The Myers-Briggs Test (MBTI) is one of the most popular personality quizzes as about 2 million people take it every year. It consists of 93 questions and it uses these questions to categorise people into 16 different personality types. However, is there any evidence for this quiz being accurate / useful?

First I believe that we should look back on who created the Myers-Briggs Test and the history around it. The Myers-Briggs test was created by Katharine Cook Briggs, and Isabel Briggs Myers in 1943, but it is critical we examine the original ideas that lead Katharine and Isabel to develop the MBTI Test. 

 

Therefore it is critical to go back to the year 1921 where Carl Jung, famous psychoanalyst published Personality Types. In this piece Jung suggested that there were 4 types: introverted intuition, extroverted intuition, introverted sensation, and extroverted sensation. He continued by stating that one can exhibit multiple of these characteristics, and he proposes that one can have a dominant type and secondary type. 

 

The issues now start coming in, firstly Jung’s theory had no empirical evidence as they were simply observations and personal experiences. Jung even admitted once: ‘There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum.’ But what’s the problem then? His arguments seem consistent enough, however the issues will now start coming overt. 

 

The first issue with the MBTI test is the creators of the test Isabel and Katherine were not actually professionally trained psychologists which makes many question the authenticity of such work. Secondly the MBTI test actually discards Jung's idea of having two personality types and instead generalises it and gives you the dominant personality type which contradicts the exact quote he argued about a personality binary. Thirdly, many contemporary psychologists reject the MBTI test and famous writer Adam Grant (Studied Psychology) once stated on twitter: ‘Personality types are a myth.’ This shows that even most contemporary professionals argue against turning personality into a binary. 

 

Even though there is clearly a case against MBTI itself, there is a bigger picture on identity itself. Now as we know the identity we have been talking about has been constant, but famous Scottish philosopher: David Hume. He argued that the self was contingent, and he famously said: ‘the self nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement’. The bigger issue is MBTI’s basis is fundamentally precarious as many people question the fundamental basis of the self being constant and binary. 

In conclusion I personally believe that the MBTI test is logically precarious and quite baseless in the sense of condensing ideas that made it what it is, which leads me to believe that the MBTI cannot be used to diagnose personality. Therefore I do not believe that the MBTI test is useful.