Unpacking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Its Criticisms

By Gene Tang

When we talk about personalities and personality testing, what is the first thing that comes to our mind? For psychology students, it might be the Big Five (OCEAN) or the six-factor model (HEXACO). Usually, though, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (most of us know as 16 Personalities test) would be the first thing that people think of.

MBTI is undoubtedly a very well-known personality test. The test analyses an individual's personality based on an introspective self-report questionnaire revolving around an individual's subjective interpretation, perception of themselves, and behavioural tendencies. The MBTI consists of four distinct dimensions, which give rise to 16 discrete types. These dimensions were identified in an attempt to explain individuals' preferences in terms of their favourite world (introversion-extroversion), their perception (sensing-intuition), decision-making (thinking-feeling), and the way they deal with the world (judging-perceiving) [1].

The MBTI is used in countless businesses and organisations and is widely available online for personal use [2]. In people's opinions, myself included, the results received from the test seemed to be impressively accurate in their description of individuals. Some popular online MBTI resources such as 16personalities.com will not only provide an overall description of a person but also include an extensive profile in each domain of life, such as romantic relationships, friendships, career paths, and even parenthood [3].

Overall, the idea of MBTI's usefulness and capability of describing a person is quite compelling. However, the use of MBTI is scarce in scientific research despite its glaring popularity. Why is this the case? Does MBTI, a prominent and accepted tool, really lack scientific validity and credibility? Before delving down into these questions, it is perhaps important to understand its history and theory to better understand the tool and the criticisms it has received.

The History of MBTI

MBTI was developed by Isabel Myers and her mother, Katherine Briggs, at the onset of World War II. Myers and Briggs recognised the value of a psychological instrument, as it provides us with understanding and appreciation of individual differences. Briggs spent several decades researching and developing the indicator, during which her tenacious and curious daughter, Isabel Myers, joined her. Their passion and interest were ignited and inspired by Carl Jung's work, especially his book, Psychological Types [4]. Isabel Myers consequently incorporated Jung's idea of psychological types into the MBTI instrument. This includes the concepts of extrovert and introvert, sensation and feeling, thinking and intuition [5]. The type indicator was developed with the intention to help people reconcile with each other in times of hardship during the second World War. After decades of development, the MBTI instrument was published in 1962 despite some objections. Several years later, Isabel Myers was still ceaselessly committed to her MBTI instrument and progressively re-standardised it, paying attention to every minuscule detail and refining the scoring methods. She continuously sought perfection with a strong ambition of developing a tool that would help people.

How Does it Work?

As previously mentioned, MBTI consists of four dimensions that, when combined, produce 16 unique personality types. The dimensions were based on Jung's four psychological functions — sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking [6] — the two polar orientations (extroverts-introverts concept), and the addition of lifestyle preferences described by the terms 'judging' and 'perception'. These terms were paired into four dichotomies which is consistent with the notion of people’s preferences (that there is a clear preference of either one or another) in individuals. MBTI is often misunderstood as an instrument used to measure an individual's aptitude but in actuality, it measures human preferences [7].

We can understand these dichotomies by identifying them as types of preferences [8]. The extroversion-introversion dichotomy can be seen as an 'attitude' preference describing the world where an individual's cognitive functions prefer to operate in (e.g., external world or internal world). Sensing-intuition and thinking-feeling were identified as perceiving functions and judging functions, respectively. Perceiving functions describe how an individual perceives and interprets the world around them, while judging functions are associated with our inherent decision-making and factors influencing it (e.g. logic and reasoning). Lastly, the judging-perception dichotomy stands for lifestyle preferences or our life 'structure'. This one refers to an individuals' preferences when dealing with the outside world [1]. This means that, in different situations, a person with judging type (e.g., ENFJ) tends to prefer using judging functions (thinking or feeling). In contrast, a person with perception (e.g., INFP) type tends to prefer perceiving functions (sensing and intuition) [9].

Four different dichotomies are combined to produce a unique type/personality. We could understand that our type may result from the interactions between these four preferences and that each of us innately prefers a particular way of living. This is not to say that we cannot elicit behaviour particular to the other side of the continuum: much like left or right handedness, it is just harder to do so.

Criticisms

On the surface, the concept of MBTI seems to hold up reasonably well. It may explain why, for instance, INFP-type individuals are generally quiet, open-minded, and flexible. For many people who took the test, the interpretation seems to make sense. It seems to describe our personality at a satisfactory level. So why have there been so many harsh criticisms of the validity of the MBTI? Some even claim MBTI is meaningless [10].

