The secret history of Myers-Briggs
October 11, 2015 9:05 AM Subscribe

Of all the questionable assumptions that prop up the Myers-Briggs indicator, this one strikes me as the shakiest: that you are "born with a four letter preference," a reductive blueprint for how to move through life's infinite and varied challenges.
posted by Lycaste (114 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite

It's like the perfect offspring of MLM and the self-help industry.

We are paying $1,695 to attend a course that authorizes us to recruit others to buy a product — a product which tells us nothing more than what we already know about ourselves.

Vague enough to tell you what you want to hear, but with enough of the trappings of a diagnostic instrument to give it the veneer of respectability. It is still, alas, 90% woo.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 9:18 AM on October 11, 2015 [21 favorites]

We've had job applicants applying for a top leadership position admit they have no experience in leadership but supply us with their Myers-Briggs scores.
posted by acrasis at 9:34 AM on October 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

That was a long read, overall pretty good. I wish the author had spent a bit more time on the fixed-personality versus fluid personality angle though.

I've found the Myers-Briggs indicator to be useful in one specific way: I am pretty sure I will not get along well with any individual or organization that takes it seriously.
posted by yesster at 9:37 AM on October 11, 2015 [55 favorites]

I automatically want to write people off when they state their Meyers-Brigg scores on their OKC profiles. But that would mean writing off approximately 87% of people apparently...
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:40 AM on October 11, 2015 [8 favorites]

I automatically want to write people off when they state their Meyers-Brigg scores on their OKC profiles. But that would mean writing off approximately 87% of people apparently...

SUCH an INTJ thing to do
posted by dismas at 9:45 AM on October 11, 2015 [94 favorites]

After the photograph of Jung, Barb projects onto the screen a photograph of Katharine, unsmiling and broad necked and severely coiffed.

God damn it, why do writers have to do this? It takes me right out of the story you're trying to tell and makes me think "wait, why is this person's neck relevant to the story you're telling? Does her broad neck make her somehow less sympathetic or right about personality typing?"
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:46 AM on October 11, 2015 [35 favorites]

SUCH an INTJ thing to do

Internet Nerd Test Jackassery
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:49 AM on October 11, 2015 [16 favorites]

I try not to judge people who self-describe with MB letters--if it works for them as a tool to help them understand their own identity then good for them. Same with astrological signs, or a furry animal totem. Using an arbitrary and made-up system of classification to help yourself have a sense of continuity about your life is what we all do--mine happens to be based on my taste in music--as long as you don't start attributing objective value to it and declaring that you know other people better than they do and demanding to be paid for your expertise.

Memail for rates on my ITunes Predictive Personanalytics Surveys.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:50 AM on October 11, 2015 [25 favorites]

She does that again with another person's teeth that apparently are somehow too small for his mouth (?). When I read that I was all, "wait, what??"
posted by the lake is above, the water below at 9:50 AM on October 11, 2015

According to my horoscope, I shouldn't believe in this stuff.
posted by gingerbeer at 9:56 AM on October 11, 2015 [22 favorites]

I used to think it was legit, but, now, depending on the day, I can score in other categories. I wasn't raised with the idea that emotions were needed and my early experiences taught me to put them away. So I kept scoring ENTJ. But, now, my TJ sometimes turns into FJ or TP or FP. And my E can be an I. I'm always an N.

That being said, I have a hard time understanding the thinking of people in the non-TJ categories, sometimes.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 9:57 AM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

The Myers-Briggs indicator was the first thing that ever gave me a language for why my boyfriend couldn't ever make a friggin decision to save his life. (And he has never taken the test). I used to get so angry that he took forever to make decisions until I learned that Js don't feel comfortable until a decision is made and Ps don't feel comfortable making a decision until they explore ALL options. Once I learned that, it saved us a lot of fights and reduced my anger levels immensely. It's just a way of looking at preferences or styles to give you some clarity.
posted by gt2 at 10:06 AM on October 11, 2015 [15 favorites]

For some reason these have been a core part of every management/leadership development course that I've been (forced) on. I'm usually an ESTJ, except when I'm an INFP. I have been given various bullshitty reasons by the course leaders why I am apparently one of two precise opposites, varying from some completely pulled-out-of-their-ass developmental psychology theory, to one who claimed that if I had a "fluid" personality I was probably "a sociopath, because they don't have strong personalities" (no and no). If you have to twist yourself into a pretzel to explain why nothing your theory predicts actually happens in real life, Occam's Razor would suggest that the theory is in fact just a load of toss.

I don't mind being encouraged to be introspective about my hidden biases and asumptions. That's a good thing. But this astrology-with-a-veneer-of-Science is dreadful. I've been told that because I'm an ESTJ "I wouldn't work at all well with X", when X is a colleague I work perfectly well with. When we pointed this out we were given some handwavy bollocks about how our friendship must have overcome our initial differences (so if it makes no difference anyway who cares?). I have no idea why it's so popular, except that people like doing clickbaity personality tests.
posted by tinkletown at 10:16 AM on October 11, 2015 [11 favorites]

I think honestly it's too easy to dismiss it because blah not really science - but we don't doubt that there are introverts and extroverts, right? We don't deny that there are people who rely more or less on intuition? The way that people use this stuff in the workplace is generally bullshit, but as a self indicator of personalities it has a lot of value. And a lot of help for understanding. Some of it is really specific and accurate, down to how people experience praise or affection differently.

I think it's faulty mostly because the categories are totally binary and don't really register any degree of how much of an I or T you are unless you're looking at the actual test score. I've also tested pretty consistently (at OKCupid, natch), but two of my attributes come out near the 50% mark and two are more in the 90% range. So, I favor J by a hair, but I am without question an I. Someone else could have the opposite situation, but still be an INTJ like me, but I'd think our personalities would be substantially different enough that someone would sort of balk at us being in the same category.
posted by LionIndex at 10:19 AM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

I had never heard of this till I dated a woman who really swore by this , she was a classic case of "the test reflects whatever version of your self you want it to reflect. If what you want is to see yourself as odd or original or factual and direct, it only requires a little bit of imagination to nudge the test in the right direction, to rig the outcome ahead of time." she had a lot of emotional problems and was really manipulative, but I think it a lot of it came from her trying to convince herself that she was the "type" she thought she should be.
posted by boilermonster at 10:20 AM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Sorting hat is BULLSHIT.
posted by Artw at 10:20 AM on October 11, 2015 [43 favorites]

Well no wonder they keep her life such a secret. She was a hardcore racist.
posted by gt2 at 10:21 AM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

I don't like how most of the questions demand "yes, of course!" or "absolutely not!" types of answers, but then they demand you have an arbitrary preference. An MBTI looks like this to me: "I like orange juice; or; I like coffee!" "I like murdering kittens; or; I like murdering puppies." To which I would normally say "yes!" and "no!" respectively and enthusiastically. And if pressed as to my exact preferences I'd probably just become hostile.
posted by surlyben at 10:26 AM on October 11, 2015 [10 favorites]

