00:40 What is the MBTI?

02:33 How is a psychological test developed?

13:19 Reliability and validity in scientific tests—and in the MBTI

15:45 Can MBTI results guide choices of major and career?

 

Hello, I’m Wang Fang. We continue our Q&A with two questions about today’s popular personality test, the MBTI. Why can taking it today and tomorrow yield different results? Is the MBTI scientific, and how much should its results guide choices of academic major and career?

Not everyone knows what MBTI means, so let me explain briefly. Its full name is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The M and B represent two people, the mother and daughter who created it, and the test is used todivide people into types.

Developed from Jung’s theory of psychological types, the first MBTI appeared in 1944 and assigns people to sixteen personality types. It may be the world’s most popular personality test, widely used in corporate training, career counseling, and personal growth. More than two million people take it globally each year. Its commercial promotion has been highly successful; its publisher leads a psychological-testing market worth as much as two billion dollars annually (Forbes, 2018).In sharp contrast, academic psychologists debate the test intensely and criticize it continually. Criticism focuses on two areas: its theoretical foundation and its psychometric quality.

Since our Big Five episodes, listeners have repeatedly asked about the MBTI. I initially hesitated and planned to mention it only with Jung’s theory in Part Three. But Part One concerns individual differences and has introduced the Big Five and Dark Triad. Because the MBTI also describes individual differences and enjoys great popularity and acceptance, let us discuss it during the Q&A.

Evaluating the MBTI requires some basic knowledge of psychological measurement. You may wonder how a psychological test is created. I will briefly introduce the process forself-report questionnaire tests, in which respondents answer questions about themselves.