If I asked you to think about a woman described as a “femme fatale,” chances are an image would come into your mind rather quickly; arguably it would be identical to any person I’d ask. Why is this? The femme fatale is a trope in modern media; thus, she has certain universal personality traits that follow her throughout all her incarnations like a shadow. Said traits could even be used to assign her a descriptive personality type that explains her cognitive functions and emotional prerequisites to her actions, and that is what the Myer-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) essentially aims to do. Though it’s controversial, the MBTI is a fascinating example of abstract psychological theory being redrafted as a comprehensive tool meant for the unschooled.
The MBTI is a psychological process of examination that breaks down the personality and mind into a series of functions, then uses self-assessment to assign an individual with one of sixteen specific personality types based on that individual's preferences and processes within those functions (Myers & Briggs Foundation). Each personality type has four parts to it, referred to as The Four Dichotomies (Myers & Briggs). The Four Dichotomies are considered to be the four pieces that make up the “personality” puzzle; they are one’s attitude, functions, dominant function, and lifestyle preferences (Myers & Briggs). Based on an individual’s selections in each of the dichotomies, they will be assigned a personality type out of sixteen options (Myers & Briggs). As much as the MBTI aims to be immediately comprehensive, its intricacies require a bit more explanation and context before such is the case.
The history of the MBTI is a captivating one; it was developed by a mother and daughter by the names of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers from 1917-1944 (Emre; Smathers Libraries). Originally, Briggs began her observations on personality type alone, developing theory from autobiographies and views of family members. She later went on to detect theoretical parallels between her studies and the work of Carl Jung, a prominent psychologist at the time (1921/1923). Jung’s theory of psychological types was based on one focal premise; everybody is born with a specific mixture of universal characteristics of personality all humans share through evolution, and that is what forms the personality (Jung 412). While Briggs had already begun to develop acronyms as a means to categorize the patterns of behavior she observed, she expanded on his ideas and more importantly, shifted them from strictly abstract theory to observable, provable, patterns of behavior (Emre; Smathers).
The shift towards the accessible Meyers and Briggs formulated was executed through rephrasing Jung’s psychological jargon into more comprehensive language and adding a structured format to the types; something that didn’t exist in Jung’s original theory (Myers & Briggs; Jung 412). The Indicator portion of the Myers-Briggs Personality Types was not originally a factor in the design of the method; the idea to format the personality types into a self-assessment style test wasn’t brought to fruition until 1944 (Smathers Libraries). Briggs and Myers published a handbook entitled The Briggs Myers Type Indicator Handbook, the purpose of which was to assist women entering the workforce (many for the first time) as replacements for labor that had previously been done by their husbands; who were now soldiers knees-deep in World War II. A little later on the name was shifted into its current rendition, and in 1962 the first general-use manual was published as MBTI Manual: A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (Smathers).
The meaning of the first letter in the four-letter acronym of each personality type, as well as the first of the dichotomies, is attitude. This refers to one’s attitude towards the outside world, and whether an individual’s preference is towards an extroverted attitude, or an introverted one (Myers & Briggs). Arguably one of the more straightforward of the dichotomies, the different attitudes are rather self-explanatory. Individuals with an extroverted attitude are considered outgoing, action-oriented, seek a vast variety of knowledge, and obtain mental and emotional energy from interacting with others. On the other hand, introverted individuals are considered to be the polar opposite. They are more reserved, thought oriented, seek depth of knowledge, and prefer substantial interaction in lesser quantities than their counterparts. Introverts become drained after too much socialization; they instead become energized by spending fulfilling time with themselves (Myers & Briggs).
The next of the four dichotomies is an individual’s functions; both Jung’s and Myers-Briggs’ theories apply four basic functions to human cognition and processing (Jung 412; Myers & Briggs). It is also agreed that each individual semi-consciously favors two of the four functions; which are sensing/intuition and thinking/feeling, though everybody uses all four (412; Myers & Briggs). Sensing and intuition are considered the functions that employ perceiving stimuli and collecting data, which of these an individual uses more demonstrates how that individual prefers to accumulate information about situations and environments. Individuals who favor the intuition-based function are more swayed by gut feelings, and much more likely to absorb abstract details and theoretical information than statistics or hard facts (Myers & Briggs). On the other side of the spectrum, there are the “judging” functions; thinking and feeling. The purpose of these functions is to form thought-out decisions based on the particulars of a situation or event observed by the “perceiving” functions, either through a thinking-based or feelings-based process (Myers & Briggs).
Functions play the most substantial part in the overall Myers-Briggs personality types, and this is apparent in the third of the four dichotomies, the dominant function, which is representative of the single most consciously used and preferred of the possible functions by an individual (Myers & Briggs). The third letter in the personality types acronym, the dominant function is also the function most affected by one’s preferred attitude (introversion/extroversion) and is supported most by the secondary function (Myers & Briggs).
The last of the four dichotomies, lifestyle preference, is meant to account for individual personality and inclinations (Myers & Briggs). The two lifestyle preferences are judging, and perception and their role are to consider for the preferred use of the two types of functions; consequentially the explanations of personalities that favor judging or perceptive lifestyles are similar to the descriptions found in the related functions. The lifestyle preference has much more impact on the previous dichotomies in the personality type acronyms than as standalone traits. (Myers & Briggs).
Initially the MBTI received both praise and criticism from the psychological community; however, it did little to breach the general public’s sphere of knowledge. This did not long remain the case after the introduction of the internet. Suddenly, several popular MBTI quiz websites popped up along with a slew of youtube videos of people taking these “assessments” (16Personalities; Boyinaband). Of course, anyone could concede that taking the MBTI online is dangerously close to (if not well within) the boundaries of armchair psychology. What may be less obvious is that many psychologists find the MBTI is still well out of scientific bounds even when performed at is most official capacity.
While there are several criticisms of the MBTI, the two main ones address its reliability and bias. The reliability of the MBTI has fallen under heavy scrutiny due to the statistics regarding testing and retesting reliability. Between 40% and 80% of test takers have different results only a month after the first round of testing (Dawes). An explanation for this might be found in the second of the most common critiques; the MBTI is based on self-reporting and therefore is biased towards the mindset and mood of the individual at the time of taking the test (Dawes).
Though the MBTI is controversial among Psychologists, it’s undeniably a ground-breaking facet of Psychology due to its all-inclusive nature. MBTI’s historical roots and original intent are converting psychoanalysis of self to the analysis of one’s self. Arguably the intentions are valuable regardless of its effectiveness; it takes typically inaccessible concepts in psychological literature and re-formats them into something comprehensive for anybody. We must ask ourselves why this is such a rarity. Should the study of the mind not be a panoptic investigation? Is it not detrimental to Psychology as a whole to evade the focus and understanding of the general population? Why are so many studies accessible to only a select and educated few? For avoiding such discrepancies alone, The MBTI will remain an essential part of Psychology’s history; whose legacy should be continued by future experimentation and publishments for the betterment of society as a whole.