- The confusion and contradiction of MBTI.
Are you confused yet?
Do you feel contradicted?
We've got another article from Psychology Today
written by Benjamin Hardy, Ph.D ripping on Myers Briggs.
He just won't leave it alone, man.
And ultimately, while I think Dr. Hardy has a good point,
a good message that we all really
shouldn't take away from it,
he's using MBTI, he keeps harassing MBTI
as though it's like the stupidest thing ever.
And he's just beating up on it relentlessly
and I've had enough and if you missed the video
where I critiqued his last article,
you can click or tap the card right here.
Before we get into that,
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All right, so Dr. Hardy.
He's going hardcore, Hardy is hardcore.
So his article here centers around,
there is no evidence for personality types,
as well as there is evidence that personality changes
considerably he says, over the course of someone's lifetime.
So he comes back to the thing
that personality doesn't work in types.
That's something he said in his last article.
And then he brings up the Big Five,
he trots out the Big Five test, which is scientific
and the big difference between the Big Five
and Myers Briggs is Big Five is on a scale
saying percentage wise based on comparisons
with the general population,
How agreeable are you?
Neurotic, open etc.
Whereas MBTI is saying your preference
is either for this or for that,
it doesn't really specify how often you prefer it,
could be 51% of the time, could be 100% of the time.
Although that's very unlikely.
It's also worth pointing out the Big Five and MBTI
are talking about really different things.
MBTI is talking about basically how you process information,
how you process reality and make decisions,
and then Big Five is looking at traits
like observable behaviors.
But he brings up a good point here
saying that most people are going to end up
on the Big Five scale sort of in the middle
of the bell curve, like you might be in the 55th, 60th,
40th percentile rather than like the second percentile,
which on the one hand, makes it a little less useful.
Like what is it, you know, oh, great.
I'm completely average, I scored 50 in all this.
Like, that doesn't do me much good.
Myers Briggs, as Dr. Hardy points out,
when it says you're one or the other without saying
where on the scale you might be,
puts you in a position where you might think
I'm only this, like you identify really strongly
with just that one thing.
You know, when we're talking about personality in general,
everyone's throwing this word around, personality.
Myers Briggs only describes like a part of it
same as Big Five only describes kind of a part of it.
And it's not even the colloquial meaning of personality.
When I say to you, "What's this guy's personality like?"
Generally, someone is gonna say,
"Oh, he's a nice guy, he's friendly, he's outgoing,
"or he's shy, whatever, blah, blah, blah."
Those things don't have anything to do with Myers Briggs.
Like whether someone's friendly or nice
that is personality.
oh, they're interested in sports, etc.
That's not gonna be described by Big Five or Myers Briggs.
But yes, there is the danger that people might think
their type is more extreme than it really is,
where people get into that mindset of, "I'm intuitive,
"that means I don't do sensing"
No, no Honey Boo Boo, that's not true.
But here's another interesting thing to point out
when he says that personality types don't exist.
I think we're also getting hung up on the word, type,
because Big Five doesn't presume to say this is your type,
MBTI can be a little bit presumptuous here.
A little bit of hubris to say this is your type buddy boy,
whereas Big Five is like, "oh, you're here on the scale."
But here's the thing.
Even scientists use Big Five scores, Big Five traits
to statistically say, what your life is likely to be like
or what actions you're likely to take,
which in a way you could argue is sort of like a type.
For example, based on your Big Five scores,
they can say, "oh, you're likely to end up in jail."
Like you're likely to be a criminal
because you're very low in agreeableness,
very low in conscientiousness, etc.
Or you could state statistically,
this guy is likely to be a good entrepreneur
because he's got all these different traits.
Those are real scientific things that people look at.
How is that different than type?
Furthermore, how is that different from
when Myers Briggs says, "Oh, this is your type,
"we think this career might be statistically good for you."
And while Myers Briggs may not be scientific, oh my gosh,
they do have statistics about type and career,
about type and marriage, etc.
So really, the only difference here
is that Big Five is accepted by the scientific community
and MBTI is not.
And MBTI isn't accepted by the scientific community
for a lot of good reasons. (laughs)
But from my understanding,
there haven't been a ton of like hard scientific studies
on Myers Briggs.
That's a problem.
The other thing is, is MBTI even scientifically testable?
The thing you'd have to do
is come up with a set of really solid definitions
and those definitions would probably be a little less,
what's the word I'm looking for?
A little less specific than they might be now,
"cause the thing is, MBTI comes from this tradition
of a lot of interpretation.
It's not so much like checking boxes off a list.
It's like getting to know someone and then interpreting
what you're hearing come out of their mouth.
We talk about MBTI, like the official Myers Briggs company,
but then there are a ton of other people
who are talking about personality types,
who use slightly different definitions
or wildly different definitions using the same terminology.
So and you and me included,
so you can get to the point where
we're all using the same terms, not of the same definitions.
It's a big mess, no wonder the scientific community is like,
"why bother with that?"
Then he talks about how according to Katherine Briggs,
one of the founders of Myers Briggs,
if you didn't figure that out,
a person can put themselves
through a lot of psychological pain
by trying to solve incompatibilities.
Instead of trying to change oneself,
Briggs propose that the differences
between how people respond to life
are innate and unchangeable.
