I’ve always been an ENFJ, but when did they add the “A”?
Ah, this isn’t part of the core Myers–Briggs types. It’s something new that 16Personalities added on top of MBTI, part of their “NERIS” model:
With our NERIS® model, we’ve combined the best of both worlds. We use the acronym format introduced by Myers-Briggs for its simplicity and convenience, with an extra letter to accommodate five rather than four scales.
16Personalities: Our Framework
Of course, it’s not that new either. Based on the datePublished in this article’s JSON schema, it looks like it’s actually been a thing since 2013-10-17—probably earlier since their site’s copyright says ©2011-2025 NERIS Analytics Limited.
People have at least been talking about it since 2015:
- Reddit: What is the relation between Turbulent and Assertive? (2015-05-12)
- Typology Central: The 5th letter in MBTI? (2015-12-23)
- Personality Junkie: Turbulent (T) vs. Assertive (A) Personality: Neuroticism, Myers-Briggs & “Highly Sensitive Persons” (HSPs) (2020-04-07)
So I guess that’s that.
But one weird thing: 16Personalities is excluded from the Wayback Machine, so you can’t pull early copies of the site. Sorry. This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine.
Why?
I’ve already gone too far down this rabbit hole today, but it makes me want to learn more about NERIS Analytics Limited…