And yes I totally doubt that there are "introverts" and "extroverts". It's situational, like all of these supposedly binary and immutable personality characteristics are. You might lean further towards one end or the other, but Myers-Briggs is used to try to force employees into a little predictable box.
posted by tinkletown at 10:28 AM on October 11, 2015 [6 favorites]

We did this at work once. Wasted a half a day. I honestly think the time could have been better used doing trust falls or having our Tarot cards read. But I swallowed my objections and participated, to show how I is Team Player.
posted by thelonius at 10:51 AM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

For a while, in my liberal Quaker circle, one's M-B ETLA was the second thing you said after your name. I'm glad it stopped.
posted by scruss at 10:54 AM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

I think the highest preference I scored in the couple of times I tried a Myers-Briggs test was 3%, which basically means the test is unable to conclude much at all about me. Most of that seems to be my refusal to pick a 'yes' or a 'no' without more detail to the question. I mean, sometimes I like to go to a party; but what the question isn't asking is whether I'd stay at the party for very long. I'd probably get a bit bored and go home and read a book. So does that mean I'd rather read a book than go to the party?

If it's as good as a horoscope at telling people about themselves, then it's not all bad. A horoscope (or a tarot deck, or a therapist) can at least throw some random stuff at you and provoke a bit of self-examination.
posted by pipeski at 10:54 AM on October 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

I agree that introversion and extraversion can be situationally conscribed, but it's one of the few axes of behaviour that I think does have a fair bit of support as being consistent throughout life, with (I think it's thought) a strong basis in biological temperament. But even then, I think there's still some discussion to be had about what extraversion is about as a construct. (Sheer physical energy among others? Ebullience? Sociability? Lack of sensitivity to external or internal stimuli, or skill in inhibiting "loud" signals?).

I myself am right on the line for that on any test. (Am usually pretty low-key, often very sensie in loud/crowded places, but also need them on a semi-regular basis, but handle them best with a steak in my belly [no one ever asks about that].)
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:05 AM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's impossible to fit the range of human personalities into 16 categories. To accurately categorize and describe human personalities, you need at least 64 categories.That's why the Myers-Briggs really should be replaced with the finer-grained Myers-Briggs-Rowling, which gives you four letters and a house.

watch out for ESFJ-Gryffindors, they're real jerks.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:13 AM on October 11, 2015 [29 favorites]

An old supervisor was being trained to administer Myers-Briggs (so we were used as his guinea pigs) and I think I remember that we were able to provide answers on a range from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. I think my result was INFJ with the F and J being just slightly stronger than T and P meaning I supposedly could read either INFJ or INTP to ascertain my personality.
posted by the lake is above, the water below at 11:25 AM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

well...i'm in the minority here, looks like. i've found it useful...

i've had the test in a work environment, were the only message to the group was, "whether or not this is accurate, there are clearly differences between us. use that data point to be better at communications." it propelled a pretty rewarding discussion about how individual values impact small team interaction.

then, in therapy. i had a therapist who was trained to admin/interpret the test. what she told me was that the test was the beginning of the eval, and that she would use it's results to guide some discussion. dunno how un/orthodox this is, compared the stories here of corporate misuse.

she had told me, "be sure to answer the questions *as you are* not *as you wish you were*."
posted by j_curiouser at 11:27 AM on October 11, 2015 [8 favorites]

Dear M-B plaintiffs:

In the not immortal words of WP: Carl Jung ... speculated that there are four principal psychological functions by which humans experience the world – sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking – and that one of these four functions is dominant for a person most of the time.

Skip worrying about all that non-science. It's a huge oversimplification of Jung, and a time-wasting distraction.
Instead read some of Jung's stuff. One of his main ideas was that life is a process of individuation ... becoming more and more your Self. Through dreams. Through challenges. Through outsidethebox. Great stuff. Not at all about dorky patterns.

Take a look inside that Red Book. Is that the work of someone trying to sell something?
posted by Twang at 11:29 AM on October 11, 2015 [15 favorites]

I took the test unofficially a number of years ago a a group overnight trip. The test was brought for entertainment purposes. My issue with the questions is that there were multiple ways of answering them. How would I answer the questions...
1) At this very moment of time.
2) At other times this day, week, month, etc.
3) As I think others perceive me.
4) As I aspire to.
I just found the possible answers very fluid, and likely self-influenced by thinking about the categories above as ways to answer as I was taking the test.
posted by ShooBoo at 11:31 AM on October 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

Colbert's recent bit where he takes the test is hilarious as usual.

If I test positive for Meyers-Briggs do I have to call all my former lovers and tell them to be tested too?

Maybe this explains the OKC thing.
posted by XMLicious at 11:36 AM on October 11, 2015 [13 favorites]

I am an INTJ and a Virgo. So I'm a right asshole, but at least I keep it to myself.
posted by briank at 11:43 AM on October 11, 2015 [4 favorites]

We took this test in our department because of gross, ongoing dysfunction. The big analysis was helpful, only two big picture thinkers in the group. Every one else wanted a grid like structure, chain of command everything mapped out.

I and my good friend (at the time,) compared our breakdown. We, visually represented as as ess curve bud vase. She was identical on one side, to me on the other. Neither was deeply into any attribute, excepting the thinking/feeling divide was the broadest area, the farthest point out from the central axis. The test was remarkably accurate for describing the department, and very accurate for my friend and I. We were reading Jung off and on.

My ENTP (farts in your general direction.) Her I(whatever)FJ stopped speaking to me after a rancorous breakfast. On my part her J was intolerable if it was a result of F. Never saying a word about it, we both simultaneously erased each others' phone numbers, and never spoke again.
posted by Oyéah at 11:56 AM on October 11, 2015

I've been at two businesses that have insisted on manager training centered around DISC, a system similar to Myers-Briggs. DISC stands for dominant, influence, steadiness and compliance.

DISC was invented by William Moulton Marston.

William Moulton Marston also invented the character of Wonder Woman. No kidding.

Now, think about the early days of Wonder Woman. Now think about those word choices. Dominant. Compliance.

Yeah.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:09 PM on October 11, 2015 [12 favorites]

Always got a good kick out of this test - it couldn't figure out whether there should be an I or an E, or a S or an N with my 4 letters. Many others have pointed out that the questions are worded without a sense of time or have other similar problematic wordings for getting a simple Y/N answer.

But like pipeski said, anything that promotes self examination for someone is worthwhile, even if it didn't tell me anything about myself.
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 12:09 PM on October 11, 2015

Potomac Avenue: I try not to judge people who self-describe with MB letters--if it works for them as a tool to help them understand their own identity then good for them. Same with astrological signs, or a furry animal totem. Using an arbitrary and made-up system of classification to help yourself have a sense of continuity about your life is what we all do--mine happens to be based on my taste in music--as long as you don't start attributing objective value to it and declaring that you know other people better than they do and demanding to be paid for your expertise.

