I. Introduction
Modern career centers offer numerous tools to identify or clarify an individual’s values (V), interests (I), and personality (P) characteristics. While the specificity of such assessments is undoubtedly useful, it is also important to understand how values, interests, and personality overlap and converge with each other. This theoretical convergence, for which we will employ the acronym—”V-I-P”—will constitute our focus in this post.
I’ve long been interested in the theoretical overlap among various personality taxonomies, but it wasn’t until I revisited Shalom Schwartz’s “Theory of Basic Human Values” that I was struck by its parallels with John Holland’s model of career interests called “The Holland Occupational Themes,” or what is more colloquially called the “Holland Codes” or “RIASEC” model. I was already well-acquainted with the interrelations between Holland’s themes and the Myers-Briggs personality preferences, but when I witnessed the striking overlap between Schwartz and Holland, I couldn’t help but suspect that values, interests, and personality were, in effect, hailing from a common psychological foundation that could be modeled theoretically.
Visually, Schwartz’s values are typically displayed on a circle or pie graph, whereas Holland employed a hexagon to illustrate his interest themes. Despite these slight geometric differences, both theorists seemed to arrive at the same basic conclusion, which was that certain values / interests are quite similar or compatible, whereas others are rather different, even contrary, to one another. Hence, both theorists situated similar values / interests near or adjacent to one another on their diagrams, while locating opposing values farther away or opposite each other. For instance, Holland placed the Artistic and Conventional interest themes on opposite sides of his hexagon, indicating that these domains had little in common.
Later in this post, we will elaborate and provide visuals for Holland and Schwartz’s theories with an eye toward how they converge theoretically. Before doing so, however, we will set the stage by analyzing and diagramming the work of Jung / Myers-Briggs.
II. The Jungian / Myers-Briggs Personality Taxonomy
Like Holland and Schwartz, Jung and Myers-Briggs came to conceive of their subject matter, in this case personality types and preferences, in terms of conceptual opposites. And while they didn’t explicitly employ circular diagrams to depict their typological concepts, their endorsement of dichotomous opposites makes their work amenable to visual representation in the same fashion as that of Schwartz or Holland.
According to Jung’s basic framework, thinking (T) and feeling (F) oppose each other, as do sensing (S) and intuition (N). In keeping with Holland and Schwartz’s method of situating opposites across from each other, Jung’s T-F and S-N pairs can be represented as follows:
In positing these conceptual opposites, it is implied that T is more similar to, or compatible with, its S or N neighbors than it is with F. In the same way, N is considered more readily compatible with T or F than it is with S. This is fleshed out in Myers-Briggs’ theory, where the auxiliary function is viewed as the natural helper or companion to the dominant function, while the inferior function is considered less compatible and more apt to conflict with the dominant.
In addition to the T-F and S-N dichotomies, we will also be incorporating the judging (J) – perceiving (P) preferences into our V-I-P theory. However, we must first do some preliminary work to determine their proper placement on our circle. Following Schwartz and Holland’s method of grouping similar elements adjacently, we must discern the degree to which the J and P preferences are conceptually similar to (and different from) T, F, S and N respectively. While there are a number of different ways this might be accomplished, we will invoke the leading academic model of personality, commonly known as “The Big Five,” for assistance.
Let’s start with the notion, commonly employed in Myers-Briggs circles, that judging involves a preference for closure and perceiving a desire to keep things open. With this in mind, we will turn to the Big Five domain, openness, for further insight.
Big Five openness is known to significantly correlate with Myers-Briggs intuition (N). As discussed in my post, Big Five Openness & Myers-Briggs Intuition, openness also empirically correlates with feeling (F) and perceiving (P), the latter of which shouldn’t surprise us if conceived as “keeping one’s options open.” All told, this suggests that the N, F, and P preferences tend to co-occur in open individuals, a notion which finds empirical support in the fact that roughly half of all intuitives test as one of two types—INFP or ENFP.
This NFP clustering (as well as its STJ) opposite, also makes sense in light of what we know about the two brain hemispheres. Namely, the right hemisphere is known to be more intuitive (N), empathetic (F), and receptive (P), while the left is more precise (S), analytical (T), and focused (J). This is why we consider STJs (i.e., ISTJ and ESTJ) the most “left-brained” personality types and NFPs the most “right-brained” of the types.
