Looking for scientific studies that validate Myers-Briggs

[Savegraduation]

Some people at another forum said that Myers-Briggs is pseudoscience, has no scientific value nor validity, is like a horoscope, etc. One guy said that the only scientific studies that confirm Myers-Briggs were all conducted or financed by its organization.

The forum master even removed a link to Andreas Hofer's "hunter-gatherer vs. farmer" theory blog because it takes Myers-Briggs seriously.

Can anyone come up with independent studies that conclude Myers-Briggs has scientific value so I can refute these claims? Not the studies conducted/financed by the Myers-Briggs organization, but studies for which skeptics won't point out a conflict of interest? That would be really helpful. Thanks!

 

[reckful]

Believe it or not, the respectable districts of the MBTI are backed by decades of psychometric support, as the leading Big Five psychologists (among others) have acknowledged. In fact, contrary to some of the poorly-informed MBTI "debunkings" you may have encountered in your internet wanderings, the MBTI has been found to be psychometrically "on a par" with the leading Big Five tests in the reliability and validity departments.

For more on the scientific status of the MBTI, see this TC Wiki article.

Among the sources cited in that article is a 2003 meta-review and large-sample study that summed up the MBTI's relative standing in the personality type field this way:

In addition to research focused on the application of the MBTI to solve applied assessment problems, a number of studies of its psychometric properties have also been performed (e.g., Harvey & Murry, 1994; Harvey, Murry, & Markham, 1994; Harvey, Murry, & Stamoulis, 1995; Johnson & Saunders, 1990; Sipps, Alexander, & Freidt, 1985; Thompson & Borrello, 1986, 1989; Tischler, 1994; Tzeng, Outcalt, Boyer, Ware, & Landis, 1984). Somewhat surprisingly, given the intensity of criticisms offered by its detractors (e.g., Pittenger, 1993), a review and meta-analysis of a large number of reliability and validity studies (Harvey, 1996) concluded that in terms of these traditional psychometric criteria, the MBTI performed quite well, being clearly on a par with results obtained using more well-accepted personality tests.​

...and the authors went on to describe the results of their own 11,000-subject study, which they specifically noted were inconsistent with the notion that the MBTI was somehow of "lower psychometric quality" than Big Five (*aka* FFM) tests. They said:

In sum, although the MBTI is very widely used in organizations, with literally millions of administrations being given annually (e.g., Moore, 1987; Suplee, 1991), the criticisms of it that have been offered by its vocal detractors (e.g., Pittenger, 1993) have led some psychologists to view it as being of lower psychometric quality in comparison to more recent tests based on the FFM (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1987). In contrast, we find the findings reported above — especially when viewed in the context of previous confirmatory factor analytic research on the MBTI, and meta-analytic reviews of MBTI reliability and validity studies (Harvey, 1996) — to provide a very firm empirical foundation that can be used to justify the use of the MBTI as a personality assessment device in applied organizational settings.​

McCrae and Costa are the leading Big Five psychologists, and authors of the NEO-PI-R, and after reviewing the MBTI's history and status (including performing their own psychometric analysis) back in 1990 — using an earlier version of the MBTI (Form G) than the one being used today — they concluded that the MBTI and the Big Five might each have things to teach the other, approvingly pointed to the MBTI's "extensive empirical literature," and suggested that their fellow Big Five typologists could benefit by reviewing MBTI studies for additional insights into the four dimensions of personality that the two typologies essentially share, as well as "valuable replications" of Big Five studies.

 

[Savegraduation]

Oh my God, thank you so much, Reckful! Sounds as if the debunkers have really been out to get Myers-Briggs! Good thing you debunked them!

And yes, you did it like a true INTJ, I must say!

 

[Cellmold]

Sadly, debunking nonsense is much harder than pseudo-proving it, so you should be able to find plenty of data to support that view.

 

[Pionart]

Sadly, debunking nonsense is much harder than pseudo-proving it, so you should be able to find plenty of data to support that view.

Hence much comes down to individual interpretation. Believe what you've been given reason to believe, and fail to accept that which hasn't appeared to you, in wisdom, to be acceptable.

We only have so much room for views, but if another makes room for a view you've not donned for your self, it should be of no concern, unless it does become an issue.