This is generally my feeling about it, and I bolded the last part because it's crucial. My workplace bought into True Colors, an MBTI-esque system for slotting people into different categories, and it was fun to hear our general personality characteristics reflected back to us, but when it came time to applying it, I had to bite my tongue to keep from blurting out, look, you know that this has no real objective validity, right? (Green, in case you were wondering.) It, like MBTI and other management program schemes, gets adopted not because it's particularly useful but because it's an easy sell to HR departments that like the idea of being able to solve sticky interpersonal conflict situations by pigeonholing people.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:11 PM on October 11, 2015 [9 favorites]

I work in a field that has a history of showing a higher than normal interest in Myers-Briggs, although not to any great degree where I actually work. I've heard tales of Meyers-Briggs being used as the first point of reference for resolving personnel questions at other places. I've found it interesting because I've taken it several times over the years and it's at least consistent. I won't say my type, but I will say what I got on the "What Dog Are You?" "What Star Wars Character Are You?" and "What Harry Potter Character Are You?" tests: Bernese Mountain Hound, Chewbacca and Hagrid.
posted by lagomorphius at 12:12 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

For those interested... some related YouTube watching...

Why the Myers-Briggs test is totally meaningless

The Barnum Effect
posted by greenhornet at 12:30 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

The problem is that the test escaped into the public's hands.

Administered correctly and followed by discussion the MBTI can be a useful tool.

Done on one's own with no understanding of how to answer the questions (As I am? As I wish to be?) and no discussion of its strengths, weaknesses, and uses, nor any understanding or discussion of its results and interpretation?

Yah, of course it's going to be useless and even destructive. Might as hand you a paint brush and expect the Mona Lisa; or hand you a hammer and expect the Taj Mahal.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:40 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Colbert got it SO right... the most common Meyers Briggs class, based on people I've asked, is STFU.

And if I had a hammer, you could expect ALL my Legos to fit together.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:57 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

The MBTI types and explains me very well and allows me to understand how others think in a more systematic and accurate way than my natural impulses lead me to. I'm glad it exists and I've learned from it. It does have its limitations, but the I disagree with the multiple assessments upthread that these limitations make it bunk.

Some people don't type very strongly. Asserting that people fall neatly into 16 categories is obviously false. These are limitations. But people do fall somewhere on the map that the 16 categories provide, and if wanted to we could expand the labels so that everyone fit in one, but it wouldn't aid our understanding; the important things isn't the labels, it's the map. Further the map doesn't cover every personality variation. It may not even be focusing on the most useful indicators of personality. This is a limitation. But it doesn't make MBTI useless.

The questionnaire and the typology are different. The questionnaire is a tool to help find one's type and it isn't going to type everyone correctly. Also, people's types change throughout their life. People move around on the map; generally not very far from their origin but they do move, and that may find them with a new label. Again the labels aren't super important. They're just reference points to help one understand the map. These are limitations. They're true for more respected tests as well, such as the Big Five, though not to the same degree.

And lastly, the Barnum effect and the Forer effect come up a lot in these discussions, but they don't wholly apply. Show someone who types strongly as xNTx an xSxJ profile or vice versa and watch them recoil in horror. Same with xSxP and xNFx. People can be shown profiles that are nearby on the map and conclude they are correct, and perhaps that is due to the Barnum effect, but most people have types that they just are not. That's not the Barnum effect. If it were the Barnum effect, people would respond to every type.

I wouldn't use questionnaire based MBTI for psychological research, but as a tool to help me understand the world, other people and how to communicate with people who don't think like I do, it's been invaluable.
posted by Bobicus at 12:59 PM on October 11, 2015 [10 favorites]

I've taken the MBTI several times over several years from several sources.

I always score near 100% on I, and near 100% on N. The other two factors are borderline and I've scored each of them weakly at different times. I'm not impressed with any attempt to fit people squarely into boxes, but I have never doubted I'm an introvert anyway. Intuition over sensing kind of makes sense to me, but I can't say that's been a valuable bit of self-knowledge.
posted by Foosnark at 1:08 PM on October 11, 2015

I distrust any personality test where I can come up wholly different taking it at different times in the day. If I can map to just about any variable-pairing, then either the map is just one big blob which says "Human", which is hardly useful, or it isn't actually saying anything about me.
posted by CrystalDave at 1:18 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just retook an MBTI test and it categorized me into the same category I've been since I was a preteen (INTP). Out of curiosity, I did take a look at the SJ description, suggested by Bobicus, and I did indeed recoil in horror. An SJ is basically my nightmare boss made real. I looked at the other two temperament descriptions and neither describes me particularly well, but nor am I horrified by what I read.

My guess is that how much you get out of the test really depends on how strongly you fit the categories. People somewhere in the middle of the various types probably don't get much out of it, but on the ends of the spectrum it seems genuinely useful. I am strongly an introvert and so all of the introvert/extrovert stuff makes a lot of sense to me.
posted by zug at 1:28 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's pretty easy to generate the result you want by picking the answers that will clearly lead to that result. I don't know what the MB might mean in a therapeutic context where you are expected to give answers that in some way accurately reflect your mental state. Workplace environments, though, especially workplaces where the employer is a for-profit business, are fundamentally agonistic rather than therapeutic. As such the MB must be approached not as an opportunity to for whatever reason accurately display what's inside your mind, but instead as a tool for you to leverage to achieve your goals. If you know or can guess that your employer is sufficiently invested in the idea of the MB's meaningfulness for assigning employees to positions, you should give the answers that will get you the position you want. If you believe your employer prefers extroverts to introverts, give extroverted answers. I suspect, in fact, that many employers are invested in the MB not as a tool to understand their employees' personalities, but instead as a test of employees' submissiveness and context-awareness. The question the MB answers when viewed this way is the question of whether or not a given employee is workplace-canny enough to give the answers the employers want rather than the genuine answers the test is superficially presented as asking for.

It baffles me utterly that people think they should ever reveal anything honest about themselves while at work. That's completely crazy. Information about people is power. Don't give up power for no reason, especially not to your fucking boss.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:37 PM on October 11, 2015 [46 favorites]

I mean, I'm not like striking a cynical pose here or whatever, I'm just being realistic about what sort of thing we're talking about. Things like the MB aren't tools to get at some sort of abstract essential truths about how personalities work. They're like résumés — they're marketing games you play to accomplish your personal goals.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:49 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

OMG Cool Papa Bell I *really* want to know my William Moulton Marston personality type!

Am I Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor, or Etta Candy?
posted by edheil at 2:03 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

You could be Circe!
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:04 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

BTW, there *is* a scientifically validated set of personality traits, the Big Five OCEAN (aka CANOE) list. They sorta-kinda-sometimes-partly correlate with the Myers-Briggs. Each trait is explicitly a spectrum, though, not a pair of alternatives, so it doesn't "break the test" to be 50/50 for all of them; in fact, being in the "middle" is normal for the Big Five, not weird.
posted by edheil at 2:07 PM on October 11, 2015 [8 favorites]

I think ~16 different basic personality types about covers it for humanity, and Myers Briggs is as good a way of slicing it as any - it attempts to address the way we deal with the world by looking inwards or outwards, so it makes enough sense to be useful.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:15 PM on October 11, 2015

16 is too few! we cannot know a person's mind unless we know whether or not they're primarily brave, ambitious, smart, or Hufflepuff.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:18 PM on October 11, 2015 [6 favorites]

Interesting article, especially on the subject of Isabel herself. I'm going to make an attempt to defend the MBTI theory here a bit, though. What is being criticized by the author (and the posters here) seems to be the more popular four-letter typing system of MBTI that was invented by Myers. It's the version that is commonly used in corporate situations, which is perhaps why many people hate that.