One of the major criticisms highlighted the lack of academic psychology background from Myers and Briggs. Myers was homeschooled in her early life and later earned a degree in political science, while her mother, Katherine Briggs, earned a degree in agriculture [11]. Neither of them received any formal training on psychological assessments or psychometric testing. Because of this, it may be unsurprising why other scientists may have looked down on their work. Why would someone without a psychological academic background attempt to assess personalities, let alone develop professional scales? Additionally, Myers and Briggs were inspired by the type theory of Carl Jung — a scientist who is, to some other scientists, associated with mystical speculations that fall in the pseudo-philosophical realm [12].

Now, let's take a closer look at the MBTI itself as a concept. In doing so, we will explain the criticisms in terms of some theoretical and scientific qualities — validity, reliability, and comprehensiveness.

Is MBTI valid? In Personality Theory and Research [13], validity refers to the extent to which observations reflect the subject of interest. Based on the four dichotomies, presumably, of an individual's preferences, we may understand that a person will fit into one side of the dichotomy. The classification will become categorical; a person will either be, for example, extroverted or introverted, perceiving or judging. This description method does not allow a person to be placed on a continuum. Thus, it does not express the degree of preferences a person may have, conflating an individual's preferences and behaviour [14]. If those personality dimensions are better described by discrete categories rather than a continuum, then we should expect a bimodal distribution (two identifiable bell curves) for the preferences. However, this is not the case. What researchers found was inconsistent with the concept. It was reported that MBTI data display a very near-normal distribution [14], meaning that we would expect that the majority of the population to lie in the middle of the 'continuum' and less on the extremes (rather than on either one of the extremes). The findings therefore raised the question of the instrument’s validity.

"There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum." Carl Jung

In some research, the reliability of MBTI is questionable. One main method for testing reliability is the test-retest procedure. This is when a person is given the test on two occasions. Pittenger observed that several studies showed an individual’s type changes over the short period of the test-retest interval [15]. If personality is a consistent pattern of feeling, thinking, and behaving [13], shouldn't the test-retest procedures (especially over a short period) show reasonable stability? Unlike MBTI, results in other psychometric tests such as the five-factor model (a personality theory proposed by McCrae & Costa widely used in contemporary research) show a high correlation in test-retest procedures, supporting the idea that personality has a heavy biological basis [16]. On the contrary, for almost 50% of the MBTI test participants, their type changed when retaking the test (within a short interval) [15]. So how come MBTI produces discrepancies in test-retest results? One factor that may account for this is the categorical approach of the test. As previously mentioned, the MBTI results categorise a person into one category when realistically, they should be on a continuous scale. If there is a cutoff point or threshold that divides two extremes (e.g., judging and perceiving), a slight change in a person who initially lies around the middle of the scale will result in a total type change (e.g., from ENFJ to ENFP). To put it simply, despite a slight shift in someone's preference/ personality, MBTI may display as a completely new type change.

Whether or not the instrument is comprehensive is another factor to consider. Unlike the PEN, Big Five, and HEXACO models, MBTI doesn't have a scale that accounts for neuroticism. Neuroticism is a trait associated with anxiety, distress, and emotional instability [17], and while we all have it to some degree, this is nowhere to be seen in the MBTI. It may be possible that neuroticism is entangled with other dimensions in MBTI, which might reflect errors in factor analysis. Without the scale of neuroticism, MBTI may lack comprehensiveness as it may struggle to explain psychopathology.

With all the criticisms that MBTI has received and the availability of other psychometric alternatives, we may understand why a large number of scientists disregard MBTI. This may explain why its ubiquity is not present in the area of scientific research. The scientific study of personalities has always been subjected to criticism and scrutiny. Some theories and concepts failed to hold up against them. Unfortunately, MBTI might be one of those. MBTI as a psychometric test is very simplistic, considering the intricacy of personality theory. However, we have to bear in mind that this does not mean MBTI is entirely unscientific.

MBTI Applications: Are They Any Good?

In Vox’s article 'Why the Myers-Briggs test is totally meaningless', the author suggested that "The MyersBriggs is useful for one thing: entertainment [18].” Of course, this includes fun tests and quizzes that we all have taken at some stage to pass some time, like a BuzzFeed quiz. Some might argue that, if it was only for entertainment, why are the types' descriptions so accurate, and in many people’s opinions, sound so convincing? In response to this answer, some articles suggested that this phenomenon results from the Forer Effect [18-20]. Forer effect refers to the phenomenon when a person believes that a specific description applies to them when the description is actually vague enough to apply to everyone. Forer effect is said to be used when writing horoscopes as well [20].

