Introduction
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is one of several instruments that will investigate the personalities in people and assess them and give results that are easy to remember (in this case, the result is a four letter designation that lists preferences, or styles, in descending order). There are eight of these preferences, listed as pairs of opposites: Extroversion (E) or Introversion (I), Sensing (S) or Intuition (N), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P). Since one of each of contrasting tendencies will be listed, that results in 16 possibilities to describe the person's personality. It is primarily used to enhance the ability of human resources specialists to focus on those most likely to do a job well, and to make the hiring process easier. It is also used, but less often, to determine relationship fits, and to serve as a beginning basis for one's own personal growth (The Myers and Briggs Foundation, 2016).
According to the Myers and Briggs Foundation (2016), the purpose of the personality inventory is to make more understandable the personality types as described by Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, and to make these personality types more useful in people's lives. Instead of perceiving that traits in the personality are seemingly random, this work instead shows that these traits are quite orderly and consistent with each other because of the way that people prefer to use their own perception and judgment. The test, then, is for any functional adult.
Thesis Statement
My belief is that the instrument is useful for determining, in general, the major qualities that make up one's personality at that time, but since the personality is not static, it must be used with other determinants of a person's behavior, such as previous behavior at work, at leisure, and in other places. A person's personality is shaped as much by his or her environment as by genetics, and when the environment changes, the personality being influenced by that, the personality can also change.
The MBTI has its critics, to be sure, most notably Pittenger, who noted that when a retest was given, that even with a short (5 weeks) turnaround, some 50% of the people would have been classified differently. It simply does not meet the standards for test-retest reliability (how consistent it is with what it measures) (Pittenger, 2005, in Moffa, 2011). Further, when evaluations of managers were made (Shullery, Shullery, Knudstrup and Pfaff, 2009), despite agreement by bosses, employees, peers and self on the manager's type SJ, and mostly positive on ENP managers, there was widely varying disagreement on other manager's evaluation, such as ISTP and ESFP among bosses, peers, employees and self. What is missing in these projections is consistency with the MBTI itself.
Article Summary
As mentioned, Moffa (2011) discusses the issues present by mentioning Pittenger, who has been the most outspoken critic of the MBTI since its inception. But Moffa also adds his own concerns. He mentions that the MBTI claims to have clearly discrete categories that distinguish personality traits unequivocally, but it is possible that, instead of discrete markers of personality traits, there may be instead degrees of that trait. It is not like, after all, reaching the age of sixteen and being able to legally drive while, even one day earlier, being able to legally drive is not a possibility.
On this point, Moffa (2011) gives a better explanation. He says that the MBTI has type labels that are artificially sharply demarcated, and that labels that appear to be entirely accurate may end up misleading some companies by causing them to misapply the labels according to the criteria for job eligibility. The person who was given that label, by answering questions that resulted in that label, may not be as entirely suited for that job as it would appear, but the company, trusting the assurances of the Myers and Briggs Foundation, would proceed anyway, erroneously.
As mentioned earlier, Pittenger was mentioned as a fierce critic of the MBTI, and, according to him, rightly so. In a paper dated 1993, he questioned both the reliability and validity of the MBTI. He suggested that one would expect that the scores on the inventory should be bimodal, since it measures opposites, or near opposites. Feeling and thinking, for example, would not be a matter of degrees. Feeling people would be one norm, and thinking people another. The same with all four pairs. But the data, he said, do not indicate any such thing. People do, in fact, fall between the extremes, but that means it is possible for a person who scores an I his score might be very similar to someone who scored an E.
A factor analysis for reaching conclusions about validity are suspect as well. Validity is a measure of how well an instrument does what it says it does. The factors measured--introversion/extroversion, etc.--should be independent of each other. If two factors are correlated (meaning that there is some degree of influence), then there isn't independence, as there presumably is and as the Myers and Briggs Foundation says there is. But the factor analysis does not produce convincing evidence that such an assertion is true. One study quoted by Pittenger (1993) had 1,291 college students where six factors were found. More than 80% of the differences found between students were not attributable to the MBTI. That statistical analysis did not support the theory of independent factors making up a personality as the Myers and Briggs Foundation had claimed.
Johnson (2011) found that the categories described by the MBTi were, in fact accurate. He discussed the work of Lyman and Richter (2010), who had observed engineers using the Myers-Briggs categories. They found that extroverts were exactly that, preferring to be around people and talking more than anything else. The introverts, though, they observed, preferred listening to talking and preferred doing things on their own than with the group. They also observed that there were clearly demarcated categories with those who were sensing and intuitive. For him, there was no controversy. In his conclusion, he mentions that the Myers-Briggs inventory is a very helpful tool that can improve team effectiveness in an organization.
Hogan (2009) discusses how colleges can best prepare students for technology jobs to meet the needs of industry while at the same time improving the students' satisfaction with their schoolwork. The solution, Hogan says, is to learn student preferences as they align with the Myers-Briggs, and then using that knowledge to help students with their learning while preparing them for the world of work. This is quite reminiscent of the work of Gardner and his theory of multiple intelligences (2008).