I'd recommend for people interested in MBTI to learn the 'original' Jungian typology / cognitive function theory over the more popular version. In its essence, it's not really a scientific method of dividing people into 16 types; typology communities in the internet (which I am part of) usually know that for a fact. It's far more a philosophical way of thinking, a crutch in understanding people's preferences for processing information, a tool for aiding communication, a way for similar people to connect on a relatively deeper level or just an interesting mind-exercise rather than a purely scientific theory.

I do get that the more popular version of MBTI is now basically really popular with corporate types because the reasons mentioned above (easier to pigeonhole people, etc) but conflating the two distinct community/theory strikes me as unwise.
posted by tirta-yana at 2:21 PM on October 11, 2015 [4 favorites]

My company is currently enamored with DiSC.

MBTI is alright because it makes me feel vaguely okay with myself. CANOE sucks because it identifies my faults. DiSC is just meh.
posted by Edward L at 2:23 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Heh, my big five score gives me very low agreeableness and very high neuroticism. Apparently I'm also somewhat haphazard. Now, who wants to go on a date?
posted by Joe Chip at 2:28 PM on October 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

I still shudder at the memory of my one and go at this. I can't remember the letters but oh my goodness do I remember the awful profile notes I got. It totally excoriated my whole character, basically saying I was unwilling, afraid of change, not good in groups, a slow worker, it was awful. I read the whole thing in some training session called after the hired goons had done the questionaire sheet, and wanted to cry. Of course, management didn't have to take part, just the admins...
It shook my confidence for years after and I felt like I'd been revealed as a fraud. Being 6 months pregnant and physically and emotionally fragile, as well as in an awful temp job with no benefits or support had made no difference to the results, I'm sure.
Promised myself that next time I will close my eyes and pick at random. Or just tell them to get bent. Whichever. What the fuck gives an employer the right to pseudo science invasions of my privacy? Oh yeah, working for the DWP, commonly known as the Department for Wasters and Parasites, good times.
posted by RandomInconsistencies at 3:13 PM on October 11, 2015 [4 favorites]

Enjoyed the article. I've mostly seen organisations use Myers-Briggs to encourage everyone to remember that other people might think, process and feel differently to them. Which I think is great. I haven't seen it used to slot people into their "perfect role", or as a recruitment aid, or for "type-shaming" – which does all seem slightly mad.

My first exposure to it was when my dad, a giant nerd, took it at work and came back all excited about it because people had always sort of confused him, and thinking about them that way--as people whose motivations and interests were just different from his--was really enlightening. And I think that having some framework in which to introduce those ideas is a really good thing. People project waaay too much, and giving them some context for understanding why people might think and behave differently from them is definitely worthwhile.

So I always thought of it kind of that way until I was ordered to take it at work as part of some incredibly huckstery seminar thing where some company was promising to type every employee and then recommend career paths based on their results. It was just monstrous, and the guy leading the seminar was a ridiculous overconfident idiot. (I refused the test, the guy called me out, thinking he was going to bully me into taking it, but I guess I articulated my objections pretty well, because several other people then decided they didn't want to take it either.)

Overall, it's overly simplistic and a LOT creepier than I'd realized, but as a kind of sloppy pop psychology tool, I do think it has a lot of value. There's something about it that really appeals to people and gets them thinking about others in less self-centered terms.
posted by ernielundquist at 3:15 PM on October 11, 2015 [4 favorites]

The dean at my last school was in love with a Myers-Briggs-flavored personality test called Emergenetics. I expressed skepticism about it before we took the test and she assured me I would like it, as it was based in science.

After taking the test and hearing the methodology explained at the training seminar, I just checked out completely. No science, just random ideas from other areas of neuroscience applied to psychology and supported after the fact by the test scores of people who already knew their type. My test itself turned out wildly different from my actual personality, to the point that my dean double-checked the score sheet ("How did you score so low on aggression?"). I also score wildly different on my Myers-Briggs than I did when younger.

It's like those "How do you learn best" tests. Every human being learns the same way - by sending electrical pulses along and across your neurons and synapses many times. Unless you have in-depth neurological knowledge of how and when this happens, everything else is only how you THINK you think.
posted by chainsofreedom at 3:17 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

The problem is that the test escaped into the public's hands.

posted by five fresh fish

Agreed. I've taken it officially a couple of times in my early 20's, and a bit more since then informally. It's a start, but yeah, not bulletproof. It inherits from the Victorian era fixation on quantification too. It's a framework for understanding personality that's relatively lightweight, flexible, commonly known, and free if desired. Unlike standardized intelligence tests, none of the results possible with MBTI have universal negative connotations (that I know of).
posted by ZeusHumms at 3:21 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have taken some hackneyed version of this and got that I'm an INTP, which I guess is a fairly unusual type, especially for a woman. There are a couple of people at my workplace who put great stock in this stuff, and I've found that when I really, really don't want to do some sort of group activity, I can say "oh, well, you know, I'm an INTP so this is going to be tough for me" and that seems to satisfy them about why it's a good idea for me to skip it. So I'm pro Myers Briggs, because it seems to be a nice, built-in excuse to get out of excruciating team-building activities.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 3:23 PM on October 11, 2015 [33 favorites]

*high fives ArbitraryAndCapricious*

Female INTPs for the win!
posted by zug at 3:24 PM on October 11, 2015 [8 favorites]

I remember taking an online test for this the first time when I was much younger. I was an INFP. It was a perfect fit. And now, of course, I don't score as an INFP, now suddenly I'm an ISTP. I don't think it's using a fake test that's the problem, because the description once again seems incredibly adapt. I think people who have a ton of faith in this are the sorts of people who've never had serious changes in their lives. This type might be a good fit for me today, but it's hard to see it as anything but a curiosity if it's already changed once.