When this in mind, we will proceed by situating J between S and T on our diagram, and P between N and F. This placement will find further validation as we examine the work of Holland and Schwartz.
With these preferences in place, we proceeded to employ a geometric technique to approximate the respective positions of the types within our circle. This involved drawing a triangle between the 3 preferences (e.g., NTJ), then determining its centroid, which is basically the center of the triangle. If you’d prefer to use more of an “eyeball technique,” simply identify which side of the circle has two of your type’s preferences. Then, think of your type’s third preference as a magnet that pulls the third point of your triangle a little ways toward itself.
The fact that NFJs and STPs, have two preferences on the side opposite their J-P preference is why INFJs end up closer to the P pole and STPs closer to the J pole. However, please don’t take this to mean that NFJs are actually Ps or that STPs are Js. Moreover, the fact that these types are closer to the center of the circle is neither good nor bad, but merely suggests that their preference combinations are less common than those of other types, producing what amounts to a geometric cancelling effect within this particular model.
Finally, for reasons we will touch on later, we will not be including the introversion (I) – extraversion (E) dichotomy in our V-I-P theory, as it failed to fit cleanly with the other two models we’re incorporating.
III. Personality Type & Holland Career Interests
Developed in the late 1950s, “The Holland Occupational Themes” are still widely used today in universities and career counseling centers across the world, not to mention the U.S. Department of Labor. While Holland’s chief concern was understanding the relationship between personality and vocation, he actually referred to his six themes—Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Social (S), Enterprising (E), and Conventional (C)—as personality types. In the 1973 edition of his book, Making Vocational Choices, he observed that “if vocational interests are an expression of personality, then it follows that interest inventories are personality inventories.”
Again quoting directly from his book, the descriptions of Holland’s types / themes are as follows:
Realistic: “A preference for activities that entail the explicit, ordered, or systematic manipulation of objects, tools, machines and animals.”
Investigative: “A preference for activities that entail the observational, symbolic, systematic, and creative investigation of physical, biological, and cultural phenomenon in order to understand and control such phenomena.”
Artistic: “A preference for ambiguous, free, unsystematized activities that entail the manipulation of physical, verbal, or human materials to create art forms or products.”
Social: “A preference for activities that entail the manipulation of others to inform, train, develop, cure or enlighten.”
Enterprising: “A preference for activities that entail the manipulation of others to attain organizational goals or economic gain.”
Conventional: “A preference for activities that entail the explicit, ordered, systematic manipulation of data, such as keeping records, filing materials, reproducing materials, organizing data…to attain organization or economic goals.”
Now recall that Holland, like Schwartz, understood the adjacent themes on his diagram to be similar or compatible, and distant themes to be dissimilar or less compatible. For example, the Realistic theme is viewed as compatible with the Conventional and/or Investigative theme. This is also implied in Holland’s use of the word “systematic” to describe all three of these domains.
With this in mind, let’s now consider how Holland’s work maps onto our earlier depiction of the Myers-Briggs preferences / types:
Realistic: T
There is still some disagreement among Holland theorists regarding whether the Realistic domain has more to do with hands-on activities, such as operating heavy machinery, which is more in the wheelhouse of thinking (T) – perceiving (P) types, or performing more systematic work, such as formal science, which thinking (T) – judging (J) types are generally better suited for. Regardless, most jobs in this domain are well-handled with the skills and abilities associated with the T preference.
Investigative: T, N
In the Investigative theme, Holland clearly saw a merger of the systematic (T) and symbolic / creative (N), which fits perfectly with our personality model. This theme serves as a nice example of the complementary nature of adjacent personality functions, in this case, T and N.
Artistic: N, P, F
In his description of the Artistic theme, Holland emphasizes the unsystematic approach taken by divergent-minded creatives, which squares well with what we know about NFP types, not to mention artists in general.
Social: F
Partly due to its name, this career theme is commonly and in our view, mistakenly, associated with extraversion (E). The thrust of this domain, as Holland suggests, involves helping or teaching. It really has more to do with the caring and people-oriented nature of the feeling (F) preference than it does with extraversion.
