The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the name of a personality test designed to assess psychological type. It was developed by Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers during World War II. The use of type follows from the theories of Carl Jung. The phrase is also sometimes used as a trademark of CPP Inc., formerly known as Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc. The trademark is owned by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator Trust, and when used as a trademark it must include a registered trademark symbol after the name, i.e. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® or MBTI®.
There are a few widely used ways of interpreting the results: Jung-like methods, Keirsey-like methods, and popular psychology methods.
Table of contents |
2 Popular psychology method 3 Keirsey-Style Interpretation 4 Skeptical views of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator 5 External links |
The test asks subjects a number of questions about themselves. Based on the replies, four binary decisions are made about each subject:
Popular psychology interpretations usually oversimplify the MBTI's results to make them easier to use and understand. This creates problems because people and personalities aren't simple at all. It can easily lead to interpersonal problems when one person assumes they can read someone else's mind or figure out what a person likes by using the MBTI.
In Myers-Briggs' system, each of these dichotomies has specific, non-normative meanings. Quite often any particular person can act in any way, but prefers particular ways.
This process results in a classification into one of sixteen types. Overall the population breakdown by type is:
Dimensions
Popular psychology method
Common descriptions
Keirsey-Style Interpretation
Descriptions
Types
ISTJ - 11.6% | ISFJ - 13.8% | INFJ - 1.5% | INTJ - 2.1% | IJ - 29.0% |
ISTP - 5.4% | ISFP - 8.8% | INFP - 4.4% | INTP - 3.3% | IP - 21.9% |
ESTP - 4.3% | ESFP - 8.5% | ENFP - 8.1% | ENTP - 3.2% | EP - 24.1% |
ESTJ - 8.7% | ESFJ - 12.3% | ENFJ - 2.4% | ENTJ - 1.8% | EJ - 25.2% |
ST - 30.0% | SF - 43.4% | NF - 16.4% | NT - 10.4% | Totals |
These are clustered into four temperaments: SJ, SP, NT, and NF.
There are significant differences by sex, especially on the T vs. F distribution.
Proponents of the system claim that almost all arguments between people tend to be manifestations of a type conflict (e.g. P vs J, T vs F, E vs I, S vs N). The P-J conflict is said to be the clearest - one person gets mad when the rules are broken and the other gets mad when rules are made. The T-F conflict is also said to be clear, as the basis of most husband/wife jokes.
Skeptics, including many psychologists, argue that MBTI has not been validated by double-blind tests (In which participants accept reports written for other participants, and are asked whether or not the report suits them) and thus does not qualify as a scientific assessment. Some even demonstrate that profiles can apparently seem to fit any person by confirmation bias, ambiguity of basic terms and the Byzantine complexity that allows any kind of behavior to fit any personality type.
See [1] for an extensive skeptical treatment of the subject.
Another argument says that, while the MBTI is useful in self-understanding, it is commonly used to pigeonhole people or for self-pigeonholing. Supporting arguments include :
Temperaments
The MBTI is popular with recruiters and managers, because studies using this assessment show clusters of different personality types in different professions. For instance, the proportion of engineers who are INTJ is higher than the 2% found in the general population.Skeptical views of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Unscientific
A Temptation to Pigeonhole
External links