And I can see how. Like, my level of extroversion depends heavily on how much energy I have and how much it's being drained by stuff like work and family stress, but that's unfortunately usually "a lot". My F/T swap, I think, was heavily influenced by getting away from gender performance pressures from church and family, growing up. These aren't measures of inherent characteristics that exist in a vacuum away from social and lifestyle issues. Put me down in a different life and I'd respond to a lot of things very differently.
posted by Sequence at 3:32 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

Critics of the MBTI who say it's binary and fixed and judgemental have not had a reasonable introduction to the idea. Our full day session with it included a whole bunch of explanations about how it is indicative not fixed, our scores were graduated not binary and we had lots of useful discussion about communication styles etc. It was a useful day for all participants. There was never any suggestion that a particular score was better or worse - except the ENTJs, who the rest of us agreed were psychopaths.
posted by wilful at 3:34 PM on October 11, 2015 [11 favorites]

Let me tell you a Dirty Apple Secret. AppleCare uses a modified MB stratagem to classify all it's phone support customers into one of four personality types : Thinkers, Feelers, Directors and Entertainers. All Applecare employees were given between 10 and 20 hours of instruction on how to diagnose... oh I mean classify... the customer into one of those four personality boxes and how to deal with them accordingly. Every single Applecare employee was (and still probably is) required to classify you within the first few minutes of the interaction (WTF??) and be prepared to prove the classification and show their "appropriate" reaction to a manager if questioned - they are actually graded on their ability to do this.

Would you care to guess how many woman callers get classified as timid "Feelers" rather than "Thinkers" ? Would you guess.. a lot?

It's bullshit. Some new Customer Service Director got sold a bill of Myers-Briggs goods and literally spent tens of millions of dollars on implementation. And you know what ? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because no one but no one wants to say that they just spent some tens of millions of dollars on something bogus.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 4:24 PM on October 11, 2015 [20 favorites]

I was once asked to do first-round job interviews along with a coworker who thought the Myers-Briggs was the holy grail. I'd start the interview in my usual conversational style. She'd then jump in with no segue at all and announce that she would now be asking questions from the M/B. You could practically hear the brakes squealing as any rapport that had been built up came to a screeching halt. After just a few interviews I let HR know that this just wasn't working...
posted by bookmammal at 4:27 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Female INTPs for the win!

Hey, me too! Well... When I've taken online versions of the test, I tend to swap between INTP and INTJ.

I was curious about the gender assumptions that were built into early versions of the test. I assume those have been taken out? It made me wonder about the rarity of INTP and INTJ women.
posted by meese at 5:10 PM on October 11, 2015 [8 favorites]

I had a seminar leader swear up and down that you could be one type, and one type only, that's the way you were, end of story. That was after I asked if I should answer as if I'm at work or at home. He lost all his credibility when I did it both ways, got INTP at home and ENTJ at work, and everyone who know me in either or both places told the guy yeah, he totally is.

What if being I at home allows me to be E at work, and being E at work makes me I at home? He was totally not prepared to have a deeper conversation about the nature of personality and the usefulness of testing as a point-in-time sample of a larger unknowable quantity, but we tried to make him anyway.

So that was a fun seminar, in a schadenfreude kind of way. Overheard afterwards: "well, that guy kind of walked into a wolf den wearing a meat suit, didn't he?"
posted by ctmf at 5:42 PM on October 11, 2015 [15 favorites]

I think that most people would say that if you're an I at home, you're probably an I. Introversion vs. extroversion is about what recharges your batteries: if you relax and recharge by being alone, then you're an I. If you relax and recharge by being with other people, then you're an E.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:55 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

But people also code switch as needed. The E/I and P/J axes are the most related to how one interacts with the world and others and the most subject to change. The N/S and T/F axes are more fundamental, and represent more how one understands the world. A change to either of these generally represents a much more significant shift in one's personality.
posted by Bobicus at 6:19 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wherever I work, and however they spin personality "typing," I do find it useful for one thing: teaching low empathy folks that not everyone thinks in exactly the same manner. This is a real shocker for many of the people I mentor in the tech sector. Step 2 is teaching them that people from different groups aren't therefore automatically and obviously inferior beings.

Then I go home on the weekends and get really high to try to forget.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:37 PM on October 11, 2015 [11 favorites]

INTP, too.
posted by persona au gratin at 7:02 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

And, for reasons stated above, not anything I take seriously.
posted by persona au gratin at 7:05 PM on October 11, 2015

I'm trying to understand--can any of this be verified with an E-meter?
posted by mule98J at 7:18 PM on October 11, 2015 [7 favorites]

This year hasn't been great for me, career-wise. I've had about fifteen or sixteen unsuccessful job interviews. And last week I just about flipped out at someone on a Facebook librarian group for saying that their boss tested job applicants for their MB scores and refused to hire an introvert for the public service desk because it was too draining. I mean, is that really the future of hiring? That the score I get on one test is more important than the job I've been doing successfully for the last nine years?
posted by Jeanne at 12:16 PM on October 11

The future of hiring? Probably. The present and the past? Absolutely.

Years and years ago I had applied for a job. It was one that I was perfectly qualified for. I got an initial phone interview. It went swimmingly. Couldn't have gone better. At the end of the interview, I was told the next step was one of these personality tests. Now I'd done a few of these on my own a number of times, only to come up with wildly different results, depending on how I interpreted the questions that day. So for this, where a future job depended on it, I had two options: do it completely cold, and live with whatever my mood of the day dictated, or try to answer honestly, but in a way that would give what I thought would be the desired results. I ended up mainly taking the latter option (although I did through in a few less calculated answers).

Want to guess how well it worked out for me? Let's just say I never heard from the company again. Was I wrong to try to put my best foot forward? I'm sure some devotees would say yes, but I don't think so. I didn't answer anything that was completely opposite to my true feelings or personality. Either way, I think it's a pretty lousy device to use when evaluating people. But then again, it's about what I've come to expect from HR departments. It's all about fitting perfectly into predetermined boxes and categories (especially these days when all applications are submitted online).
posted by sardonyx at 7:18 PM on October 11, 2015

I have taken some hackneyed version of this and got that I'm an INTP, which I guess is a fairly unusual type, especially for a woman.
and
It made me wonder about the rarity of INTP and INTJ women.

Don't know whether to laugh or groan as I'm a woman who always get pegged as either an INTP or an INTJ, the difference probably dependent on how much patience I have for the tests or the company that day.

Annnnnd it's always the same - there's some big announcement about how we're all going to be tested and we'll learn how to work better together. After the tests, they'll then run through the types; at some point they always mention how rare the INT* is but how necessary they are to make a company/unit work well and that our company (or unit) has one! oh yay for us!- and then there's always the speculation among the employees about who is going to be the INTJ. And it's always some guy, and then - because we need to know each other's types to work well together, the person will announce that *I'm* the INTP/J, and - always - how they've never met, or only met once, a female one before. And gasp-gasp from my (mostly male) colleagues because how could *I* (usually one of the few, or the lone, woman) be the architect or logician or systems builder or whatever the fuck it is? Very tiring. Though I really do wonder, since the M-B is self reported, how much women suppress their natural selves in favor of how society wants them to be in answering the questions, thus skewing the percentages.

But along those lines one of the things I've observed - my experiences being in super hardcore SEM people only (no tech) - is how often the STEM teams/units/individuals within the same discipline I've observed a) are always relatively the same, and b) they do type shame. One of the reasons why I hate these tests is that the poor individuals who get typed somewhat out of the box for how their unit/colleagues were typed are made to feel somewhat inferior or not wanted. So woe to the engineer that gets typed as an extrovert among a whole team of introverts, or someone who's feeling among a bunch of thinkers. So I have to ponder if some of that self-reporting gets skewed in a similar way - to, for example, how a geophysicist should be to be a great geophysicist. Which, of course, totally undermines the exercise of teams becoming more open to thinking about how different personality types work together.

