- Oh, Hey, there (laughs).
I'll never get tired of starting videos that way.
Are the 16 Personalities even accurate?
It just seems too good to be true,
like everyone in the world,
all the personality variations,
and complications, and nuances,
can be crammed into one of only 16 convenient boxes?
I mean, come on, man.
Isn't that overly simplistic?
Aren't there problems with the test?
Aren't the personality descriptions kind of generic?
You've probably heard some skeptics who go so far as to say
something like, Myers-Briggs is meaningless.
SMH.
In this video, I'm going to argue,
yes, the Myers-Briggs AKA,
the 16 Personalities, are accurate.
Let me explain why,
and address some of the points people bring up
to argue that it is inaccurate.
Get ready to get poned, skeptics.
- [Emergency broadcast] Attention please.
There has been a report of an emergency.
- So my building is doing a fire drill right now.
A big argument against the accuracy of Myers-Briggs
is that people can take the test at two different times,
and receive two different personality type results.
I mean, many of you watching right now have taken the test,
or multiple tests, multiple times,
and gotten different types.
I see you in the comments.
The skeptics say, oh, that indicates
there's something wrong with Myers-Briggs (laughs).
The Myers-Briggs company,
like the official Myers-Briggs company,
actually has statistics on this.
I mean, it's a pretty small sample size,
it's like 236 people.
But when this group took the test twice,
51% got the same type both times.
Oh crap. Frank, what does this mean?
Frank are you really gonna (laughs),
I don't think that supports your argument. Frank,
in fairness,
another 39% got three of four letters the same on retest.
But as you may know,
if you change one letter,
especially if it's the last letter of a type,
it's not the same type at all anymore.
For example, an INFJ and an INFP are very different types.
Here's the thing: I don't care about the test.
Any personality test to me is just a starting point,
getting you in the right direction.
You know, the official Myers-Briggs assessment
even ends by telling you, hey,
here are a couple of different personality types
that you could be.
Read the descriptions of both of them,
and then you pick which one you think is the best fit.
So even the official test, isn't trying to say, yeah,
the test is the end, all be all, of typing you.
Because ultimately, you need to separate the test
from the underlying patterns of personality
that the test is trying to evaluate.
In fact, the real problem is that a self reported test,
you know where you are saying, I am like this.
I'm putting the answers for how I am,
it's going to be inherently inaccurate,
because we all have an inaccurate,
if not a wildly incorrect self image.
More about that later.
Another big, oh, knock, another big, ooh, karate chop,
against the accuracy, or even just like the reality,
of the 16 Personalities is that the personality descriptions
of each type are, well, let me give you an example.
Which personality type do you think this description is for?
You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
At times,
you seriously doubt
whether you have made the right decision.
Sometimes you are outgoing and sociable,
but you enjoy your alone time.
Could it even be your personality type?
Does it sound accurate to you?
Actually,
that was not from any particular personality profiles.
It's actually a blank piece of paper.
Is that symbolism?
Those things I just read
are what are generally called Burnham statements.
Oh no, Frank went there.
Frank's going for the Barnum statement argument.
The Barnum effect is a psychological phenomenon
in which people will say, wow,
that personality description,
that is supposedly crafted, specifically for me,
is so accurate,
when in fact the descriptions are kind of meaningless.
Like what I just read you.
So Myers-Briggs, I would say,
is not made up entirely of Barnum statements.
Like if you were to take the 16 Personalities test,
and then be given a random profile
of a type very different from your own,
you'd probably be like,
this doesn't seem right.
This doesn't really seem like me.
But I will say there are a decent amount
of these generic statements
spread throughout the various personality profiles
you'll find in books and online.
For instance,
try to guess which of the 16 Personalities profiles
this is from:
This still a blank piece of paper,
but this is a real description from a type online.
Some people of this type
can handle kindly phrased commentary,
valuing it as another perspective
to help push their passions in new directions.
But if the comments are more biting, and less mature,
people with this personality type can lose their tempers
in spectacular fashion.
Okay, so that's from the ISFP's profile,
from 16personalities.com.
But really, how many people who are not ISFPs could relate
to that exact same sentence?
Probably a lot.
But here's the thing about the 16 Personalities.
There's a lot of overlap between all the types.
It's not 16 entirely unique personality types.
Each type has at least a little something
in common with every other type.
It's important
when people are writing these personality profiles,
or making YouTube videos,
that they try to avoid
as many of these generic statements as possible.
But then again,
this isn't necessarily a fault of the concepts
behind the 16 Personalities,
so much as it is an inherent limitation
of writing a succinct and easily digestible profile
for a personality type,
which is a very multifaceted, complex,
oftentimes subtle thing.
And you know what, I think easily digestible,
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So when it comes to something as complex
as human psychology, is it just a bad idea in general,
to even try to simplify everyone
into a bunch of personality types?