Enterprising: S, E
Enterprising careers such as business, sales, and marketing are largely the domain of S types (although N types may end up here as well, often out of necessity). Such individuals often prefer extraversion, although we omitted the E-I domain from our model due to apparent incongruities between Holland’s and Schwartz’s models.
Conventional: S, J, T
If the Artistic theme best represents right-brain functioning, the Conventional domain most clearly exemplifies that of the left hemisphere. Holland’s use of descriptors like explicit, ordered, and systematic all point to left-brain operations.
IV. Schwartz’s Theory of Values
The final contributor to our V-I-P theory is Schwartz’s theory of values, which recognizes 10 basic human values (enumerated below). Schwartz’s theory also includes what he calls “value priorities or hierarchies,” which reference the relative importance of each value for the individual. To determine an individual’s value hierarchy, Schwartz assesses the degree to which each value serves as “a guiding principle in life.”
As touched on earlier, Schwartz also found that some values are similar or compatible, whereas as others are dissimilar or conflicting. Moreover, as we saw with Holland’s interests, Schwartz’s values, including their circular ordering, can be theoretically aligned with the Myers-Briggs preferences / types:
You may have noticed that our diagram includes only 8 of Schwartz’s 10 values. We opted to combine the adjacent values of hedonism and stimulation, simply calling them “stimulation.” We also grouped conformity and tradition under the “conformity” concept. Our reasons for doing so were partly aesthetic, partly pragmatic, and partly due to the significant overlap / similarity of these values, which I will elaborate below. Schwartz himself also recognized significant overlap between these values.
Power / Achievement: E, T, J
Power: “Social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources.”
Achievement: “Personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards.”
EJs are the most dominant and forceful of all types. Moreover, the T preference, to the extent that it relates to a sense of personal agency, dominance, and masculine energy, further strengthens the desire for power and achievement. As stated earlier, we omitted extraversion (and introversion) from our model. At this point, we can better understand why. Namely, extraversion’s placement in Holland’s model would likely be at the bottom of our circle (coinciding with the Enterprising theme), whereas it would need to be placed at the top or in our upper-left quadrant to comport with Schwartz’s theory. (In my follow-up article to this post, I provide additional support for the exclusion of extraversion / introversion from our VIP model.)
Stimulation / Hedonism: E, N, T, P
Stimulation: “Excitement, novelty, and challenge.”
Hedonism: “Pleasure or sensuous gratification for oneself.”
There seems to be a fair amount of overlap between Schwartz’s conception of hedonism and stimulation. In Hedonism and Happiness, Ruut Veenhoven suggests that “hedonism is reflected in… a trait called ‘sensation seeking’, which is the tendency to pursue varied and intense experiences.” I tend to agree with Veenhoven and suspect that hedonism and stimulation could be consolidated into a single value called either “stimulation” (as used on our diagram) or sensation-seeking (not to be confused with the Jungian concept of sensation / sensing)—which is a well-established psychological construct.
That said, a study called The Big Five Personality Factors and Values found that both hedonism and stimulation correlated with extroversion (E), but only stimulation correlated significantly with openness. And as we’ve seen, openness corresponds to N and P on the Myers-Briggs. Thus, Schwartz may have been trying to differentiate between a sensory (S) type of pleasure—hedonism—and one rooted more in the mind and imagination (N)—stimulation.
The elephant in the room here is the role of T in these two values. Research has consistently shown that men, the majority of whom are T types, exhibit higher levels of sensation-seeking than women. It therefore stands to reason that T will better correlate with hedonism and stimulation than F will.
Taken together, we’d expect the ENTP personality type, in particular, to strongly value stimulation, and to some extent, hedonism. Low-arousal theory and ADD have also been empirically linked to sensation-seeking, as well as to the E, N, and P personality preferences.
Self-Direction / Universalism: N, P
Self-Direction: “Independent thought and action—choosing, creating, exploring.”
Universalism: “Understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature.”
According to the Big Five values study we just discussed, Big Five openness (and by association Myers-Briggs N and P) is significantly associated with both self-direction (.48) and universalism (.47), which is consistent with what we know about the Myers-Briggs NP types. We’d expect NFPs, who are characteristically open and empathetic, to value universalism most strongly.
