The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

**What is the MBTI?**

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a popular and widely implemented instrument used to assess an individual’s personality, their orientation to others, their decision-making, and how they perceive and deal with the world around them. It has been used in a variety of settings including mental health research, corporate America, military training, and higher education.  The MBTI has such widespread appeal that simply stating one’s four-letter MBTI type can communicate to the attuned listener much about the individual’s personality and how they make their way through the world.

The MBTI outlines four main dichotomies that individuals can fit within:

Extraversion (E) and Introversion (I)

Extroverts will derive their energy and will focus their energy on others, engagement in activities, and expressing their thoughts outloud, whereas introverts will derive their energy from themselves and focus their energy internally, from their ideas, memories, reactions, and pictures. Introverts will often prefer to spend time alone or with a smaller group of individuals, whereas extroverts often prefer to surround themselves with larger groups.

Sensing (S) and Intuition (N)

The dichotomy between sensing and intuition describes how an individual attends to information. Those who score high in sensing are found to focus more on physical reality, facts, and practical details. Individuals who score high on intuition instead pay more heed to impressions they gain from the information they get.

Thinking (T) and Feeling (F)

The dichotomy of thinking and feeling defines how one makes decision. Thinkers will consider the basic principle, analyze pros and cons, and will make their assessment on an impersonal basis when able to. Feelers, on the other hand, are more prone to making decisions by weighing what people care about and various perspectives that could be taken into consideration, sometimes prioritizing harmony over principle.

Judging (J) and Perceiving (P)

The dichotomy of judging and perceiving describes how one lives their life to the world and explains, in some way, their behaviors. Those who score high in judging prefer scheduling, planning, and organizing their lives to ensure they have control on as much as possible. Individuals who score high in Perceiving prefer flexibility in their planning, are often described as spontaneous, and would rather adapt to new situations than plan for them.

What are these types and how might one identify themselves? What is so compelling about this assessment to give it such breadth and spread, and why might others question the validity of the results and their application to practice?

**Creation of the MBTI**

While many utilize the tool and apply the results to their lives in different ways, very few know how the MBTI came to be. Katherine Cook Briggs, a writer in the 1900’s, co-created the personality instrument with her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. Briggs became intrigued by differences in temperament and personality after she noticed her daughter’s future husband, Clarence Myers, had a very distinct way of engaging with the world and those around him. She turned to the work of Carl Jung as a way to understand different personalities. Carl Jung, at the time, had published “Psychological Types” in which he expounded on his various findings suggesting distinct personality types and feature, including perceivers and judgers, among others.  At the time, World War II was also raging, inspiring Myers to consider the ways in which understanding how we interact with each other could reduce conflict and improve post-war outcomes. With that, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was born.

To develop the instrument, Myers set out to operationalize Jung’s theoretical personality types by way of a forced choice survey. In her literature review, Myers found that while individuals in general will exhibit all facets of the 8 personality traits, most individuals have a “dominant process” that steers their day-to-day interactions and decision-making. Questions were designed to independently capture each of the 8 categories, with respondents being classified with the specific personality trait if they endorse at least 60% of the trait’s features in the survey. Items in the instrument are formatted as both phrases questions (ex. “When you go somewhere would you rather: a) plan what you do, b) just go), as well as word-pairs (“Which word in the pair appeals to you more?” a) literal or b) figurative).

**Critique of the MBTI**

Despite claims on the MBTI website and in Myers’s own writings of validity and internal consistency of the MBTI, many have come forward to criticize the instrument for its lack of validity and its methods. Some have argued that the name-brand recognition of MBTI undeservedly privileges the MBTI type indicator as the preeminent personality instrument. In a study assessing this very concept, researchers found that Human Resource professionals placed more trust in the MBTI than organizational scholars and psychologists. Training in psychometrics and psychology seems to inspire more skepticism of the validity of the MBTI results, despite the widespread popularity and acceptability of the results across various domains. Others have criticized the metric for its inability to capture the reality of individuals with similar personalities behaving in different ways. Barbuto finds the MBTI is limited in its ability to assess one’s personality as a result of its “dichotomous, noncontinuous scale.”

