The Myers-Briggs Personality Test

Summary

Maintenance Phase Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test
Hosts: Aubrey Gordon & Michael Hobbes
Release Date: September 12, 2024
Description: Debunking the junk science behind health fads, wellness scams, and nonsensical nutrition advice.

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1. Introduction to the Myers-Briggs Personality Test

The episode kicks off with Michael Hobbs humorously critiquing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), branding their podcast as a "S, U, C, K, S" [00:11]. Aubrey Gordon swiftly counters, emphasizing the podcast’s unique place among the 16 recognized podcast types [00:21]. The hosts introduce themselves and outline the episode's focus on dissecting the MBTI, a test widely used in personal and professional settings.

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2. Personal Backgrounds with MBTI

Michael shares his childhood exposure to MBTI through his mother, who integrated the test into church activities and couples counseling [01:18]. He identifies as an INFP, though he expresses frustration over the fluidity of his type over time, noting that only the introversion-extroversion scale remained consistent [02:18].

In contrast, Aubrey recounts her positive initial encounter with MBTI at a nonprofit leadership retreat in her 20s. She appreciated how the test fostered a sense of connectedness and framed different personality types as contributors rather than detractors [03:07]. However, she later observed the test fostering cliques and prejudgments within her organization, which led to her disenchantment [05:55].

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3. Understanding the MBTI Framework

Aubrey provides a concise explanation of the MBTI, outlining its four binary preference pairs:

• Extroversion (E) vs. Introversion (I): Directing and receiving energy [09:02].
• Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N): Ways of taking in information [09:40].
• Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F): Approaches to decision-making [09:40].
• Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P): Approaches to the external world [09:40].

Michael criticizes the binary nature of these categories, arguing that they oversimplify human personality and do not account for the spectrum on which personality traits exist [10:21]. He draws parallels to the arbitrary nature of "love languages," suggesting that while frameworks can be useful, they often lack scientific rigor [04:16].

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4. The Forer Effect and MBTI's Popularity

Aubrey introduces the concept of the Forer Effect—the tendency of individuals to perceive vague, general statements as highly accurate for themselves—highlighting its role in MBTI's widespread appeal [11:06]. She references the classic Forer experiment, where identical personality profiles led participants to rate the descriptions as highly accurate for themselves, despite being generalized [12:02].

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5. Historical Origins of MBTI

The hosts delve into the history of MBTI, tracing its roots to Catherine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. Aubrey narrates Catherine’s early work in child-rearing and personality observation, leading to the development of rudimentary personality types [23:01]. Inspired by Carl Jung’s "Psychological Types," Isabel sought to popularize his theories, ultimately creating the MBTI in 1943 [26:26].

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6. Divergence from Jung’s Theories

Michael explains how MBTI diverged significantly from Jung’s original concepts, particularly in the interpretation of introversion and extroversion. Jung viewed introversion as an inward orientation focusing on the self's subjective factor, while MBTI redefined these traits in a more superficial manner [26:26]. This misalignment underscores MBTI’s departure from rigorous psychological theory [27:24].

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7. Criticisms of MBTI’s Validity and Reliability

The podcast hosts highlight several critical flaws of MBTI:

• Lack of Scientific Validation: MBTI has not undergone the rigorous scientific validation that models like the Big Five have, making its reliability questionable [15:42].
• Poor Test-Retest Reliability: Studies show that a significant percentage of individuals receive different results upon retaking the test within a short period [18:08].
• Self-Report Bias: As a self-report instrument, MBTI is susceptible to subjective biases, limiting its accuracy [15:25].
• Limited Predictive Power: Unlike the Big Five, which has demonstrated predictive accuracy for life outcomes, MBTI's predictive capabilities are minimal [18:35].

Aubrey underscores these issues, noting that MBTI was never intended as a clinical tool and lacks robust clinical validation [16:43].

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8. Commercialization and Workplace Use

Aubrey discusses the rapid commercialization of MBTI through partnerships with corporations and distribution by consulting firms like CPP (now The Myers-Briggs Company) [34:48]. By the 1950s, MBTI had entrenched itself in workplace settings, offering a seemingly harmless personality assessment that appealed to businesses seeking to streamline hiring and team dynamics [35:16].

Michael critiques the use of MBTI in professional environments, highlighting its role in creating superficial classifications that fail to capture the complexity of individual personalities [43:13].

