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The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a self-report questionnaire designed to identify the personality types, strengths, and preferences of people. It puts people into 16 categories in total, depending on 4 different scales.
Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I)
“Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world?”
Sensing (S) – Intuition (N)
“Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning?”
Thinking (T) – Feeling (F)
“When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances?”
Judging (J) – Perceiving (P)
“In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided, or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options?”
The indicator was developed by two women, a mother and daughter Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, both of whom had no formal background in psychology. However, they both were fascinated by Jung's theory of psychological types and “they wanted to make his ideas accessible to a wider audience”. With this in mind, Katharine developed a way of categorizing people’s personalities using a variation of Jung’s Theory of Psychological Types during World War II. She took the theory and added the scale perception/judging herself which resulted in the 4 current scales. Then, her daughter Isabel developed it into a 117-question “indicator”. They intentionally didn’t call it a “test” as there are no right or wrong answers to the questions.
So what exactly is Jung's Theory of Psychological Types? How is it different from the Myers-Briggs? Carl Jung was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist credited with founding analytic psychology. He first introduced his Theory of Psychological Types in his book titled with the same name, “Psychological Types”.
"He used four psychological functions: thinking and feeling (rational functions) and sensation and intuition (irrational functions). In addition, he distinguished between two fundamental life attitudes: introversion and extraversion.”
With the combination of these life attitudes and psychological functions, his theory consisted of 8 different personality types.
The extraverted thinking type
The introverted thinking type
The extraverted feeling type
The introverted feeling type
The extraverted sensation type
The introverted sensation type
The extraverted intuitive type
The introverted intuitive type
It is stated that Jung introduced his personality theory as a model to categorize people for the purposes of psychotherapy, so the intention was never to label people. He also wrote that "Every individual is an exception to the rule.”
So, does the test actually work? The answer is a definite NO.
Several analyses have shown that the test is totally ineffective at predicting success, which was supposed to be the main reason it is preferred so much by companies. The research also showed that about half of the people who take it twice get different results each time.
Adam Grant who is an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania stated that "The characteristics measured by the test have almost no predictive power on how happy you'll be in a situation, how you'll perform at your job, or how happy you'll be in your marriage."
Along with the issue that all the people in the world can’t be put in 16 categories, there is the issue that the test functions on self-reported data. As test-takers provide the data themselves, there is a high possibility that they answer the questions as someone they want to become, not the person they actually are.
Even with all the problems it comes with, the Myers-Briggs Indicator is useful for one thing: entertainment. We want to thank everyone who took part in our survey about which personality type they got in the indicator and the results are in. The personality type most frequent in our student body according to the survey results is INFP which corresponds to Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, and Perceiving.
Bibliography
Arthur, Michael B. “The 'Strange History' Behind The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator -- And What That Can Mean For You.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 18 Sept. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/michaelbarthur/2018/09/16/the-strange-history-behind-the-mbti-and-what-that-can-mean-for-career-owners/?sh=42371db32fb3.
Cherry, Kendra. “Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: The 16 Personality Types.” Verywell Mind, 17 Sept. 2020, www.verywellmind.com/the-myers-briggs-type-indicator-2795583#:~:text=The%20Myers%2DBriggs%20Personality%20Type,Jung's%20theory%20of%20personality%20types.
Emre, Merve. “The Capitalist Origins of the Myers-Briggs Personality Test.” Medium, Forge, 30 Aug. 2018, forge.medium.com/the-capitalist-origins-of-the-myers-briggs-personality-test-309187757d4e.
“The History of the MBTI® Assessment.” The History of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator | The Myers-Briggs Company, General: +44 1865 404500 Customer Service: +44 1865 404610 Email: Support.eu@Themyersbriggs.com, eu.themyersbriggs.com/en/tools/MBTI/Myers-Briggs-history#:~:text=It%20began%20with%20Katharine%20Cook,way%20of%20seeing%20the%20world.
Joseph Stromberg, Estelle Caswell. “Why the Myers-Briggs Test Is Totally Meaningless.” Vox, Vox, 15 July 2014, www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless.
Menand, Louis, et al. “What Personality Tests Really Deliver.” The New Yorker, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/10/what-personality-tests-really-deliver.
The Myers & Briggs Foundation - C G Jungs Theory, www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/c-g-jungs-theory.htm.
The Myers & Briggs Foundation - MBTI® Basics, www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/.
“What Are the Carl Jung Personality Types? Theory and More.” Toolshero, 18 Dec. 2020, www.toolshero.com/psychology/jung-personality-types/.
William L. Gardner, Mark J. Martinko. “Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to Study Managers: A Literature Review and Research Agenda - William L. Gardner, Mark J. Martinko, 1996.” SAGE Journals, journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014920639602200103.
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