I’m a fan of Myers-Briggs. I think it’s a useful tool for describing people. But I’ve also met people who say that Myers-Briggs is nonsense and has been “debunked”. Which, of course, is somewhere between “slightly inaccurate” and “flat-out wrong”, depending on how you look at it. So let’s take a look at it.
Myers-Briggs Debunked?
Yes and no. When people say Myers-Briggs is debunked, they’re referring to one of several things.
First of all, Myers-Briggs was originally described as 4 dichotomies, but they’re really spectra rather than dichotomies, and most people fall somewhere in between. That means most people are neither Feeling nor Thinking, but somewhere in between, and so forth. This explains the oft-repeated meme that most people who take the Myers-Briggs test more than once get different results. The only exception is Introversion-Extroversion, which is the most dichotomous, but even that’s fairly complicated.
Second, Myers-Briggs is a terrible predictor for job performance. None of my jobs have ever given me a Myers-Briggs test, and I don’t know anyone who has, but according to teh intarwebs, a lot of companies still do. So yes, this criticism is completely relevant and valid.
Third, psychologists and others in the professional and scientific community don’t use Myers-Briggs. That’s because they have far more technical terms and far more precise techniques. So as a tool, Myers-Briggs just isn’t useful for them.
Of course, most people don’t even think that far through. When people say Myers-Briggs is debunked, most of them are just parroting what they heard second-hand.
There Is No Test
Okay, that’s not completely true. There is a test. But the vast majority of people have never taken the Myers-Briggs test. The original Myers-Briggs test is a proprietary test that’s given only by the Myers-Briggs Foundation for corporations. And no reasonable individual would pay money for that test.
No, most people have taken some free Myers-Briggs variant online. The problem is a lot of these variants like to give cute little nicknames to each of the 16 types like “The Architect” or “The Adventurer” and then write pages of prose for each type describing why they’re so unique. These “tests” are really no better than a Facebook Hogwards Sorting Hat quiz. And they’re easy to find. A quick Google search reveals this gem. (“Gem”, used ironically.)
The problem is these tests muddle the meaning of the Myers-Briggs type. And a lot of people think of these kinds of tests when they think of Myers-Briggs. No wonder they think Myers-Briggs is garbage. I can’t say whether the original Myers-Briggs test is any good. I’ve never seen it. (I do know the application of the test is garbage, though.) I do know that what most normal people call the Myers-Briggs test is pure garbage.
Still Useful
So if most people fall in between the types, if Myers-Briggs is no good for career planning or predicting job performance or for scientific analysis, if there is no Myers-Briggs test, then how can it possibly be useful?
Well, it still is. The four dichotomies (“dichomoties”, for lack of a better word) are still useful for non-professionals to describe other people. I’ve met people who follow their hearts (Feeling) and people who follow logic (Thinking). I’ve met people who go with their gut (Intuitive) and people who collect facts (Sensing). I’ve met people who prefer structure (the poorly named Judging) and people who go with the flow (the poorly named Perceiving). I’ve met people who prefer being alone (Introverts) and people who prefer social interaction (Extroverts). It’s well-observed that Extroversion-Introversion is the most common of the 4 dichotomies. I’ve personally observe Perceiving-Judging all the time. And the others, will less common, still happen.
Yes, most people fall somewhere in between. And yes, most people are more complicated than 4 dichotomies. But sometimes people fall into one of the 4 dichotomies pretty cleanly, and it’s helpful to understand when that happens. I’ve seen people fail to grasp Myers-Briggs and get into a personality clash with the opposite personality. Likewise, I’ve seen people get along because they can verbalize and understand their personality differences. Pigeon-holing a person isn’t always a good thing, but it isn’t always a bad thing either.
So next time someone tells you their Myers-Briggs type, instead of rolling your eyes and dismissing it, take a moment to think about what that actually means.