Do You Have Traits or Are You a Type?

BY CAROL TAVRIS

EVERY FEW YEARS, ANOTHER INTREPID, well-informed journalist writes an exposé of the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator (MBPI). Malcolm Gladwell took a shot at it in 2004 in the New Yorker.1 Eleven years later, Vox ran its incarnation of this eternal story, by Joseph Stromberg and Estelle Caswell, with a headline that could not have been clearer: “Why the Myers-Briggs Test is Totally Meaningless.”2 In case anyone missed the headline, pull-outs in the story emphasized the point:

● “Analysis shows the test is totally ineffective at predicting people’s success at various jobs”

● “The Myers-Briggs rests on wholly unproved theories”

● “About 200 Federal agencies reportedly waste money on this test”

And now Louis Menand of the New Yorker has taken a shot: “Are assessments like the Myers-Briggs more self-help than science?”3 You can guess his answer. You can also guess the answer to this one: How many of the more than two million people a year who fill out the MBPI—in businesses, colleges, churches, couples’ retreats, motivational seminars, and matchmaking programs—read those articles and said, “Aha! I always suspected it was ‘totally meaningless’! Give me my money back”?

The MBPI, like the Rorschach or palm reading, floats above criticism, parody, and evidence. At a conference on science and skepticism, at which I spoke about why people hold on to outdated or incorrect beliefs, a young man asked for my views on the MBPI. When I asked why he cared, he told me he’d been using it for years with his colleagues and students and swore by its accuracy. I admit that I did not give him an honest reply.