Diversity and MBTI Preference Distributions Written by Shawn Bakker, Lead Psychologist I’m not crazy, I’m just not you That is one of the best book titles that I have come across in my reading about personality differences. Written by Roger Pearman and Sarah Albritton, the book explores how our individual characteristics and tendencies affect our interactions with others. Roger and Sarah also show how to withhold our natural inclination to critique differences in order to recognize and appreciate them. As a professional who uses personality type in their work, the value of diversity comes as no surprise. If it does, or you would like some data to share with your clients, you can read a short article I posted that outlines some of the performance benefits of workplace diversity here: Diversity = Performance When I run team-focused workshops where I am using the MBTI assessment to help participants better understand themselves and others, I am frequently asked about the distribution of personality preferences in the workplace. I find it very impactful to share the distribution preferences with groups because it illustrates the variety of difference we find among people and helps reinforce the need to understand and leverage the perspectives that other people bring. The most up-to-date distribution of personality preferences in Canada are below*. Extraversion Introversion 35% 65% Sensing Intuition 61% 39% Thinking Feeling 51% 49% Judging Perceiving 47% 54% Notes: Not all percentages add up to 100 due to rounding. Additional Resources Diversity and Communication Addressing Criticisms of the MBTI People Trends Making Diversity Work *Source: Canada Supplement to the MBTI Manual for the Global Step I and Step II Assessments, 2018
