Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is an instrument designed to determine a

respondent’s preferences in how they see the world and make decisions, based on four
pairings stemming from Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types.
Origin:
It was created by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers with the purpose of
making Jung’s theory relevant and understandable in people’s everyday lives.
History:
Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers published the Briggs Myers Type
Indicator Handbook in 1944 as an effort to help women entering the war-time
industrial workforce find jobs suitable for their personalities. Isabel Myers, developed
her own interest in personality types that galvanized with the onset of World War II.
In 1962, the Educational Testing Service published the MBTI (renamed in 1956) for
research purposes only. According to a 2013 article in the Seattle Times, the MBTI is
the most popular personality test in the world, with 2 million people taking it
annually, frequently at the request of employers, vocational counselors, or career
coaches.
Purpose, Preferences, & Personality Types:
The MBTI is designed to determine respondents’ preferences in four opposite pairs
known as “dichotomies”. Each dichotomy is a division of two mutually exclusive
groups, in this case, type preferences, typically referred to with a letter abbreviation:
Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I), Sensing (S) – Intuition (N), Thinking (T) –
Feeling (F) and Judging (J) – Perceiving (P). Based on these preferences patterns, the
instrument categorizes a person into one of 16 personality types, where each type is a
combination of the four dichotomies, e.g., INTJ.

The Extraversion/Introversion dichotomy categorizes respondents’ preferences in

how they focus attention, with “extraverted” people preferring to focus on the external
world, and “intraverted” people preferring to focus on the internal world. Briggs and
Myers conceptualized this pairing similarly to Jung’s attitude-based description of
introversion and extraversion as based in the relationship between energy, action, and
reflection, with extraverts gaining energy from action and losing energy from
reflection, and introverts losing energy through action and gaining through reflection.
The Sensing/Intuition dichotomy categorizes respondents’ preferences in how they
absorb information, with people in the “sensing” category taking in information in an
orderly, step-by-step fashion, relying on their five senses, while those in the
“intuition” category taking in information holistically, seeing it in a wider context.
Jung described this set of functions as “perceiving” functions, since they involve how
people gather information as they perceive the world.

The Thinking-Feeling dichotomy categorizes respondents based on how they make

decisions after taking in information, with people in the “thinking” category
preferring to be as objective and rational as possible, and people in the “feeling”
category preferring to rely on empathy and inserting themselves into a situation. Jung
described this set of functions as “judging” functions. After gathering information
through either sensing or intuiting, one uses either thinking or feeling to make a
decision. Thinkers attempt to detach themselves from the situation and think about it
logically and rationally, while feelers attempt to see the situation from each side’s
eyes and make a decision resulting in the best fit for all parties involved.

The Judging/Perceiving dichotomy categorizes respondents in terms of how they deal

with the world, with people in the “Judging” category preferring to decide on a course
of action and carry it out, and people in the “Perceiving” category preferring to
continue to take in information before taking action. Judgers prefer making decisions
and acting on them in an orderly fashion, and perceivers prefer to collect all possible
information before acting, and remain open to different courses of action.

Thus, when combining one’s attitude (E/I), perceiving function (S/N), judging
function (T/F), and lifestyle preference (J/P), sixteen different personality types are
possible: ENTP, ENTJ, ENFP, ENFJ, ESTP, ESTJ, ESFP, ESFJ, INTP, INTJ, INFP,
INFJ, ISTP, ISTJ, ISFP, and ISFJ.

Briggs and Myers have further theorized that interactions between preferences, what
they call “type dynamics,” normally develop in such a way that one “dominant”
function (S/N/T/F) appears early in life, one “auxiliary” function during adolescence,
and one “tertiary” function during midlife, with an “inferior” function (the opposing
preference of the dominant) being present in one’s unconscious. Which functions
assume which roles depends on a person’s lifestyle preference (J/P) and attitude
preference (E/I).
Formats:
According to the Myers & Briggs Foundation, four versions of the MBTI are currently
in use;
1. A self scorable Form M, a standard Form M (administered as MBTI Step
I™)
2. Form Q (administered as MBTI Step II™)
3. MBTI Step III™.

In any form, the MBTI consists, at a minimum, of a number of forced-choice items

asking respondents to choose which of two items they feel best describes them. All
forms provide respondents with their 4 letter personality type,
The MBTI Step I consists of 93 items and typically takes about 20 minutes to
complete. This instrument and manual have been translated into 20 different
languages.
The MBTI Step II consists of 144 items and typically takes about 35 minutes to
complete. This version of the instrument is for coaching, action planning, and team
building.
The MBTI Step III consists of 222 items and is intended for use in coaching or
counseling sessions between a client and a practitioner. It is designed for exploration
through dialog with a counselor.

Criticisms
Despite its popularity, the MBTI has been subject to criticism from academic
psychologists and psychometricians. Much of the criticism stems from academic
research starting in the late 1970’s revolving around the MBTI’s emphasis on
dichotomous (as opposed to continuous) scales, test-retest reliability, predictive ability
for career success, factor analytic structure, convergent validity, and discounting of
situational influences on behaviors or cognitions.
Trait theorists disagree with the MBTI’s foundation in type theory, the belief that
people can be classified dichotomously (e.g., a person prefers either extraversion or
introversion) instead of viewing personality constructs as a continuous scale between
two poles. Also, several studies have shown test-retest reliability for the 16 MBTI
types to be lower than desired.
A common model the MBTI has been compared to in convergent validity
examinations is the five-factor model (FFM) of personality. Scores from extraversion,
openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness have been shown to have positive
correlations with MBTI scores in extraversion, intuition, feeling, and judging. The
fifth component, neuroticism, has appeared to not overlap with any MBTI preference
type – something FFM proponents have criticized, although the MBTI Step III
instrument attempts to include this dimension.

Signature: Ms. Kainat Zia

Course Incharge