The Development of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator® and the 16 Personalities
It all began in 1923, when Katherine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, read Carl Jung’sPsychological Types. Shortly after, they became avid personality type observers. By the early 1940s, they were researching and developing an indicator that could be applied to understanding the differences in individual personalities. They began testing it on friends and family, continuing over the next two decades until the instrument was fully developed with its categorization of 16 personalities. By 1962 it was ready to publish.
Overview of the MBTI and the 16 Personalities Classification
In looking at anoverview of the test, you’ll see that it currently comprises 93 “forced choice” questions, meaning that there is only one choice to make when selecting between two options. Using a combination of four different personality designations, the MBTI then segments subjects into 16 distinct personality types.
It’s important to note that no one of the 16 personalities is the “best” one to have or is “better” than another. Nor are the personality types designed to look for dysfunction or abnormality. Rather, the ultimate goal is to encourage people to further explore and understand their own personality, including their likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, possible career preferences, and relationships with others.
The Four Personality Designations
All of the questions on the MBTI are designed to categorize individuals into four key personality designations based on the way they respond to the world around them, gather information, make decisions, and deal with the outside world. Although these are expressed in dichotomies, all of us display each of these to some degree — it’s just that most of us tend to have an overallpreferencefor one or the other.
This dichotomy may be familiar to most people, but MBTI differs somewhat from popular usage:
This scale describes how people gather information from the world around them.
This scale looks to determine if, when making decisions, the person first looks to facts and data or to particular circumstances, emotions, and people.
This final scale involves people’s actions and dealings with the outside world — do they prefer to get things decided or prefer to stay open to new information and options?
The Myer-Briggs 16 Personality Types
Once the four basic personality designations are completed, the person is then assigned into one of the 16 personalities, based upon the combination of their personality designations.
However, each of the 16 personalities is more than just the sum of the four designations. The four-letter type formula is shorthand for the interaction of the four designations and which ones a person prefers to use first. The MBTI calls this “type dynamics.”
Keep in mind that the following list is only a quick overview of the 16 personalities. You may want to read more about them orseek additional information.
How the MBTI Differs from Assessments with Personality Test Types
Unlike other psychological instruments and personality tests, the MBTI sorts and assesses for individual preferences and doesn’t measure trait, ability, or character. This distinction is why it is called the Myer-Briggs TypeIndicatorand is not an actual test or an assessment.
For one, it doesn’t evaluatemental health(there are no “bad” or “unhealthy” results). With many other instruments, it’s either good or bad to have more or less of a trait that is being assessed (such as shyness versus having an outgoing nature), but with the MBTI, both categories being assessed are desirable. It also doesn’t compare the test taker’s results to those of other people. Additionally, rather than just adding up the qualities of each separate preference, the MBTI looks to paint a total picture of the interaction between all preferences (type dynamics).
Most important, however, is the fact that the MBTI allows the person to determine their own personality type through a personal verification process —in other words, the final assessment of your type is in your own hands.
As Isabel Briggs Myers herself said: “It is up to each person to recognize his or her true preferences.”
How Reliable and Valid is the MBTI?
The MBTI and its 16 personalities hasn’t been without criticism.
Many experts in the psychology communityare concerned about the misuse of the 16 personalitiesas a strict and automatic indicator. They caution the dangers of using the instrument in this way to determine the “compatibility” of couples, the selection of employees, or in career advising, which all rely solely on the results of personality type. Experts point to the fact that there is no scientific evidence to support the accuracy of the conclusions when the MBTI is used in this way.
What the MBTIdoeshave in its favor is that it can be a good tool for self-reflection if it is used as a starting point to discuss variations in people’s personalities. The person administering it should warn against over-interpreting the results and explain the instrument’s limitations to each individual.
It’s important to remember that the MBTI was intended to be used based on preferences, not absolutes. In fact, there is a whole page dedicated to theethical use of the teston the official Myers & Briggs Foundation website.
The MBTI Today
The Myers-Briggs Company has published, researched, and updated the MBTI instrument since 1975. Although Katherine Briggs died in 1968 and Isabel Briggs Myers in 1980, the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT), another MBTI organization, continues to do ongoing research in this area.
Although the MBTI can still be taken with pencil and paper, it’s more common to take itonline.
If you’d like more information or want to know what to expect when taking it, you can find more information at theMeyers & Briggs Foundation websiteorMBTI online.
Finding Your Personality Type is Just the Beginning of Knowing Yourself
Throughin-person or online therapy, you can use what you know about your MBTI personality type and get tools and insights into how to deal with the things that are holding you back from being your best self. Talking to atherapistcan take you beyond just identifying your personality type and instead help you develop a personalized strategy for achieving your goals.It’s one thing to be able to observe how we respond to life and quite another to learn, grow, and improve thequalityof our lives.
Our goal at Talkspace is to provide the most up-to-date, valuable, and objective information on mental health-related topics in order to help readers make informed decisions.
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