Personality Tests.
The Appeal
Nearly everyone takes a personality test at some point. Some of them are great ice-breakers. The appeal of being potentially classified as the same personality type as a celebrity, fictional literary character, or tv character usually generates enough curiosity to take the test. For others, the test is administered as part of a hiring process. But can an internet personality test you might take for fun, really determine your true personality type, or on a more serious note, your employability? There are several aspects of online tests that must be taken into consideration before making the result your complete personality.
Inconsistent, Unreliable Results
One, is the concept of reactivity, more specifically, social desirability (Stangor, 2015). Stangor defines social desirability as “the natural tendency for research participants to present themselves in a positive or socially acceptable way to the researcher,” (Stangor, 2015, p.79). Researchers do not typically observe people while taking a personality test for fun online, but the effect is still evident in the endless Facebook posts with a personality test “score”. Clearly, we care how we are perceived by others, even on a subconscious level.
Another aspect that affects online personality assessments is response distortion, or faking (Muchinsky, 2016). This occurs when the person taking a personality assessment knowingly “falsifies or fakes responses to items on personality inventories to create a favorable impression,” (Muchinsky, 2016, p.106). This desire to appeal to others is so strong that it can effectively sway the results of a personality test. The effect is seen very commonly in test results taken as part of an interview process.
Are you an ISFJ or an INTP?
One of the most ubiquitous personality tests online or otherwise is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or as it is most commonly known, the MBTI. Since its creation in 1942, the “Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has been widely used by businesses, universities, the military and other organizations for decades to assess personality,” (Merve, 2018). The MBTI assigns everyone who takes it one of 16 specific, yet universally flattering, personality types. In theory, this newfound knowledge of your particular “type” is supposed to help you better understand yourself through recognizing specific traits as defined by their assigned type. The original purpose of the MBTI was to help people find employment suitable to their personality. While this sounds perfectly plausible, the science behind it has been spotty at best.
History of MBTI
The creators of the Myers Briggs test, mother-daughter duo Katharine Briggs and daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, first invented the test together in 1942 (Gholipour, 2019). Despite having no formal education or training in psychology, Katharine Briggs was a staunch follower of Carl Jung and relied heavily on his theories for her research, particularly Jung’s book Psychological Types, upon which Briggs’ distinct personality types were based (Merve, 2018).
Carl Jung’s personality theories were unproven at the time, however since the field of psychology was considered a relatively new science, little effort was made to be sure that the MBTI based on Jung’s work was scientifically sound before marketing the test to the public (Gholipour, 2019).
MBTI Reliability
Author Emre Merve noted during a Wharton Business School podcast that during a contemporary MBTI training session she had attended for research purposes, the issue of validity arose when people did not necessarily agree with their personality type as indicated by the test (Merve, 2018). Merve observed the trainer overtly skirt the issue by responding “Well, maybe you just took it in the wrong mindset. Maybe you answered the questions as your work self or your social self,” indicating that the reason the test didn’t work properly was the test subject’s own fault (Merve, 2018).
Odd that a test subject would be blamed for skewed results—-definitely not indicative of a reliable test.
MBTI Claims Legitimacy Via Psychology
The European branch of the multi-billion dollar company proudly displays on their website homepage “The Myers-Briggs Company is one of the world's largest business psychology providers,” which would give the distinct impression that the field of psychology has accepted the legitimacy of the MBTI (The Myers-Briggs Company, 2020). However, the general consensus in the field of psychology is that the MBTI is a pseudoscience. Empirical evidence was provided in the form of a study published in the Journal of Personality in 1989. McCrae and Costa found that “there was no support for the view that the MBTI measures truly dichotomous preferences or qualitatively distinct types” and goes further to assert that “the data suggest that Jung’s theory is either incorrect or inadequately operationalized by the MBTI and cannot provide a sound basis for interpreting it,” (McCrae & Costa, 1989). The Myers-Briggs Company disputes these findings, merely dismissing the data as “too old” (Gholipour, 2019).
Hypothetically Testing the MBTI’s Accuracy
The question should be asked, does the MBTI accurately predict workplace fit based solely on assigned personality archetypes as it claims? The scientific method should be used to gather and evaluate data from a controlled setting that is replicable, and the findings should be open to scrutiny in a peer-reviewed article.
A hypothetical experiment could consist of a 5-year longitudinal study following no less than 500 unemployed participants varying in age from 16-35, with 250 males and 250 females. The MBTI would be administered to half of the participants, the other half would receive the five-factor model of personality, or Big 5 personality theory assessment at the start of the study.
To date, the Big 5 personality theory assessment has received the most empirical support (Muchinsky, 2016). This may create a more accurate picture as to whether an assigned personality type or a set of traits, respectively, would provide the participants with an accurate prediction of workplace fit.
A Priori Method
It appears that over the years, the MBTI has benefitted from the a priori method of research testing. Katharine Briggs had no formal training in psychology, and yet, people continue to perceive her work as credible, likely because there are no “unfavorable” personality types in the MBTI.
Unlike other psychometric tools, the MBTI was never critically tested at the time of its creation, nor does the current company consider disconfirming data contrary to the company’s own research journal. Given the decades of lucrative popularity that the MBTI has enjoyed in the world of human resources, it is understandable that the company itself would have developed a lack of hubris where their “scientific data” is concerned. The company itself is engaging in the a priori method in that as an entity it is relying primarily on its individual powers of reason and logic to make sense of the world and explain it to others and by design, encourages individual users or participants of the test to do so as well (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 2013, p. 5).
Empirical reasoning requires logic, organized observation and measurement in addition to being open to public scrutiny (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 2013). The MBTI company does not allow for any of these requirements, so by definition, the MBTI does not meet scientific criteria and has been justly labeled as a pseudoscience.
-The Penguins
References
Muchinsky, P., & Culbertson, S. (2016). Psychology applied to work. Hypergraphic Press.
Stangor, C. (2015). Research methods for the behavioral sciences. Cengage Learning.
