How to Use Your Strongest—and Weakest—Preferences

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Because each of the four different preferences has two possible choices, sixteen psychological types are possible. No matter what your Myers-Briggs type, all components of personality have value in the learning process. The key to success, therefore, is to use all the attitudes and functions (E, I, S, N, T, F, J, and P) in their most positive sense. As you go about your studies, we recommend this system:

  1. Extraversion: Take action. Now that you have a plan, act on it. Do whatever it takes. Create note cards, study outlines, study groups, and so on. If you are working on a paper, now is the time to start writing.
  2. Introversion: Think it through. Before you take any action, carefully review everything you have encountered so far.
  3. Sensing: Get the facts. Use sensing to find and learn the facts. How do we know facts when we see them? What is the evidence for what is being said?
  4. Intuition: Get the ideas. Now use intuition to consider what those facts mean. Why are those facts being presented? What concepts and ideas are being supported by those facts? What are the implications? What is the big picture?
  5. Thinking: Critically analyze. Use thinking to analyze the pros and cons of what is being presented. Are there gaps in the evidence? What more do we need to know? Do the facts really support the conclusions? Are there alternative explanations? How well does what is presented hang together logically? How could our knowledge of it be improved?
  6. Feeling: Make informed value judgments. Why is this material important? What does it contribute to people’s good? Why might it be important to you personally? What is your personal opinion about it?
  7. Judging: Organize and plan. Don’t just dive in! Now is the time to organize and plan your studying so that you will learn and remember everything you need to. Don’t just plan in your head, either; write your plan down, in detail.
  8. Perceiving: Change your plan as needed. Be flexible enough to change something that isn’t working. Expect the unexpected and deal with the unforeseen. Don’t give up the whole effort the minute your original plan stops working. Figure out what’s wrong, come up with another, better plan, and start following that.3