the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

• Companies use the Myers-Briggs system to evaluate employees
  • 1 in every 5 Fortune 1,000 companies use it in the hiring process
  • 89 of the Fortune 100 companies use it either in the hiring process, or in the workplace for team-building exercises, leadership coaching, executive talent management
  • Consulting firms such as Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, Bain, Deloitte, and Accenture use it
  • Service-oriented companies are likely to use it
• How workplaces use the Myers-Briggs system to make decisions about employees
  • Companies use it in the hiring process
  • Managers use it to determine which employees might get along with one another
  • It is used for team-building exercises, leadership coaching, executive talent management
  • It is used to minimize conflict, maximize collaboration, and keep people generally happy
• There is an idea of what types are supposed to be best suited for which jobs
  • There are statistics about specific types that are suited for certain jobs, however the validity of these statistics is questionable
• Validity and Accuracy of the system
  • Research shows that it is neither valid nor reliable
  • It is neither scientifically valid nor reliable
• Why the Myers-Briggs indicator became the most popular personality test in the world
  • It offers a simple language of type
  • It is non-judgmental and encourages acceptance of oneself
  • It establishes a social bond through language

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality assessment created by Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers that has been used for more than 75 years.
  • It is used in 115 countries, available in 29 languages, and has been used by 88 of the Fortune 100 within the past five years.
  • It is based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types and the four preference pairs of Extraversion– Introversion, Sensation (now called Sensing)– Intuition, Thinking–Feeling, and Judging–Perceiving.
• MBTI criticisms and misconceptions
  • Briggs and Myers weren’t psychologists.
  • Most traits are on a spectrum; the MBTI assessment uses artificial binaries.
  • Jung even said, ‘There is no such thing as a pure extravert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum.’
  • Jung also said, ‘Every individual is an exception to the rule.’
  • People are really ambiverts.

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is one of the most popular personality tests in the world
  • It sorts people into one of 16 four-letter personality types based on their preferences for Sensing (S) or Intuition (N), Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)
  • The company’s website boasts the assessment has a 90% accuracy rating and a 90% average test-retest correlation
  • Many researchers, however, have long questioned the MBTI’s scientific merit
• Neither of its creators, Katherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, had formal training in psychology
  • Katherine Briggs became interested in Carl Jung’s book “Psychological Types” and began “typing” everyone she knew
  • In 1943, amid the labor boom of World War II, her daughter took that system and designed a questionnaire to determine what job a worker’s personality is best suited for
• Research has since found that upwards of 50% of people got a different score when they re-took the MBTI just five weeks later
  • Studies have also shown that the test is not effective at predicting people’s success in different jobs
• The Myers-Briggs Company has spent decades improving the assessment and doing more research on its validy
  • The company claims the research discrediting the MBTI is outdated, but the statistics have been so often repeated by subsequent articles and studies that it created a sort of “Internet myth”
• Today, some 1.5 million people take the test online each year and 88 of the Fortune 100 companies are clients of the Myers-Briggs Company
• The test is appealing because it is “nonjudgmental” meaning that that all the results are positive
  • It was designed that way because its creators “thought that would be very motivating for workers to believe the only purpose of the indicator was to match them to the best job that was suited for them”
  • It satisfies an innate desire to know more about ourselves and an easy way to describe that self to others

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator can have pros and cons
  • It is not a reliable measure of personality and is highly sensitive to situational factors
  • It is not used in a research setting by academic psychologists
  • Test results can be consistent over time, or vary depending on the situation
• The Big 5 Personality Model is a better measure of personality
  • The Big 5 is an instrument that is backed by psychometrics, legally defensible, and has good reliability and validity
  • It is a survey with questions such as “Can be moody?”, “How old are you?”, and “What year were you born?”
  • There are also active modalities such as physiotherapy, weight loss, core strengthening, stretching and exercise that can lead to improved function and reduced pain

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is not reliable
  • Studies have found that between 39% and 76% of those tested fall into different types upon retesting some weeks or years later
  • Large numbers of individuals have found that they get different classifications when retaking the test after just five weeks
  • There is also strong evidence that the different scales are correlated, and not independent as claimed
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is not based in science
  • Neither Jung or Myers-Briggs used scientific studies to develop and validate the test. Instead, they relied on anecdotal observations and intuition
  • Jung conceived of his type theory in the 1910s/early 20s, building on theoretical contributions from early psychoanalysis (esp. Freud and Adler)
  • Personality is just really hard to assess in general
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is flawed
  • Its biggest flaw is that it’s very binary, with people fitting into one camp or another, like extroversion vs. introversion or thinking vs. feeling, rather than people fitting on a spectrum that often varies with the situation
  • The categories in the Myers-Briggs test are hard to define with any consistency, falling into the same realm as phrenology
  • The concept of personality typing or even of personality itself is challenged, as people behave and feel differently in different situations and times

💭  Looking into

What are the most common criticisms of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?