We're all on our own quest for truth, and some will pursue it with more earnest than others will. As such we're at different stages in that quest, but there should be some level of convergence.

There is proof for yourself as an individual, which can be subtle and multi-faceted, and the proof that you can share with another. Relying on the former is of course not invalid.

 

[Cellmold]

Hence much comes down to individual interpretation. Believe what you've been given reason to believe, and fail to accept that which hasn't appeared to you, in wisdom, to be acceptable.

We only have so much room for views, but if another makes room for a view you've not donned for your self, it should be of no concern, unless it does become an issue.

We're all on our own quest for truth, and some will pursue it with more earnest than others will. As such we're at different stages in that quest, but there should be some level of convergence.

There is proof for yourself as an individual, which can be subtle and multi-faceted, and the proof that you can share with another. Relying on the former is of course not invalid.

Broadly true, but in the specific instance of personality theories designed (allegedly) to be for the benefit of understanding one another, I find them sorely lacking. Instead of constantly searching for the comforting confirmation of it's existence at all, why not focus on whether it is even an effective tool to begin with?

I think there needs to be a better counterpoint or balance between empiricism and belief, enlightenment and romanticism, because we cant escape the structure and restrictions of our nature, through which all our information is perceived, yet we also can't trust that the form itself is real.

This creates a longing for a settled structure in reality and people cross the line of reasonability when they start trying to project a certainty onto the "Other" of reality, which truthfully may never be known, will always move away once you think it is caught and will remain a necessary part of our insecurities.

 

[Pionart]

Broadly true, but in the specific instance of personality theories designed (allegedly) to be for the benefit of understanding one another, I find them sorely lacking. Instead of constantly searching for the comforting confirmation of it's existence at all, why not focus on whether it is even an effective tool to begin with?

I think there needs to be a better counterpoint or balance between empiricism and belief, enlightenment and romanticism, because we cant escape the structure and restrictions of our nature, through which all our information is perceived, yet we also can't trust that the form itself is real.

This creates a longing for a settled structure in reality and people cross the line of reasonability when they start trying to project a certainty onto the "Other" of reality, which truthfully may never be known, will always move away once you think it is caught and will remain a necessary part of our insecurities.

Eh, I've reached confirmation already, though it's of course not a simple matter of is versus isn't, but to what degree, and there's a level of uncertainty in that regard.

I've certainly found it to be effective in understanding myself, though it's important to complement such an understanding with an understanding of the levels of (un)consciousness that exist beyond it (and beside it). And I'm starting to make use of it as a tool for treating psychological issues, though if I do persist in that it will require a delicate process of figuring out how to best do that. It's tough trying to treat people when they're at varying degrees of understanding and I'm dealing with a tool which hasn't attained full perfection; much is missing. Still though, it seems promising.

I don't see the personality type model that I deal with to be on a lesser standing than the rest of psychology. Actually, given my own familiarity with it, and subsequent confirmation, I give it a higher standing, as I haven't independently validated approaches to psychology that exist independently of it. Though much of psychology is related if you look at it. For instance Maslow's hierarchy of needs is similar to the Jungian hierarchy of the unconscious, which is similar to the 7 chakras system, and that is a universal structure which correlates with the cognitive function order model from 1st to 8th and then transcending it. And even many of the results of psychology about specific features of human cognition and perception probably fit nicely into the cognitive function model.

While that points to it being highly explanatory if true, the truth from my end is the kind that I can't easily transmit unless you're already seeing things from a similar point of view that I'm seeing it.

Typology is an effective tool for noting certain elements of the structure of our nature; noting what kinds of things will energise us, what we're likely to be biased for or against, how best to deal with less ideal circumstances. It's knowing one's toolset, and it's because it's been so effective in categorising much of my own cognition, and giving explanation to my preferences, that I see it as useful and valid. There are always going to be epistemological questions, pragmatic questions, ethical questions etc. and I do have a suspicion that there is something wrong with typology on a moral level, though I can't quite articulate what it is. It's possible that my entire journey in this regard has been misguided, and that my efforts would be better suited elsewhere, and that's a pressing concern for me - the fear that I focus too much on it, when there are more important things, or maybe that my intentions are misguided on a logical or moral level.