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9. Ethical and Legal Concerns

The episode delves into the ethical implications of using MBTI for hiring and personnel decisions:

• Discriminatory Practices: MBTI's use in hiring can inadvertently discriminate against individuals with disabilities or those who do not fit neatly into its binary categories [50:32].
• Legal Risks: The EEOC has taken action against companies misusing personality tests, leading to significant settlements and mandates to cease such practices [50:55].

Aubrey notes that despite MBTI's popularity, its misuse in professional settings poses serious legal and ethical challenges, undermining its legitimacy [51:07].

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10. Anecdotes Illustrating MBTI’s Flaws

The hosts share humorous and critical anecdotes from the history of MBTI’s development:

• Isabel Briggs Myers' Quirky Methods: Aubrey recounts Isabel’s unconventional approach to MBTI administration, including leaving sticky fingerprints from her homemade energy drink, "Tiger's Milk," which led to her nickname in the ETS office [38:05].
• Misaligned Objectives: Isabel’s insistence on segregating test results by gender and excluding individuals with lower IQs highlights the flawed and biased foundations of MBTI [40:24].

Michael mocks these practices, emphasizing the disconnect between MBTI’s purported egalitarian principles and its exclusionary practices [40:28].

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11. Continued Popularity Despite Criticism

Despite extensive criticism from psychologists, scientists, and professional associations, MBTI remains popular. Aubrey attributes this persistence to a human desire for certainty and simple classification tools that offer comfort in an uncertain world [53:51]. The hosts lament the ongoing use of MBTI, especially in contexts where its scientific validity is questionable [53:32].

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12. Conclusion: Maintenance Phase’s Stance on MBTI

Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbs conclude the episode by reiterating their skepticism towards MBTI. They highlight the test's superficial categorization, lack of scientific backing, and potential for misuse in professional settings. The hosts advocate for a more nuanced and scientifically grounded approach to understanding personality, discouraging reliance on oversimplified frameworks like MBTI.

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Notable Quotes

• Michael Hobbs [02:18]: "This is kind of my beef with the Myers Briggs is that it changed over time. And I was talking to my mom about this recently, and she said everything changed except for the introvert extrovert thing."

• Aubrey Gordon [11:06]: "One of the core critiques has been, well, you've got these raw numbers of what percentages people sort of responded with. Why wouldn't you just say you're 57% extroverted?"

• Michael Hobbs [18:35]: "This is like me taking it when I was a kid. Yeah, totally."

• Aubrey Gordon [23:01]: "She starts sort of systematizing her very plussed up childcare operation basically."

• Michael Hobbs [40:28]: "I'm judging this. I'm an ijj."

• Aubrey Gordon [53:32]: "The popularity of this instrument in the absence of proven scientific worth is troublesome."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Maintenance Phase provides a comprehensive critique of the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, blending historical context with contemporary criticisms. Through engaging dialogue and insightful analysis, Aubrey and Michael expose the limitations and potential harms of relying on MBTI for personal and professional assessments. Their balanced approach offers listeners a thorough understanding of why MBTI remains popular despite significant scientific and ethical concerns.

Transcript

[Michael Hobbs]

All I can think of is corny Myers Briggs humor. We took a personality test, and this podcast is a S, U, C, K, S. Okay. Terrible, terrible.

[Aubrey Gordon]

One letter too many.

[Michael Hobbs]

I know the literal first thing, and I've already fucked it up. Okay, welcome to Maintenance phase, the podcast that is one of only 16 kinds of podcasts.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Oh, I like it.

[Michael Hobbs]

There's a finite number of types of.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Things definitively, and the type of podcast never changes for your whole life.

[Michael Hobbs]

We're coming for you people with MBTI in their dating profile.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I'm Aubrey Gordon.

[Michael Hobbs]

I'm Michael Hobbs.

[Aubrey Gordon]

If you would like to support the show, you can do [e-mail] maintenancephase and Michael today.

[Michael Hobbs]

Wait, hang on. Aubrey. I like to say Aubrey after you say Michael.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I know. I didn't expect it to be a pause for Aubrey today we're talking about the most popular personality test in the world, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. This was a Michael Hobbs special request.

[Michael Hobbs]

Well, a sort of a. This was a. I want Aubrey to do this so I don't have to do this request because it was inevitable that we would do it. And I have a preexisting feature which we will get to.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Right. So that's my question for you, is just to kick us off. How do you come to the mbti? What's your. What's your background with the Myers Briggs?

