In her post, Can the MBTI Define Who I Am?, Maxine (Mei Qing) Chen discusses the inconsistencies of her Myers-Briggs personality test results – changing from INFJ to ESTJ in one year. She claims that the MBTI is unreliable and may have hidden risks¹.

While there are limitations to the MBTI, the MBTI should not be totally discredited. Maxine describes the MBTI as dichotomic, but, as I have mentioned in my earlier post, the MBTI also consists of a report which further describes the details of where you lie on the spectrum on each of the dimensions, therefore is more continuous. Although research has shown consistencies with the MBTI, results become more consistent as people age², therefore her personal experience of having such a dramatic change in just one year may not be a surprise: there is always going to be variance and outliers.

However, Maxine’s point of self-fulfilling prophecy¹ does provide an explanation for the variances, therefore the MBTI should be used repetitively in the long-run and should not just be a one-time thing. There is also the factor that our personality is influenced by the environment we are in; MBTI may need to find better ways of accessing people in different situations.

Maxine notes that people take the MBTI tests too seriously¹, but I think people should also not completely disregard the fact that there may be some truth in the MBTI. Studies have proven the reliability and the validity of the MBTI.^{2, 3} People just have to keep in mind that there will always be residuals and variance in the sample data.

So to answer Maxine’s question “Can the MBTI define who I am?,” I would say that it is quite plausible that the MBTI can provide some aspect of truth into our personality, and thus we should not let residuals and variance make us completely discredit the MBTI.

Word Count: 310

 

References

1 Chen, M. Q. (2017, February 4). Can the MBTI define who I am? [Blog post]. Retrieved from Mei Qing (Maxine) Chen’s Blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/mchen/2017/02/05/can-the-mbti-define-who-i-am/

2 Carlson, J. G. (1985). Recent assessments of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(4), 356-365. Retrieved from UBC Library Catalogue database. (Accession No. 6388089)

3 Thompson, B., & Borrello, G. M. (1986). Construct validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 46(3), 745-752. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164486463032

Image Source

16Personalities. (n.d.). Logician [Illustration]. Retrieved from https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types

Within 3 years, I have taken the Myers-Briggs test at least 5 times – every time I get the same result: ENFP (except that one time when I got ENTP).

The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely used assessment for career counselling⁴. Bratskeir (2016) and Fox (2016) argues that the MBTI is meaningless and only a form of entertainment like horoscopes or psychics. They draw upon a study indicating that half of the participants did not receive consistent classifications and the fact that the MBTI were created by two women who had no psychological background. They argue that personality is too dynamic and complex for the MBTI to classify within 16 personality types. ^{1, 3}

Although we cannot expect the MBTI to be spot-on every time, scholars do suggest that there are general consistencies with the MBTI, that the MBTI can predict behaviour², and that the MBTI is a valid measure of personality⁵. The MBTI is a way to allow for an empirical assessment of personality based on Carl Jung’s theory of personality (his theory consisted of terms and phrasing that were too ambiguous and ill-defined)². However, the MBTI is not a predictor of which academic specialization an individual chooses but only because factors such as culture and education were not included in the study⁴.

I believe that Bratskier (2016) and Fox (2016) does not recognize that the MBTI does not solely identify a person with one trait or the other. The MBTI generalizes an individual’s type within each dimension, but also includes a detailed assessment on where one lies on the spectrum of the dimension. Looking at the conclusion is not enough if an individual wants a personality analysis of him- or herself – they will need to analyze the more detailed report. Explanations of inconsistencies in studies may be that a person has a high degree of Machiavellianism or self-monitoring: changes in behaviour and thought impacting their attitude, and hence their answers to the MBTI, because of environmental changes. Another possibility that has not been really identified is if certain personality types are more easily subjected to change.

 

Word count: 349

 

References

1 Bratskeir, K. (2016, February 10). The Myers-Briggs personality test doesn’t actually mean anything [Blog post]. Retrieved from The Huffington Post website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/myers-briggs-personality-test-is-moot_us_56bb69abe4b0c3c5504f9b36

2 Carlson, J. G. (1985). Recent assessments of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(4), 356-365. Retrieved from UBC Library Catalogue database. (Accession No. 6388089)

3 Fox, A. (2016, October 27). The Myers-Briggs personality test is fun, but not so informative [Blog post]. Retrieved from The Huffington Post website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/personality-tests-not-accurate_us_58123acfe4b064e1b4b0fd8a

4 Pulver, C. A., & Kelly, K. R. (2008). Incremental validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in predicting academic major selection of undecided university students. Journal of Career Assessment, 16(4), 441-455. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072708318902

5 Thompson, B., & Borrello, G. M. (1986). Construct validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 46(3), 745-752. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164486463032

Image Source

16Personalities. (n.d.). Campaigner personality [Illustration]. Retrieved from https://www.16personalities.com/enfp-personality

16Personalities. (n.d.). “It’s so incredible to finally be understood.” [Illustration]. Retrieved from https://www.16personalities.com/