Why would a professional want to use the Elements of Personality Type (subscales)?
People have long known that individuals of the same type can function and appear differently. This has at times been a frustration for professionals because they have two people of the same type and yet they seem to be opposites in some aspect or behavior. Information regarding these differences is presented in the Elements of Personality Type subscales that the professional will get in the Professional Report. When somebody takes The Majors Elements, they get this information in non-numerical form in the Personality Development Report (client report). The information gives clarity to the unique differences that we find within a given type or dichotomy. Those individual differences within type can make feedback challenging if they’re not otherwise revealed. So, we have people that have these differences, same type, different expressions, and these subscales help us to pinpoint things, and that helps us find these points of deviation away from what would normally be. It gives us information about the client regarding what they do that’s unique or different. They’ll say, “I read my report and I’m not sure that the EI is right… it says that I’m an Extravert.” And then you go to the reported subscale results in the Professional Report, and you find that there are a couple of E/I subscales that are on the I side. You wonder: How did they learn that? When did they become comfortable learning that? Just because they do certain Introverted behaviors, it does not mean they don’t prefer E. It means the I behaviors are more active in their life, and they’ve learned to be comfortable with them. The report can give very powerful information to the professional. You talk with them about your discovery and point them to the information that is in the Personality Development Report on the subscales (Elements of Personality Type).
How do you use the Elements of Personality Type (subscales)?
There are 32 subscale results (16 dichotomies) which help the professional to describe behaviors that are viewed as consistent or inconsistent with individual type. This aids in the story behind the individual, and I’m a big believer in the story that a person has of their life. A simple question of, “You seem to prefer this; have you always had this preference?” Also, when helping an individual grow in life and/or the workplace, results can give important guidance on what to be aware of when navigating experiences or changes. How does this information help the professional, help the client? Because we are often coaching, counseling, or interacting with people due to some challenge that they experience; they’re just learning and growing, and the more information they learn about these individual differences, the more they have this ‘aha’ experience which is important for growth. The report can describe their everyday life and you can see reported on the scales the things that explain their actions. You note where they’ve done this or done that. Normally it wouldn’t be apparent without subscale information. We as professionals will make assumptions based on the four-letter type code and we often find ourselves with egg on our face because the person has learned or developed a skill that is, on the opposite side of that Type tide. Therefore, sub-scale information will help me as a professional to keep from making those assumption errors. The more information the professional has when they go into a feedback session, the less likely they are to waste their time backtracking on an assumption error. I believe that an important thing is how does the client uses it? When they open the Personality Development Report, and they see these four pages (four graphs each page) and all the descriptive information it may be overwhelming. We as professionals need to make sure that we encourage them to examine the results multiple times because they will often look at the results and then put it down, and that’s it. They do not know what to do with it unless we school them.
I will tell them that when something occurs that is unusual in life, to go back and look at those subscale results. Let them know that it could be very, very informative and meaningful. I ask them to read the subscale descriptions carefully and ask themselves whether the information seems accurate for them. They may find that the results explain comfort or discomfort and the challenges that are experienced in different situations in their lives. It can give explanations regarding difficult interactions with others and challenges that they face at work or at home. The client can use this information as a point of understanding of why I like this, why I don’t like that, which causes them to start thinking. Jung would say that type development is making the unconscious, conscious. As we give more information and they begin to ponder this information, read the subscale information, they promote their Type development. It gives them an opportunity for personal growth. We as professionals really need to encourage them to partake in this opportunity. They should read and examine these things through the subscale lens and experience growth. As they understand their preferences for Type differing things (Individualized Response Pattern™, IRP), it really starts to help them feel more comfortable with what they do and who they are.
If somebody is being introduced to their type through the Majors Elements, confirms ESTJ, and they come out high on tendency for one-on-one settings, that doesn’t indicate necessarily preference for introversion, but just a developed aspect of themselves that they can become aware of. For example: On that dimension of Starting Action or Observing Action, the first extroversion/introversion subscale, the individual may report to the coach that they are angry that they get stuck leading a group to do a project at work. The reported result on elements indicates that there is no interest in starting projects and a preference for observing or being part of the discussion, but for heaven’s sakes, not being in charge. Discussing the reported information can explain the discomfort with the work assignment and may lessen the attribution of negative vibe from the supervisor. It can give the coach an opportunity (open door) to really work with that individual regarding their work experience. They can provide activities for the individual to help them become more comfortable with that leadership activity. They can be encouraged to ask people, friends, a supervisor (if it’s proper), how do you start a project? What are your steps? Getting this information from another person will perhaps ease the discomfort, or whenever possible, decline the offer to lead. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to look at the results and make an accurate interpretation. If the graph is all the way to the right (not wanting to start action), and they report a preference to observe action, this indicates that there is no desire for starting action at all, and this is something that they’ve learned to avoid. Therefore, they’re going to be uncomfortable and nervous about it when they are forced to do it.
That’s just one example, and you can make up many different examples based on each one of the subscales. A coach, or counselor can take the subscale information and facilitate applying it to the individual’s life. After all, that’s what the assessment is about, creating growth, stimulating self-learning, self-understanding, and improving their interactions with others. Improving the whole condition of their life. If there is any way that we can take starting action, observing action, and have it be informative to the person and explanatory- it is helpful. You might say to the client, “well, my goodness, of course you would think the boss is really picking on you, you don’t like to start action at all, you prefer to be in the background and just be a participant and watch what’s happening.” They’ll say, “yeah, that’s true, I always like to be part of things, or often like to be part of things, but I certainly don’t want to jump in and lead a group of people on a project.” And so smart people, high IQ people, high functioning people, will often, if their preference is for observing action, feel negative about themselves, and think “why can’t I do that.” The boss will believe that they’re so smart and they could certainly lead a project, but our preferences don’t lie. We prefer it, or we don’t.
In life situations, the Majors Elements report is more of a guide to help with the journey of understanding. Every situation can be looked at from a different perspective in terms of all these different Elements of someone’s self. So, as they try to understand themselves, this is more of a baseline guide to give them a direction in terms of where to explore and what to look at within themselves. And for the professional, it becomes cues for the questions that they ask so that the individual will reveal to them that story of their life. Telling them how they learned it, where they picked it up, and that’s true on the four Type indexes, and the 8-process scores it’s true on all the subscales, it’s true on the Personality Formations. We see a snapshot of what they’re doing, and at times it’s puzzling for them or they’re not aware. Therefore, by asking them to tell an element of the story, of their life, regarding a particular reported score, we can help them as they talk it out, we can help them really discover tremendous information about themselves and grow.
Professionals are encouraged to read the manual section on the Elements of Personality Type (subscales) and become familiar with the content.
Blessings, Dr. Mark