[Michael Hobbs]

So my mom was really into the MBTI when I was growing up and was, like, involved with the organization in, like, a tangential way.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Oh, no. I wish I had done all of this differently. Mrs. Mike's mom.

[Michael Hobbs]

Basically, there was a movement to, like, bring the Myers Briggs type indicators into churches, and my mom was, like, involved in that movement. So she was, like a licensed MBTI giver. And, like, she was using it for couples counseling. She was using it with, like, various congregational things that she was doing in her church. So as a child, my mom talked about Myers Briggs a lot, and I remember taking it a couple of times.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Oh, do you know what your type is?

[Michael Hobbs]

I think I'm an infp. But it changed. This is kind of my beef with the Myers Briggs is that it changed over time. And I was talking to my mom about this recently, and she said everything changed except for the introvert extrovert thing. That I was, like, the most introverted little child imaginable.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Listen, Michael, I've been in deep enough on this to say you are not an infp. No INFP of mine acts the way that you act. No, I don't know. INFP is one that a lot of people get.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It's sort of the, like, sensitive, idealistic, like, okay, too tender for this world kind of person.

[Michael Hobbs]

How is that not me?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Too tender for this world? The guy who only starts fights on the Internet? Aubrey, how dare you?

[Michael Hobbs]

I am such a sensitive little baby. I am so nice. Just not to other people or, like, in my. Just not in my interactions with others.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Well, listen, my background with the Myers Briggs is different. I encountered it for the first time at a nonprofit leadership retreat that I went to in, like, my 20s.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So we took the quiz. We broke out into small groups based on our type, and I loved everything about it. I loved how it gave me this sort of sense of connectedness to other people that I wouldn't have expected to feel connected to. I loved that it positioned each of us as problem solvers whose job it was to figure out how to navigate different personality types and work styles rather than just, like, grousing and writing somebody off. Right.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I loved that it said that every type has something to contribute and something to offer. Right.

[Michael Hobbs]

I actually had this conversation with my mom recently because we were talking about, like, sort of circling back because she's not really as into it now as she used to be. And the way that she put it was that it's a constructive way to talk about differences between people.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah.

[Michael Hobbs]

It's not like, you suck and I'm cool. It's like, oh, well, this is what you need from an interaction, or, like, this is what you're bringing to it. And I think of it very similarly to the love languages, where these specific five love languages are kind of made up and arbitrary and not really based on anything. But on the other hand, it's very constructive to have a conversation with somebody of, like, how do you receive compliments? How do you receive gifts? How do you like to be loved and show love?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah.

[Michael Hobbs]

And I don't know where we're going with this episode, but I think people feel this kind of be clenchment when they see us talking about something that maybe they like, and they're like, oh, no. Mike and Aubrey are gonna say that I'm problematic for enjoying this thing. And, like, I don't think that's the project of this episode at all. I really like taking personality tests, and I think it's really important to have frameworks for talking about, like, conflict and relationships between people that don't make either person feel like shit. And I think in, like, 99% of cases, that's, like, what the Myers Briggs type indicator is Doing, like, on an interpersonal level, I mostly think it's like, a force for good.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Absolutely.

[Michael Hobbs]

I need all the people who thought we were going to cancel Pilates to help their MBTI friends through it.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So I'll say the flip side of the Myers Briggs, and part of what started to sour me on it was I would start to administer it in advance of our staff retreats, and then we'd have a whole staff retreat session about, like, how do we work better together? And that kind of thing. We kept that up for a few years, but over time, it started to kind of devolve into this weird cliquishness. Oh, and, like, prejudgment about other types. So, like, we'd be going through a hiring process with a hiring committee, and somebody would be like, we are not hiring. Another persuader.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, interesting.

[Aubrey Gordon]

People would be like, our team is out of balance, or, I've decided I don't like this type. So it was sort of this shortcut to get people to connect more. And then over time, it started becoming another reason that people would disregard each other. It felt like it sort of backfired.

[Michael Hobbs]

You can't sit with us. This is the INFP. Table 1 is 100% actually INFP.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Also, Mike, once again, you are not at the INFP table.

[Michael Hobbs]

Dude, I just looked at my text from my mom and that's what she says.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Look up INFP right now.