💭  Looking into

What are the implications of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator for romantic compatibility?

💭  Looking into

What is the best use for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?

💭  Looking into

How many questions are included in the North American and European versions of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?

💭  Looking into

What is the accuracy and test-retest reliability rating of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
  • It is a personality assessment that groups people into one of 16 categories
  • It asks questions based on four categories of preferences: extroverted versus introverted, sensing versus intuiting, thinking versus feeling, and judging versus perceiving
  • You can take the assessment online, or work with someone who is trained in the MBTI
  • The 16 MBTI personality types are ESTJ, ENTJ, ESFJ, ENFJ, ESTP, ESFP, ENTP, ENFP, ISTP, ISFP, INTP, INFP, ISTJ, ISFJ, INTJ, INFJ
  • It was first inspired by the work of Carl Jung
  • It is the most researched personality assessment in the world
  • Research has found the MBTI to be a good measure of personality and to have research-backed implications for romantic compatibility
  • Criticisms include that people’s results can change, people can feel boxed-in by their results, and that it is not suitable for assessing performance in the workplace
  • It should not be compared to other personality tests as it is not meant for the same purpose
• How to make the most of your results
  • Read your results and ask yourself questions like “What is my shadow?”, “What am I more or less conscious of?”, “Where am I projecting onto others?”, “Where are my own needs not being met?” and “Where am I expecting people to be like me when that’s not who they are?”

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely administered psychological test
  • MBTI is based on Jung’s theory of psychological types
  • It was constructed by the mother and daughter team of Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers
  • It has a forced-choice format that requires you to choose between an Extraversion or an Introversion item
  • There is low test-retest reliability in the MBTI
• Misuses of the MBTI
  • Used to gauge the “compatibility” of couples with no evidence to support this use
  • Companies using MBTI to select employees with no evidence to support the accuracy
  • Used in career advising with little evidence to support the connections between MBTI types and success in specific careers
• Best Use for the MBTI
  • As a starting point for discussing how people vary in their personalities
  • Emphasize tolerance for individual differences and taking others’ perspectives
  • Caution against over-interpretation of the results, and discuss the limitations of the instrument

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®)
  • It is a positive framework for life-long people development
  • It is used by more than 88 percent of Fortune 500 companies in 115 countries and is available in 29 languages
  • It works by providing positive language for understanding and valuing individual differences
  • It can transform how people work together
  • It helps identify natural preferences in four areas of personality: how do you direct and receive energy, how do you take in information, how do you decide and come to conclusions, and how do you approach the outside world
  • It sorts individuals into one of 16 distinct MBTI personality types
  • It can be used to enhance professional and personal relationships, as well as direction, focus, and choices
  • It can also be used for team and leadership training, conflict management, career change, and transitions
• Get MBTI Certified
  • Become an MBTI® Certified Practitioner to learn how to use the MBTI assessment to transform an organization, educational institution, or business
• Take the MBTI Assessment
  • Take the MBTI assessment online and discover your personality type
• What our customers are saying
  • Customers have leveraged the MBTI® framework to enhance their organization’s culture through team development and applying the MBTI concepts to common growth areas
  • FedEx is leveraging the MBTI® assessment to impact organizational culture
  • The MBTI® framework is foundational to leadership development, which has a significant impact on an organization’s culture
  • The MBTI® assessment can be used about ten times per year and it always sparks amazing conversation

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
  • It is a self-report inventory designed to identify a person’s personality type, strengths, and preferences
  • Developed by Isabel Myers and her mother Katherine Briggs based on their work with Carl Jung’s theory of personality types
  • It has 16 different MBTI types
  • It has four different scales: Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I), Sensing (S) – Intuition (N), Thinking (T) – Feeling (F), Judging (J) – Perceiving (P)
  • It is not a test, there are no right or wrong answers, and one type is not better than any other type
  • It is not a good predictor of success in different careers
  • It is administered by a trained and qualified practitioner that includes a follow-up of the results
  • It is currently administered online via the instrument publisher, CPP, Inc.
  • It has 93 forced-choice questions in the North American version and 88 forced-choice questions in the European version
  • It has a 90% accuracy and test-retest reliability rating
  • It is one of the most popular psychological instruments currently in use today

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
  • The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is an assessment tool that helps to identify psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.
  • It is based on Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types and was developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers.
  • It is used by many people to gain insight into how they interact with the world, and to gain a better understanding of how they can better interact with others.
  • The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator consists of 16 different types, based on four different preferences: Extraversion vs. Introversion, Sensing vs. Intuition, Thinking vs. Feeling, and Judging vs. Perceiving.
  • Each of these preferences impacts how someone perceives and interprets the world around them, and how they make decisions.

💭  Looking into

What is the best Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?