Benevolence: F
Benevolence: “Preserving and enhancing the welfare of those with whom one is in frequent personal contact.”
This value is rather straightforward in that we would expect feeling types to be most strongly engaged in enhancing the welfare of others by way of direct care and involvement.
Conformity / Tradition / Security: S, J
Conformity: “Restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms.”
Tradition: “Respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that one’s culture or religion provides.”
Security: “Safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self.”
As indicated on our diagram, conformity and security are in many respects the opposite of the self-direction and stimulation values. The former are associated with the S and J preferences, the latter with the N and P preferences.
V. Our VIP Theory: A Synthesis
Acknowledging this to be a rather lengthy and involved post, I applaud those of you who have made it this far. Hopefully, you will conclude that your patience paid off as you see how the aforementioned theories of values (V), interests (I), and personality type (P) come together in our V-I-P theory:
Our theory illustrates how values, career interests and personality type are not separate and unrelated aspects of the human mind, but rather are closely intertwined and overlapping. It recognizes that our psychological preferences tend to cluster together, thus allowing for some measure of predictability between them. If we know a person’s personality type, for instance, we can hypothesize what her Holland career themes or basic values might be. This model can also help us clarify or consolidate our self-understanding by revealing how various aspects of our psychology are interrelated and mutually reinforcing.
VI. Addendum: Incorporating the Enneagram
(Added 6/14/2020)
Since many of our readers are students of the Enneagram, following the original publication of our V-I-P theory we decided to add this section on the Enneagram types. To understand the placement of the various Enneagram types on the diagram below, it will be useful to consult our post on Enneagram – Myers Briggs / MBTI correlations.
Perhaps most noteworthy is the fact that, when incorporated into our V-I-P model, the Enneagram types ended up being ordered very difficulty than is conventionally done. This could mean one of two things. First, it may be the case that the founders of the Enneagram had no intention of positioning similar types adjacently (as Holland, Schwartz and others have done). Secondly, it could indicate a fundamental flaw in Enneagram theory. While I don’t know enough about the history of the Enneagram to decide for sure, the weight of the evidence appears to be stacked against the conventional ordering of the Enneagram types. As discussed earlier, there are sound reasons for positioning similar types in proximity and dissimilar types distally, as evidenced in the above diagram.
Because the V-I-P model doesn’t include introversion and extraversion (for reasons described earlier), there are a few Enneagram types, such as the Seven (a strongly extraverted type), which could possibly have been placed elsewhere. I nonetheless did my best to properly situate the types with respect to the other concepts included in the model (e.g, pairing the Seven with Schwartz’s “Stimulation” value).
Reordering the Enneagram types in this sort of fashion would obviously be terribly inconvenient for Enneagram theorists, requiring them to totally rework the “wings,” lines of integration, etc. While I’m quite doubtful that such a project will ever be undertaken, I nevertheless enjoyed the process of incorporating the Enneagram types into our V-I-P theory.
Related Posts:
The V-I-P Theory (Part II): The Big Five, Brain Hemispheres & Eysenck
Holland (RIASEC) Career Interest Domains
Big Five Openness, Myers-Briggs Intuition & IQ Correlations
Geoffrey and Lynn Roots says
Yours is my very favorite and most trusted site for study of these personality types which I find so fascinating! To the best of my awareness , I’m an INFJ and I do admit to becoming a bit dizzified by the time I read through an article such as this one. Lastly I do want to thank you for keeping to your initial promise of not sending me continual emails. In general , it’s becoming increasingly overwhelming with senders doing so! Thank you for your dedication to this subject and your integrity as well
Lynn
A.J. Drenth says
Thanks so much Lynn for your readership and comment. It’s nice to hear you’re enjoying our work.
vieq says
I totally agree with your findings, I bought two of your books in my pursuit to understand my self and my true type is ENTJ, and over careerexplorer.com my report says I am highly investigative and achievements seeker… and this is in line with various other tests as well.
Most people fail to realize their true type for one or two reasons in my belief, 1-they are under stress and their shadow is integrating & 2- they do not yet have the correct amount of self observence and reflecting to match their behavior correctly.