You've reminded me though to be more accepting of uncertainty, and that there will always be things I don't know and can't comprehend. Staying stuck in a past situation prevents moving forward in the journey, and it's important that the story be followed through to completion; answers will come eventually.

 

[GavinElster]

The Big Five and MBTI are highly related, if we are willing to restrict quite strictly to the MBTI test, and not to claims made about it by the MBTI foundation. The test is based on pretty reasonable methods of data analysis, and ones that are quite standard as far as I can tell in respectable psychometric practice.

The key points are

- you cannot interpret the MBTI test as telling you something directly about the functions. People who attempt to validate the functions scientifically by referring to the test are going to fail miserably

- there is no 'the functions' -- there are many theories of functions, as far as I know the oldest being Jung's. Jung's analysis of the functions ultimately seems to proceed more like a work of philosophy than a matter of empirical practice (he takes his everyday observations of patients, makes some intelligent observations, but then does a lot of armchair theorizing), regardless of what he may claim. To this day, things like thoughts, emotions, whether and how emotions contribute to value judgment, and so on, are discussed hotly in philosophy.
This sometimes proceeds in close contact with the scientific world of neuroscience, but other times proceeds much more independently -- that depends a lot on the theorist. There is legitimate scope of dispute here, because there's as yet no consensus that all aspects of mind can be adequately captured by standard empirical methods.

- The MBTI test should be viewed as actually corresponding to 4 continuous dimensions with a significant middle group...unfortunately, I'm not sure that's always made clear. I'm not aware how the test outcomes are currently reported, but they should be viewed as occurring in degrees.



This isn't strictly necessary, but I think it's at least good to mention on the side: Big 5 scores needn't correspond exactly to MBTI scores. In other words, you could often legitimately be higher on a Big 5 scale in a certain direction than in the MBTI on the corresponding scale/direction.
This is not a criticism of the legitimacy of MBTI beyond very nitpicky levels, in the sense that there's an emerging HEXACO model proposing to improve the Big 5, and it looks similar with some organizational differences.

Think of the Big 5's version of F/T as one of the most different -- the parts about feeling/thinking more directly don't seem to be as obviously related to the Big 5 (in the sense that studies measuring that type of content in isolation don't seem to yield as strong relations to a Big 5 dimension), but the parts centered on toughmindedness and tenderheartedness are highly correlated to Agreeableness, particularly some facets more than others.
Again, not a flaw so much as a feature -- lots of personality inventories toss up personality a little differently than the Big 5. You can see the MBTI as involving some more specialized idiosyncracies of interest to Jung than the Big 5, but the dimensions are still broadly the same in flavor as 4/5 Big 5 ones.

 

[rav3n]

Among the sources cited in that article is a 2003 meta-review and large-sample study that summed up the MBTI's relative standing in the personality type field this way:

Citeseer crawls free stuff and houses it, whether it's peer reviewed or not, peer trashed or not. This 'paper' was presented at a SIOP conference. SIOP is applied 'psychology' for business (industrial and organizational, specifically). It's loved by HR professionals who aren't scientists.

tl;dr It's a circle jerk, similar to 'studies' published by the Journal of Psychological Types.

 

[reckful]

Citeseer crawls free stuff and houses it, whether it's peer reviewed or not, peer trashed or not. This 'paper' was presented at a SIOP conference. SIOP is applied 'psychology' for business (industrial and organizational, specifically). It's loved by HR professionals who aren't scientists.

tl;dr It's a circle jerk, similar to 'studies' published by the Journal of Psychological Types.

It summarizes an earlier meta-review of years of studies, quite a number of them published in peer-reviewed journals, and reports on the results of an 11,000-subject study, conducted by this guy...

RJ Harvey (Ph.D. Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Ohio State, 1982) has taught at Virginia Tech since 1987. As author of the Common-Metric Questionnaire (CMQ), the preeminent standardized job analysis survey, he has been active in research on job/occupational analysis and assessment topics related to employee selection and competency modeling. In recent years, he has been a vocal critic of the Department of Labor's plans to replace the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) with the O*NET on philosophical, legal-defensibility, and psychometric grounds. His current research programs focus on developing a defensible, job-related occupational analysis system suitable for replacing the failed O*NET, using job-component validation (JCV) to link the domains of job work-dimensions and worker personal-traits, and developing faking-resistant assessments of non-cognitive (personality) traits.​

...which (taken together) led him to conclude that the MBTI was psychometrically "on a par" with the leading Big Five tests.

