Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast,
Where I help you drift off one fact at a time.
I'm your host Benjamin Boster,
And today's episode is about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator,
MBTI,
Is a self-report questionnaire that makes pseudoscientific claims to categorize individuals into 16 distinct psychological types,
Often called personality types.
The test assigns a binary letter value to each of four dichotomous categories,
Introversion or extroversion,
Sensing or intuition,
Thinking or feeling,
And judging or perceiving.
This produces a four-letter test result,
Such as INTJ or ESFP,
Representing one of the 16 types.
The original version of the MBTI was constructed during World War II by Americans Catherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers,
Inspired by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung's 1921 book Psychological Types.
Isabel Myers was particularly fascinated by the concept of introversion,
And she typed herself as an INFP.
However,
She thought that the book was too complex for the general public and tried to organize the Jungian cognitive functions to make it more accessible.
As a psychometric indicator,
The test exhibits significant deficiencies,
Including poor validity,
Poor reliability,
Measuring supposedly dichotomous categories that are not independent and not being comprehensive.
Most of the research supporting the MBTI's validity has been produced by the Center for Applications of Psychological Type,
An organization run by the Myers-Briggs Foundation,
And published in the Center's own journal,
The Journal of Psychological Type,
JPT,
Raising questions of independence,
Bias,
And conflict of interest.
Nevertheless,
Due to the Barnum effect,
Participants often attribute a level of accuracy to their results that is disproportionate to their scientific credibility.
Psychology regards the MBTI as useless since it lacks predictive power.
According to University of Pennsylvania professor Adam Grand,
There's no evidence behind it.
The traits measured by the test have almost no predictive power when it comes to how happy you'll be in a given situation,
How well you'll perform at your job,
Or how satisfied you'll be in your marriage.
Despite controversies over validity,
The instrument has demonstrated widespread influence since its adoption by the Educational Testing Service in 1962.
It is estimated that 50 million people have taken the MBTI,
And that 10,
000 businesses,
2,
500 colleges and universities,
And 200 government agencies in the United States use it.
Briggs began her research into personality in 1917.
Upon meeting her future son-in-law,
She observed marked differences between his personality and that of other family members.
Briggs embarked on a project of reading biographies and subsequently developed a typology wherein she proposed four temperaments,
Meditative or thoughtful,
Spontaneous,
Executive,
And social.
After the publication in 1923 of an English translation of Carl Jung's book Psychological Types,
First published in German in 1921,
Briggs recognized that Jung's theory resembled but went far beyond her own.
Briggs' four types were later identified as corresponding to the I-X-X-X's,
Introversion,
Meditative,
E-X-X-P's,
Extroversion and perceiving,
Spontaneous,
E-X-T-J's,
Extroversion,
Thinking and judging,
Executive,
And E-X-F-J's,
Extroversion,
Feeling and judging,
Social.
Her first publications were two articles describing Jung's theory in The New Republic,
Meet Yourself Using the Personality Paintbox,
1926,
And Up from Barbarism,
1928.
After extensively studying the work of Jung,
Briggs and her daughter extended their interest in human behavior into efforts to turn the theory of psychological types to practical use.
Although Myers graduated from Swarthmore College in Political Science in 1919,
Neither Myers nor Briggs were formally educated in the discipline of psychology,
And both were self-taught in the field of psychometric testing.
Myers then apprenticed herself to Edward N.
Hay,
The head personnel officer for a large Philadelphia bank.
From Hay,
Myers learned rudimentary test construction,
Scoring,
Validation,
And statistical methods.
Briggs and Myers began creating their indicator during World War II,
In the belief that a knowledge of personality preferences would help women entering the industrial workforce for the first time to identify the sorts of wartime jobs that would be the most comfortable and effective for them.
The Briggs-Myers Type Indicator Handbook,
Published in 1944,
Was republished as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in 1956.
Myers' work attracted the attention of Henry Chauncey,
Head of the Educational Testing Service,
A private assessment organization.
Under these auspices,
The first MBTI manual was published in 1962.
The MBTI received further support from Donald W.
McKinnon,
Head of the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California,
Berkeley,
W.
Harold Grant,
A professor at Michigan State University and Auburn University,
And Mary H.
McCauley of the University of Florida.
The publication of the MBTI was transferred to Consulting Psychologists Press in 1975,
And the Center for Applications of Psychological Type was founded as a research laboratory.
After Myers' death in May 1980,
Mary McCauley updated the MBTI manual,
And the second edition was published in 1985.
The third edition appeared in 1998.
In 1987,
An advanced scoring system was developed for the MBTI.
