The Personality of Civil Engineers

Abstract

The civil engineering umbrella encompasses many different disciplines—from construction management to water resources management, and everything in between. Consequently, in civil engineering organizations nationwide, often there is conflict and infighting among the various disciplines. Perhaps this could be attributable to differences in the ways these disciplines see their world. This paper uses a modified Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to determine the personality types of construction engineers and design engineers at a State Public Agency. The results indicate that the construction and design engineers share similar predominant personality traits. They are predominantly introverted, preferring to focus their energy on the internal world of ideas and possibilities. They prefer to gather their facts using their senses, and are predisposed to facts and figures. When making decisions, they prefer to forego pure logic, relying instead on personal and organizational values. Finally, they show a slight preference for a structured environment. The greatest differences between the construction and design engineers were found in their preferences for decision making. Although both disciplines preferred using their values in decision making rather than pure logic, the designers chose value-oriented responses more frequently than did the construction engineers. Possible reasons for similarities and differences are discussed.