Research Note: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator — Cops, Convicts, and College Students
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X9907200108 |
| Published date | 01 January 1999 |
| Author | Dennis J. Stevens |
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DENNIS J. STEVENS
Professor
and
Director
of
Criminal Justice, Mount Olive College,
North Carolina, USA
RESEARCH NOTE:
MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR
- COPS, CONVICTS, AND
COLLEGE STUDENTS
What are the realities of the men and the women who police mean
streets? Certainly, as the 21st century approaches, an American
multicultural society places different demands on police performance
and integrity, but how different are the personality profiles of police
officers than the villains they apprehend? One answer might relate to
personality type indicators such as those developed by Carl lung. Over
60 years ago, Carl lung (1933) was struck by individual personality
differences among individuals. He struggled to make sense of the many
different personalities he encountered in his practice and in his travels.
He arrived at an important distinction. "There is a whole class of men
who at a given situation at first, draw back a little as if with an unvoiced
no, and only after that are able to react," he wrote. "And there is another
.class who, in the same situation, come forward with an immediate
reaction, apparently confident that their behavior is obviously right"
(1933, p.85). This distinction suggests what lung identifiedas two types
of attitudes among individuals: introversion, in which the dominant
tendency is to channel psychic energy inward and withdraw from
socially; and extraversion, in which the dominant tendency is to channel
psychic energy outward and take an interest in people and the external
world. Continuing along these thoughts, he also identified what he
called the basic functions: sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling.
Sensation and intuition are the irrational functions, and thinking and
feeling are the rational functions. The two attitudes and four functions
create eight different personality types, explains Burger (1990). And
Personality types can relate to occupational preference (Schmidt and
Hunter, 1992). By far, explains Berger (1990), the most popular method
for measuring lung's psychological types is the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (Myers and McCaulley, 1985).
Police officers and convicts make different decisions about their
lifestyles, and many of those decisions may be rooted in their
personality profiles. Certainly, law enforcement organizations seek
personality profiles to aid in their pursuit of apprehending offenders.
Therefore, to review one of the most widely used personality indictors,
Myers-Briggs Test Indicator Tests, might prove useful. What profiles
January 1999 The Police Journal 59
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