From this was developed the Type Differentiation Indicator,
TDI,
Which is a scoring system for the longer MBTI,
Form J,
Which includes the 290 items written by Myers that had survived her previous item analyses.
It yields 20 subscales,
5 under each of the 4 dichotomous preference scales,
Plus 7 additional subscales for a new comfort-discomfort factor,
Which parallels,
Though not perfectly measuring,
The NEO-PI factor of neuroticism.
This factor's scales indicate a sense of overall comfort and confidence versus discomfort and anxiety.
They also load onto one of the four type dimensions.
Guarded Optimistic,
T-F.
Defiant Compliant,
T-F.
Carefree Worried,
T-F.
Decisive Ambivalent,
J-P.
Intrepid Inhibited,
E-I.
Leader Follower,
E-I.
And Proactive Distractible,
J-P.
Also included is a composite of these called Strain.
There are also scales for Type Scale Consistency and Comfort Scale Consistency.
Reliability of 23 of the 27 TDI subscales is greater than 0.
5,
An acceptable result given the brevity of the subscales.
In 1989,
A scoring system was developed for only the 20 subscales for the original 4 dichotomies.
This was initially known as Form K,
Or the Expanded Analysis Report.
This tool is now called the MBTI Step 2.
Form J,
Or the TDI,
Included the items derived from Myers and Macaulay's earlier work necessary to score what became known as Step 3.
The 1998 MBTI Manual reported that the two instruments were one and the same.
Step 3 was developed in a joint project involving the following organizations.
The Myers-Briggs Company,
The publisher of all the MBTI works.
The Center for Applications of Psychological Type,
C-A-P-T,
Which holds all Myers' and Macaulay's original work.
And the MBTI Trust,
Headed by Catherine and Peter Myers.
C-A-P-T advertised Step 3 as addressing type development and the use of perception and judgment by respondents.
The MBTI is based on the theory of psychological types proposed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in 1921,
Which was partially based on the four elements of classical cosmology.
Jung speculated that people experience the world using four principal psychological functions,
Sensation,
Intuition,
Feeling,
And thinking,
And that one of these four functions is dominant in an individual a majority of the time.
In MBTI theory,
The four categories are introversion-extroversion,
Sensing-intuition,
Thinking-feeling,
And judging-perceiving.
According to the MBTI,
Each person is said to have one preferred quality from each category,
Producing 16 unique types.
The MBTI manual states that the indicator is designed to implement a theory,
Therefore the theory must be understood to understand the MBTI.
Fundamental to the MBTI is the hypothesis of psychological types as originally developed by Carl Jung.
Jung proposed the existence of two dichotomous pairs of cognitive functions,
The rational judging functions,
Thinking and feeling,
The irrational perceiving functions,
Sensation and intuition.
Jung believed that for every person,
Each of the functions is expressed primarily in either an introverted or extroverted form.
Based on Jung's original concepts,
Briggs and Myers developed their own theory of psychological type on which the MBTI is based.
According to psychologist Hans Eysenck,
Writing in 1995,
The 16 personality types used in the MBTI are incomplete,
As Jung's theory used 32 types,
16 of which could not be measured by a questionnaire.
Both Jung's original model and the simplified MBTI remain hypothetical,
With no controlled scientific studies supporting either.
Jung did not see the type preferences such as introversion and extroversion as dualistic,
But rather as tendencies.
Both are innate and have the potential to balance.
Jung's typology theories postulated a sequence of four cognitive functions,
Thinking,
Feeling,
Sensation and intuition,
Each having one of two polar tendencies,
Extroversion or introversion,
Giving a total of eight dominant functions.
The MBTI is based on these eight hypothetical functions.
While the Jungian model proposes the first three dichotomies,
Myers and Briggs added the judging,
J,
And perceiving,
P,
Preferences.
According to Myers and Briggs,
J and P indicate a person's most preferred extroverted function,
Which is the dominant function for extroverted types and the auxiliary function for introverted types.
The MBTI sorts some psychological differences into four sets of opposite pairs or dichotomies,
With the resulting 16 possible psychological types.
None of these are considered to be better or worse.
However,
Briggs and Myers theorize that people innately prefer one overall combination of type differences.
The 16 types are typically referred to by an abbreviation of four letters,
The initial letters of each of their four type preferences,
Except in the case of intuition,
Which uses the abbreviation N to distinguish it from introversion.
For instance,
ENTJ,
Extroversion E,
Intuition N,
Thinking T,
Judgment J.
ISFP,
Introversion I,
Sensing S,
Feeling F,
Perception P.
These abbreviations are applied to all 16 types.
The interaction of two,
Three,
Or four preferences is known as type dynamics.
Type dynamics has received little or no empirical support to substantiate its viability as a scientific theory.
