The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing

Engaging. Informative. Speculative. Illuminating. Irritating. Thoughtful. Mistaken. These terms describe Merve Emre’s new book, The Personality Brokers (in the US) and What’s Your Type? (in Australia and Europe), published by Doubleday. Emre brilliantly used sources in multiple places to support her historical rendering of the family environment and passions of the mother-daughter duo who are responsible for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® assessment. She managed to expose a host of attitudes, reflective of the time, and of the unique character of the individuals involved.Emre’s real goal, however, is to use the popularity of the MBTI® tool to expose issues in the use of psychological tools in organizations. She is right to point out that using personality based tools for selection and promotion is problematic and typically doesn’t end well for the individual or the organization. Noting that individuals are being improperly evaluated from a self-report tool is precisely why the professional associations around the world have such high standards regarding the use of assessments. What all social scientists know is that any assessment has measurement error and to make hard and fast conclusions on a single data point isn’t good science or a good use of science-based tools.Certainly, the MBTI® tool, if not the most used, among the most used “personality” related tools in the world is a prime target for attack on two levels. Most importantly, the use of this tool (and others) tends to be far beyond the bounds of what the tool’s purpose is, how the tool was constructed, and how the tool should be deployed. A second issue is on the nature of the tool itself and whether it stands to scrutiny.No matter how many times people are told that personality tools should not be used for hiring and promotion decisions as a single data point, companies still do it. Their HR departments want a quick fix and as with most quick fixes, it is a very poor band-aid to a very complex problem. Regrettably, training and educating others on the proper use of tools is never a one and done proposition. Publishers need to be relentless in providing guidance regarding the use of the tools they publish.Emre’s main purpose to call out the abuse of individuals through the use of psychological tools is a five-star theme. The evidence she pulls together to show the passion and obsession of the Briggs and Myers development of the assessment is also compelling. Emre has done a service to anyone interested in both the context and the detail related to the development of a tool, and in this case, the MBTI. While much of this history I knew, Emre filled in some blank spots which are consistent with the family lore that has been shared.I agree with Emre’s supposition that “the labeling of live human beings emerged as one technique for annihilating individuality” (p. XVI). There isn’t much doubt that many people experience their results as described. In fact, Jung wrote in many of his letters that type was not to be used for this purpose; rather, the theory of type was to alert individuals to a way to start a journey of understanding personal paths to individual uniqueness. This distortion Emre noted isn’t the fault of the tool; rather, it is the problem of the user who either doesn’t understand the tool or have a clear understanding of the underlying theory. As I wrote in I’m Not Crazy, I’m Just Not You, individuals should never trade self-knowledge for personal power and personal uniqueness…..as the poet said, we should avoid “knowledge gained with a loss of power.” I think there is abundant anecdotal evidence that the MBTI has been used incorrectly and used far beyond its purposes and the parameters of its statistical limits. But this claim can be made of almost any self-report tool that corporations use for selection. This issue is very important and very complex.As a side note, I suggest any form of labeling—race, gender, any orientation label—has the potential to limit self-understanding and personal growth. The claims that Emre makes apply to almost every system in the social sciences. Unlike these other systems, psychological type assumes that gaining clarity about your natural tendencies is just a starting point. The goal is to understand the whole system and your use of it. There is no doubt that lots of experts have Procrustean beds which they like to put people in; psychological type, the basis of the MBTI tool, proposes it is an expansive and complex system we can access and use to enrich life choices and individual growth.Emre’s discussion of the state of training on the MBTI® tool is appalling. I checked in with a few people who recently were trained in the tool and their account was not too far off Emre’s descriptions of how the material was presented and the spirit that permeated certification. For those of us who know psychological type, have trained and been trained regarding the MBTI® decades ago, we can only lament that the rigor and principles of care that once guided such training has apparently been lost. For example, strictly speaking, the