The imaginary detractors I made up in my mind,
say Myers-Briggs isn't accurate, because it's so simplistic.
Like when you hear me describe the different personalities
in my various videos, you might think, wow,
everyone who is an ESTP for example,
is going to be some adventure-seeking competitive person
who doesn't think about the future.
That doesn't seem to reflect the complexity of reality.
And yeah, that's a good point.
Myers-Briggs deals with complex stuff.
So the archetypes of the personalities
have to be very boldly painted in broad lines
for you to grasp them,
and to be able to differentiate (stutters),
differentiate them from all the other types,
at least that's how it's gotta be
when you're first learning about them.
You know, if we're describing an intuitive type,
for example, we got to make it seem
like they have intuition turned up to 11,
in order for you to fully get the concept
of what intuition actually is,
and to differentiate it from sensing,
we got to make it sound like an intuitive type
is barely able to function in concrete reality,
So you can start to see the more subtle pattern of, oh,
intuitives, don't rely on facts, and details,
but instead they rely on the abstract overview.
It's just easier to explain it in the extremes,
because out in the wild,
it's going to be rare that you come across
a living breathing stereotype
of one of the 16 Personalities.
I mean, occasionally you do find those people,
and it's kind of funny when it happens.
But it's important to point out
that the proportion of people out there
who fit exactly into the stereotype
of a standard Myers-Briggs personality type,
it's going to be the minority.
It's like, if I showed you a basic color palette,
and I said, here are all the colors.
I got red, blue, green, yellow, oh my gosh,
is he going to name every color right now?
You can look at that color palette and say, no,
that's not accurate.
What about this weird color?
And then I could say, well, that's green.
Well, it doesn't look like the green on your chart, bro.
Yeah, you're right.
But it's still green.
Your color chart is overly simplistic and not accurate.
These are not the colors.
Your chart is meaningless.
But if you took the chart and realized, oh,
there are shades of color, after a while,
you could fill in the blanks and be like, okay,
this particular shade of green is not exactly
like the one on the chart,
it's not the archetype of green, if you will.
But it is green.
Let's say you're talking to someone else,
and trying to figure out if they're a thinking type,
or a feeling type.
I don't know why I started doing this.
You might start to realize as you're listening to them talk,
I hear thinking sometimes,
but I'm also hearing all this feeling.
I don't know what to make of all this feeling.
How am I supposed to put this person in a box?
And that's why the critics will be like,
obviously Myers-Briggs is stupid and dumb,
because people aren't just thinkers or feelers.
That's not accurate.
They're like, don't put people into a box.
I'm calling the FBI, because that's illegal.
This is why I always emphasize that everyone has everything:
thinking, feeling intuition, sensing.
You've got all four.
Myers-Briggs is talking about your preferences,
and your preferences are the things that you go to
with the most confidence.
If you're thinking type, for example,
you feel more confident standing on reasons,
rather than feelings.
Furthermore, you feel responsible
for sticking with the reasons.
You might have a lot of feelings, and emotions,
and you value different things.
But you're like,
I can't be responsible for making decisions
based on feeling.
I have to make them based on reasons.
Like I said before,
we often talk about personality types in extremes,
because it just makes it much clearer,
and easier to understand.
Once you realize, yeah, people can use everything,
but what matters is, what they feel most confident in,
and responsible for,
then you can see that Myers-Briggs is accurate.
Ultimately, you have to look at what Myers-Briggs,
and the 16 Personalities, is really intended for,
which is to try to see yourself more clearly.
Myers-Briggs when you get into it,
beyond the horoscope,
yay, this is my type, it's so fun, phase,
turns a mirror on you to see the things
that you might not want to see in yourself.
Once you figure out what the inner workings
of your personality type are, you'll start to realize, oh,
here's how I've been causing recurring problems for myself
in my own life.
That's upsetting.
I didn't even realize I was the cause of those problems.
I thought they were coming from someone or something else.
No wonder they were recurring,
because I was the one constant variable.
So like,
if your relationships are always falling apart,
and you seem to always attract the same type of people,
or everyone around you is a jerk,
and everyone is against you,
or if you find you're always behind in your work,
and struggling to catch up,
or you keep getting surprised by random crises
that seem to come out of nowhere,
your personality could very well have a hand in all of that.
That's why Myers-Briggs is accurate.
I've talked to so many people who are like, dude,
once I figured out my type,
my eyes were open to what I was doing to myself.
And I've experienced the same thing.
Really the question we should be asking.
And the question
that the 16 Personalities ultimately challenges us with is,
is your image of yourself even accurate?
Thanks for watching.
To start your journey getting deeper
into the 16 Personalities,
check out this Introduction to the Cognitive Functions here,
or check out the whole playlist right here,
and find another video to watch.
Remember to use my special link in the description
to get a seven day free trial of Blinkist,
and 25% off Blinkist premium,
until next time stay cool and attractive.