

Have we all been duped by the Myers-Briggs test? - aaron695
http://fortune.com/2013/05/15/have-we-all-been-duped-by-the-myers-briggs-test/

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ScottBurson
_Take_ [for example] _the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the world’s most
popular psychometric test, which is based on Jung’s theory of personality
types._

The MBTI is based _very loosely_ on Jung's theory -- to the point that it's
not at all clear that Jung himself would have endorsed it. Jung described
eight types, not 16. Some years ago I read the descriptions of the eight types
in Jung's _Psychological Types_ and compared them with the nine types of the
Enneagram. Indeed, Jung's descriptions matched up very well with eight of the
Enneagram types. (He missed the Three.)

The MBTI, by comparison, is a mess. It's hard to say, in many cases, how the
MBTI types match up against either Jung's or the Enneagram.

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pfooti
Well, not "all" of us - people who know about experimental psychology and
cognitive science (and statistics even) have known that the MBTI is pretty
much pseudoscience and bunk. It's great for post-hoc rationalization of your
feelings, and decent for communicating ideas about personality to people, but
the actual four-factor with subfactor test is snake oil. Business executives
like it because it feels science-y, and business people love metrics, even if
those metrics are ultimately meaningless. See also: almost every business
"reform" in education.