Hogan's conclusion, after trying it with his own technology students, was that more research in this area is needed. A part of that need is for a larger group of students from multiple programs while including undergraduates as well. He also has some questions he believes need answering: from the whole student technology population of the US, what is the most common Myers-Briggs type, are demographic characteristics important, and is there a correlation between degree concentration and Myers-Briggs type. The answers to these questions should help settle the controversy.
Kim and Han (2014) posited that recent studies have shown that individual personality characteristics are good precursors of academic performance. People, by their personality characteristics, create their own environments, which in turn influences their emotional experiences, leading to job satisfaction. The MBTI, they say, is a good measure of personality that allows student achievement to to be recognized before a person enters college. They quoted an early study using the personality types of 270 nursing students. The most preferred MBTI type among these students was the ISTJ type. Another study looked at the personality types of 322 dental students, and examined those types with academic achievement. Once again, the ISTJ type was the most prominent. As with Hogan (2009), they were anxious to adjust teaching strategies with nursing students so that these students could learn in the most efficient way so that they could be supported in their work.
Capraro and Capraro (2002) looked at reliability for the MBTI. They used spit-half reliability estimates to determine whether the instrument was reliable. Unlike Pittenger, they found a remarkable validity over time, in the mid-70s to mid-80s on all the combinations even after a two and a half year time lapse. Even when there was a change, the researchers discovered that the change was only usually in one variable, and that variable was a weak one, anyway.
Gardner (2008), even if he was not associated with Myers-Briggs, did some work with personality testing and preference, just as the MBTI does. The categories are different and the labels are different (Gardner uses labels with one preference, while sometimes adding that there are other influences too). Suppose, for example, that a student is outgoing and makes friends easily. That is not an academic trait primarily, but it may be the student's preferred way of getting and using information, which relates directly to how he or she learns. At the same time, this student may also have a strong ability with number and operations and numerical concepts. Tailoring an educational plan like Hogan wanted to do is what works best for both the student and the school.
Conclusion
There is some controversy about the Myers-Briggs instrument, although one would presume that whatever weaknesses there were in 1993 would surely have been addressed in subsequent editions of the instrument. Its reliability and validity may have, hopefully, gotten better with time, too. But my personal concerns remain--while basic personality is set when one becomes a late teen or early adult, one's environment still has an effect on the personality, as does family and relationships. One's desires and needs change too. It remains true that personality and personal style are way more complex than any one test can measure. At the same time, though, the Myers-Briggs should not be counted out. It is based on some sound theory first developed by Carl Jung, and in conjunction with other measures, stands to tell us a lot about ourselves and the ways in which we relate to the world.
The Myers-Briggs may be the most accurate of the personality measures that there are. But it assumes that the adult human personality can be reduced to a four-letter designation and then have important, life-changing decisions made on that basis. It is like granting a kid a full scholarship based on the results of one test taken early one morning right after the student played in a football game the night before. More evidence is more accurate, and the Myers-Briggs is just one piece of evidence.
References
Capraro, R. M. and Capraro, M. M. (2002). Myers-Briggs Type Indicator score reliability across: Studies a meta-analytic reliability generalization study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 2002, Vol. 62. doi.10.1177/0013164402062004004
Gardner, H. (2008). Multiple intelligences: New Horizons. New York: Basic Books. Print.
Hogan, R. L. (2009). Assessment of technology students' learning preference styles using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Journal of Industrial Technology, Vol. 25, No. 1. Retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.atmae.org/resource/resmgr/Articles/hogan012809.pdf
Johnson, S. (2011). Making teamwork work: Decreasing conflict in teams. Orange, Vol. 7, No. 1. Retrieved from http://orange.eserver.org/issues/7-1/johnson.html
Kim, M. R. and Han, S. J. (2014). Relationships between the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality profiling, academic performance and student satisfaction in nursing students. International Journal of Bio-Science and Bio-Technology, Vol. 6, No. 6. 1-12. doi.org/10.14257/ijbsbt.2014.6.6.01
Lyman, D. and Richter, K. (1995). QFD and personality type: The key to team energy and effectiveness. " Industrial Engineering 1 Feb. 1995. In Johnson, S. (2011). Making teamwork work: Decreasing conflict in teams. Orange, Vol. 7, No. 1. Retrieved from http://orange.eserver.org/issues/7-1/johnson.html
Moffa, M. (2011). A critique of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Part 1: One expert's review. Retrieved from https://www.recruiter.com/i/critique-of-the-myers-briggs-type-indicator-critique/
Myers and Briggs Foundation. (2016). MBTI basics. Retrieved from http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
Pittenger, D. J. (2005). Cautionary Comments Regarding The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice & Research, Vol. 57. 210-221. , in
Moffa, M. (2011). A critique of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Part 1: One expert's review. Retrieved from https://www.recruiter.com/i/critique-of-the-myers-briggs-type-indicator-critique/
Pittenger, D. J. (1993). Measuring the MBTI and coming up short. Journal of Career Planning and Employment, Vol. 54. 48-53. Print.
Shullery, N. M., Shullery, S. E., Knudstrup, P. and Pfaff, L. A. (2009). The relationship between personality type and 360-degree evaluation of management skills. Journal of Psychology Type, Vol. 69, No. 11. Retrrieved from http://www.midwgroup.com/files/documents/Journal%20of%20Psychological%20Type%20Article.pdf