That makes it sound like she's just like,
"Oh, just cut off people who are different.
"Let's not try to solve anything,
"let's just fight forever.
"And there's no way you can ever change."
I don't think that that's what Katherine Briggs
was going for.
They are just basic things where once you understand,
once you even kind of guess what someone's type might be,
you can get along with them a lot better.
So in a way, it solves incompatibilities by realizing,
"oh, this is great, we can work together."
He says these are hardwired dispositions
to be recognized and accommodated,
which is sort of what I said,
though accommodated, makes it sound worse than what I mean.
Rather than improving yourself.
You just accept yourself and everyone should as well.
Yeah, all right.
So he's really broadening what personality means.
We're just talking about
what I see it most as in Myers Briggs,
your Myers Briggs type affects communication style.
And what you are most focused on
and in some ways what will get you riled up,
what will make you kind of freak out,
and then what will make you,
what you'll get in the zone about.
It's not the same as having an compatibility like,
you want to watch "The Bachelor"
and I want to watch a football game.
That doesn't have anything to do with this,
or "Oh, you're a jerk, you need to be nicer to people."
That has nothing to do with Myers Briggs personality.
And perhaps Myers Briggs, the official Myers Briggs
does kind of promote a sort of complacency
once you find out your type.
I'm not sure but the way I use Myers Briggs
and personality typology is to grow,
to realize what are my preferences,
so I can then look at the things that I don't prefer
and work on that.
Then he brings up more recent research,
shows that a person's personality is going to change
over their lifetime.
But here's the thing, it doesn't change erratically,
it doesn't change from day to day.
He's talking about if I'm correct
is a study which I brought up in the last video
showing that over the course of your lifetime,
your Big Five scores tend to go one way or the other.
Like it happens to everybody.
That's not the same as saying
"Oh, Monday you were really extroverted,
"Friday you were really introverted."
No, not even like the course of five years
will the change be that much.
Then Dr. Hardy brings up something
that seems to be a bombshell of sorts,
there is also a growing body of research
suggesting that personality can be intentionally changed
even using a two week intervention, that sounds like a lot.
But I looked up this study that he's referring to
which used an app over the course of two weeks
to help people become more open to experience,
which is one of the Big Five traits
and also more conscientious, another Big Five trait.
The study, I could, it was in a different language.
But it seemed to be like small increases.
It wasn't like going from second percentile
to the 90th percentile or whatever.
You're still starting from a baseline.
But the thing is, that study also says,
we're not sure if these are lasting effects,
or if they'll regress back to where they were.
We don't know why it increased.
We just know that it increased a little bit.
So that is not exactly slam dunk.
Personality is totally malleable, you can change it anytime.
The way that Dr. Hardy talks about it
almost makes it seem like even the Big Five is useless
because if personality changes so much, why even score it?
I do see a lot of people in the comments section though,
who need to hear what Dr. Hardy is saying.
Because they do, it seems like people are really rigid.
People are really attached to the type
and it's their identity.
And it's like, "let go with that."
This is not your identity.
This is a descriptor of certain preferences.
And something like INFJ is just an acronym.
Like there's nothing inherently special about that,
or whatever your type is.
That's just, it's just preferences.
We're talking about preferences.
One more thing he brings up with MBTI versus the Big Five
is how on the Big Five test, when you're taking the test,
there's the like a five point scale
where you go agree to disagree, etc., with each question
whereas Myers Briggs, he says, you are required to answer
often between four choices none of which truly fit.
None of which truly fit, who would come up with a test
where none of the answers fit anybody?
I don't get that.
Now, I've never taken the official Myers Briggs test.
So I don't know what the answers are like,
but I know a lot of the free tests online
still do the agree disagree stuff.
So here's the thing Dr. Hardy, the test is very flawed.
One of the big problems with Myers Briggs tests
is that there is no validity scale,
which is a component of scientific personality tests,
which is meant to gauge
is the person telling the truth or not?
Like are they answering because these are socially valuable
answers?
Which is a valid complaint against MBTI
especially because it's used a lot in career stuff.
Like when you go to a company, maybe HR
will give you a MBTI test and you might worry that,
what if I answer wrong?
what if I answer, you know, that I'm an NF type
and they want an ST type so I better start answering
incorrectly to give them what they want.
A validity scale would theoretically be able to detect that
and Myers Briggs, to my knowledge, doesn't have that.
But Dr. Hardy if we just throw out the test,
well okay, yes, test is flawed.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Hardy, I agree wholeheartedly, if we throw out the test,
throw out the Myers Briggs test and just have people
who are very well trained in MBTI types,
who can then interview you
in like a free flowing conversation,
which is more like what Carl Jung would have wanted anyway,
they get to know you and then say,
"I think these are your preferences."
Is that better?
Is that okay?
Can we say that? (laughs)
What if we got rid of the word, type,
and we got rid of the acronyms
and we just said your preference seems to be
for abstract thinking over concrete thinking,
and your decision making seems to be driven more by values
than logic on a scale of one to 100.
But Dr. Hardy let me know, what?
You never gonna see this video, let me know. (laughs)
MBTI is a tool to help you develop yourself,
it's showing you your starting point
so that you can then move on from there.
It's not saying get complacent, just stay here forever.
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