Socionics, MBTI and
16Personalities: the difference

All of them use the same four letters, so they look like restatements of the same thing. In fact the foundation and the purpose are different. This is not about which is right, but about the fact that they measure different things in the first place.

The biggest difference is whether compatibility comes out

MBTI was made as a tool for an individual to understand themselves. So officially it advises against judging compatibility by type or using it for hiring decisions. Not producing compatibility is not a matter of ability but of design.

16Personalities is a mechanism that measures personality tendencies as continuous quantities. Strong/weak comes out, but what happens when two people are laid over each other does not come out of it. Most compatibility charts on the web count how many of four letters match and turn that into a score.

Counting matches produces only the strength of fit. The kind of fit does not come out.

Socionics is the reverse here. Since each type is defined as an arrangement of eight elements, lay the two arrangements over each other and where they fit and where they do not is decided automatically. Does one person's strength land where the other wants to leave things? Are both weak in the same place? Does it flow one way only? Count the patterns of overlap and there are sixteen.

So the sixteen relations are not a list gathered from observation but a consequence of the model. That is why this site returns not a score but a shape. Where these sixteen come from goes into detail.

The same four letters point to different things

All three use the same four letters, but the mechanisms behind them differ, so results can diverge.

The last letter, J/P, is handled differently in particular. In MBTI it is a letter decided from the ordering of cognitive functions; in 16Personalities it is a measured trait of being orderly or spontaneous. This site looks directly at the same thing as the latter, so it reads the four letters as they are. No switching. The reason is written in how the four-letter types are handled.

Each suits a different occasion

When you want to know yourself

All three can be used, but the writing differs. The descriptions in MBTI and 16Personalities are arranged so that "you read it and recognise yourself", an easy entrance. Socionics writes from the arrangement: where the person places the eight elements, that is, what they handle strongly, what they want to leave to others, where they collapse when touched. If you want to know your strengths and your sore spots as a mechanism, this goes deeper. The 16 type pages on this site are written that way.

When you want to know how you fit with this person

Socionics. It is a system built to produce relations, so here the answer comes from structure. This is the part this site deals with.

When you want to use it for hiring or placement

None of them should be used as a tool for selecting people. As material for dialogue, they are useful.

MBTI® is a registered trademark of The Myers-Briggs Company. This site is not affiliated with that company or related bodies. 16Personalities and NERIS Type Explorer® are services of NERIS Analytics Limited. This site is not affiliated with that company. This site accepts those test results as input, but the judgement and interpretation are its own.