Seokhyun Jang, Seonhee Kang, Joohee Bae, Suejean Ko, Jisu Lee, Kyungwon Lee: The MBTI Map

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Artist Statement:


    The MBTI Map represents relationships among the words that describe people’s personalities using the methodology of knowledge visualization and a subway map as a metaphor.

    MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) is a questionnaire designed to identify certain types of personality characteristics. A total of 16 types can be identified by the test. This project proposes the MBTI Map as a way to signify relationships among the words that describe people’s personalities. We asked a sample of 80 individuals to rank the degree of closeness between a dyadic pair of words, to determine how these concepts are congruently clustered together. The result showed that a total of 39 representative words were extracted from 161 words that are used in describing personal characteristics in the 16 MBTI types. We also obtained distances among 39 representative words through the MDS (Multi-Dimensional Scaling) method.

    The visualization represents the relationships among the 39 representative words and 16 types of personalities. The “subway lines” indicate 16 MBTI personality types. All “stations” are arranged based on the semantic distance from the MDS analysis. The x-axis represents warm to cool, and the y-axis dynamic to quiet. In addition, 161 words used to describe personalities in the MBTI are hierarchically arranged at the outer circle.

    The MBTI Map helps viewers intuitively understand the overall picture of cluster relationships by minimizing the repetition of colors and intersecting points of connection among words.