Insights into the Neurosurgical Trainee - Personality Typing of Residents Spanning a Decade at a Single Institution

Q: What key personality preference differences were reported compared with the general population?

Residents showed a slight overall preference for extraversion, a higher likelihood of intuition over sensing, a strong preference for thinking over feeling, and a strong preference for judging over perceiving.

Q: Which Myers-Briggs types were most common among the residents?

The most common types were the Thinking-Judging categories, particularly INTJ and ENTJ, which were described as disproportionately represented relative to the normal distribution.

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Aria

Contemporary neurosurgical residents are profiled using Myers-Briggs personality typing to better characterize the physicians entering the field and to support improvements in training and resident selection. Current US neurosurgical residents completed an online, voluntary survey assessing E/I, S/N, T/F, and J/P to form 16-letter types. Among 108 responses, residents showed overall preferences for extraversion, intuition, thinking, and judging, with 13 types observed. Common Thinking-Judging types accounted for a large share and were disproportionately represented versus the general population.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages1

Reading Time3 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Methods

Results

Extraversion vs. Introversion

Intuition vs. Sensing

Thinking vs. Feeling

Judging vs. Perceiving

Discussion

Implications of Personality Typing

Conclusion

| | Insights into the Neurosurgical Trainee: Personality Typing of Residents Spanning a Decade at a Single
Institution
Jeffrey Paul Mullin MD MBA; Alejandro M. Spiotta MD; Richard P. Schlenk MD; Edward C. Benzel MD
Cleveland Clinic Foundation | | | --- | --- | --- | Figure 1 Myers Briggs distribution in general population Introduction: We attempt to more accurately define the contemporary neurosurgical resident to provide insight into the physicians who currently choose to pursue the field. To do so, we investigate patterns of personality typing of neurosurgical residents throughout the United States (US) . An understanding of the common personality types entering the field could be beneficial to educators attempting to optimize training methodologies and improve the resident selection process Methods All current neurosurgical residents in the US were contacted via email and offered the opportunity to take an online survey to determine their Myers Briggs personality types. It was stressed that participation was strictly on a volunteer basis. The survey results display personality typing based on four preferences (extraversion (E) and introversion (I), sensing (S) and intuition (N), thinking (T) and feeling (F), judging (J) and perceiving(P); to create a four letter type of which there are sixteen permutations (e.g., ENFJ, ISTP…etc) . The distribution of these types in the general population is shown in Figure 1. Using an online survey for data collection the results were then sorted by result and postgraduate year. Figure 2 Myers Briggs distribution in national survey Results: A total of 108 resident responses were received. Extraversion vs. Introversion Overall, residents reported a slight preference for extraversion (54.6%) over introversion (45.3%), which isnot unlike the distribution among the general population (p=0.48) . Intuition vs. Sensing Neurosurgical residents were more likely to gather data from intuition over sensing compared to the general population (64.8% vs. 23.6%; p=0.02) Thinking vs. Feeling Residents demonstrated a very strong preference for thinking rather than feeling in the decision making process, compared to the general population (75% vs. 40.4%; p<0.001) . Judging vs. Perceiving Residents demonstrated a strong preference for a judging rather than perceiving lifestyle compared to the general population (94.4% vs. 54.3%; p<0.001) . Figure 2 illustrates the distribution of the sixteen Myers Briggs personality types among all residents. Thirteen of the possible sixteen MBPT were observed. Overall, the most common types among neurosurgical residents were the four Thinking-Judging types (INTJ –‘scientist’, ENTJ – ‘executive’, ISTJ – ‘duty fulfiller’, ESTJ –‘administrator’) and ENFJ (‘teacher’) . Cumulatively, these five types are present in 83.3% of residents as compared to 26.7% of the general population (p<0.001) . The four TJ types are present in 72.2% of residents compared to 24.2% in the general population (p<0.001) . Of these, the most disproportionately represented types compared to the normal distribution are INTJ (25% vs. 2.1%; p<0.001) and ENTJ (26% vs. 1.8%; p<0.001) (Figure 3) . These two types alone, while cumulatively present in only 3.9% of the general population, accounted for 51% of resident responses. Discussion: MBPI and other personality tests have been used in the assessment of a variety of healthcare groups (Swanson 2010, McGreevy 2002, Greenburg 1982, Schwartz 1994, Warschkow 2010,Zardouz, Eng 2004, Boyd 2005, Neral 2008, Taylor 1990, Needleman 2010) . In all instances, the group composition has varied significantly from the normal (i.e. population) distribution of types, reflecting that specialized groups can become quite different from the general population through selfselection processes, [i.e. family](i.e. family)[ ](i.e. family)[medicine](medicine) (_SFJ), obstetricsgynecology (_STJ), general surgery (_STJ) and psychiatry (_NFP)

FAQs

How were neurosurgical residents’ Myers-Briggs types collected in the study?

All current neurosurgical residents in the US were contacted by email and offered an online survey. Participation was strictly voluntary, and responses were mapped to Myers-Briggs preferences.

What key personality preference differences were reported compared with the general population?

Residents showed a slight overall preference for extraversion, a higher likelihood of intuition over sensing, a strong preference for thinking over feeling, and a strong preference for judging over perceiving.

Which Myers-Briggs types were most common among the residents?

The most common types were the Thinking-Judging categories, particularly INTJ and ENTJ, which were described as disproportionately represented relative to the normal distribution.

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Aria