Certain Personality Types May Be Attracted to Certain Types of Media

Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and its individual differences. In the field of psychology, "personality" is defined as a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person who uniquely influences his or her cognitions, emotions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations. These set of characteristics could potentially lead a person to prefer to interact with the world in a certain way.

Certain personality types prefer to interact with the world differently than others. 

Colleen Byrne, a professor in Clinical Psychology at the University of Maryland and a psychology clinic director, agrees with notion that certain personality types attracted to certain types of communication. Byrne says that people who are introverted may be attracted to text and email in comparison to people who are extroverted may prefer face-to-face conversation. 

According to Byrne,  certain personality types may be an indicator of what modes of communication they prefer.

In other words an introverted person may prefer reading the paper in the morning, and scanning the internet to stay informed. Extroverted people may prefer to watching television and possibly interacting with the internet more, such as blogging and providing citizen journalism. As Byrne puts it, introverted people prefer a "buffer" to stand behind, while extroverted people tend to want to be around people—they prefer interaction. 

The theoretical framework for personality psychology began with a Psychiatrist by the name of Carl Jung.

In 1921, Carl Jung, a Swiss Psychiatrist had the theory that there were various personality types that had different ways of perceiving the world. Jung hypothesized that there were four important channels through which people experienced the world and that for each channel there were two ways that a person could you this channel. These dichotomies were between introversion-extroversion, sensing-intuition, thinking-feeling, and judging and perceiving. People who prefer extroversion tend to focus their attention on the outer world of people and things. People who prefer introversion tend to focus their attention on the inner world of ideas and impressions. People who prefer sensing tend to take in information through five senses and focus on the here and now. People who prefer intuition tend to take in information from patterns and the big picture and focus on future possibilities. People who prefer thinking tend to make decisions based primarily on logic and on objective analysis of cause and effect. People who prefer feeling tend to make decisions based primarily on values and on subjective evaluation of person-centered concerns. People who prefer judging tend to like a planned and organized approach to life and prefer to have things settled. People prefer perceiving tend to like a flexible and spontaneous approach to life and prefer to keep their options open. This theory, along with these dichotomies, created the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality inventory, which helped people classify themselves by these four dichotomies and into one of 16 distinct personality categories.

Although the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test may help a person discern their personality type, it does not show great validity.

Professor Bryne reports that the Myers-Briggs tests has no "checks and balances" to show that a person responded accurately. In other words, there are no validity scales to show the accuracy of someone's answers. The scale can be potentially skewed based on a person's mood on how they want to be perceived at a certain point in time.

The Myers-Briggs test is widely used to help people choose career choices and ways of being more efficient; however, according to Professor Bryne she would not recommend it if you wanted to be sure about the outcome. 

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Personality Test is widely used but still controversial.

After much research, the Myers-Briggs test has been shown to show very weak construct validity and criterion validity. In other words, the test's scales did not relate to other scales measuring similar concepts and the test did not predict specific outcomes related to interpersonal relations or job performance. Therefore, the National Academy of Sciences committee had to conclude that the Myers-Briggs test had relatively weak validity—the test does not seem to measure what it is supposed to measure. The National Academy of Sciences committee also reported low reliability—the degree of consistency of the results were low.

Although certain personality types may be attracted to certain types of media, there is not enough evidence to support such a claim.

Instinctively we may all have our own biases for certain types of people liking certain types of things. These biases tend to come from our own experiences, which could form stereotypes, prejudices, and even racist notions. However, there are currently not enough research to suggest that certain personality types are attracted to certain types of media. There are many different variables to predict such a thing. A person's gender, age, socioeconomic status, religion/spirituality, sexual orientation, developmental disability, nationality, and indigenous heritage are all factors that could influence a person's attraction to certain types of media.