Future editions of the MBTI were adapted to feature more of a continuous scale across the various personality traits, attempting to better capture the complexity of our personalities and the ways humans may interact with the world differently depending on their specific contexts, rather than one side of a vast dichotomy. Critics have gone on to suggest improvements to the MBTI would include assessing one’s behavior in conjunction with their self-report on the MBTI instrument, which may provide a fuller picture of the ways we enact our personality.

Others have criticized the MBTI as it relies heavily and is formulated almost entirely on the untested theories of Carl Jung from the 1940’s. Adam Grant and others have emphasized that even Jung himself warned his personality types were “rough tendencies” rather than strict classifications. These tendencies were not derived from empirical research but rather Jung’s anecdotal observations and thinking on his observations. In addition, Jung cautions against binary classifications of individuals, stating at one point “There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in a lunatic asylum.”  Much of the critique around the MBTI can best be described by the shift in personality theory away from thinking of personality traits, as the MBTI claims to assess, and further towards “personality states.” Personality states capture the reality of individuals who will react to differing situations with different behaviors and approaches, something that is not captured in the MBTI. In addition, critics have pointed to the lack of reliability in results across multiple trials, with many respondents scoring differently across the first and second time taking the assessment.

While the MBTI has gained wide traction with the general population and in various industries for its ability to assess an individuals’ personality traits and distill these traits into a digestible acronym, many have criticized the tool for its lack of scientific evidence and reliability. Consumers of the MBTI would benefit from practicing skepticism around the finality and binary of the results, as much research suggests that humans rarely, if ever, fit neatly into any classification and, instead, are more prone to experiencing a full breadth of the various personality features.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 *The history of the MBTI® assessment*. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2022, from https://eu.themyersbriggs.com/en/tools/MBTI/Myers-Briggs-history
2. ↑ Rickles, N., Olson, A. W., Tieger, P. D., Schommer, J. C., & Brown, L. M. (2021). Use of the Jung/Myers Model of Personality Types to Identify and Engage with Individuals at Greatest Risk of Experiencing Depression and Anxiety. *The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research*, *48*(3), 446–467. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11414-020-09724-2
3. ↑ Roush, P. E., & Atwater, L. (1992). Using MBTI to Understand Transformational Leadership and Self-Perception Accuracy. *Military Psychology*, *4*(1), 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327876mp0401\_2
4. ↑ Moore, L. S., Jenkins, D., Dietz, T. J. ., & Feuerhelm, J. (1997). The Use of the MBTI as a Self-Awareness Tool in Undergraduate Education. *Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work*, *2*(2), 53–70. https://doi.org/10.18084/1084-7219.2.2.53
5. ↑ *The Myers & Briggs Foundation—The 16 MBTI® Types*. (n.d.). Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/the-16-mbti-types.htm
6. ↑ *MBTI®—The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator*. (n.d.). Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://eu.themyersbriggs.com/en/tools/MBTI
7. ↑ Jung, C. G. (1923). *Psychological Types: Or, The Psychology of Individuation*. Pantheon Books.
8. ↑ Myers, I. B. (1962). Theory on which the Indicator is based. In *The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: Manual (1962).* (2013-29682-006; pp. 51–64). Consulting Psychologists Press. https://doi.org/10.1037/14404-006
9. ↑ Myers, I. B. (1962). Relationships to personality variables. In *The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: Manual (1962).* (2013-29682-004; pp. 21–34). Consulting Psychologists Press. https://doi.org/10.1037/14404-004
10. ↑ Myers, I. B. (1962). Construction of the Indicator. In *The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: Manual (1962).* (2013-29682-009; pp. 83–87). Consulting Psychologists Press. https://doi.org/10.1037/14404-009
11. ↑ Lake, C. J., Carlson, J., Rose, A., & Chlevin-Thiele, C. (2019). Trust in name brand assessments: The case of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. *The Psychologist-Manager Journal*, *22*(2), 91–107. https://doi.org/10.1037/mgr0000086
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Barbuto, J. E. (1997). A Critique of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and its Operationalization of Carl Jung’s Psychological Types. *Psychological Reports*, *80*(2), 611–625. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1997.80.2.611
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Stromberg, J. (2014, July 15). *Why the Myers-Briggs test is totally meaningless*. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless
14. ↑ *Myers-Briggs Type Indicator—The Skeptic’s Dictionary—Skepdic.com*. (n.d.). Retrieved May 3, 2022, from http://skepdic.com/myersb.html