I'm in a series of blogs about the relationship between the MTR-i team role mandala and Jung's stone mandala (go to the first article in the series).  Yesterday I described the development cycle of the MTR-i that referred to some 'constructs'.  These were statements of Jung's theory that I used as a basis for the MTR-i, in order to get a firm practical, theoretical and statistical foundation.

There are three aspects to these 'constructs'.  The first is the relationship between MTR-i team role theory, Myers Briggs and Jung theory, which I'll outline today.  The second is the set of Jungian dichotomies that are used or represented in the theory, which I'll decribe tomorrow.  And the last is specifically how the MTR-i questionnaire operationalises Jung's theory, which I'll describe in a couple of days.

The MTR-i is derived from the same part of Jung's theory as Myers Briggs, ie: Psychological Types.  However, without contradicting each other, they emphasise different parts of the theory and present them in slightly different ways.  Here are the differences:

Preference vs Usage
Myers Briggs theory is concerned with "preference" between opposites, but the MTR-i team roles are concerned with "usage" of function-attitudes.  By way of analogy, Myers Briggs theory asks the question 'am I right or left handed?', but MTR-i team role theory asks the questions 'which hand or hands am I using at the moment?'.

Another way of describing this is using Jung's terminology of adaptation, which appears in the books 'Psychological Types' and 'Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche'.  Myers Briggs is about "habitual adaptation", that is: what is my habitual way of thinking or behaving?  Having an habitual adaptation gives rise to one's psychological type or general orientation towards life.  MTR-i team roles are about "momentary adaptation", that is: how am I thinking or behaving at this point in time?  This is therefore more to do with constellating individual functions and the small, fluctuating ebbs and flows of libido, rather than examining the prevailing direction it takes.

One type vs Eight Roles
The MBTI questionnaire reports personality preferences that are consistent over time.  Although the results are based on four pairs of preferences (E/I, S/N, T/F and J/P) your result is one personality type (out of sixteen possibilities ESTJ, INFP, etc.).  The MTR-i questionnaire reports your current contributions to a team in each of the team roles, which can change over a short period of time or in different situations.  Although the result is based on three dichotomies (E/I, S/N and T/F), which is a similar approach to the MBTI, it gives rise to 'degrees of usage' of all eight team roles.

Your MTR-i result indicates how much you use each of those team roles, so you have eight results instead of one (ie: your Myers Briggs type is one type out of sixteen, your MTR-i team roles are eight degrees of usage of the eight team roles).  By way of analogy, you are either right or left handed (ie: 1 result out of 2) but throughout the day we could measure the extent to which you use both hands (ie: there would be a usage score for your right hand and a usage score for your left: 2 scores for 2 hands).

There are also differences between Myers Briggs and the MTR-i in the Jungian dichotomies that are used, which I'll cover tomorrow.