[Michael Hobbs]

Wait, okay. She. This is what my mom wrote. This is what my mom wrote. I'm reading text from my mom on my podcast. It says introvert, which, of course she doesn't need to define because it's so obvious that I'm an introvert. Intuition, which means big picture thinking rather than details. Feeling, which means values rather than linear logic as a way to make decision decisions. Perceiving, which means you meet the outer world with a stance of taking in info rather than making decisions about it.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Listen, here's the opening segment on 16 personalities.com, which is like a very widely used sort of Myers Briggs adjacent website. The first clause of the first sentence is, although they may seem quiet or unassuming.

[Michael Hobbs]

Well, okay, all right, all right. Fair, fair point, fair point, fair point. We are doing a bonus episode where Aubrey and I take the MBTI and diagnose each other. Or, like, classify each other, whatever it's called. So we will answer this question.

[Aubrey Gordon]

The name of the INFP type is the Mediator. Mediators are poetic, kind, and altruistic people always eager to help a good cause. Aubrey, parts of that are True of you, Aubrey.

[Michael Hobbs]

This podcast is completely dedicated to the good cause of yelling at transphobes on social media. One of the great joys of my life and one of the most essential functions in our society.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So if the headline here was instigator, I'd be like, yes.

[Michael Hobbs]

The thing is, instead of doing. Instead of doing the bonus episode where we like, take the test, we should have a debate between you and my mom. Just a long, like, Chatham House rules or whatever. Like. Okay, opening statement, two minutes.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Oh, my God. Well, thank you for that because that also gets us the, like, overview of the four different letters.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Well, thanks for doing that.

[Michael Hobbs]

I didn't mean to. Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

The number one source for this episode is a book called the Personality Brain, written by Merve Amray. This is a great read.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, fabulous.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So just like, if people want to know more about this story, there are infinity times more layers to it. There's a ton more texture to it. You should absolutely read this book. It whips.

[Michael Hobbs]

I forgot that there are good books.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Me too.

[Michael Hobbs]

Honestly, this is something that has escaped me in the last, like two years of my life.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So, Michael, should we talk a Little Myers Briggs 101?

[Michael Hobbs]

Wait, do you want me to do it because I'm such an expert? Cause my mother due to. My mother due to osmosis in my home.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yes, tell me. Give me your 1011 on the Myers Briggs.

[Michael Hobbs]

There's four different categories and each of the category is a binary. So introvert, Extrovert. Okay, I'm done. I don't know what the other three are. We've reached the limits of the osmosis.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So just to back it up one step, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator is a personality test. As a test taker, you answer a self report questionnaire. Then you get results that slot you into one of 16 personality types that are a combination of four letters. Those four letters are, as you noted, binaries. Right. The current website for the Myers Briggs calls them preference pairs. Those are extroversion and introversion, which the website describes as opposite ways to direct and receive energy. Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or your own inner world?

[Michael Hobbs]

That's a bad description of introvert. Extrovert.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Honestly, all of these are wild descriptions.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Sensing and intuition, which the website says are opposite ways to take in information. Do you prefer to focus on the facts or the big picture? Thinking and feeling, opposite ways to decide and come to conclusion. Do you prefer to take an objective or an empathetic approach for deciding? The last so called Preference pair is judging and perceiving opposite ways to approach the outside world. Do you prefer to seek closure or stay open to outside information?

[Michael Hobbs]

I think anyone who's into the Myers Briggs would admit that. Of course, all of these are on a spectrum.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yep.

[Michael Hobbs]

People can be. It can be situational. It can change over time. It's. No one is, like, 100% one or the other. So each of these sounds, like, really simplistic and terrible when you, like, read them off. Like, do you like thinking or do you like feeling? It's like, obviously all do both.

[Aubrey Gordon]

One of the consistent critiques has been, well, you've got these raw numbers of what percentages people sort of responded with how. What percentage introverted versus what percentage extroverted? Why wouldn't you just say you're 57% extroverted? Right, right. Versus going, no, you are an extrovert, and you are that thing for the rest of your life. Right, yeah. Which is also a core pillar of the Myers Briggs is that your type is innate. You were born with it, and it does not change for your whole life.

[Michael Hobbs]

Wait, they actually say this, the test people?

[Aubrey Gordon]

100%.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, that's dumb. That's bad.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah.

