I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but I haven't had the right nudge until now. But today, someone gave me that nudge.
Every now and then, someone blathers about the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) being no better or worse than Astrology. The articles make for amusing punditry, but they miss an important point.
While Astrology claims to guess your personality and behaviors based on external forces (the position of the stars at the time and location of your birth), the MBTI is based on your actual stated preferences and personality traits. When you take the MBTI "inventory" (it's usually not referred to as a "test", because there are no "right or wrong" answers and no "scoring"), you are self-defining your type.
It's true that, when you finish, you're given a label. And many people balk at the idea of labels. But keep in mind that this is a label that you choose for yourself. It's not a label assigned to you by someone else. If you don't agree with the type the MBTI suggests, you are encouraged to read the other profiles and find the type that matches you best.
Think about that. It's as if Astrology said "Given your birthdate we guess you to be a Pisces, but feel free to look over the descriptions and decide that you're really a Leo."
Here are the comments I posted today to a recent MBTI-bashing essay, entitled Astrology For Businesses. You should probably read it (or at least read the first few paragraphs) before continuing here. Then come back...
Overall, the general summary of the "Astrology For Businesses" essay is correct. You can't magic your way into a great team or good work simply by knowing people's MBTI types!
But that doesn't mean that "Myers-Briggs is, to put it mildly, bullshit" (to quote from the essay). And I wish the author had done enough research before writing to understand that the Astrology analogy is so off base that the good points of the article are undermined by that analogy.
My comments:
This essay is amusing, but 180 degrees wrong. The MBTI is nothing like Astrology. In fact, it is about as opposite to Astrology as anything can be.As you point out (correctly) Astrology uses an external aspect of your life - the time and place of your birth - to make decisions about your personality. The MBTI DOES NOT DO THIS.
The MBTI uses your personality - your actual preferences and choices and behaviours - to help you understand (duh) your personality, that is, your preferences and choices and behaviours.
Astrology is like saying "because you have red hair, therefore you have a volitile temper". The MBTI says "Because you prefer X, you prefer X and you will understand and get along well with other people who prefer X. Because you don't appreciate Y, you may have difficulty working with people who think that Y is wonderful and perfect and necessary".
Yes, your choices may change over time. Some people's do. Many people's do not. For some people (for some personality types :-) the questions are ambiguous. Yes, some of us would prefer "neither" or "both" as a response. Pick the one you prefer. Try to choose based on your "true self". Try not to take the MBTI when you're tired or angry or feeling "not yourself."
As is often the case with learning abut yourself, you have to understand your personality to truly understand your personality. The MBTI is a learning tool.
Some people like to point to the fact that the original authors of the MBTI, Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, didn't have degrees in Psychology. That's true. However, what they did have was a LOT of data. The MBTI has been refined over fifty years using a lot more data. To simply dismiss the MBTI on the weight of the creators' education is ludicrous. As an example, consider that a lot of programmers don't have Computer Science degrees. Shall we tell them they can't program?
Quoting from the essay
Creating a team is hard work. Self improvement is hard work. Communicating with others is hard work. Becoming part of a Cargo Cult is no substitute for deeply examining yourself and your working environment - and then making changes to both.You can't simply shortcut it by finding your secret, magic code.
This is absolutely true. Managers and HR teams should never use just one thing to build teams. Especially if they don't truly understand how that thing works. Personalities are as important as skill sets -- and just as unique. While there are only 16 general MBTI type codes, there are (of course!) a much larger number of people. I don't exactly match every other INTJ type (and the MBTI states this if you read further).
So, it is correct that the MBTI is not a magic bullet. It isn't meant to be. It's meant to be a means of understanding yourself and perhaps understanding how to interact with other people -- to understand why some family members or co-workers, managers, peers, or subordinates seem so very different. Using it in forming a team, without being trained in how your type is just one small aspect of how each person operates, is as bad as interviewing and choosing employees based on what kind of tree they would be or whether they can guess how M&Ms are made.