(The last time I was forced to take this test, when I was asked what I thought of my results and I replied that I thought it all bullshit, the leader confidently snapped back, "And that's our classic INTJ for you, everyone - the most independent and blunt of all types!" I had to admire how well he had been trained, I had to laugh, and I had to quietly seethe at his response - I was just a big ol' Myers-Briggs glassbox of emotion.)
posted by barchan at 7:25 PM on October 11, 2015 [10 favorites]

I also found it really useful for understanding why some workplace interactions were nightmarish for me, honestly. I agree that the only useful thing is the full day discussion graded one. There's actually as I recall a separate letter for people who are in the middle between two as well...
posted by corb at 7:28 PM on October 11, 2015

INTPs accept ideas based on merit, rather than tradition or authority. They have little patience for social customs that seem illogical or that obstruct the pursuit of ideas and knowledge.

This turned into "no, Mom, I'm not going to buy some expensive powders and paints that smell like a chemical factory, and slather them all over my face every day, just because everybody else does." when I was growing up.

So when I took a test and came back INTP, I was like "duh".
posted by spinifex23 at 7:45 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

Conclusion: All women are actually INTP (that's what I always get too), we all think that's bullshit, and we will fight you.
posted by ernielundquist at 8:14 PM on October 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

I get INTJ, does that count?

I always figured the Big Five (which modern personality typing psychologists use) never caught on because no one else wants to be scored Low Agreeableness/High Neuroticism.

(I make up for it with high conscientiousness, though, really!)
posted by sciatrix at 8:18 PM on October 11, 2015 [7 favorites]

I'm trying to understand--can any of this be verified with an E-meter?

Give me $10,000 and I'll tell you.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:30 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

"What Dog Are You?" "What Star Wars Character Are You?" and "What Harry Potter Character Are You?" tests: Bernese Mountain Hound, Chewbacca and Hagrid

Uh apologies all for reaching so far upthread to say something so fundamentally vapid, it's just that, well, I'm suddenly struck by the realization that the Clegane brothers from Game of Thrones really should have a sister named Bernese.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:32 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wait, are we all INT*'s here?

I mean I know it's bullshit and all that but... I just ran off and did ~~one~~ two of those free knock-off online MB tests and got INTP. Again. Both times. Like, so far as I can recall, always. By which I mean since the first time I did a free knock-off online MB test around twenty years ago.

Still don't trust these tests as far as I can throw them but they certainly seem to know what they think about me.
posted by motty at 8:44 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

sciatrix that's exactly it. I'd rather hear I'm the architect/philosopher rather than a lazy weirdo jerk.
posted by Joe Chip at 10:18 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Iet me tell you a Dirty Apple Secret. AppleCare uses a modified MB stratagem to classify all it's phone support customers into one of four personality types : Thinkers, Feelers, Directors and Entertainers. All Applecare employees were given between 10 and 20 hours of instruction on how to diagnose... oh I mean classify... the customer into one of those four personality boxes and how to deal with them accordingly. Every single Applecare employee was (and still probably is) required to classify you within the first few minutes of the interaction (WTF??) and be prepared to prove the classification and show their "appropriate" reaction to a manager if questioned - they are actually graded on their ability to do this.

So on the one hand it's bad tactics to mess with fellow workers for lulz, but on the other hand a part of me really wants to know what the cues they're supposed to look for are, so that, next time I had to get my macbook fixed, I could jam all attempts at classification through sending off totally contradictory signals in rapid succession.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:44 PM on October 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

Wait, are we all INT*'s here?

It often seems that everyone on Internet says I*T* but that makes sense doesn't it?
posted by atoxyl at 10:56 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

I used to think it was legit, but, now, depending on the day, I can score in other categories. I wasn't raised with the idea that emotions were needed and my early experiences taught me to put them away. So I kept scoring ENTJ. But, now, my TJ sometimes turns into FJ or TP or FP. And my E can be an I. I'm always an N.

I started out ENFP or something and at this point, I've taken the test enough times and come out differently according to the minute's whim that I'm now an XXXX for "borderline on everything."
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:23 PM on October 11, 2015

thelonius: "We did this at work once. Wasted a half a day. I honestly think the time could have been better used doing trust falls or having our Tarot cards read. But I swallowed my objections and participated, to show how I is Team Player."

But, but, there's no I in team!
posted by Samizdata at 11:39 PM on October 11, 2015

Myers-Briggs is a lot of faff for what can be summed up in a single Type Identifier:

vi or emacs?

posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:27 AM on October 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

I'm consistently an ENFP, for whatever that is worth.
posted by corb at 12:38 AM on October 12, 2015

I've never had to take the test in a work context, for which I am deeply grateful. And I agree that each of these pairs of traits defines a spectrum along which someone could fall, not a binary (I was given a percentage with each trait, when I took it in a formal setting). And that these may not be the only four important spectra, or even necessarily the most important. And that one may fall at different points along these axes according to mood or find a trend as one grows and ages.

All that said... I was given the test by my parents' marriage counselor when I was a young teenager, and it was the first clue I ever had that I might be an introvert. I'm not shy. I can be a little exhibitionist at times, actually, a bit of a ham, when given a stage. So I was very surprised by that result. But the counselor explained the thing to me about how you recharge your batteries, and I was like, "oh." I realized that yeah, I like people but damn right they exhaust me. I gave myself permission to enjoy my alone time instead of feeling like there was something wrong with me for needing it. So it was really helpful for me.

The other axes don't seem quite as enlightening to me. I've mostly gotten INTP when I try internet versions, as I did on that first (much longer) test. (Yes, another female INTP. Is that so shocking, though? Where else but Metafilter would we hang out?) But I think my family did learn the intended lesson from it, which was that we were different in some ways, but there was nothing wrong with that.

Mostly, these days, I think of it not as some scientific thing, but just as a list of adjectives. It's a pretty succinct list that does manage to be quite descriptive. I don't think you really need to take a test or quantify anything, to get some value out of reading the specialized definitions that have been assigned to these adjectives, and thinking about how you and the people you know differ in these respects. And I believe the list was pretty carefully constructed to avoid having any pejorative connotations to any of the adjectives, which is tricky to achieve if you are making your own list! So it is an aid to thinking about how you differ without being judgmental. Again, that is tough to pull off on your own!

So I think it does have value, but only as long as it is used in a descriptive (not prescriptive) and totally non-judgmental way. So in the office of a family therapist? Sure, why not? But at work? Nope. At work there are people who explicitly supposed to be judging you on "merit" and prescriping your behaviors, so that pretty much undermines the whole thing.
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:45 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is a good article. I did not plan on reading it because (from the article): Every six months or so a reputable news source publishes what it takes to be a devastating critique of the type indicator. Consider such recent titles as "The Mysterious Popularity of the Meaningless Myers-Briggs, Nothing Personal: The Questionable Myers-Briggs Test, and Goodbye to MBTI, the Fad That Won't Die. The skeptics who write these pieces tend to repeat the same arguments. and I assumed this would be more of the same, but it was actually interesting and fascinating to read about the history of the test and get a bit of an impression of the expensive course. The racist and sexist history was bad enough, but the quotes from the present day course did not make me very optimistic about the current day implementation:

"What about the way things like introversion are used to discriminate against women in the workplace?" rasps a laryngitic consultant named Larissa.

