of a person's psychological type preferences, making it an invaluable resource for anyone interested in psychological types."
―Michael Reding, President-Elect, C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

" Building Blocks of Personality Type gives us both a giant step forward and a solid platform for understanding the new typology of personalities. This book is the first to give a comprehensive introduction to the eight-process model, detailed descriptions of the processes, and illustrated applications that will guide students and professional users alike."
―Richard L. Hendrickson, Principal, CareerWorks, and Past President, San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento Chapters, Association for Psychological Type

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Reference

258 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Jessie Filer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is extremely helpful. It helped me recognize individual strengths, tendencies, limitations, and dysfunctions. It also helped me to identify the source of relational issues with multiple family members, including my husband. It gave me language to talk about these phenomena, good and bad, and to translate my message from my dominant functions into my husband’s functions and vice versa. I highly recommend this book and the theories it describes as an effective tool for individual growth and relational awareness.

[Taha Acar · Rating 5 out of 5]

1) A quick summary of every function but in-depth.
2) An excellent summary of the theorists of Jungian typology

[Gold Dust · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book by Leona Haas, which is endorsed by John Beebe, who wrote the foreword and created the eight process model of mbti. I read this book to learn the origin of the function stack order. The book explains it, but it’s vague and not convincing at all.

History: Alfred Binet noticed that his daughters had very different learning styles, which he called externospection and introspection. Carl Jung was mentored by him. Within a decade, Jung invented the terms extraversion and introversion, and in another decade he invented the functions (S, N, T, F) which paired with extraversion and introversion to create eight personalities, and he wrote his book (Psychological Types) about them. Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers took his ideas and added J and P to them, and developed them into the four letter code describing 16 personality types instead of Jung’s eight (xv). One of Isabel Myers’ original motivations in the development of MBTI was to help people find their ideal career (166).

Unlike enneagram, MBTI believes the personality types are not neuroses, but normal differences in people (xvi). But MBTI also believes that children must experience both success and failure in order to have healthy type development (161), and that this is not possible if a child is spoiled or neglected (160). I disagree with that. Spoiled and neglected kids learn success and failure: “this gets me what I want, and this does not.” The children learn to do whatever works for them. It’s just indirect learning, not intentional by the parent. IMO, personality is already there when the child is born, and environment CAN adjust it, but will not always do so. Whether or not a personality type is “healthy” is a matter of opinion. Each of the MBTI types have their own pros and cons. But I suppose what the book means by “healthy type development” means the order of their function stack, which is all theory and not based on any science.

Myers & Briggs invented the four function model, which I guess was the four function stack. John Beebe believed that wasn’t good enough and invented the eight function stack (xvi, xxiii). It is called the eight process model. Jung believed the second function would be opposite attitude to the dominant function, in order to balance the psyche. Beebe took it a step further and made every function in the stack alternating attitudes (i, e, i, e, i, e, etc) (xxiii). “Beebe was one of the first to present a convincing argument that the environmental attitude of the third (and seventh) process is opposite from that of the second (and sixth)” (177). His argument wasnt explained. The book claims that Beebe and Harold Grant observed that the third function was the opposite attitude from the second (181), but the book doesn’t present any scientific evidence for this. It only says “Coping with even life’s simplest situations requires both taking in information and making decisions and both extraverting and introverting, so either the preferred judging process or the preferred perceiving process must be extraverted and the other must be introverted” (116). “Balance is a key factor in determining which processes team up in a given situation. Not much can happen until perceiving is complemented with judging and extraverting with introverting or vice versa. As Isabel Myers put it, ‘The need for such supplementing is obvious. Perception without judgment is spineless; judgment with no perception is blind. Introversion lacking an extraversion is impractical; extraversion with no introversion is superficial” (120). “Just as water inherently seeks to be level, the various dimensions of the psyche always seek a state of balance” (181). I disagree that everyone (or even the majority) is balanced. Plenty of people ARE spineless, impractical, or superficial!

Myers wrote a four-page summary of the eight processes in “Gifts Differing” (xii). This book by Haas attempts to expand upon that. Haas noticed that her S type husband didn’t act like an Si type because he “never read directions. He preferred to work from pictures or by seeing the finished product. He also did not have good recall of past events and seemed to make intuitive leaps from what he observed” (xxi). She divided workshop participants into SJ and SP groups, and then noticed that one group was using Se while the other group was using Si (xxii). I ALREADY SEE A FLAW IN LOGIC! SP types are like her husband because of the P! J types follow directions, P types wing it! It’s not about Se or Si, it’s about the J and P! Haas then used her faulty logic to apply to the whole system.

