The former group could be further split into people who prefer sensing and others who prefer intuiting, while the latter could be split into thinkers and feelers, for a total of four types of people. In it, he put forth a few different interesting, unsupported theories on how the human brain operates.Īmong other things, he explained that humans roughly fall into two main types: perceivers and judgers. In 1921, Jung published the book Psychological Types. (Douglas Glass/Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images) The Myers-Briggs rests on wholly unproven theoriesĬarl Jung in 1960. Here's an explanation of why these labels are so meaningless - and why no organization in the 21st century should rely on the test for anything.
Yet you've probably heard people telling you that they're an ENFJ (extroverted intuitive feeling judging), an INTP (introverted intuitive thinking perceiving), or another one of the 16 types drawn from Jung's work, and you may have even been given this test in a professional setting. Several analyses have shown the test is totally ineffective at predicting people's success in various jobs, and that about half of the people who take it twice get different results each time. Even Jung warned that his personality "types" were just rough tendencies he'd observed, rather than strict classifications. The test claims that based on 93 questions, it can group all the people of the world into 16 different discrete "types" - and in doing so, serve as "a powerful framework for building better relationships, driving positive change, harnessing innovation, and achieving excellence." Most of the faithful think of it primarily as a tool for telling you your proper career choice.īut the test was developed in the 1940s based on the totally untested theories of Carl Jung and is now thoroughly disregarded by the psychology community.
"The characteristics measured by the test have almost no predictive power on how happy you'll be in a situation, how you'll perform at your job, or how happy you'll be in your marriage."Īnalysis shows the test is totally ineffective at predicting people's success at various jobs "There's just no evidence behind it," says Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who's written about the shortcomings of the Myers-Briggs previously. The only problem? The test is completely meaningless.
The company that produces and markets the test makes around $20 million off it each year. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is probably the most widely used personality test in the world.Ībout 2 million people take it annually, at the behest of corporate HR departments, colleges, and even government agencies.
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