If the patterns are true.......

This weekend a colleague thrust another “MBTI is useless” article in front of me and I was asked to explain what was right or wrong in the critique. I pointed out that the article consistently referred to a narrative about the MBTI which is pretty old—namely, that it was developed by a non-psychologist bored housewife. I shared that narrative no longer was useful given the total revision of the MBTI by a panel of PhD psychologists and assessment specialists using Item Response Statistics. Further, IRT (Item Response Theory) is considered the most powerful method to verify underlying behavior patterns.

A second issue raised by the article was “failure at being consistent” and referenced data from the 1985 MBTI Manual. I suggested that the newest data should be used, and by all standards, the MBTI was as or more reliable than other tools. You can pull up the manuals of a host of established tools claiming to be better than the MBTI and their reliability coefficients are no better than those of the MBTI.

Finally, “all of the descriptions are like horoscopes” and can’t really be helpful. It is true that Myers had a bias in that she said, “type is what is right with people.” She clearly wanted to affirm typical patterns and identify tendencies that playout in everyday life and wasn’t too interested in any kind of clinical approach. In this, she was ahead of the Positive Psychology movement.

And of course, I pointed out that the biggest issues were ignored by the critic. First, the MBTI is based on Myers’ interpretation of C.G. Jung’s theory of psychological types, and almost no one wants to explore this because it is complex. Jung simply proposed that what he observed in his clinical practice was the presence of general trends that permeated a person’s point of view and approach to life. He was always clear that his model should not be used to assign designations because, as he said, he was simply trying to provide a metaphor for very complex psychological processes.

Jung proposed that some individuals are inclined to attend to sensing details, others to intuiting patterns and associations, some to logical analysis, and others to ideals. It occurred to him that these four orientations were greatly affected by extraversion and introversion--processes he highlighted. He was most interested in how these contributed to a one-sided nature in individuals which posed a host of challenges in adapting to everyday life and difficulties in working effectively with others.

So Myers started with an “if”. If Jung was correct, then these patterns would be evident and could be sorted. Jung could not have been more consistent in declaring that all of the processes were active in an individual, but accessed and used in varying degrees. I took the “if” in another direction with the Pearman Personality Integrator. While Myers was interested in how an individual’s use of these processes was ordered (dominant, auxiliary, etc.), I wanted to test Jung’s notion that all eight processes were present, used in varying degrees, and greater flexibility in using these functions enables a person to adjust to challenges more effectively. (Note that we now have enough information to make firmer declarations about behavioral type patterns, but this is not the focus here.)

Both approaches to Jung’s theory serve different purposes, but at their core, both assessments are testing “if” Jung’s proposition has some reality. It is true that he indicated that a primary (“superior”) process was a key driver of interests, skills, and daily tactics. It is also true that he noted that knowing “both and” would lead to greater effectiveness. Knowing your primary pattern AND knowing the other processes that are used, but in different ways, leads to greater well-being. In other words, if you only analyzed details, you would miss a world of other useful sources of information and would therefore make distorted decisions. Making perceptions clearer and judgments more sound is the goal of using Jung’s theory of psychological types.

If the neurosciences have taught us anything at this point, it is that we come into this world wired with a host of tendencies and “programs” all designed to enable us to thrive. The recent discovery that brain neuron cells have more structures than we ever imagined leads us to the realization that “if” certain things are true given the available evidence, how can we use those discoveries to inform our understanding and our choices with the current level of knowledge. Jung and Myers would have us take their insights and treat them with the perspective of “if” these tendencies are true of you, then consider the outcomes. Yes, we are very complex and the more we learn about how our brain works, the more the mystery of life is exciting and the opportunity of discovery calls out to us. And a place to start is “if” the patterns identified in tools (like the MBTI, Pearman, Majors Elements) open doors to insight, lean in to them, gather more data, and consider what may be required for growth and a greater sense of well-being.