A commenter on the "Astrology For Businesses" essay stated:
The problem with MBTI vs Astrology is that the anecdotal evidence for MBTI can be so damn good.I'm a Libra and the description fits. But so do a bunch of other signs, some better. Clearly useless and easily demonstrated as such.
In my case, MBTI was amazingly accurate, INTJ fits me to a tee, the other types don't even come close. It was actually useful and helped me to personally grow. I became a believer.
It's only later, and if you are curious or observant, that you realize that the results are not that accurate or useful for other people.
Well, duh!
Of course the MBTI was "amazingly accurate". You Told It What You Are Like.
"Libra" makes a generic guess based on your birthdate. The MBTI asks you what you actually prefer. You choose your own label. The better you understand yourself, the better fit you get with the results.
As for "It was actually useful and helped me to personally grow", this is what the MBTI is meant for. It's meant for personal growth and understanding. It's meant to help you understand why and how other people are different.
If the results don't seem "that accurate or useful for other people", that's usually because those other people don't really have a solid understanding of their true preferences. They can't answer the questions truthfully for their real selves.
Another commenter wrote:
If what you meant to say is: "it's a bad idea to promote people based on their MBTI", then I wholeheartedly agree with you. There's no such thing as "getting a good grade on the MBTI". A particular type does not predestine someone to be good at a particular job.Exactly.If what you meant to say is: "MBTI is a bad thing and should go away", then I completely disagree.
MBTI is popular among many companies because it's an effective shorthand for: "here's how I think and how I like to work". In environments where people need to work in many teams and many people, it speeds up getting over basic communication hurdles.
Most people in the work environment do not have good communication skills, and are not naturally adept at understanding what other people are saying, or mean. I've seen a conversation about MBTI be part of the training on how to communicate and collaborate.
Additional References
Here's a quote from John Beebe, psychologist and Jungian scholar:
Astrology is the Ancient World's psychology. It is a psychology of the unconscious -- a proto-psychology, a pre-psychology. We can't correlate typology with astrology. Astrology speaks to an instinctive underpinning, an infrastructure to our psychology, but doesn't in itself explain consciousness.
See also:
Hi Vicki,
I enjoyed reading this post! I also commented on Terence's blog post and while I take your point that comparing instruments such as the MBTI to astrology breaks down as an analogy when you examine it, the overall thrust of Terence's argument is that such instruments often do more harm than good in a business context when used inappropriately - as you acknowledge. I've some sympathy with that view and I've written my own post in response: http://www.tenpencepiece.net/blog/2012/12/28/does-measuring-personality-make-sense/
I think what the MBTI and other similar instruments claim to do is problematic - precisely because it isn't the individual answering the questions who is choosing labels for themselves. Instead, it's the researchers behind the instrument that are exercising this power. If we as individuals really want to understand our personalities, then applying an idiographic framework such as Kelly's Personal Construct Theory may be rather more helpful than the "bed of Procrustes" methodologies offered by trait and type theories of personality.
Tim.
Posted by: Tim Holyoake | December 29, 2012 at 02:14
Tim - Thanks for commenting and for adding to the discussion.
I do have to push back on your comment that " it isn't the individual answering the questions who is choosing labels for themselves. Instead, it's the researchers behind the instrument that are exercising this power." because that's not strictly true.
The researchers created the labels, yes. But the individual chooses. Part of the point of the MBTI is that, of you get to the end and don't think the code it gives you is a match, you are Supposed to read the profile (and other profiles) and make a decision. It is _expected_ that the questions may not be perfectly answerable by all people.
The better someone knows himself or herself, the more accurate the results will be. Part of the MBTI instrument is the understanding that it should NOT be done in a vacuum and it is important to look at the results and decide if you believe them.
No one "assigns" you a type but you yourself. If anyone ever tries to tell you "this is your type whether you agree or not", that person is misusing the MBTI.
Posted by: Vicki | December 29, 2012 at 15:22