Preference Measures of Rectangle Ratio on MBTI Personality Types

Whether the golden ratio is the favorite ratio for people is a controversial research issue until now. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether oriental people in Taiwan have the preference to the western culture originated golden ratio and to find out how the personality affects ratio preference by using the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) test to classify people into different personality types. First, 120 participants classified into 16 identified personality types by the MBTI test were screened out from 195 participants recruited in this study. After that, they were asked to estimate the preference to 15 horizontal and 15 vertical rectangles with varied ratios, respectively. The results of the study were summarized as follows: 1) The most popular personality types of the participants were ISTJ and ISFJ types, while ENTJ and ESTP types were much less popular; 2) The tendency of preference to varied ratios could be divided into three classes: people tended to like the ratio of a square, the preference to golden ratio was fair, and when the ratio increased to exceed the golden ratio would be gradually disliked; 3) The personality would affect the preference to golden ratio. The V6, H7 and H8 ratios were liked by people with different types of personality, I type and T type people preferred V6, people of S type and J type preferred H7 and people of F type and J type preferred H8; 4) Women with non-designer background liked golden ratio, but men disliked it. Most designers preferred golden ratio. This result could be used as guidelines for product design and market position setting.