“Like C. G. Jung and Isabel Myers, Leona has constantly tested, modified, and validated her theoretical understanding through literally thousands of conversations and observations” (xxiv). I doubt it. Show me the science! Where’s the correlative data of 4 letter type and cognitive function stack? Easy to make claims saying “I found these things to be true of thousands of people I spoke to” but without any evidence of each of those 1000s of people, your words could just be lies.

The book says that the eight process system IS ONLY A MODEL (i.e, THEORY), and it is all about how people gather information and make decisions, NOT about traits, skills, or behavior (1, 8, 12). In my opinion, decision making is completely different from personality, because personality IS about traits, skills, and behavior! When most people go to MBTI, what they want is personality. Personality is a description of traits such as quiet or talkative. When Jung described the functions (extroverted feeling, introverted thinking, etc.), he was describing personality traits. And this book also later hypocritically describes the functions as personality traits (33-111). 4 letter MBTI type can be observed and verified (“this person is quiet, practical, logical, and spontaneous—ISTP”), but the function stack cannot (the order of one’s preferred decision making is unknowable by outsiders).

According to this book, the e & i attitudes are the energy focus - where you get your energy and what drains it (123). S & N are perception functions which take in information (8), while t & f are judgment functions which make decisions. J & P attitudes say what we focus on in the environment - J types make decisions while P types gather information and don’t make decisions (17). (How can you make decisions without taking in information? Dumb. Better to use J as the code for preferring to make commitments and P for the code for preferring to keep options open.) The J or P’s purpose in the 4 letter code is to “show the order of an individual’s natural preferences for engaging [the] processes” (25). So the order of the first two functions in the stack was arrived at in this way. Using ESFJ as an example: The J in the code means that the judgment function (F) is extraverted. For the ISFP, the P means their S is extraverted. Then the remaining middle letter is the introverted function for each type. So Si for ESFJ and Fi for ISFP (27). The dominant function for each is determined by whether the 4 letter code starts with an E or I (28).

All of that is theoretical and not based on gathering data from real people at all. Maybe some ESFJ are Se doms while others are Fe doms. The ESFJ type does after all have both S and F in its four letter code. Why should the ESFJ have any introverted type in their top two functions? Maybe they are highly extraverted? I’m highly introverted and I don’t have any extraverted type as my top three most preferred functions. The theory’s only excuse is “Jung observed that the psyche has a need to balance the purpose and orientation of the dominant process” (28). What evidence is there for everyone being balanced? None! Take a cognitive function quiz, and you will probably get a stack which doesn’t exist in the theory! I saw someone’s today that was Si=Ti>Te>Fi>Se=Ne>Fe>Ni. Si and Ti tied for top place, which means that this person was high in both of those introverted types. According to the theory, it’s more likely this person is an ISTJ because Si and Te can go together, but Ti and Te can’t. But the ISTJ is supposed to have Ti as the sixth function in its stack (197), which is way farther down than this person’s tie with dominant position! IMO, the person got high Ti and Si because they are an I-S-T type! See all the letters showing up there? No extraversion! So no Te! This person got Te in the third spot, not the first or second!

“By definition, we must all ‘extravert’ in order to interact with people and the rest of the physical world” (22). (No, someone can stay silent and not interact. That’s what introverts tend to do.) “So the processes that we directly and most easily observe in people are usually their extraverted processes” (23). (I guess that would be Fe for me, since when I do interact with people I try to be kind and polite (more so than acting like Se, Te, or Ne), but I wouldn’t say it’s one of my top three functions, because it’s not my preference to use Fe, it’s more like an act I feel obligated to put on, but noticing people’s emotions comes naturally to me.) “Because of this it has become a common misconception that only the extraverted processes can be observed by others” (23). (I don’t see how this isn’t true, given the sentence right before it.) “People whose most preferred process is introverted do not usually show the world their greatest gifts. When they speak or take action in the world, they usually do so through their auxiliary process, so observes can never observe the dominant process directly” (23-24). (So then how is that ‘misconception’ a misconception?) “The extraverted auxiliary process is the one featured in the spotlight and is often mistakenly assumed to be the star” (24). (Again, I disagree, because an introvert who doesn’t bother to interact with people or speak to them is not displaying any extraverted type at all, but staying true to their introverted self.)

“No process description will fit you perfectly. Likewise, you may identify with some parts of all eight descriptions. You are a unique and complex being, and what we describe here is only, after all, A MODEL that simplifies the description of personality and its development in order to help us to think and talk about it” (6).