[Michael Hobbs]

I feel like the only way to approach these things is to not take them so seriously that you think that, like, the map is the territory. Obviously, people do not fit into really, any binary.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yes. Coming off of our trans episodes. Yes.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So the Myers Briggs is frequently described as being the most popular personality test in the world. According to the New Yorker, more than 2 million people take it each year. And that is presumably just through the Myers Briggs Company. Part of the appeal of the Myers Briggs is attributed to something called the Forer effect.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So the horror effect is defined as the tendency of people to hear general, sort of broadly applicable descriptions of their life or personality and to identify with those as deep and specific to them.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, this is like when I used to write horoscopes.

[Aubrey Gordon]

100%.

[Michael Hobbs]

Totally.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah.

[Michael Hobbs]

It's actually really easy to come up with stuff that sounds specific but is actually very general to, like, everyone. Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Forer also described an inverse inability to recognize those descriptions as being applicable to others. That people would be like, no, no, no, it's just me.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, interesting. O.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It's named for Bertram Forer, who's a psychologist who documented the effect in 1949.

[Michael Hobbs]

He.

[Aubrey Gordon]

He did an experiment that is so mean and so funny.

[Michael Hobbs]

That's every. That's every psychological experiment before, like, 1985.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Totally. This is 1949. So you can Imagine he's.

[Michael Hobbs]

He's just like, we're going to push them down the stairs and see what happens.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Forer administered a personality test to his students. And then a week. So he had them fill out a questionnaire. Right. And then a week later, he presented them their personality profiles.

[Michael Hobbs]

Ah, okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

He has everyone rate the accuracy of the test on a scale of 0 to 5. The average accuracy rating was 4.3.

[Michael Hobbs]

And he gave all of them the same one.

[Aubrey Gordon]

He gave them all the same one. And he had lifted it from an astrology magazine that he picked up at a newsstand.

[Michael Hobbs]

Love it.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Can I tell you what the actual profile was that Forer handed out to his students?

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah. Gimme, gimme, gimme. I was going to ask. This is OK. Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It's a 13 point numbered list.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

One. You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. True. 2. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.

[Michael Hobbs]

Eh, only when I'm bad.

[Aubrey Gordon]

3. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.

[Michael Hobbs]

I definitely think that about myself, but is probably not true. I'm using 100% of my brain.

[Aubrey Gordon]

4. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.

[Michael Hobbs]

Or start a podcast highlighting them.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Disciplined and self controlled. Outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.

[Michael Hobbs]

I never heard that from everyone I know. 8.

[Aubrey Gordon]

You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.

[Michael Hobbs]

I like how all of these are like you like change, but also constancy.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Sometimes you're extroverted, but sometimes you want to be alone.

[Michael Hobbs]

This is like those dating profiles that are like, I can laugh one minute and be serious the next. Oh, so you're a person, a human.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Being with changeable emotions. Imagine. 9. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept other statements without satisfactory proof.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh yeah, everyone. Everyone wants to think that. They're like, I don't just follow the crowd. Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

13, security is one of your major goals in life.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, well, that's like a Maslow's hierarchy thing. You just want to eat food.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Sex makes you nervous sometimes and you don't always feel super confident about it.

[Michael Hobbs]

It's wild. The kids didn't clock this as like just a totally generic description of everyone you've ever met.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I like that you're like, I'm team Professor. These kids are not smart.

[Michael Hobbs]

I'm actually a super independent thinker, Aubrey, who doesn't f follow the crowd.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So the reason that that matters is that when people identify with the descriptions they're given in a personality test, research shows that they are more likely to see the test itself as more valid.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Because of course they are.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

And research also finds that people identify with those descriptions more when they are favorable. Because again, of course they do.

[Michael Hobbs]

Infp. Smoking hot. Thoughtful. Like, wow, this test is good. I rescind my previous comments.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So here is the issue. The Myers Briggs is just not very good at reliably assessing people's personalities.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

When we talk about personality, we're talking about a mixture of observable behaviors and like subjective judgments. Right. In the case of the Myers Briggs, what they're measuring is our own subjective view of ourselves. Right. That you're filling out a self report, the only data that's going in is coming from you and the only result is coming back to you. Right. It is self report. But that's also pretty much every personality test.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So if it's so subjective, how do we know it's wrong? There are a few ways. One, they haven't proven that these are static, unchanging, core features of a person's personality. Right. The Myers Briggs has just sort of never really done that. There are other personality tests, all still kind of questionable, but they at least have gone through a scientific process. Right?