MBTI® assessment is not a personality assessment. It was designed to get at a framework Carl Jung proposed that affects our mindsets. Rather than personality, Jung was interested in how we use our mental processes for seeing and acting on things. He never thought of these as “fixed” traits and was interested in showing how processes affect attitudes and choices. This was never thought of as “fixed” and invariant; it is a fluid system that has a home base. Emre’s own historical account of Myers initial reports shows that she understood Jung’s model and that it was full of sources of variation. But this is apparently no longer part of the training conversation. In addition, training used to have a rigorous approach to reviewing the statistical methods for estimating reliability and validity of assessment tools, especially as applied to the MBTI® assessment, which is also lost.Emre’s commitment to fair-mindedness does not extend to looking at all of the evidence about the science related to the MBTI® tool, and by extension, all other tools measuring for psychological type. For example, rather than reporting that there are science-minded critics on all sides of the fence about the reliability and validity of the MBTI (and other tools), she declares “it is a well-known fact that the type indicator is not scientifically valid” (p.xv) This would come as a major surprise to the hundreds of graduate committees who approved the tool for use in dissertations or the multiple studies done to show how type preferences are demonstrated.And Emre falls prey to the same limited criticism that so many do by relying on the 1985 manual of the MBTI rather than looking at the newest edition of the manual which describes an entirely new statistical method for re-creating the tool. In short, you would be hard pressed to find social scientists declaring that an item response analysis based on a random sampling of the US population is useless and discredited. Item response analysis is very complex and technical; suffice it to say that many consider it among the most powerful methods available for measurement of human behavior. Through the seemingly endless articles criticizing the MBTI® I have yet to see a critic take up the analysis that is the basis of the newest version of the tool, the research for which was completed 20 years ago.All psychological tools have problems and issues, which is why methods for looking at the reliability and validity of a tool result in “estimations” rather than definitive declarations of what is or isn’t worthwhile. The evidence speaks for itself. And truthfully, we should expect more evidence and demand higher research standards for assessment tools in general.Psychological type is a model attempting to get individuals to think about how their minds work. What are our tendencies for managing our energy? Our tendencies for an approach to information? Strategies for making decisions? Typical approaches to daily life? These are worthwhile questions if we want to learn more about managing stress and renewal, understanding differences in approaches, and being open to multiple paths to get to right answers. That this nuanced, rich framework has been lost in the training and lost in the application of psychological type assessments is lamentable.On the whole, Emre’s book (whatever title is being applied) reveals problems and issues with the use of assessments and the pernicious effects of tools used inappropriately. She exposes that there is a good deal of money in the assessment world and it has vested interests. All those issues are important and call upon serious-minded social scientists and users of tools to be mindful. Erme deftly identifies threads of fascism and sexism that run through the historical context. Unfortunately, she conflates application with intention, popularity with greed, and bias with evidence. For example, she confuses how the MBTI is used with what Myers and Briggs intended, or even current guidance in the Manual about the use of the tool.The supposition that Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers were the “first to perceive how hungry the masses were for simple, self-affirming answers to the problem of self-knowledge” (p.XVII)” implies an intention which is revisionist history. Looking back on how things emerged in the history of the use of the tool, it seems true to me that many individuals were captivated by the patterns suggested by the MBTI® results. To suggest that Briggs and Myers planned to make the MBTI an engine of wealth betrays every letter or reported conversation they had about their interest in type. They believed that type could help solve a lot of personal problems and they believed that type provided a constructive way to understand human differences. These intentions are a far cry from attempting to leverage the MBTI® as a source of wealth.Here are a few of her declarations which mar the impact of the work. Erme shows a picture of Katharine (mother) and Isabel (daughter at 5 years old) and declares “Katharine and Isabel look straight into the camera: Katharine with pride; Isabel with docility and incomprehension” (p.11) I covered the