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Assessment & Evaluation

Published May 2007

Is Myers-Briggs Still Viable?

 

  Roger R. Pearman

Forty million people have completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality assessment. More than 2 million administrations of the tool will occur this year. Its use in 17 countries has grown 30 percent in each of the past five years. Despite its massive use, one question remains: Is the most published and criticized inventory in the history of testing is still useful after 50 years?

It depends. In the hands of a competent practitioner, the MBTI is a viable tool. When its dynamic is understood, the MBTI's viability and lasting value is at its zenith of utility. Nevertheless, it does receive a fair amount of criticism and objections.

Objection 1:
The Tool Isn't Scientifically Sound

In 1998, the MBTI was revised, using Item Response Theory (IRT), a powerful statistical methodology. Using a census-sampling technique, the MBTI was revised, based on a national sample, and analyzed with IRT methods. A panel of Ph.D. specialists participated in the 1998 revision to ensure high scientific standards were met in the application of IRT methods.

Objection 2:
The Instrument Stereotypes People

According to the MBTI manual and other official documents related to the MBTI, the tool is about preferences, tendencies and potentials in development. Isabel Myers, MBTI co-creator, said she called it an indicator rather than a test, a measuring tool or a categorizing device — a description is not a prediction.

Objection 3:
There Isn't Any Such Thing as a Personality Type (People are More Complex Than Four Letters)

Myers was clear her tool was intended to introduce individuals to a model of psychological processes and development that was practical. The model, articulated by Carl Jung, is simply that there are dimensions of perceiving information and acting on experience that affect how we adapt, learn and grow. The instrument was designed to help individuals learn about typical ways of perceiving and judging information, as well as experiences that are likely to be consistent over time.

Objection 4:
Everybody's Done It, and There Isn't Anything New. It's All Pretty Superficial Now

Millions have taken the tool, and many have received a pretty bad interpretation of the results. Those who've had a bad experience are unlikely to be open to reviewing the information in the light of a proper and correct interpretation. The main criterion associated with a bad interpretation is that the information shared was superficial, stereotypical and a "fun and games" presentation.

MBTI's Organization

To quickly summarize the way the instrument is organized, you are asked four general kinds of questions:

• Do you initially get a psychological charge out of engaging with your environment or by reflecting on a circumstance? (This is sorting for extraversion and introversion preferences.)
• Do you initially find sensing, concrete data more appealing, or are you pulled to conceptual, contextual, big-picture frames in a situation? (This is sorting for sensing and intuiting preferences.)
• Do you initially decide from an analytical (logic, critiquing) view or an evaluative (relationship, value) view? (This is sorting for thinking or feeling decision preferences.)
• Do you initially prefer to make a decision or seek more information? (This is sorting for an orientation toward decision making or perception.)