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

The Myers Briggs biggest competitor is called the big five, the five factor model.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

And the reason that that one is such a, such a staunch sort of competitor for them is that it was developed and independently validated by multiple teams of researchers over the course of decades.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Right. So that's like people winnowing down this massive list of human attributes down to what they believe are sort of the core, the five core aspects that drive the rest of it.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

The Myers Briggs didn't do that. The Myers Briggs is designed to be an expression and a popularization of one of Jung's theories.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh no. Oh, it's archetypes.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Uh huh.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh no. We're Jordan Peterson adjacent now, kind of.

[Aubrey Gordon]

But also Jordan Peterson does not like the Myers Briggs surprise.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh really?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah, he came up in some of my little YouTube searches and he was like, people just like it because it makes them feel good. And I was like, uh huh.

[Michael Hobbs]

Stop clock, stop clock.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Totally. We end here. So there have been some meta analyses of different personality tests, including the Myers Briggs, and they've essentially found that only the Introversion Extroversion Scale findings track with any other personality tests or other research into personality. Right. The rest of the letters don't tend to Scan with other instruments that folks have developed, which isn't like a, you know, death knell to it or whatever, but it's not great.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

A bigger issue is test retest reliability. So if something is measuring something stable in our innate core personalities, if you took the test multiple times, you would get the same result. Right?

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Depending on the study that you look at, between 39% and 76% of people get different results the second time they take the Myers Briggs. And that's just after five weeks.

[Michael Hobbs]

This is like me taking it when I was a kid. Yeah, totally.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Like, maybe kid, you did test as an infp.

[Michael Hobbs]

Maybe I was beautiful once, maybe I was. Maybe I was decent.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Okay.

[Michael Hobbs]

Before the podcast.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Part of the appeal also of the Myers Briggs is that it doesn't give you feedback about sort of culturally undesirable traits. Right. Traits that are coded as being undesirable. The big five, for example, measures neuroticism.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah, we're absolutely not taking that test on the show. Oh, no, there's no fucking way.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Oh, we're not.

[Michael Hobbs]

There's no fucking way.

[Aubrey Gordon]

We're only taking the one that's designed not to hurt your feelings.

[Michael Hobbs]

I just want the one that tells.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Me that I'm poetic and gentle, strong.

[Michael Hobbs]

And handsome and important and that I care about animals and nature and I recycle and all the good stuff.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So Scientific American ran a test of personality tests, and when they removed neuroticism as a measure from the big five, its predictive accuracy of sort of life outcomes fell by about 22%.

[Michael Hobbs]

You're like, wait, this just says pos. I thought there were four Catego. Sorry, what?

[Aubrey Gordon]

So the last thing I would say about the sort of validity thing is because the Myers Briggs is not a clinical tool, the research on it is thin. The Myers Briggs was initially developed sort of for self knowledge. Right. The idea was to get people to know themselves better so that they could slot into the right jobs and sort of show up in the right way in the world. It was not designed for clinicians. It wasn't even really validated by clinicians for a really, really long time. The research that has happened at this point is mostly older and it's mostly in like HR and management journals, not in, like psych journals or in research journals or whatever. Right. So given all of that, given all the concerns about its validity, given sort of the. Again, the jury's sort of out on personality tests writ large.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Where did the Myers Briggs come from? And how did it get not only so popular, but like, like ubiquitous.

[Michael Hobbs]

I like that we're getting the science stuff out of the way so you can do what you really want to do and just like tell the story.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Just shut up. During the science port, I'm going some.

[Michael Hobbs]

You've been very transparent about the fact that you're just like, we're not going to talk about the science all that much.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So if we want to talk about where the Myers Briggs comes from, we're going to start in the late 1800s with a woman named Catherine Cook Briggs. She was homeschooled by her father at 13. She enrolled at Michigan State. After college, Catherine married Lyman Briggs, who was a physicist who went on to become a high ranking bureaucrat in D.C. later in his career, Lyman Briggs went on to lead Roosevelt's Uranium committee. Okay, so Catherine is surrounded by all of these high achieving sciencey men. She is a high achieving sciencey lady in a society where there are limited places for high achieving sciency ladies. Right?

