Myers-Briggs is bullshit
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Myers-Briggs is a
pseudoscience, especially as pertains to its supposed predictive abilities. The indicator exhibits significant scientific (psychometric) deficiencies, notably including poor
validity (i.e. not measuring what it purports to measure, not having predictive power or not having items that can be generalized), poor
reliability (giving different results for the same person on different occasions), measuring categories that are not
independent (some dichotomous traits have been noted to correlate with each other), and not being comprehensive (due to missing
neuroticism).
The validity (
statistical validity and
test validity) of the MBTI as a psychometric instrument has been the subject of much criticism.
It has been estimated that between a third and a half of the published material on the MBTI has been produced for the special conferences of the Center for the Application of Psychological Type (which provide the training in the MBTI, and are funded by sales of the MBTI) or as papers in the Journal of Psychological Type (which is edited and supported by Myers–Briggs advocates and by sales of the indicator).
[53] It has been argued that this reflects a lack of critical scrutiny.
[53]Many of the studies that endorse MBTI are methodologically weak or unscientific.
[12] A 1996 review by Gardner and Martinko concluded: "It is clear that efforts to detect simplistic linkages between type preferences and managerial effectiveness have been disappointing. Indeed, given the mixed quality of research and the inconsistent findings, no definitive conclusion regarding these relationships can be drawn."
[12][54]
Psychometric specialist
Robert Hogan wrote: "Most personality psychologists regard the MBTI as little more than an elaborate Chinese fortune cookie ..."
[55]
The test and all those of its kind, are generally considered to be one of many self-discovery 'fads'.
[56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63] That owes its sustained popularity and is categorized together as within the same class of suggestion of 'which
chakra or
zodiac sign is dominant', with the "tests" use of binary questioning and the similar popularity of the MBPT, as akin to all others such as the related '9
Enneagram of Personality types' as each relying on the exploitation of the
Barnum effect, a mix of flattery, followed by
confirmation bias, with the participants thereby proceeding to searchingly attempt to 'fit the prediction'.
[64][65][66]
No evidence for dichotomies
As described in the
§ Four dichotomiessection, Isabel Myers considered the direction of the preference (for example, E vs. I) to be more important than the degree of the preference. Statistically, this would mean that scores on each MBTI scale would show a
bimodal distribution with most people scoring near the ends of the scales, thus dividing people into either, e.g., an extraverted or an introverted psychological type. However, most studies have found that scores on the individual scales were actually distributed in a centrally peaked manner, similar to a
normal distribution, indicating that the majority of people were actually in the middle of the scale and were thus neither clearly introverted nor extraverted. Most personality traits do show a normal distribution of scores from low to high, with about 15% of people at the low end, about 15% at the high end and the majority of people in the middle ranges. But in order for the MBTI to be scored, a cut-off line is used at the middle of each scale and all those scoring below the line are classified as a low type and those scoring above the line are given the opposite type. Thus, psychometric assessment research fails to support the concept of type, but rather shows that most people lie near the middle of a continuous curve.
[11][48][67][68][69]"Although we do not conclude that the absence of bimodality necessarily proves that the MBTI developers' theory-based assumption of categorical "types" of personality is invalid, the absence of empirical bimodality in
IRT-based research of MBTI scores does indeed remove a potentially powerful line of evidence that was previously available to "type" advocates to cite in defense of their position."
[69]
No evidence for "dynamic" type stack
Some MBTI supporters argue that the application of type dynamics to MBTI (e.g. where inferred "dominant" or "auxiliary" functions like Se / "Extraverted Sensing" or Ni / "Introverted Intuition" are presumed to exist) is a logical category error that has little empirical evidence backing it.
[21] Instead, they argue that Myers Briggs validity as a psychometric tool is highest when each type category is viewed independently as a dichotomy.
[21]
Validity and utility
The content of the MBTI scales is problematic. In 1991, a
National Academy of Sciencescommittee reviewed data from MBTI research studies and concluded that only the I-E scale has high correlations with comparable scales of other instruments and low correlations with instruments designed to assess different concepts, showing strong validity. In contrast, the S-N and T-F scales show relatively weak validity. The 1991 review committee concluded at the time there was "not sufficient, well-designed research to justify the use of the MBTI in career counseling programs".