description and shared the picture with 10 women and 10 men in ages from 18-74. When I asked what they saw in the image, people used terms like focused, intention, warm, affectionate, pleasant, and a host of other terms. Not one person said that they saw pride and incomprehension, and certainly, that was not my reaction. There are a hundred different ways to describe that image but to impose “incomprehension” on someone’s look is quite remarkable and suggests a bias about the person as an adult, which is later confirmed in the narrative.Reliance on a single critic (e.g. Stricker, p. 216ff) of any topic indicates a lack of thoroughness. At the same time that Stricker was launching his opinion of an early version of the MBTI, ETS statistician David Saunders had completed an additional analysis which countered Stricker’s views. Yet, Saunders isn’t noted nor his youthful (like Stricker) and later wise (in his 60s) analysis of additional data provided by Organizational Renewal Associates which was the basis for what has become Step II. None of these are “hidden” facts or characters in the story but notably absent here. This history would argue against the narrative of an awful tool, born of greed, and useless to society.Emre writes, “Beyond all the pseudoscientific talk of ‘indicators’ and ‘instruments’ was a simple but subtle truth: the questionnaire reflected whatever version of yourself you wanted it to reflect, whether consciously or unconsciously” (p. 263). If you remove the word “pseudoscientific” you have a direct statement that is true of all self-report assessments of any ilk. Anytime a person is answering questions about how they believe they are, you are getting a picture of their own self-image as they believe it to be. In the hands of a skilled coach or therapist, that image can be useful and a source of productive exploration. The use of the word “pseudoscientific” is intended to suggest something of no value and represents a judgement not based on evidence. When we say something is scientific or pseudoscience, we owe it to the reader and subject matter to explain what we mean. Were the rules of analysis violated? Were there no efforts to show substance? Was any effort made to collect data and provide propositions? The reader has a right to know that there were plenty of studies done using the MBTI® tool, some of which are clarifying and others confounding about the tool and the underlying model—-which is a truthful statement about the evidence.The ending of the book is interesting in quoting Mary McCauley, the late president of CAPT and the primary aid to Myers and the MBTI for 30 years. Mary is quoted as saying the goal is one of becoming “a more perfect type” echoing the words of Jung. This is rather astonishing given that I knew Mary McCauley from 1980 to her death. We had endless conversations on the potential elements of type development and what they meant. I heard her speak of data and patterns related to type development and effective use of one’s type lens. Not one time did I ever hear her utter the idea of a “perfect type” and I do not recall a single line in all of Jung’s work that suggests anything like that (p.269). Jung’s notion of individuation is about embracing and growing your unique personhood and saying “yes” to what you can become. He wrote,“Everything good is costly, and the development of personality is one of the most costly of all things. It is a matter of saying yea to oneself, of taking oneself as the most serious of tasks, of being conscious of everything one does, and keeping it constantly before one’s eyes in all it dubious aspects—truly a task that taxes us to the utmost.” (Jung, The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 13, para. 24)This is a far cry from declaring people should ‘perfect’ their type or even their personality. Myers wrote that type development is being clear about your patterns and knowing when to stretch to use other mental resources. These are calls to be uniquely human.To be fair, you should know that the primary source of my comments in this essay comes from many years of involvement with psychological type. I was involved early in the development of the Association for Psychological Type and was among the initial professionals who were part of the development of qualifying training for users of the MBTI® from 1981 to 2008. I served on the MBTI Research Board and participated in the research of the newest version of the MBTI® tool, along with a panel of additional Ph.D. psychologists and psychometric specialists. I completed research on the MBTI using the data at the Center for Creative Leadership in which I analyzed the MBTI types and 75 independent variables, most of which verified predicted type patterns. I have developed my own tool for measurement of psychological type (Pearman Personality Integrator) so I know the limitations and challenges of creating a valid and reliable tool. Further, I knew a number of the individuals profiled in the book, The Personality Brokers. I have been an eyewitness to the growth and development of personality tools, including the MBTI®, and have researched and written about these tools.