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Aubrey Gordon]

In 1897, she gave birth to her daughter Isabelle. As a child, Isabelle is very, very important to Catherine. Not just in the way that any child is very important to a loving parent, but because Katherine lost two other children in infancy. So Isabelle is her one surviving child. She was sort of precious cargo. Around this time there was sort of this talk from first wave feminists in particular who were calling for a scientific approach to what they called the vocation of motherhood. And Catherine set about doing just that. She commandeered their home's living room.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

She started calling it the cosmic laboratory of baby training.

[Michael Hobbs]

We don't name things the way that we used to. We need to bring it back. Return.

[Aubrey Gordon]

She kept notes on Isabelle observing her behavior and personality development. She was particularly keen to find like what role she thought Isabel was meant to play in the world. Right. What vocation would best suit her strengths and her weaknesses, her likes and her dislikes, all of that kind of stuff. And after a while she decided to open up the cosmic laboratory of baby training to other kids.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

She starts sort of systematizing her like very plussed up childcare operation basically. Right. She starts administering questionnaires to parents about their kids behaviors and temperaments. She starts keeping files of notes on each of the kids. All of this sort of in service of finding out who those kids are meant to be sort of on a deep level so that they can find their calling. That really is sort of her drive in a bunch of this. She also starts writing about her work in the cosmic laboratory of baby training. She writes A couple of pieces about personality and child rearing for the New Republic. She also wrote 33 pieces for the Ladies Home Journal focusing on sort of child rearing as a science. So she becomes a little freelance writer. Through all of that work, she starts researching personality. It's around 1917 when she starts looking into personality. At this particular time, Freud and Jung are both Alive and Publishing. 1917, I should say, is also the year that historians say modern personality testing really began in the U.S. it began because of something called Woodworth's Personal Data Sheet, which was developed as an assessment to give to soldiers during World War I to figure out who might be the most susceptible to shell shock, later called ptsd.

[Michael Hobbs]

Who's a queer, who's a comm.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So Katherine starts coming up with her own rudimentary set of personality types. Just four to begin with, based on her observations of, like, her husband, her daughter, and these other kids.

[Michael Hobbs]

She's basically running a daycare. And she's like writing down, like, the different types of kids.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yep, totally. Which frankly, at this point is more research than what's going into a lot of psychology.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah, it's more than Freud did.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It isn't until 1923 that an English translation of Carl Jung's Psychological Types is. Is published, and Catherine Briggs reads it. She has a very strong reaction to this book. She loves it so much. She recognizes that Jung's thinking has gone way deeper than her own. She starts thinking about how to popularize his work, and that becomes the seed of the Myers Briggs. Right. It'll take a long time to develop from here. Even though she really loved Jung's work, the Myers Briggs isn't necessarily a faithful interpretation of it. Some of the changes between sort of Jung's theory and the Myers Briggs were just sort of lost in translation. Right? From academic language to more popular language. But some of it was also just Catherine playing jazz. She added a preference pair. Judging and perceiving was not part of Jung's original framework. And they really shifted Jung's idea about introversion and extroversion. Oh, I find this really fascinating. Has stayed with me in a big way because I think of introversion and extroversion, as you mentioned earlier, as being like the most obvious, the easiest to kind of wrap your head around, like, here's what this means or whatever. Jung defined introverts and extroverts very, very differently. This is a little summary of the differences from the Personality Brokers by Merve Am.

[Michael Hobbs]

What defined Jung's introvert was not quietude, solitude, or indecision as many summaries of the Myers Briggs type would later claim. But her interest in the self, or what Jung, writing in more technical language, called the subjective factor. What made an introvert an introvert was her belief in the superiority of her singular orientation of the world, her subjectivity over and above the expectations and desires of those around her. To the extrovert, the introvert came across as either a conceited egoist or a crack brained big. For the extrovert's behavior was governed by pure objective conditions. To illustrate the contrast between the two, young offered a simple. On a blustery winter day, the fact that it was cold outside would prompt the extrovert to don his overcoat. While the introvert, the person who wants to get hardened finds this superfluous. Whereas the extrovert resigned herself to the simple fact of the cold, the introvert sought to overcome it by toughening the very fiber of her being. Oh, this is like, introverts suck and extroverts are cool.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It's sort of like introversion as like rugged individualism almost. It's so different that I'm just like, I don't know how they got from point A to point B on this.

