How accurate is the Myers-Briggs Personality Test?

Do you fall into a specific category?

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe in the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, and those who don’t, unless it’s not real. Dividing people into two, three, or 16 categories is the purpose of many personality tests, but it never works. Even the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is simultaneously the world's most popular personality test and the most debunked, has non-experts and psychologists taking differing stances on the tool's value. About 1.5 million people take the "KDSP" test online each year, and more than 88% of Fortune 500 companies use it in recruiting and training, as well as hundreds of universities, according to the Myers Briggs Company, the California company that administers the MBTI. Even fictional characters, from Disney princesses, to Harry Potter and Darth Vader, are assigned MBTI types. [Which personality types are most likely to be happy? ]

Despite the test's popularity, many psychologists criticized it - almost as months went by, the MBTI was lambasted in the media, with psychologists saying Myers- Brigg is unscientific, meaningless or false. But others have a softer view of the test. "Many personality psychologists believe that the MBTI is an effective way to measure certain important personality traits, but it has some important limitations," said Michael Ashton, a professor of psychology at Brock University in Ontario. “The MBTI was invented in 1942 by Catherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. Always keen to observe the differences between people, Cook was inspired by the work of psychologist Carl Jung and his theories, such as the concepts of introversion and extroversion. The mother and daughter have devoted their lives to developing type indicators, hoping to help people understand their tendencies and choose the right job. The test uses 93 questions to assess the following traits: Introversion (I) vs. Extroversion (E) Intuition (N) vs. Sensing (S) Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F) Judging (J) vs. Perception (P)

Based on the combination of traits into which people fall, they are ultimately assigned one of 16 labels, such as INTJ, ENFP, etc.

Why are psychologists skeptical? Psychologists are skeptical about the MBTI The main problem is the science, or lack thereof, behind it. In 1991, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences reviewed data from MBTI studies and noted "a troubling discrepancy between study results (lack of probative value) and popularity."

MBTI was born in psychology Ideas developed before learning became empirical science; these ideas were developed before the tools became commercial products. But modern psychologists require personality tests to pass certain standards in order to be trusted. "In the social sciences, we use four criteria: Is the classification reliable, valid, independent, and comprehensive?" University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Adam Grant wrote on LinkedIn For the MBTI, the evidence suggests it's not very, no, not , not true either.

Some studies show that the MBTI is unreliable because the same person can get different results when the test is retaken. Other studies have questioned the validity of the MBTI, a test that accurately links "types" to real-world outcomes, such as how well people classified as a certain type perform at a certain job. [Why do people ghost? ]

Myers-Briggs says the studies that discredited the MBTI are outdated, but their results are still circulating in the media. Since those early criticisms, the company said it has conducted its own research to refine the test and evaluate its effectiveness. "When you look at the validity of the instrument (MTBI), it's as valid as any other personality assessment," company managing director Suresh Balasubramanian told USA Today. “However, some limitations of the test are inherent in its conceptual design.

One limitation is the black-and-white categorization of the MBTI: you are either extroverted or introverted, judgmental, or probing. "This is a drawback because people don't fall neatly into two categories on any personality dimension; instead, people have many varying degrees of the dimension," Ashton told LiveScience. And, in fact, most people are close to the average, and relatively few are at either extreme. By putting people into neat boxes, we separate people who in reality are more similar to each other than different.

The MBTI assesses only four aspects of personality differences and may miss more nuances. Personality researchers decades ago have identified at least five major personality dimensions, and more recent evidence suggests that There are six," Ashton said. One dimension includes honesty and humility versus deceitful, conceited people, and another includes patience and affability versus grumpy, argumentative people. Not entirely useless

Some of the shortcomings of the MBTI stem from people's complex, messy personalities, said David Pincus, a professor of psychology at Chapman University in California. Clarity, more stability. Psychologists prefer other tools, the Big Five, which are based on a person's five traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness to experience and neuroticism. Experts say the Big Five model is better than the other. The MBTI has a better record of scientific validation.

Still, the MBTI is not completely useless.

People are drawn to tests like the MBTI to learn about themselves and others. Desire." The four dimensions of the MBTI type are all useful dimensions in describing a person's personality. [Can you learn anything while you sleep? ]

Even when the MBTI results are not entirely consistent with your intuition about yourself or are simply wrong, they can still provide insight. Many people who take MBTI notice this effect. As a former employee of Bridgewater Associates, a $120 billion hedge fund famous for having its employees take personality tests, the MBTI label never seemed to fully describe a person. Rather, the real value of the test seems to be in promoting "reconciling the gap between what the test results tell us and what we know to be true about ourselves."

In this sense, the MBTI can serve as a starting point for self-exploration , giving people a tool and a language to reflect on themselves and others. The test is "a gateway to the detailed practice of talking about and thinking about who you are," writes Merve Emre, associate professor of English at the University of Oxford in England, in the book "The Personality Brokers," which reviews the MBTI history.

Ultimately it is not the label of MBTI, but the power of introspection drives insights and sometimes inspires the motivation to take steps to change one's own situation. Why can't we remember our dreams? Why are some people so clingy? Why do couples start to look like each other? ”

“Originally published in Live Science. ”