Law Enforcement - Dominant Personality Type

Dominant Personality Type

For many years psychologists, using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, have extensively studied officers to determine a dominant personality type. Working with 283 correctional managers, Mactavish (1992) found the dominant type was STJ, with a 50 percent split between E and I This type was also confirmed by Hanewicz (1978); giving the MBTI to veteran and recruit officers from Michigan and Florida, the results were 20.7 percent as ESTJ’s with the next highest groups at 14 percent as ISTJ’s. “Together, these two groups constitute over one-third (34.7 percent) of the subject population” (p. 159). This is also confirmed by Sluder and Shearer (1992) who found the dominant types of probation officers were also ESTJ (22.28 percent) and ISTJ (18.81 percent).

However, this may not be any different from the personality types of average citizens. In the United States there is also a dominant personality type. According to Hammer and Mitchell (1996), the dominant type among adult males is ISTJ, with the second closest type as ESTJ (19.4 percent and 12.9 percent, respectively). The contrast in type comes from the adult female group, whose dominant type is ISFJ at 16.2 percent, followed by ESFJ at 14.1 percent, then ISTJ as a close third with 12.3 percent of adult females. These results show that the dominant type may not be based on law enforcement as opposed to other careers, but rather that there are much more men in law enforcement than women. This ultimately shows that there is a correlation between the dominant types of law enforcement officers and typical adult males.