Personality Type Will Determine Your Paycheck

by Jay Busbee - Yahoo Finance

Upset that your paycheck isn't quite the size you'd like it to be?  Ready to blame your company, the economy, Obama?  Turns out you need to look a lot closer to home: in the mirror, specifically.  A new study from Career Assessment Site indicates that your personality, specifically how driven and results-oriented your are, has a significant impact on your earning potential.

Granted, this shouldn't be world-shattering news to you.  But it's useful to understanding how our specific personality types map out against the demands of work.  The study at Career Assessment Site uses the famed Myers-Briggs Personality Test, which divided everyone into one of sixteen personality types based on introversion/extroversion, rationality/emotion, and so forth.  If you don't already know your type, you can learn more about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator here.

Here's how the United States as a whole breaks down along Myers-Briggs lines:

Here's how far each personality type tends to get in her/his educational career:

And finally, the big news: how much money each personality type tends to earn:

Obviously there are many factors at play here, but the results play along expected lines:  rationalists have the highest overall earning potential, with extroverted rationalists leading the way by a mine.  Introverted idealists? Man, your folks have it tough.  Get out in the world or stop thinking everthing's prefect, one of the two.

For the complete graphic, including more detailed breakdown of each personality type, click here to read more.