How Accurate is the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator?

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Alyssa Morrone

The Myers Briggs Test is supposed to give the test taker a single personality, but can something as complex as someone’s sense of identity be defined?

Alyssa Morrone, Staff Writer

Personality tests have risen in popularity with the use of the internet but have been around long before Buzzfeed came about. Tests that are designed to properly gauge your personality are used in many organizations and workplaces, the most popular being the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). But what separates this professional analysis from any other quiz and is it that accurate of an assessment?

The MBTI is a personality test in which the participant answers several questions about themselves ranging from how they perceive the world, to how they would react in certain situations. Once completed, the test-taker will receive one of 16 types of personalities, each labeled by a series of letters.

Each letter represents a different aspect of personality, according to its creators. You’re either introverted (I) or extroverted (E), you learn new things through sensing (S) or intuition (N), you make decisions based on thinking (T) or feeling (F), and you go through life either judging (J) or perceiving (P). Once you finish the MBTI, it will give you your personality with the according letters.

Inspired by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung who was researching human personality, Katherine Cook Briggs began her studies on the subject, and her daughter, Isabelle Briggs Myer, took interest in her mother’s work and gradually began to take over her studies. 

In 1980 the Isabella published Gifts Differing, a book containing all their research on the human personality with in-depth information about each of their 16 types of personalities. 

Even if a person were to truthfully and accurately answer each question, personality is so fluid that they may change and lose the accuracy of the results later on in life

Although the book rose in popularity, neither women had any professional education in psychology. Many psychologists still debate the true accuracy of the test today.

Many problems can arise while taking the test. The questions are mainly based on how a person’s characteristics fit in an introverted to extroverted scale. An example question is “You are very affectionate with people who care about you”. 

This is quite an open-ended question and someone may have varying factors that affect this. While certain versions of the test do offer a scale of 1-7 for each question, it is still hard to fully make the right answer about yourself. 

The tests are all self-assessed, meaning that only you can choose your answers. For questions that ask about how good of a person you are, such as “Do you approach life carefully and methodically?”, you are more inclined to answer that you are, as it will make you seem like a better person, even if it is not accurate. Questions such as these are hard to answer, so we will instinctively lean toward our own feelings of self-worth rather than actual answers.

Even if a person were to truthfully and accurately answer each question, personality is so fluid that they may change and lose the accuracy of the results later on in life. While it is reasonable to assume that we change as we grow older and mature, our personality goes through smaller changes every day that are impossible to track and define.

A study from the Chair of the Department of Psychology at Marietta College gave a group of people the MBTI, then had them retake it 5 weeks later, and more than half of the group scored differently than before.

Once you have a final result from the test, you receive a full run-down of exactly what your personality says about you and how it affects your life. Some tests even go so far as to say what jobs you are best suited for, how you would be as a parent or a position of leadership, and what your best tactics are to do well in life. The answers get extremely detailed, and if someone were to follow exactly as their results say, they may be boxed in and not explore another path that could have been just as good of a fit.

Some may argue that these tests are not supposed to be taken to the extreme, but rather as a gauge of your traits. This is true for some people, but in schools and places of work, they can be required for students and employees. The results can affect what job position that person receives or what classes that person chooses.

Overall, this test has many loopholes and problems that diminish its ability to give the test taker an accurate assessment of who they are. Personality is simply a combination of characteristics and qualities that is always changing and shifting. Can you really define such a phenomenon?