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Why this personality type is happy making less money

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Feelers make less, but they're still happy at work. mac.rj/Flickr

Science suggests there's one personality type that's more likely to be satisfied making less money.

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According to a new report from Truity Psychometrics, a provider of online personality and career assessments, "feeling" types made less money on average than their "thinking" type counterparts.

"Feelers" are people who tend to make decisions based on their internal belief system that are more consistent with their values, while "thinkers" prefer to objectively use facts, data, and logic to make decisions.

ENFJs (people with a preference for extroversion, intuition, feeling, and judging), for example, make on average $43,742 a year, while ENTJs (people with a preference for extroversion, intuition, thinking, and judging) make on average $58,117 — almost $15,000 more than their "feeling" type counterparts.

But despite making less money, on average, "feelers" tend to be more satisfied with their work overall, the report found.

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Skye Gould/Business Insider

"It seems that feelers' approach may be the more advantageous one in the long run," says Molly Owens, CEO of Truity and developer of the TypeFinder personality-type assessment.

Owens explains that feeling types tend to focus on careers that reflect their personal values and make them feel like they are impacting others, whereas their counterparts, thinking types, focus on finding positions that will give them all these traditional markers of success.

While feelers tend to care less about things like salary, power, a company parking spot, or a corner office and more about knowing that their work makes a difference, thinkers are less likely to be pleased with their jobs if they're not earning what they think they should be or rising to the positions that they think they're capable of.

"Instead of looking for positions where they're likely to make tons of money, feelers are looking for positions that will make them feel that they're acting out their purpose in the world," Owens says. "Their satisfaction with their jobs is on a deeper level and is less likely to flag if they don't get a raise or a yearly bonus. As long as they're doing something meaningful, their job satisfaction is high."

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