---
product_id: 51790065
title: "Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type - The original book behind the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test"
price: "¥6774"
currency: JPY
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.jp/products/51790065-gifts-differing-understanding-personality-type-the-original-book-behind-myers
store_origin: JP
region: Japan
---

# Top 10 in Psychological Testing 60+ years of MBTI legacy 16 distinct personality types Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type - The original book behind the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test

**Price:** ¥6774
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Summary

> 🔍 Decode yourself and others with the ultimate MBTI classic!

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type - The original book behind the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test
- **How much does it cost?** ¥6774 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.jp](https://www.desertcart.jp/products/51790065-gifts-differing-understanding-personality-type-the-original-book-behind-myers)

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- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
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## Key Features

- • **Accessible Yet Academically Rigorous:** Written for managers and millennials craving deep understanding without jargon overload.
- • **Transform Your Career & Relationships:** Leverage personality insights to excel professionally and personally.
- • **Unlock Your Unique Personality Blueprint:** Discover the original framework behind the world’s most trusted personality test.
- • **Join a Global Community of Self-Discovery:** Over a million readers have embraced this essential guide to human behavior.
- • **Scientifically Grounded & Empirically Tested:** Built on decades of research and thousands of real-world case studies.

## Overview

Gifts Differing is the foundational book behind the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), offering a clear, research-backed exploration of 16 personality types based on Carl Jung’s theories. With over 60 years of influence and top rankings in psychological testing, this accessible yet scholarly guide empowers professionals to enhance their career, relationships, and self-awareness.

## Description

*The original book behind the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) test* Like a thumbprint, personality type provides an instant snapshot of a person's uniqueness. Drawing on concepts originated by Carl Jung, this book distinguishes four categories of personality styles and shows how these qualities determine the way you perceive the world and come to conclusions about what you've seen. It then explains what they mean for your success in school, at a job, in a career and in your personal relationships. For more than 60 years, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) tool has been the most widely used instrument in the world for determining personality type, and for more than 25 years, Gifts Differing has been the preeminent source for understanding it.

Review: Why People Differ - I chose to read this as I didn't fancy spending the rest of the year ploughing through 600'odd pages of Jungs' Psychological Types to arrive at the same conclusions.In comparison I presumed this to be a more accessible extension of type theory,written by authors who where engaged in a life long study in this particular area,and who tested their theories on thousands of subjects to arrive at the MBTI test,in what I understand to be a more empirical approach than Jungs'. To me the book seemed to be divided into two sections.The first half deals with breaking down the personality into 8 components comprising of four sets of two,which are then assembled into the 16 basic types according to preferences of use.The theory is verified by extensive testing and the results presented in tables. The second section of the book leans more towards the practical implications of the theory,such as employment,how and why the differing personalities can come into conflict and suggests how type development may overcome unbalanced areas in the personality.This second section is more speculative and strays into areas where the authors have less authority from a psychological standpoint and I felt that other authors I'd read, particularly; M L,von Franz and Jung, covered in a more comprehensive fashion with deeper insight. On the whole,the book is understandable and written in an 'accessible to all' manner without betraying its academic qualities.If you are at all interested in human behaviour and interaction and wonder why certain people seem to operate from a totally different standpoint which you conflict with, then this book will be a valuable tool to aid your understanding of human nature.
Review: Really excellent book; can't praise it enough. Should be essential reading for all, to help understand personality differences. - Brilliant original work on MBTI personality type. Lots of clear explanations on the different personality type and an introduction to strengths, weaknesses and compatibility and working preferences. Really excellent book; can't praise it enough. Should be essential reading for all managers, educators etc and to be perfectly honest, for anyone who can read. Great book for helping you to understand more about yourself and the people you love (or conversely who drive you up the wall at times!) Will instil in you a little (or a lot) more love for all your fellow human beings...and that has to be a good thing! If only everyone would read this book.

## Features

- New Store Stock

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | 74,690 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) 6 in Psychological Testing & Measurement (Books) 14 in Career Guides 27 in Psychology & Psychiatry References |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,099 Reviews |

## Images

![Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type - The original book behind the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61jWpfk4fzL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Why People Differ
*by N***S on 5 July 2013*

I chose to read this as I didn't fancy spending the rest of the year ploughing through 600'odd pages of Jungs' Psychological Types to arrive at the same conclusions.In comparison I presumed this to be a more accessible extension of type theory,written by authors who where engaged in a life long study in this particular area,and who tested their theories on thousands of subjects to arrive at the MBTI test,in what I understand to be a more empirical approach than Jungs'. To me the book seemed to be divided into two sections.The first half deals with breaking down the personality into 8 components comprising of four sets of two,which are then assembled into the 16 basic types according to preferences of use.The theory is verified by extensive testing and the results presented in tables. The second section of the book leans more towards the practical implications of the theory,such as employment,how and why the differing personalities can come into conflict and suggests how type development may overcome unbalanced areas in the personality.This second section is more speculative and strays into areas where the authors have less authority from a psychological standpoint and I felt that other authors I'd read, particularly; M L,von Franz and Jung, covered in a more comprehensive fashion with deeper insight. On the whole,the book is understandable and written in an 'accessible to all' manner without betraying its academic qualities.If you are at all interested in human behaviour and interaction and wonder why certain people seem to operate from a totally different standpoint which you conflict with, then this book will be a valuable tool to aid your understanding of human nature.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Really excellent book; can't praise it enough. Should be essential reading for all, to help understand personality differences.
*by M***E on 12 July 2015*

Brilliant original work on MBTI personality type. Lots of clear explanations on the different personality type and an introduction to strengths, weaknesses and compatibility and working preferences. Really excellent book; can't praise it enough. Should be essential reading for all managers, educators etc and to be perfectly honest, for anyone who can read. Great book for helping you to understand more about yourself and the people you love (or conversely who drive you up the wall at times!) Will instil in you a little (or a lot) more love for all your fellow human beings...and that has to be a good thing! If only everyone would read this book.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Good introduction to the real theory & good examples.
*by A***N on 29 May 2002*

I recommend this book as the first book to read for people who need to understand what type theory is *really* about. Many of the popular books treat type theory as a flat space of 16 static types. Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers understood and developed Jung's theoretical framework, and the dynamical theory is very clearly explained in Chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 3 outlines the original MBTI empirical research, showing the impact of type on chosen occupations - this is still striking. Part 2 of the book is a systematic examination of the four dimensions of type theory, and includes familiar portraits of the 16 types. Parts III and IV of the book are what you might call 'applications of type theory'. Other reviewers have dismissed these as an eclectic collection of dull chapters: I can only say that I found them an illuminating example of the power of type theory to shed light on many areas of life which appear at first sight to lack unifying features. If you read this book first, it is then worth looking at David Keirsey's "Please Understand me II" for the encyclopedic number of insights he documents. Hower, with Keirsey you get the empiricist rejection of the Jungian paradigm as somehow "unscientific". (Keirsey's approach seems reminiscent of the view from physics: a computer science or AI approach has considerably fewer conceptual qualms with the kind of internal personality "architecture" presupposed by the Jungian paradigm). Beyond Keirsey there is "Personality Type : An Owner's Manual" by Lenore Thomson. This is like the post-grad version of "Gifts Differing", and additionally includes a Jungian critique of Keirsey's work and Temperament Theory. After the obligatory low-powered introductory chapters, it's hard going, but essential.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type
- Type Talk: The 16 Personality Types That Determine How We Live, Love, and Work
- Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence

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*Product available on Desertcart Japan*
*Store origin: JP*
*Last updated: 2026-07-09*