[70] This study based its measurement of
validity on "criterion-related validity (i.e., does the MBTI predict specific outcomes related to interpersonal relations or career success/job performance?)."
[70] The committee stressed the discrepancy between popularity of the MBTI and research results stating, "the popularity of this instrument in the absence of proven scientific worth is troublesome."
[71]There is insufficient evidence to make claims about utility, particularly of the four letter type derived from a person's responses to the MBTI items.
[11]
Lack of objectivity
The accuracy of the MBTI depends on honest self-reporting.
[22]:52–53 Unlike some personality questionnaires, such as the
16PF Questionnaire, the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or the
Personality Assessment Inventory, the MBTI does not use validity scales to assess exaggerated or socially desirable responses.
[13] As a result, individuals motivated to do so can fake their responses,
[72] and one study found that the MBTI judgment/perception dimension correlates weakly with the
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire lie scale.
[73] If respondents "fear they have something to lose, they may answer as they assume they should."
[22]:53 However, the MBTI ethical guidelines state, "It is unethical and in many cases illegal to require job applicants to take the Indicator if the results will be used to screen out applicants."
[41] The intent of the MBTI is to provide "a framework for understanding individual differences, and ... a dynamic model of individual development".
[74]
Terminology
The terminology of the MBTI has been criticized as being very "vague and general",
[75] so as to allow any kind of behavior to fit any personality type, which may result in the
Forer effect, where people give a high rating to a positive description that supposedly applies specifically to them.
[11][20] Others argue that while the MBTI type descriptions are brief, they are also distinctive and precise.
[76]:14–15 Some theorists, such as David Keirsey, have expanded on the MBTI descriptions, providing even greater detail. For instance, Keirsey's descriptions of his
four temperaments, which he correlated with the sixteen MBTI personality types, show how the temperaments differ in terms of language use, intellectual orientation, educational and vocational interests, social orientation, self-image, personal values, social roles, and characteristic hand gestures.
[76]:32–207
Factor analysis
Researchers have reported that the JP and the SN scales correlate with one another.
[48] One factor-analytic study based on (N=1291) college-aged students found six different factors instead of the four purported dimensions, thereby raising doubts as to the
construct validity of the MBTI.
[77]
Correlates
According to Hans Eysenck: "The main dimension in the MBTI is called E-I, or extraversion-introversion; this is mostly a sociability scale, correlating quite well with the MMPI social introversion scale (negatively) and the Eysenck Extraversion scale (positively).
[78]Unfortunately, the scale also has a loading on neuroticism, which correlates with the introverted end. Thus introversion correlates roughly (i.e. averaging values for males and females) -.44 with dominance, -.24 with aggression, +.37 with abasement, +.46 with counselling readiness, -.52 with self-confidence, -.36 with personal adjustment, and -.45 with empathy. The failure of the scale to disentangle Introversion and Neuroticism (there is no scale for neurotic and other psychopathological attributes in the MBTI) is its worst feature, only equalled by the failure to use factor analysis in order to test the arrangement of items in the scale."
[23]
Reliability
The test-retest
reliability of the MBTI tends to be low. Large numbers of people (between 39% and 76% of respondents) obtain different type classifications when retaking the indicator after only five weeks.
[11][68][79][
self-published source?] In
Fortune Magazine (May 15, 2013), an article titled "Have we all been duped by the Myers-Briggs Test" stated:
Within each dichotomy scale, as measured on Form G, about 83% of categorizations remain the same when people are retested within nine months and around 75% when retested after nine months. About 50% of people re-administered the MBTI within nine months remain the same overall type and 36% the same type after more than nine months.
[81] For Form M (the most current form of the MBTI instrument), the MBTI Manual reports that these scores are higher (p. 163, Table 8.6).
In one study, when people were asked to compare their preferred type to that assigned by the MBTI assessment, only half of people chose the same profile.
[82]
www.16personalities.com
