Psychology 101
Assertive vs Turbulent: What -A and -T Mean in Your Type
The CQ Team · 4 min read · Oct 16, 2026
INFJ-T, ENFP-A: the -A and -T letters come from 16Personalities, not the Myers-Briggs. What Assertive and Turbulent mean, how common each is, and whether it can change.
The -A or -T at the end of a type such as INFJ-T comes from 16Personalities, which adds a fifth scale it calls Identity. In its words, Assertive people are “self-assured, even-tempered and resistant to stress”, and Turbulent people are “self-conscious and sensitive to stress”. The official Myers-Briggs has no fifth letter.
16Personalities says neither side is better: “Both traits represent valid ways to handle life's pressures.”
| Assertive (-A) | Turbulent (-T) | |
|---|---|---|
| Under stress | Resistant to stress | Prone to stress |
| Mood | Calm and even-tempered | Emotionally reactive and sensitive |
| Confidence | Self-assured | Self-conscious and perfectionistic |
| The past | Looks forward, rarely dwells on it | Reflective, often dwells on regrets |
| Weak spots | Relaxed about imperfections | Driven to fix weaknesses |
Summarised from the comparison table in 16Personalities' Identity article.
The official MBTI sorts four preferences and does not measure stress or confidence. What it reports instead is how clearly you chose each preference, and its longer Step II version adds 20 facets of the same four letters (the publisher).
Psychologists Robert McCrae and Paul Costa found in 1989 that the four MBTI scales measure “aspects of four of the five” Big Five traits. The one left out is neuroticism: how easily stress and worry get to you. 16Personalities says it reworked the Big Five for its model, and its Identity scale reads like that missing trait.
Four letters. E/I, S/N, T/F, J/P. Covers four of the Big Five traits.
Neuroticism. Stress, worry, how quickly you recover.
Identity, -A or -T. Confidence and sensitivity to stress.
McCrae & Costa (1989). The link between Identity and neuroticism is our reading; 16Personalities does not use the word.
More common than Assertive almost everywhere. In 16Personalities' data for the past year, every one of the 108 countries it ranks is majority Turbulent, and the average is 57.2%. These are its own test-takers, who it says lean Turbulent, so the figures describe people who take the test, not everyone.
| Average, 108 countries | 57.2% |
| United Kingdom | 58.9% |
| Philippines | 58.6% |
| United States | 58.3% |
| India (unranked) | 58.3% |
| Canada | 57.9% |
| Australia | 57.1% |
| Germany | 53.8% |
| Switzerland, lowest | 51.7% |
Share of results that were Turbulent, October 2025 to September 2026. India is unranked because 16Personalities treats its sample as too narrow. Source: 16Personalities country rankings.
Somewhat. 16Personalities says traits “tend to shift slightly as we grow and mature”, and it saw noticeable movement on this scale around the 2016 US election. Its own retest figure for the scale is 0.78 over five to seven months, which means most people land on the same side again (16Personalities). No independent study has tested the scale yet, so these are the company's own numbers.
Turbulent. It is the fifth letter that 16Personalities adds to the four-letter type, for people who are more self-conscious and sensitive to stress.
No. The official MBTI reports four letters. 16Personalities itself says the MBTI has no equivalent.
16Personalities says both are valid ways to handle pressure. It also reports that Assertive types generally say they are more satisfied with life.
In 16Personalities' data for the past year, the average across 108 ranked countries is 57.2% Turbulent. In the US it is 58.3%.
16Personalities says traits shift slightly as people grow and mature. Its own retest figure suggests most people stay on the same side over several months.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Myers-Briggs and MBTI are registered trademarks of The Myers & Briggs Foundation. Cerebral Quotient is not affiliated with The Myers & Briggs Foundation or The Myers-Briggs Company.
16Personalities and NERIS Type Explorer are trademarks of NERIS Analytics Limited. Cerebral Quotient is not affiliated with NERIS Analytics.
Curious where your needle sits? Take any assessment free and find out in minutes.
Take a test →