I am Ravenna Helson, retired now but a research psychologist at the UC Berkeley Institute for Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR) over the period covered by Merve Emre in this book.While her writing is engaging, Emre is interesting at the cost of accuracy. This begins with the title of her book, which suggests the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was the first personality test and thus brought about the beginning of personality testing. This is far from true.To wit: the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory has been widely used and thoroughly researched; it was a clinical diagnostic instrument developed in the 1930s. The California Psychological Inventory has scales assessing characteristics common across cultures; it was developed in the 1950s. Another respected trait inventory was the Personality Research Form developed in the 1960s. The first manual for the MBTI was published by Isabel Myers in l962. So personality as a subject for research had long been born by the time the MBTI appeared.The history of Myers-Briggs may have been called “strange” by Emre because it was that of a mother and daughter who were not psychologists. Their story, however, shows so much dedication and commitment that “strange” seems, at best, an unkind term. But Emre often describes people in negative terms. Don McKinnon, director of IPAR, had had a consultation with Jung that deeply impressed him, and on the back of that association he greatly helped Myers and Briggs in the process of developing their test. He had the MBTI administered to the creative samples studied at IPAR, as well as to the staff, so we could see how the test was working. But Emre doesn’t mention MacKinnon’s help and further quotes me as calling him “henpecked” and “stingy,” terms that I don’t just refute on their face personally but am sure no one who knew Don would associate with him.Emre does not mention that Harrison Gough, a long-term director of IPAR (described by her, ludicrously, as “a compulsive designer of pen and pencil questionnaires”) and Avril Thorne, a talented graduate student, wrote “Portraits of Type, An MBTI Research Compendium.” This work was described by the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences as “certainly the most thorough, meaningful and valuable discussion of the MBTI, and anyone thinking of using it would certainly be required to be familiar with the work here presented (1999).” Furthermore, she describes the Mills Study of Women’s Adult Development, a seminal longitudinal study that I began, as “not finding out much.” Not true! It is one of the major longitudinal studies undertaken over a fifty-year period, and numerous studies credit it as such.More personally, Emre describes me as “not being known by IPAR staff members” and as being referred to as“the woman.” This statement utterly mystifies me, as I loved IPAR and greatly admired the staff. Over a very long relationship, including numerous social gatherings involving our respective families, I have no doubt the feeling was reciprocated. Equally objectionably, she says that MacKinnon gave me money for maternity leave, which is again not true. What is the case is that he enabled me to receive my usual pay even though I had gone to Europe with my husband on his sabbatical. Instead of ‘giving me money for maternity leave,’ he went out on a limb in an era less than sympathetic to family issues as they affected female academics, because he knew I wouldn’t disappoint him.Emre is a professor of English at Oxford, and she is ingenious at getting material that she can make relevant to her own direction. But her casual attitude toward the truth and her unkindness detract from the quality of her work.

The only reason I'm giving this book two stars instead of one is the fact that the book does contain some interesting tidbits and examples of the history of the MBTI. Otherwise, it is a classic example of "paradigm paralysis" from the first words. The author's biases are clear from the beginning and by the end, it's even clearer -- the author even admits her behavior is part of her "B#%##" personality which interestingly corresponds to a possible aspect of her type.While the author lists extensive references at the end, the book is filled with comments and "interpretations" of many communications that leave me wondering "where's the evidence of this?" So many examples, including the author's interpretation of the thinking portrayed by a photograph -- a photograph where the expressions could be interpreted in many different ways.The book wanders back and forth with a confusing timeline that had me frequently trying to figure out the when of a particular part of the story.While statistical validity -- which others claim the book ignores in today's version of the MBTI -- has its place, the author fails to recognize "face validity." Participants of the MBTI today see the instrument as reflecting choices they make -- and they validate the results by the importance of "verifying" the results. The author's arrogance in sarcastically calling the MBTI a "test" during her prejudiced attendance at a certification session was just one of many statements that tarnished the book.