THE PERSONALITY TYPES OF CHINESE DENTAL POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS

Abstract

The objective of this study was to find the personality types of Chinese dental postgraduate students using the Chinese version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI-Form G; Myers, 1987). The subjects were 372 dental postgraduate students and 336 postgraduates from other professions as a control group. The dental students were at Fourth Military Medical University and Xi'an Medical University. The control group attended Xi'an Jiaotong University. The three dominant personality types among the dental postgraduates were ISTJ (15.3%), ESTJ (13.7%) and ISFP (11.8%). The distribution of Extroversion (E) over Introversion (I) and Thinking (T) over Feeling (F) was different from other professions. Male and female dental postgraduates had similar types of mental attitude (E-I; judging-perceiving J-P) and mental function (sensing-intuition, S-N; T-F). Statistically significant differences were found between males and females in the distribution of J-P types. It was found that Chinese dental postgraduates have personality types that differ from the other comparative Chinese professional student groups.