If you've got any substantive criticisms to offer with respect to any aspect of that article, step right up.

 

[rav3n]

It summarizes an earlier meta-review of years of studies, quite a number of them published in peer-reviewed journals, and reports on the results of an 11,000-subject study, conducted by this guy...

RJ Harvey (Ph.D. Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Ohio State, 1982) has taught at Virginia Tech since 1987. As author of the Common-Metric Questionnaire (CMQ), the preeminent standardized job analysis survey, he has been active in research on job/occupational analysis and assessment topics related to employee selection and competency modeling. In recent years, he has been a vocal critic of the Department of Labor's plans to replace the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) with the O*NET on philosophical, legal-defensibility, and psychometric grounds. His current research programs focus on developing a defensible, job-related occupational analysis system suitable for replacing the failed O*NET, using job-component validation (JCV) to link the domains of job work-dimensions and worker personal-traits, and developing faking-resistant assessments of non-cognitive (personality) traits.​

...which (taken together) led him to conclude that the MBTI was psychometrically "on a par" with the leading Big Five tests.

If you've got any substantive criticisms to offer with respect to any aspect of that article, step right up.

This is I/O:

Pursuing a Career in Industrial and Organizational Psychology

All About Industrial and Organizational Psychology
There are many variables that determine how well an organization or company operates. Effective communication and conflict resolution, process evaluation, professional competence and effective management are examples of the components necessary for businesses to succeed.

Often, shortcomings in any of these areas can be traced back to the ways employees are selected, trained, share information or interact. I/O psychologists use their knowledge of human behavior to address these challenges.

They use quantitative research and evaluation methods to apply best practices within a company and teach people how to work better. Their research may take the form of an observation, where they document how an employee or team performs in their work environment, or a survey designed to identify issues affecting workplace behavior. This research might be aimed at increasing employee productivity, developing screening procedures for new applicants, increasing overall workplace quality, or getting to the root of a work-related issue that is interfering with performance.

It's about workplace behaviors, hiring practices and increasing productivity. It's not the same as other branches of psychology which address the human psyche.

 

[reckful]

This is I/O:

Pursuing a Career in Industrial and Organizational Psychology

It's about workplace behaviors, hiring practices and increasing productivity. It's not the same as other branches of psychology which address the human psyche.

???

Neither that 11,000-subject study, nor the meta-review summarized in that article, are "about workplace behaviors, hiring practices and increasing productivity." They're about the psychometric status of the MBTI.

As I assume you know.

As I said yesterday...

If you've got any substantive criticisms to offer with respect to any aspect of that article, step right up.

 

[rav3n]

???

Neither that 11,000-subject study, nor the meta-review summarized in that article, are "about workplace behaviors, hiring practices and increasing productivity." They're about the psychometric status of the MBTI.

As I assume you know.

As I said yesterday...

So, you're in reliance of a meta-analysis of someone unqualified to address the more generalized aspect of MBTI, as applied to the general population and not in the workplace?

 

[reckful]

So, you're in reliance of a meta-analysis of someone unqualified to address the more generalized aspect of MBTI, as applied to the general population and not in the workplace?

You haven't pointed to any reason to question Robert Harvey's qualification to address the validity and reliability of the MBTI. Which he does — and not in a way that's limited to workplace-related applications.

Can you explain why you think his conclusion that the MBTI is "on a par" with the leading Big Five tests in the reliability and validity departments — based on a meta-review of existing studies that were very much not limited to workplace-related data, and a supplemental study of his own that had nothing to do with workplace-related data — is somehow limited to "workplace" applications of the MBTI, and not applicable to "the general population"?

 

[rav3n]

You haven't pointed to any reason to question Robert Harvey's qualification to address the validity and reliability of the MBTI. Which he does — and not in a way that's limited to workplace-related applications.

What makes you believe he's qualified to do so? Workplaces are ecosystems of people are trying to make a living. This translates to forced and enforced behaviors.

