Students' Perceptions of Jesus' Personality as Assessed by Jungian-Type Inventories

Abstract

The present study was the first phase of an exploration of college students' perceptions of the personality of Jesus Christ as assessed by two Jungian-type inventories, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1998) and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II (Keirsey, 1998), which categorize personality along four dimensions: Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judgment/Perception. Along with an overall exploration of students' perceptions, the present study focused on whether students were likely to make self-based attributions in their perceptions of Jesus' personality. Results indicated that students perceived Jesus to be an Extravert Feeler and made self-based attributions along the Sensing/Intuitive dimension, with 43% perceiving Him to be an Intuitive-Feeler and 37% perceiving Him to be a Sensing-Judger. Perceptions of Jesus as a Judger or Perceiver were divided, with those placing more importance on modeling Jesus more likely to see Him as a Judger, and those placing less importance on modeling Him perceiving Jesus as a Perceiver.