But is that really it? Is MBTI no better than for just entertainment? Perhaps this claim wasn't wholly true after all. In 2012, it was found that the MBTI profile was associated with success in project-based learning. Montequin et al. [21] concluded that a group’s composition and dynamics may be influential on the group's success or failure, which may be attributed to the type of leadership present within the group. Not only that, types/dimensions were also found to correlate with choice of communication media in a study published in 2006 [22]. The researcher showed that a person’s personality type might have a significant effect on the willingness to embrace online communication [22]. Extroversion-introversion dimension was observed to have a substantial impact while judging-perceiving, thinking-feeling effect was still significant but slightly lesser. Meanwhile, research conducted at Syrian University illustrated a clear relationship between the sensing-intuition dimension and the distribution of students among faculties, the sensing-intuition dimension and students’ GPA, or even the sensing-intuition dimension and whether or not the students like the subjects they selected [23].

Even though MBTI may not be as widely used in scientific research as in organisations and corporate industries, the benefits of MBTI are undoubtedly beyond just entertainment. It may not predict job performance, but it could provide us with a practical tool to observe individuals' preferences [24]. With that knowledge and understanding, we can optimise decisions that satisfy a person's preference, perhaps maximising their efficiency and productivity.

Things to Consider

Ultimately, the opinions on MBTI regarding its validity, reliability, applicability, and comprehensiveness are nowhere near one-sided. There is a mixture of findings and comments, both for and against the use of MBTI. Because of this, it is essential to take different perspectives and approaches to evaluate MBTI. So here are some points worth considering:

• Myers and Briggs may not have had an academic background in psychology, but they were astute observers, educated, and very passionate about understanding people. They worked collaboratively alongside other professionals who have helped them with the development and standardisation of the instrument.

• It may be understandable why categorising people into two discrete groups per dichotomy is problematic. The dichotomies on Jung's types may be dubious, but the concept of extroversion (and introversion) is accepted in the modern scientific era [11]. We still see the use of the term today but perhaps with slightly different and modified representation (e.g., introversion and extroversion becomes high and low levels of extroversion).

• Yes, MBTI may describe a person's preference towards a particular event/aspect but do the descriptions only account for central tendency (what individuals tend to behave on average)? As argued, MBTI descriptions may, indeed, be simplistic [14] and may be insufficient when explaining the variability of behaviour on a situation-to-situation basis.

• MBTI comprehensiveness was majorly criticised for its lack of scale/measurement on neuroticism, but do we actually need that? Is it possible to break down existing MBTI's dichotomies into facets that may allow us to describe neuroticism? Or perhaps it would be better to disentangle aspects of neuroticism embedded in introversion, creating a new dimension (The framework evolved from the classic MBTI used by 16personalities.com may have touched on this by adding the Assertive-Turbulent dimension).

• There is still research that observes reasonable reliability and validity in MBTI. Meta-analyses conducted by Capraro & Capraro in 2002 [25], and Randall and his colleagues in 2017 found that MBTI, in fact, has decent reliability and validity. Both studies found correlations in test-retest procedures of the MBTI [26]. Furthermore, reasonable construct validity was also found by Randall et al [27]. The research suggested that the MBTI does measure personal preferences consistent with Carl Jung's typology. With this in mind, Pittenger's claim of poor test-retest reliability and criticisms on the validity are now in question [15]. The arguments he made may have resulted from the inclusion of only old data and the omission of some test-retest scores [24]. As time passed, MBTI underwent several revisions and re-standardisation and because of that, the validity and reliability may have also improved.

The use of MBTI may not be ubiquitous in modern-day scientific research compared to NEO-PI-R or HEXACOPI-R, but its application nevertheless has a wide popularity in other areas. MBTI as an instrument may not be flawless (nothing is), it may not be the best, but it has been used by numerous multinational organisations. Its usage has been accepted and might be helpful in various situations after all.

"I dream that long after I'm gone, my work will go on helping people." Isabel Myers, 1979

References

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[2] J. Nguyen. “How companies use the Myers-Briggs system to evaluate employees.” marketplace.org. https://www.marketplace.org/2018/10/30/myers-briggs-systemevaluate-employees/ (accessed Jul. 12, 2021)

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[18] J. Stromberg and E. Caswell. “Why the Myers-Briggs test is totally meaningless.” Vox.com. https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless (accessed July. 12, 2021)

[19] M. Moffa. “A Critique of The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)—Part Two: a Personal Review.” recruiter.com. https://www.recruiter.com/i/a-critique-of-the-myersbriggs-type-indicator-mbti-part-two/ (accessed July. 14, 2021)

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