Before going into my summaries of each of the cognitive function processes based on Haas’s descriptions, I want to quickly summarize Jung’s descriptions of them from Psychological Types to show how they differ:
Se - joyful sensation seeker; no desire to dominate (364)
Si - an introvert without introspection (397, 473); reaches into the future as well as the past (395)
Ne - forever going after what’s new (368-369)
Ni - like a prophet whose predictions have no logical basis (400-402)
Te - their ideas are borrowed from outside, not generated from inside (342-343); they force their ideals onto others (348)
Ti - generator of theories (380)
Fe - conformer (355-356)
Fi - cynical (387) and melancholy inside while neutral outside; feels superior (389)

Haas’ descriptions are based on input from people for whom the function is dominant according to the theory. Unlike Jung who believed a person was a pure type such as Se, MBTI believes people are a combination of these types, and the following descriptions of them describe a person as if they were a pure type, in order to make the function processes more recognizable [9]).

*Se: active, adventurous, energetic, forgetful, fun, observant, restless, social, bored easily, lives in the moment, provokes people, straight forward, seeks novelty & variety, has all the traits of a P type; sounds like an ADHD person; seems most likely to want to sleep around (physical stimulation with frequent new partners) [Sounds like E7]

Both S types are good with directions and external details, noticing physical surroundings, remembering where they’ve been before, and what they’ve seen before.

*Si: quiet, calm, composed, dependable, linear, orderly, professional; rigid, stable, stubborn, high attention to detail, high internal bodily awareness; past-oriented (good memory; nostalgic; compares present with past; learns from mistakes; holds grudges; likes what is familiar) [Sounds like E1, esi]

*Ne: future oriented (although p. 201 says Ne is uniquely able to reach into the past and future—I think that’s truer of Ni), easily sidetracked, disorganized, indecisive, innovative; non-linear, enthusiastic/optimistic about future possibilities, loves change and risk; social, spontaneous, unstructured, doesn’t finish what they start; feels bored or trapped by stability [Also sounds like E7]

*Ni: future oriented, abstract, shy, awkward, psychic, strategic, stubborn, daydreaming, deep thinker, enjoys complexity, theoretical, focussed on the unconscious, unpredictable, proud of independence; seeks to understand deeper meaning and significance of everything; dislikes routine or repetitive tasks; doesn’t need external stimulation; they know without being able to explain; communicates with metaphors and symbolism; waits for inspiration before acting. Sounds like E9. (According to the theory, Ni is supposed to be my dominant function, but this doesn’t sound like me. It sounds closest to an INFP, not an INFJ or INTJ. J types don’t procrastinate. And even among INFPs, I don’t think most of them are psychic. The kind of person Ni describes would be extremely rare. Seriously, how often do we ever encounter anyone who has psychic powers? There’s like maybe only one every generation or so?)

*Te: goal & plan-oriented, analytical, competent, critical, decisive; efficient; judgmental; organized, logical; prepared, punctual, reliable, scientific; hierarchical; can defend their opinion on everything; has a logical rationale for every action; likes to debate; likes to speak their thoughts aloud, either to themselves or others; likes to create laws, rules, systems; finishes what they start; quickly spots illogic and inconsistencies; “a need to make exceptions to the rules indicates a need to improve the rules. A perfect world would have perfect rules so that exceptions would never need to be made” (75). That last line is how I feel about a lot of things, including MBTI. I’m an exception to their cognitive function theory (and I’m surely not the only exception), therefore the theory needs to be revised or thrown out. Te describes me more than Ni! (Interesting that ENTP is usually called the debater, but Te is described as the debater even though ENTP’s dominant function is supposed to be Ne, not Te.) Te sounds like SO5 or SP8.

*Ti sounds a lot like Te, except: Ti is more of an original thinker; likes to work alone rather than leading others; is more focussed on group interaction than on the group’s goal (doesn’t make sense; shouldn’t it be the other way around?); their theories and systems are more about things than people; is more hesitant to speak; they reanalyze their decisions to improve upon them; “their logic is objective, but the framework within which it works is very subjective. Thus, their decision-making process is one of subjective logic” (85). Sounds like SP5. Ti sounds like the person who inputs the data like an accountant, while Te sounds like the person who draws conclusions from the data like a boss (213). Ti is supposed to be INTP’s dominant function, but Ti is described as stubborn while INTP is the most open minded type. INTJ sounds like Ti, but INTJ doesn’t even have Ti in its first four functions. Flawed theory!

“Most people with a thinking preference would rather be truthful than tactful and are more interested in being fair than in being kind” (21). “A preference for feeling does not have anything to do with emotions. Feeling types are neither more nor less inclined to be emotional than thinking types” (21).

*Fe: group/collective-oriented; social, charming, cheerful, conforming, dependent, emotional; helpful; nurturing, selfless, shallow, talkative, conflict makes them uneasy; mannerly/polite even if they’re lying; doesn’t want to hurt others (I’m skeptical of this, because the most conforming kids at school were also the meanest). Sounds like E2.

