Why the Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Nonsense and Won’t Help Your Career

10 Reasons Why the Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Nonsense and Won’t Help Your Career

You’ve probably heard of the Myers-Briggs test, if not taken it yourself. After answering 93 questions, you receive a 4 letter summary of your personality.

The Myers-Briggs claims to evaluate you based on 4 traits: whether you’re inwardly or outwardly focused (introversion vs. extroversion), how you make decisions (thinking vs. feeling), how you take in information (sensing vs. intuition), and how you prefer to organise your life (judging vs. perceiving).

Around 2 million people take it every year. They adorn their social media and dating profiles with their results. This would be fine, if they treated their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) like horoscopes: something fun, but ultimately meaningless.

Unfortunately, many call themselves career experts despite advising clients to base their career path on their MBTI.

Which is a bad idea, because the Myers-Briggs test is nonsense.

1.       It is a psychology test not created by experts

Neither Katherine Cook Briggs nor Isabel Briggs Myers had any formal psychology education or training. Katherine Cook Briggs earned a degree in agriculture, which she was forced to abandon to become a wife and mother. Her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers wrote murder mystery novels.

2.       It uses a false binary instead of a spectrum

The Myers-Briggs test puts you in either one category or a second. You can’t be in both. In reality most human traits lie on a spectrum - on which scores overwhelmingly cluster in the middle.

For example, the Myers-Briggs will tell you that you’re either an extrovert or an introvert. Someone who scores 51% in extroversion will be labeled an extrovert, placed in the same category as a second person who scores 90% in extroversion, even though that first person would be much more similar to an introvert with a 51% introversion score.

3.       It only discusses positive traits

No one likes hearing bad things about themselves. And it is important to understand our strengths. However, mapping out your career path requires you to reflect honestly on your weaknesses and flaws. Because it’s impossible to fix every less desirable aspect of ourselves, a career that constantly forces you to fight your flaws and weaknesses will make you miserable.

4.       It doesn’t predict job performance

The Myers-Briggs test cannot tell whether you’ll do well in a specific role or industry. Your level of competence impacts your job satisfaction.

5.       Two individuals can select answers which look the same but are very different

The Myers-Briggs questions use an answer scale that ranges from “strongly agree” to “agree” to “disagree” to “strongly disagree.”

The problem? One person’s “strongly agree” doesn’t equal someone else’s “strongly agrees.” The Myers-Briggs test treats qualitative data - descriptive, language-based personal interpretations—as numbers-based, measurable quantitative data. A cardinal sin of statistics. 

6.       “Thinking” and “Feeling” aren’t opposites

Making good decisions requires both logical reasoning ability, and considering your impact on other people and your values. In some situations, forgiveness and harmony are key ingredients for justice and fairness. Furthermore, most people who are better than average at analysing facts and logical arguments also have higher emotional intelligence. The (almost always misogynistic) pernicious myth of the perfectly logical rational human (who seems to almost always be male) who can make decisions purely on facts and logic refuses to fade.

A whole 25% of the test is automatically wrong!

7.       Humans are terrible at assessing ourselves

When you take the Myers-Briggs test, you evaluate yourself. People regularly overestimate themselves. They judge themselves too optimistically.

Endless studies in multiple scientific fields reveal how unreliable human memory is. Even outside of psychology, many participants in diet studies forget what they ate for breakfast the previous week.

8.       It limits flexible and critical thinking

Katherine Cook Briggs based her test on the ideas of Carl Jung. He proposed the idea of introversion vs extroversion. But he believed the vast majority of the population are ambiverts, because introversion and extroversion are just tendencies.

The Myers-Briggs test promotes black-and-white thinking. You can find endless articles about what a particular MBTI means you should or shouldn’t do. Taking your results seriously makes you less likely to explore other problem-solving techniques, coping strategies, and social behaviours. You’re more likely to dismiss certain careers or industries prematurely. Especially when combined with myths like “extroverts make better salespeople.”

Workplaces encourage colleagues to share results, which only increases the rash judgment of coworkers. Skills and abilities come from learning and practice, not personality. And just because someone sometimes focuses on concrete small details doesn’t mean they can’t also see the big picture.

9.       People are complicated

Would you behave the same way in front of your grandparents, children, spouse, friends, boss, coworkers, or strangers? Of course not. No one does. For example, you’ll be more outspoken with some people and more reserved with others.

You’re also more outspoken about some topics than others. In some situations, the small concrete details matter more than the larger picture and vice versa.

10.   Results can be weaponized (on purpose or subconsciously)

The Myers-Briggs test fosters a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset. Managers can use it to justify an employee’s progress or lack of progress. They’re also more likely to see employees as static and unchangeable.

An MBTI can be interpreted differently depending on race, gender, disability or socioeconomic status, thanks to unconscious bias or stereotypes.

Why does the Myers-Briggs test persist?

In two words: money and marketing.

Businesses invest in the test as a quick and easy solution to find “perfect” employees. There’s no such thing as either quick and easy hiring solutions or perfect employees.

Certification for career counselors costs at least £923. Certification for business professionals can go closer to £3000.

From the beginning, the Myers-Briggs test has been heavily marketed.

Some people will claim that the Myers-Briggs test is meant to be descriptive, not predictive. If so, what’s the point of the test?

Finally, there’s a third reason the test is so popular. The Barnum Effect, also known as the Forer Effect, occurs when people believe something is accurate because it was customised for them. No matter if it’s as vague as the MBTI.

Don’t use the Myers-Briggs test to determine your career path. Please don’t use it to make decisions about your job. No matter how popular it is.

Sources:

·       How The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Began In A Mother's Living Room Lab

·       The Utility of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

·       Goodbye to MBTI, the Fad That Won’t Die

·       Flawed Self-Assessment: Implications for Health, Education, and the Workplace

·       Two Reasons Personality Tests Like Myers-Briggs Could Be Harmful