Myers-Briggs

Nearly everyone has heard of the MBTI—and for good reason. There’s something inherently satisfying about putting a label to your feelings, as if to say, “Ah, so this is why I’m feeling what I’m feeling.” It’s an attractive option, especially in your teenage and young adult years, when you’re yearning to find a place to fit in and call your own. 

For those of you who’ve never availed yourselves with these four all-knowing letters, allow me to give you a brief introduction: the MBTI—short for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator—is one of the most widely known personality tests available. It separates psychological functioning into four general categories: Introversion/Extraversion, iNtuition/Sensing, Thinking/Feeling, and Perception/Judging (the names of these categories may depend on whose theories are being used, but they all more or less correlate to a similar idea). These are typically shortened into nifty four letter chunks; I myself, for example, am an INFJ. Explaining what these letters mean, however, gets complicated. 

Katharine Cook Briggs originally began her study of personality because she was driven to understand the differences that she saw in people; eventually, her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, took over her research. Neither of them had formal education in the field of psychology and were self-taught in psychological data collection. Eventually, Katharine discovered the work of Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist well-known for his contributions to the field of psychoanalysis, and drew heavily upon his existing work in the area. Although there are few differences between these two versions of the personality test, they are important, especially in the context of the test’s influence in modern society. 

Those familiar with Jung’s work understand that he leaned heavily into psychodynamic theory and subscribed to many of the same beliefs as Freud did. This means that Jung’s view and implementation of personality psychology tended towards prospective and descriptive—diametrically opposed to the Briggs’ analytical and psychometric approach to collecting data. He saw personality psychology as a way of predicting how people would interact with and approach the world, and looked at how their internal states of being were expressed in their outward psychological functioning. 

This difference matters, especially as psychology and psychologists gain more attention and traction. Now, it’s not unheard of for employees to have to take a personality test before being hired, and it has also inspired countless other similar tests that look at how personality types affect other parts of life. However, it’s important to keep in mind how the Briggs viewed the personality types in comparison to how Jung viewed them—the MBTI was never meant to be a predictive or all-encompassing assessment. Rather than considering how childhood experiences shaped the adult personality, the MBTI was meant to focus on the aspects of personality that could be seen and defined through a set of  questions. 

The consequences of not understanding the limitations of psychology are more severe than many assume. From a Jungian point of view, personalities are entrenched within a person’s life story and may be invariable and inevitable in all aspects of a person’s life. This is the stance that employers take when they ask their employees to take a personality test. However, this neglects to consider how people can grow and change, learning to utilize new skills and forgetting old ones, and how they can respond differently in different situations. 

I’m in no way advocating that everyone stop taking personality tests. In fact, I think that proper research into the subject would be a valuable addition to psychological knowledge and, in combination with mindfulness, can be a powerful tool in helping individuals understand themselves and how they think. The limitations of Jung’s view of personality is precisely what allows it to be a powerful tool; many aspects of psychological treatment is focused on drawing attention to unwanted thoughts and finding ways of coping with them. Personality tests may help us become aware of how we tend to view and interact with the world, and possibly even adjust and account for them. However, I do caution people, as with all scientific information, to be careful with how they choose to let this information define their lives.  

Take the MBTI for yourself: https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test