"And what if what you want is to change the underlying system?" asks Ashley, one of only two black women in training.

"I don't want to go there," Barb snaps.

It's shocking to me that the very reasonable question about using this test to discriminate is not an extensive topic in the four day course in the first place (these concerns cannot be new to them), but that a question about that doesn't even get an answer.
posted by blub at 5:12 AM on October 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

>really wants to know what the cues they're supposed to look for are, so that, next time I had to get my macbook fixed, I could jam all attempts at classification through sending off totally contradictory signals in rapid succession.

Are you bossy (or a man) - then a Director. Are you polite and let the rep finish what he is saying (or a woman - or maybe British I don't know) - obviously a Feeler. Did you just make a joke or tell a story about your experience - an Entertainer. It's all obvious bullshit. You can't classify who someone is and the "appropriate" way to interact with them in 3 minutes. The managers there for the most talk about the customer interactions like they were all budding Carl Jungs when in fact it's just another cultish way for someone - whoever sold Apple that bill of training goods - to make money.

Sure - the main point is correct in that that people need personalized attention and a customer service rep has to adapt their style to the customer's style - you can get that point across in maybe 30 minutes instead of 2 days training. Apple proudly proclaims "Think Different" but in fact their customer service is putting you into one of four very alike boxes.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 6:16 AM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

I guess Jung should get the credit for coming up with the list of adjectives (most of them) and that "in the therapist's office" is more or less exactly where he intended them to be used. From the article it does seem as if Myers intended MBTI for for use in workplaces from the beginning, which I guess means that workplaces that do this aren't abusing the MBTI as I had assumed, but rather that Meyers may have been abusing Jung's ideas all along.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:07 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Sorry, even special snowflakes can be broadly categorised, in an objective way.

(Though as a Red of course it would be the Green in the thread that rankled me most)
posted by bonaldi at 7:21 AM on October 12, 2015

I've thought for a while now that there isn't really anything wrong with MBTI itself but that people don't understand it's limitations.

People are complicated, really really complicated. You can generalize the way that the MBTI does but people don't really fit into boxes that well. The different personality styles are useful constructs and can help a lot when dealing with people. The thing to keep in mind is that they're very fluid. I know that I am very introverted and analytical but I'm not that way all of the time. I sold car for a living and in that job, I had to be an extrovert, so I was. I found in draining where a "real" extrovert would find it energizing but I could put my "extrovert" hat on. And I think it makes sense to think that people can take on some of the traits from the other categories when the situation calls for it. I know that a lot of the people that I sold cars to did. And, when you take the test, no one really scores a zero in three categories with the everything else landing in their dominant personality type. People gravitate towards one of the categories but everyone can take on traits from the others as it suits them.

When you recognize that, MBTI becomes a lot more useful since you won't be taken by surprise when people step out of the box that MBTI has put them in but it also become less important because all you really need to do is listen to people, empathize with them so you can see things from their perspective and you can more effectively communicate yours, and generally treat people the way that they want to be treated.
posted by VTX at 7:54 AM on October 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

The thing to keep in mind is that they're very fluid.
That's exactly opposite of what is thought in those seminars though, according to the article:

The second rule of speaking type is: Personality is an innate characteristic, something fixed since birth and immutable, like eye color or right-handedness. "You have to buy into the idea that type never changes," Barb says, speaking slowly and emphasizing each word so that we may remember and repeat this mantra — "Type Never Changes" — to our future clients. "We will brand this into your brain," she vows. "The theory behind the instrument supports the fact that you are born with a four letter preference. If you hear someone say, 'My type changed,' they are not correct."

posted by blub at 8:02 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wait, are we all INT*'s here?

Well, a high school counsellor inflicted that test on me and I did get INTP back then, but only slightly favouring I and T; those have consistently flipped to their opposites and back ever since, with reliable results on N and P (100% x 2). So definitely a E/I/N/T/F/P.

AFAIK, it's not a psychometrically sound test, as far as psychologists are concerned.
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:40 AM on October 12, 2015

Are you bossy (or a man) - then a Director. Are you polite and let the rep finish what he is saying (or a woman - or maybe British I don't know) - obviously a Feeler. Did you just make a joke or tell a story about your experience - an Entertainer.

So the next time I have to call Applecare, I should interrupt the rep with a joke, then let them finish the next thing they say and, after a long pause, start discussing the history behind certain structural decisions in the POSIX standards.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:44 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Depending on the joke:

Interviewer: What is your worst trait?
Prospective Employee: I am always honest.
Interviewer: Well, I don't think honesty is such a bad trait.
Prospective Employee: I don't give a shit what you think.
posted by mule98J at 10:02 AM on October 12, 2015 [14 favorites]

Check that: next time I call Applecare, the first thing I'm going to say is "could you please use the script for Entertainer?"
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:39 AM on October 12, 2015

and if they refuse, I'll forcefully demand the script for Director.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:52 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Where does the credibility of the idea that Feeling (say) is "opposed to" Intuition come from? Are these folks just satisfied with "that's what Jung said"?
posted by thelonius at 11:29 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Obviously, I don't have access to the official test, but I'm looking at an online version right now and marveling at how sloppy and stupid it is.

Just a few examples from that one tiny little test:

5. You are usually the first to react to a sudden event: the telephone ringing or unexpected question. So, should I lie on the test if I am usually the first to react, not because I have my druthers, but because in most situations, I am the default grownup? What if I'd love to let someone else answer a shared phone line or answer an unexpected question, but it is just not an option? It just seems like this is one of those things where you might have to lie in order to tell the truth.

14. You prefer to act immediately rather than speculate about various options About what? Where to eat? What career to pursue? What to wear today? Which toothpaste to buy, or which TV? Context seems to matter a lot here, and your answers are probably going to reflect the first thing that comes to your mind.

20. You are a person somewhat reserved and distant in communication Compared to whom? In what context? At a bar? At work? At a used car lot? With my close friends and family? What is the normal amount of reserved and distant that people are, and how much is 'somewhat'? A little bit? A lot?

25. You easily see the general principle behind specific occurrences LOL. It's a good thing people are all such reliable narrators, or this would be a flawed question.

35. You easily empathize with the concerns of other people So have you ever known one of those people who thinks they're some sort of super-accurate observer of human behaviors, who is always running around armchair psychologizin' people, saying things like, "Let me guess, you think [thing person does not think]," and totally discounting people's objections based on overconfidence and usually not a little bit of projection? Oh, I dunno, like the type of people who, based on some limited observation of someone's behaviors or attitudes, think they can predict all kinds of other things about them? As though people are all sort of dull and uniform and easily quantifiable? I mean, what I'm getting at here is that I'll bet the Dunning Kruger effect would affect people's answers to this quite a bit, and people who are actually extremely unempathetic would score themselves pretty high on this count.