 

[GavinElster]

I guess what I'd expect is that people may intend to use the MBTI for different purposes, but a base-part of using an instrument is to figure out its quality. My understanding is that part involves a lot of quantitative measures that are something pretty much any type of psychologist needs to worry about; either they are capable of assessing the relevant properties of the instrument themselves, or they have some metric to know when others have done the requisite testing. Perhaps one type of psychologist is more qualified than other to interpret the scores towards certain ends (like, say, one may use them towards therapy, vs the other towards career recommendations), but I get the sense, just as someone specializing in public health may go different directions in public health, but all may have the basic statistical training to assess the methods they're using critically, many serious about personality testing plausibly have some training to assess the quantitative properties of the instruments they plan on using (regardless the ends).

I think these passages might help give an overview of some of the issues in a pretty reasonable way:

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) remains highly
popular in applied organizational settings (e.g., Myers,
McCaulley, Quenk, & Hammer, 1998), despite the fact that its
Jungian “type”-based view of personality is conceptually quite
different from the “trait” or continuous dimensional view of
personality popularized by other instruments, and in the Five
Factor Model (FFM) view of the structure of personality (e.g.,
Goldberg, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1987, 1989). Although the
MBTI has always been scored to produce continuous
“preference scores” for each of its four dimensions – and
indeed, in its most recent revision the MBTI adopted a
continuous dimensional scoring system based on the 3-
parameter logistic item response theory (IRT) model – its
developers continue to emphasize the necessity of using
dichotomous types when making assessment decisions, and
not the continuous scores on the dimensions themselves that
form the basis for the dichotomized types

from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.391.4682&rep=rep1&type=pdf which suggests Harvey is aware of the slant of the developers to type-based interpretations

and

Reliability (when scores are treated as continuous scores, as in most other psychological instruments) is as good as or better than other personality instruments.

from the MBTI foundation (which suggests they are aware of the issue, and that one can use the instrument via a continuous interpretation, regardless of the particular inclinations of the foundation).

 

[Peter Deadpan]

There are far more interesting and promising approaches to typing, in my opinion.

 

[Tengri]

/N

Some people at another forum said that Myers-Briggs is pseudoscience, has no scientific value nor validity, is like a horoscope, etc. One guy said that the only scientific studies that confirm Myers-Briggs were all conducted or financed by its organization.

The forum master even removed a link to Andreas Hofer's "hunter-gatherer vs. farmer" theory blog because it takes Myers-Briggs seriously.

Can anyone come up with independent studies that conclude Myers-Briggs has scientific value so I can refute these claims? Not the studies conducted/financed by the Myers-Briggs organization, but studies for which skeptics won't point out a conflict of interest? That would be really helpful. Thanks!

Put concisely, MBTI is an inventory of how an individual assimilates information based on personal preference. (This cannot predict individual behavior) The dichotomy of traits it measures for (I/E, T/F, S/N, P/J) are anecdotal constructs with no measurable scientific validity and interpretation is left to self-assessment. The most succinct summary of Jungian functions/MBTI I have come across.

Food for thought:

Considering the Situation: Why People are Better Social Psychologists than Self-psychologists

The Structure of Phenotypic Personality Traits by Lewis R. Goldberg

GLOBAL THOUGHTS: A Neo-Allportion Approach to Personality by David C. Funder

 

[reckful]

The dichotomy of traits it measures for (I/E, T/F, S/N, P/J) are anecdotal constructs with no measurable scientific validity and interpretation is left to self-assessment. The most succinct summary of Jungian functions/MBTI I have come across.

As the old saying goes, everybody's entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts. And that "succinct summary" you linked to is a steaming heap of misinformation about how the MBTI was developed, its psychometric status, and how it relates to Jung original notions.

If you have any fondness for facts, you should take a look at the TC Wiki article linked in this post, which addresses most of the criticisms made in that succinct summary, along with several other issues often raised by people claiming to "debunk" the MBTI.

 

[Drunkstein]

Can anyone come up with independent studies that conclude Myers-Briggs has scientific value so I can refute these claims?

See, this is what I don't get, why instead of trying to seek the truth you are trying to "refute claims"?