Part II: The Myers Briggs Type Indicator - Does It Work?

In a word... no. Firstly, a common misconception about the MBTI is that helps determine the kinds of things that people will be good at by showing their aptitude. That way you can use it to figure out career and industry suitability in the workforce for example. Unfortunately it doesn't do that. What it actually does is try to show your preferences. So Myers-Briggs isn't about figuring out your ability but rather determining your comfort zone. It identifies the types of activities you'll like and be most content with; not necessarily those at which you'll be particularly good at.

In fact, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator's practical use is overwhelmingly unscientific, and it's often criticized for this. Criticism starts with the fact that neither Jung nor Myers and Briggs ever employed scientific studies to develop or test their concepts. Instead they rely on their own observations, anecdotes, and intuitions. Horoscopes have a greater claim to scientific method than that!

Actually one obvious thing that Myers-Briggs has in common with horoscopes is its tendency to describe each personality type using only positive words. It is part of why horoscopes are so popular - they pretty much always tell people what they want to hear. They also use phrases that most people generally like to believe are true such as "You have enormous potential." They're also popular because they are presented as being personalized based on the person's sign. This has been called the Forer Effect, after psychologist Bertram Forer who, in 1948, gave a personality test to his students and then gave each one a supposedly personalized analysis. The impressed students gave the analyses an average accuracy rating of 85%, and only then did Forer reveal that each had received an identical, generic report. Belief that a report is customized for us tends to improve our perception of the report's accuracy

Due to these legitimate criticisms of Myers-Briggs and its unscientific underpinnings, the test is rarely used in clinical psychology. This is a clue people. When you see a topic that purports to be psychological being used in practically every professional discipline except psychology, you have very good reason to be skeptical of its actual value.

The test does have some severe inherent problems. It's been found that 50% of test takers who retake it score differently the second time. This is because nobody is strictly an 'E' or an 'I', for example, but somewhere in between. Many people are right on the border for some of the four dichotomies, and depending on their mood that day or other factors, may answer enough questions differently to push them over. Yet the results inaccurately pigeonhole them all the way over to one side or the other. This makes it possible for two people who are very similar to actually end up with completely opposite scores.

From the perspective of statistical analysis, Myers-Briggs' fundamental premise is flawed. According to Myers & Briggs, each person is either an introvert or an extravert. Within each group we would expect to see a bell curve showing the distribution of extraversion within the extraverts group, and introversion within the introverts. If the Myers-Briggs approach is valid, we should expect to see two separate bell curves along the introversion/extraversion spectrum, making it valid for Myers & Briggs to decide there are two groups into which people fit. But data have shown that people do not clump into two separately identifiable curves; they clump into a single bell curve, with extreme introverts and extreme extraverts forming the long tails of the curve, and most people gathered somewhere in the middle. Jung himself said "There is no such thing as a pure extravert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum." This does not support the Myers-Briggs assumption that people naturally separate into two groups. Myers-Briggs takes a knife and cuts the bell curve right down the center, through the meatiest part, and right through most people's horizontal error bars. Moreover, this forced error is compounded four times, with each of the four dichotomies. This statistical fumble helps to explain why so many people score differently when retaking the test: There is no truly correct score for most people, and no perfect fit for anyone.

And this has been borne out in observation. A number of studies have found that personality types said to be most appropriate for certain professions, notably nursing or teaching, turn out to be no more prevalent among that profession than among the general population.

About all that Myers-Briggs is good for is to give people a quick snapshot of what their strengths and weaknesses might be, and of those with whom they interact. On the other hand you could get the same information just by asking them. As a tool for making career decisions, relationship decisions, or psychiatric assessment, it is pretty much useless.

Comments

[Emmett Donohue]

Brett -

If you can read this book...

http://www.amazon.com/Please-Understand-Temperament-Character-Intelligence/dp/1885705026

...and still stand by your thoughts and opinions regarding Myers Briggs, I would be amazed. And would like to hear about it one way or another! Drop me an e-mail.

MBTI, especially Myers’ Four Groupings of the 16 types (Guardians, Idealists, Artisans and Rationals) that are presented in the above book would serve you and your studies of human nature well.

A factoid to pique your interest: these four groupings have been talked about since Plato, through Shakespeare and up to Austen, Eliot and Tolstoy. Unfortunately, the 20th century “science” of psychology tossed out centuries of human nature observations of some very smart folks.

“Freud reduced mankind to mere animal, nothing more than a creature of blind instinct. Similarly, Pavlov reduced mankind, not to animal, but to machine, its actions nothing more than mechanical response to environmental stimulation. And the 20th century was nearly swept away by these two new theories, both of which suggested that all humans are fundamentally alike and only superficially different. The ancient idea of the human as a vital organism animated by four different spirits was all but forgotten.”

Hope you enjoy the read!

Best,

Emmett Donohue
1432 Vallejo Drive
San Jose, CA 95130

EmmettDonohue@Yahoo.com

[Brett Rutledge]

Hi Emmett,
Thanks for dropping by and for your comments. I am actually familiar with Keirsey's work although I admit it has been a while so let me briefly summarize the principal assumptions of his work.

1. People are different in nature and it is therefore inappropriate to subject them to the same kind of treatment in matters of education, business affairs and interpersonal relationships.
2. People differ in their temperaments with a temperament being a collection of a person's salient character traits.
3. 16 Different temperaments exist.

The main problem with Keirsey's methodology is that he makes claims that are sociological and psychological in nature, but does not cite empirical support in favor of his findings.

There are no empirical studies to prove that his tests have construct validity or that they truly measure what they claim to measure.

Furthermore, his type descriptions are also unsupported by any empirical evidence. They are founded on his own personal observations and reasoning. Essentially, Keirsey abandoned the scientific method yet continued to propound answers to scientific questions. His claims could have been tenable if he recasted his assertions as mere hypotheses about people's behavior and motivations, however, he insisted on making a very strong claim that knowing a person's temperament necessarily predicts his future behaviors. Similarly, he could have focused his typological inquiry on cognitive tendencies rather than behaviors of people in common-place social situations that define their characters. By doing the former, he would have entered the territory of philosophy of mind where his conclusions would be unfalsifiable (not testable and therefore unscientific), yet potentially supportable by future research in Neuroscience. Either of those would have put him in the Plato, Tolstoy or Shakespeare modes.

I agree with you that the idea of psychology as a 'science' is questionable at best but unfortunately Keirsey's observations make him the same kind of reductionist that you accuse Freud and Pavlov of being - 6 billion plus people on the planet all sharing 16 temperaments? Hardly rings true does it? Could we really be that superficially different?

Once again, really appreciate your comments and your thoughtfulness.

Cheers,

Brett