It seems to me that, for someone with a modicum of self awareness, you would get better results by describing various traits and--get this--asking them directly what their interests and preferences and proclivities are.
posted by ernielundquist at 12:26 PM on October 12, 2015 [8 favorites]

Seriously, though, I am not kidding, when this test is given in institutional contexts you should approach it like a well-trained SAT or GRE taker takes one of those tests. Instead of reading the questions for their meaning and giving the answer that's true, instead you should read the questions for what answer the questions are telling you to give, and give that answer.

Again: the underlying meaning of the questions is utterly irrelevant, as is their facility at assessing personality types. The thing that matters on a workplace MB isn't what a question is about, or whether the answer is "right" or "wrong" in some abstract way. The thing that matters is whether a given response to each question yields the result that the test-giver prefers. Intuit what answers are most to your benefit (or, if you prefer, sense the answers that are most to your benefit) and give those.

Some personality tests designed for situations that are explicitly rather than implicitly antagonistic deploy techniques meant to weed out the people who recognize that the test is a machine for deriving whatever result benefits the test-taker, rather than a machine for revealing things about the test-taker. For example, the MMPI (a test designed to figure out whether or not you're insane by comparing to you average mid-20th-century white rural Minnesotans) has dummy answers meant to select against people who understand what the test is for.

The MB, fortunately, isn't that sophisticated, so you can just go to town on it.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:49 PM on October 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Aw Agent Starling, you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?"
posted by Mooski at 12:51 PM on October 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

It's not a crazy mastermind psycho cannibal thing to recognize that tests like this are games to be played. Management uses them as tactical tools to shore up control rather than as assessment devices. Why shouldn't we also use them that way?
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:55 PM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think I should make a meta-MBTI. The test would ask managers what MBTI type would work best and worst in various situations. I could also ask them to role play the different types and grade them on how well I think they understand them. I bet not only would everyone not score the same, but that answers would clump together into MBTI-type types which I could then make up names for and tell people in seminars that cost money.
posted by ctmf at 1:59 PM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Even you MBTI-deniers are not wrong! It's just another MBTI-type-type which has it's advantages and challenges. Hit the subscribe now button for tips and strategies to make the most out of your type and avoid common pitfalls! (Credit card required)
posted by ctmf at 2:27 PM on October 12, 2015

Where does the credibility of the idea that Feeling (say) is "opposed to" Intuition come from? Are these folks just satisfied with "that's what Jung said"?

The ironic thing, to me, is that very little of MBTI is 'what Jung said'. The article touches on this only briefly: "Although Barb invokes Jung's name with pride and a touch of awe, Jung would likely be greatly displeased, if not embarrassed, by his long-standing association with the indicator." It doesn't even mention Jungian cognitive functions, which can provide very different interpretations.

For instance, from way upthread:

I'm usually an ESTJ, except when I'm an INFP. I have been given various bullshitty reasons by the course leaders why I am apparently one of two precise opposites

According to cognitive function theory, ESTJs and INFPs are not opposites. They are similar in that they share a preference for the same four cognitive functions, along with ISTJ and ENFP. A person might therefore test as one or the other at different times depending on how much emphasis they were placing on given functions. A true opposite of ESTJ would be more like INFJ - try reading this description and see if it feels appallingly unlike you.

I don't necessarily buy any of this, but I feel bad for poor Jung being so misrepresented. He never claimed that a person's function preference couldn't change over time, or situationally, and I'm pretty sure he believed that everyone used all the functions, just to different degrees. Anyway, I've got a background in research psychology, so I've a high tolerance for theories of human behavior with little evidence to support them. If you're intrigued, this is a cute little site which explains the functions by typing your favorite fictional characters. It's a good way to waste an hour and figure out this cognitive function business.

None of this negates the goofiness of corporate typology sessions, of course.
posted by galaxy rise at 4:43 PM on October 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Wait, are we all INT*'s here?

I probably was when I joined MeFi, 14 years ago. Even though I was very strongly "T" on tests I took around that time, I've been moving towards "F" as I get older, to the point that I sometimes get "F" over "T" on the tests now. "I" has been my sole consistent result over time.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:36 PM on October 12, 2015

Yeah, I used to be an INTJ for a long long time, but consistently get INFP now. MB tests seem to delight in telling me this is a very rare type, and that famous INFPs include, apparently, both Gandhi and Hitler.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 11:17 PM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Any ISTPs round here?

Maybe not... we tend to just observe.
posted by IncognitoErgoSum at 3:12 AM on October 13, 2015

okay FINE it consistently sorts me as INFP. also the hat tried to sort me into Slytherin, but I requested Hufflepuff instead. We ended up agreeing on Ravenclaw as a compromise (the hat insisted that my "organic intellectual" schtick was too try-hard for Hufflepuff).
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:12 AM on October 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was interested in the MBTI system for a while as a tool for understanding how people can think in different yet equally valid ways. For me, its emphasis on “different but equal” was very helpful in moving away from my teenage attitude of “emotions are useless distractions when decision-making, intelligent people should be able to rise above them and decide based on pure logic” and towards learning more about the thought process of people who are more values-focused. My interest in the MBTI also encouraged considerable introspection when attempting to discover my type, as I rapidly discovered that even the “best” tests and even type descriptions online are worse than useless (Do you think you’re smart? N. Do you think you have people skills? F. Do you get nervous at parties? I. Are you disorganized? P. etc etc). So the MBTI system gave me a useful framework for learning about myself and others, and I think it really helped me improve my understanding of the (many) people who think totally differently from me.

On the other hand, as an active member of an MBTI forum for many years, I saw dozens and dozens of people using the system primarily as a way to gloat about their superiority and complain about how awful all the other types are (mainly young, supposedly NT people complaining about the supposedly SJ people in their life, aka anyone who wants them to follow rules or otherwise do something they don’t want to do). An equally large problem was that many people constantly used their or others’ types as an excuse to give up trying to improve bad behaviour (of course he’s a jerk, he’s an ENTJ, it’s only natural. Of course I’m always 45 minutes late, I’m an INFP. They’ll just have to accept me. etc). And naturally, the forum was 95% N because 1) everyone thinks they’re a brilliant visionary at heart, not a corporate workhorse drone, and 2) the few who did self-identify as S didn’t stick around long with everyone else constantly complaining about those awful S types.

So despite the utility it had for me, I’ve become disillusioned with the system because I’ve seen it cause more harm than good (without even getting into the disaster it usually is in the workplace!). It can definitely be useful as a framework for understanding people, but there are probably better systems for that purpose that aren’t as prone to these kinds of problems. Or I don't know, maybe every "personality" system is just as bad (because, people).
posted by randomnity at 9:25 AM on October 13, 2015 [4 favorites]

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