A.J. Drenth says
Thank you for commenting Vieq. I’m glad the theory aligned with your self-understanding and career report results.
Alex Booth says
AJ,
I have known three NFJ women that have told me that, on occasion, they feel that they “don’t belong in this world”. I wonder if this might have something to do with where that particular type falls within your V-I-P diagram. I also wonder if you have any experience with this and with the STP type given the mirror position of that type. Any comment?
Kristin Choruby says
Huh–your observation that STPs and NFJs are less common seems to be correct! From what stats I’ve been able to find, it looks like the Fe-Ti and Se-Ni axes in combination are preferred by less than 15 percent of the general population (slightly higher than that for men, slightly lower for women). I wonder why that is?
Kristin Choruby says
I think another reason leaving out the extraversion-introversion dichotomy in your V-I-P model makes sense is because the last three letters of someone’s Myers-Briggs type show which cognitive functions they use and which perceiving and judging functions they prefer most, while the E/I designation just determines the order in which those functions are used. And in your model, getting down to that level would probably just be splitting hairs.
However, since the E/I dichotomy influences which functions are most and least comfortable for an individual, and given that the interests and values act kind of like spectra, in that the Myers-Briggs types are usually most comfortable with values and interests closest to their section of the circle and get progressively less comfortable as they move to the opposite side of the circle, I wonder if the E/I dichotomy influences which adjacent values and interests any given type would prefer to move into.
For example, according to the V-I-P diagram, SFJs should be most comfortable with conformity-based values and conventional or enterprising interests. Stimulation-based values and investigative or artistic careers should be least comfortable for them. I think ESFJs as a group would swing more toward enterprising and social interests because of their dominant Fe; they’re correspondingly more likely to value benevolence or even compassionate universalism. Introverted ISFJs, on the other hand, are often drained by the external demands of enterprising and social fields, and while benevolence is probably easy for most ISFJs to incorporate, universalist values would probably be too open for a type that likes stability and defined boundaries. Instead, concrete ISFJs would swing more towards conventional or even some realistic interests, and most of them highly value security. Power values are a bit harder to see for ISFJs (who are often stereotyped as doormats), but I can imagine some ISFJs who internalize values related to social hierarchy or whose Si desire for stability manifests as trying to control the people and things in their environment. Strongly developed tertiary functions might even result in some ISFJs developing investigative interests and valuing “personal success or competence according to social standards” or some ESFJs being attracted to artistic interests and having a creative or adventurous streak. Food for thought.
I have to say, though, that I’m not sure how realistic interests correlate with power values–I would think that enterprising fields would appeal more to people who value power and that realistic interests would appeal more to people who value stimulation or self-direction. The two outer rings on your diagram might need some tweaking in relation to each other.
A.J. Drenth says
Hello Kristin, Thanks so much for your astute comments and observations. I’m sympathetic to your point about power values being more compatible with Enterprising interests. However, I didn’t take the liberty to tweak the ordering of the items in either Holland’s or Schwartz’s diagrams, trusting that there was good reason for their particular arrangements. With the exception of combining some of Schwartz’s values (as discussed in the post), I decided to leave both theories in more or less their original visual format.
Zorana says
This is great! It’s also very elegant too especially considering how complex the human mind is. We’re getting close to a unifying theory on ourselves really, I hope to see it happen one day!
Elizabeth L says
I really enjoyed this! It introduced me to some systems I wasn’t aware of, and they make a lot of sense when you line them all up like this. I didn’t find it difficult to understand in the least, but maybe that’s because I (an INFP) adore personality typing systems a little too much. ;) Keep up the good work!
Boyan Ganchev says
Hello AJ and Elaine. The V-I-P supposition above makes a lot of sense to me and confirms my experience and understanding from your Find Your Path course. I consider myself an ENTP and I value and seek Stimulation and Self-Direction as defined.
Recalling the general population distribution of character preferences, it occurred to me that a more realistic shape of the last diagram can be a pear or a falling water droplet instead of a circle (or concentric circles). I realize the circle can be much more meaningful, i.e. connected to other concepts, than a pear :) Good luck with this, it really looks promising!