*Fi: value-oriented; private, mysterious; focussed on the individual, not the collective; they think with their gut (108-109); outwardly neutral, calm, and polite; have independent morality; have difficulty accessing their values; don’t care about bringing their inner system of values to the real world; easygoing, nonjudgmental, and tolerant, but they don’t compromise on their beliefs; find arguing to be pointless and stressful; blocks/ignores people who threaten their value system; say things like “this feels right to me” (106); can’t explain their values; doesn’t like criticism of self or others; doesn’t need praise and doesn’t give it either (108). Sounds like E4.

A big difference between Jung’s Fi and this book’s Fi is that Jung describes it as a reserved melancholy type while this book describes it as someone obsessed with their personal values/morals. Haas says that INFP shows a peaceful face to the world (154), which I think is completely wrong, since INFPs tend to be punk/emo/goth and are therefore rebellious. I think the most peaceful type is ISFP. But I wouldnt say ISFP has strong personal values; as an S type, their values would be whatever society values. It’s the N types who think for themselves.
Haas says that ESFPs have Fi as their auxiliary process, so they too have deeply held personal values (154). IMO this is completely wrong also. ESFPs are the popular people who tend to have no mind of their own and just conform to the values of mainstream society. They are more like Se and Fe than Fi. (I’d go as far as to say ESFPs are the most Fe type of all 16 personalities!) But because of the 8 process model’s faulty theory about the auxiliary needing to be the opposite attitude to the dom, Haas says ESFP has Fi, not Fe.

See comments below for continued review.

[Essie-Marie F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

IMO, it took a bit to get used to the writing style used in this book. The authors are THOROUGH, which can sometimes result in rewording the same sentence more than once. Other than that slight discrepancy, this is one of the best books on MBTI that I've read. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about MBTI. It's PERFECT for beginners, but more knowledgeable readers will learn lots as well.

[Name · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read, it feels like it syndicates knowledge from a bunch of well respected sources and delivers a well made, solid foundation for understanding the cognitive functions by themselves.
It does not go into personality types or personality development.
It has a clear focus and delivers what it set out to accomplish.

[Andrew Sternisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really expanded my mind even though it is a bit dry and dense. There is a lot of information here, so I will be referencing this book many times in the future. I don’t understand types well enough to type someone else if they have not told me their type, but it has made me aware of how I tend to interact with the world in my own mind and how I will interact with people who have different types than me.

[Áďa Vávrová · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed book about Myers Briggs typology. Shows you how each function behaves in different setting, how can you spot person's main function in group of people, how each function receives new information/how it makes decision. If you read this properly you can not NOT know at least something about each function. It is indeed thorough.

[Branco Patteeuw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn't finish the book entirely, but I read the parts I was most interested in.
I wanted to learn all the different parts of the MBTI, which I did. I didn't know the theory was so thought out and had multiple layers.
I enjoyed learning from this book. It made me think a lot about my own personality, but also that of friends, colleagues, and fictional characters from books and movies.

[Steve Osbourne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most informative and helpful book I’ve read on understanding personality type.

[arimoanga · Rating 4 out of 5]

using this as ref. i like the inclusion of shadow types in the 8 function circle. much to learn.

[Rebekah Giese Witherspoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A super deep dive into Myers-Briggs personality types with focus on the 8 cognitive functions that all of us use to one degree or another (Extraverted Thinking, Introverted Thinking, Extraverted Feeling, Introverted Feeling, Extraverted Sensing, Introverted Sensing, Extraverted Intuition, Introverted Intuition).

The book gives concrete examples of the ways that each particular cognitive function (mental process) shows up in everyday actions and communications, so that you can identify them in yourself and others. It helps you understand how your mind works, the best way to "charge your batteries" to regain energy for your personality type, and how to more effectively communicate with others.

-1 star because the book didn't mention the most helpful cognitive function hacks...how to get out of "the loop" between the dominant and tertiary cognitive functions, and how to get out of "the grip" of the inferior cognitive function. Perhaps those concepts came along after this book was written.

[Azhari Tay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through this book I've learnt more about the different processes in play. I've learnt more about myself especially when I resonate with what is being explained about my personality. One example would be that I have had times of frustration where I cannot get my ideas across other people and this book has allowed me to go past this obstacle.

[abelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was great! granted, i'm a newcomer to the world of typology, but it gave me some solid building blocks (hence, the title, i guess) to all the different functions and how they work. would gladly revisit for future references.

[Jen Lilienstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books on the Cognitive Processes I've read. (And I've read a lot!!)

[Hamad Abdulsamad · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 8 jungian mental proccesses are explained, in a simple and organised way for the reader.

[Paul Sacco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro to the cognitive functions.