Myers and Briggs asserted that for each of the 16 four preference types,
One function is the most dominant and is less likely to be evident earliest in life.
A secondary or auxiliary function typically becomes more evident,
Differentiated during teenage years,
And provides balance to the dominant.
In normal development,
Individuals tend to become more fluent with a third,
Tertiary function during midlife,
While the fourth,
Inferior function remains least consciously developed.
The inferior function is purportedly associated with the unconscious and is most evidence in situations such as high stress,
Sometimes referred to as being in the grip of the inferior function.
The use of type dynamics is disputed.
In conclusion of various studies on the subject of type dynamics,
Psychologist James H.
Reinersee writes,
Type dynamics has persistent logical problems and is fundamentally based on a series of category mistakes.
It provides at best a limited and incomplete account of type-related phenomena,
And type dynamics relies on anecdotal evidence,
Fails most efficacy tests,
And does not fit the empirical facts.
His studies gave the clear result that the descriptions and workings of type dynamics do not fit the real behavior of people.
He suggests getting completely rid of type dynamics because it does not help but hinders understanding of personality.
The presumed order of functions,
1 to 4,
Did only occur in 1 out of 540 test results.
The terms as used in the MBTI may differ from their everyday usage.
For example,
People who prefer judgment over perception are not necessarily more judgmental or less perceptive,
Nor does the MBTI instrument attempt to measure aptitude.
Instead,
It attempts to indicate personal preference.
Myers considered the direction of the preference,
For example,
E versus I,
To be more important than the degree of the preference,
For example,
Very clear versus slight.
Myers-Briggs literature uses the terms extroversion and introversion as Jung first used them.
Extroversion means literally outward turning,
And introversion,
Inward turning.
These specific definitions differ somewhat from the popular usage of the words.
Jung identified two pairs of psychological functions,
Two perceiving functions,
Sensation,
Usually called sensing in MBTI writings,
And intuition,
Two judging functions,
Thinking and feeling.
According to Jung's typology model,
Each person uses one of these four functions more dominantly and proficiently than the other three.
However,
All four functions are used at different times depending on the circumstances.
Each of these proposed functions can manifest in either an extroverted or an introverted attitude.
So Jung's model includes eight combinations of functions and attitudes,
Four of which are largely conscious and four unconscious.
John Beebe created a model that combines ideas of archetypes and the dialogical self with functions.
Each function viewed as performing the role of an archetype was in an internal dialogue.
According to Briggs and Myers,
People who prefer sensing are more likely to trust information that is in the present,
Tangible and concrete.
They tend to distrust hunches.
Those who prefer intuition tend to trust information that is associated with other information,
Either remembered or discovered from context.
Thinking and feeling are described as the decision-making,
Judging functions by Briggs and Myers.
These functions are used to make rational decisions based on the data received from their information-gathering functions.
Those who prefer thinking tend to decide things from a more detached standpoint.
Those who prefer feeling tend to come to decisions by associating or empathizing with the situation.
People who prefer thinking do not necessarily,
In the everyday sense,
Think better than their feeling counterparts.
As the MBTI attempts to measure of preference,
Not ability or skill.
Similarly,
Those who prefer feeling do not necessarily have better emotional reactions than their thinking counterparts.
According to Jung,
People use all four cognitive functions.
However,
One function is generally used in a more conscious and confident way.
This dominant function is supported by the secondary auxiliary function,
And to a lesser degree,
The tertiary function.
The fourth and least conscious function is always the opposite of the dominant function.
Myers called this inferior function the shadow.
The four functions operate in conjunction with the attitudes,
Extroversion and introversion.
Each function is used in either an extroverted or introverted way.
Isabel Myers claimed that the proportion of different personality types varied by choice of career or course of study.
However,
Researchers examining the proportions of each type within varying professions report that the proportion of MBTI types within each occupation is close to that within a random sample of the population.
Some researchers have expressed reservations about the relevance of type to job satisfaction,
As well as concerns about the potential misuse of the instrument in labeling people.
The Myers-Briggs Company,
Then known as Consulting Psychologist Press,
And later CPP,
Became the exclusive publisher of the MBTI in 1975.
They called it the world's most widely used personality assessment,
With as many as 2 million assessments administered annually.
The Myers-Briggs Company and other proponents state that the indicator meets or exceeds the reliability of their psychological instruments.
The MBTI has poor predictive validity of employees' job performance ratings.
The MBTI measures preferences,
Not ability.
The use of the MBTI as a predictor of job success is expressly discouraged in the manual.
It is argued that the MBTI only continues to be popular because many people are qualified to administer it.
It is not difficult to understand,
And there are many supporting books,
Websites,
And other sources which are readily available to the general public.
