Cross-National Evidence for Compatibility of Psychological Type in Polish and American Samples

Abstract

We tested whether persons with similar Psychological Types are found in the same occupation and academic majors in Poland and in the United States. A measure of Psychological Type was completed by three Polish samples: 71 managers; 107 marketing and management (M&M) students; and 75 English Language (EL) students. As hypothesized, the Psychological Type distributions of the Polish managers and the Polish M&M students demonstrated convergent validity with one another—and with type distributions of American managers and business students—with all four groups showing preferences for Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking, and Judging. Also as hypothesized, discriminant validity for Psychological Type was demonstrated when Polish students of EL showed a nearly opposite type distribution (Introversion, Intuition, and Perceiving) from those the Polish managers and M&M students. Further, the type distribution of the Polish students of EL demonstrated convergent validity with a type distribution of American liberal arts students. Because Psychological Type is similarly compatible with occupation (i.e., manager) and with academic major (i.e., business, liberal arts) in Poland and in the United States, it is concluded that Psychological Type Theory shows promise as a cross-culturally universal theory of individual differences in explaining relationships between personality and academic major/occupational choice.