[Michael Hobbs]

One, but also this is just not useful because nobody would self report that they are this kind of person.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Totally. And Jung wasn't designing this to be a self report questionnaire.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. He's judging and Katherine is perceiving.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Okay.

[Michael Hobbs]

They are real, the binaries.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I feel like I'm getting a window into the rest of this episode and I am creating a monster.

[Michael Hobbs]

You're. You're reinforcing my belief in Myers Briggs. I've come back around to it.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So Katherine goes head first down a Carl Jung K hole. She just reads all of the fucking Carl Jung she can get. She starts writing letters to him and sometimes he writes back to her. Some lady. The letters that I've read most definitely seem like a public figure who's being nice to a fan. When he writes actor, he's like, hey, man, good for you.

[Michael Hobbs]

That sounds great.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Ah, keep it up. And she takes that as he is endorsing my work and he understands its importance. At one point, she started fully, like, doing therapy with a child. She writes an initial letter where she's like, it's such a good, smart family. And this kid is clearly troubled but just needs some help and, and I'm here to help.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay?

[Aubrey Gordon]

He writes her back and is like, hey, what are you doing?

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, really?

[Aubrey Gordon]

You have Absolutely overreached. Why would you think this was a good idea? Please stop. Please stop. Please stop.

[Michael Hobbs]

No way.

[Aubrey Gordon]

She writes back to him and is like, they told me they didn't want my therapy anyway. And they probably would because they're all dumb and bad. Like, all of her descriptions of the family went from this like, glowing, lovely descriptions of the family to being like, screw those guys anyway. You can't fire me. I quit.

[Michael Hobbs]

Bunch of fucking introverts over here. Fucking introverts. Just say it like a slur.

[Aubrey Gordon]

She met Jung a couple of times. She, like, traveled to meet him and she went so far as to write song parodies about how great he is.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, my God.

[Aubrey Gordon]

There were a bunch of like. They were like, she took the tune, blah, blah, blah. But there are all these songs from, like 1910.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

There was none idea. There was one that was to the tune of Yale's boola boola fight song, which is just saying boola bulabulla over and over again.

[Michael Hobbs]

That's not even a song.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So these are the lyrics. Michael, I'm so pleased to report we have lyrics from her young songs from her young Yoki. And I'm going to make you read them.

[Michael Hobbs]

How did you not give me a trigger warning about this? I'm doing this in the tune of Rihanna's umbrella. Okay, Dr. Young. Young came down from his alpine height and completely re educated Yale. While the wise, the dumb and the erudite waxed paler and yet more pale. For they had heard great wisdom's word which shook them to their boots when the wise, the dumb and the erudite behold their psychic roots. And then it's just, bula bula bula, bula bula. That's pretty. I mean, that's honestly pretty good.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Katherine Briggs walked so Weird Al could run. I think we all know this.

[Michael Hobbs]

Her next three are all about pizza.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Are you ready for the next one?

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, yeah. There's more.

[Aubrey Gordon]

There's more. Michael, if you thought I was stopping.

[Michael Hobbs]

At one song therapy before we started, you were like, this is going to take roughly three hours. And I think this is. The next two is just songs.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Okay, so this one was to the tune of some show tune. Okay, like something about the vagabond.

[Michael Hobbs]

I forget signs and symbols. Reading Young gives proof exceeding he knows all humanity understands Old Adam, not to mention Madam Wise Old Owl, so wise is he. Upward, upward consciousness will come Upward, upward from primal scum. Individuation is our destination. Hock Heil, hail to Dr. Young. This is garbage. This is like Michelle in fucking Michelle remembers. The contaminant doesn't work.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It's not.

[Michael Hobbs]

You got wrong syllables.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I didn't think it was gonna get me that hard after having read it so many times in the course of.

[Michael Hobbs]

Playing this episode, it's cause I did it with the right two.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So while Catherine Cook Briggs is sort of off making a name for herself as a writer on the success of raising Isabel in particular, Isabel is off living her life, okay? She graduated top of her class at Swarthmore in 1918. Offensive Isabel married Clarence Myers, who went on to become an attorney. They had two children. While raising her two young kids, she followed her husband to Memphis, first for the Air Force and then to Philadelphia where he went to law school. So she's like following him around the country for his work. And she's sort of constantly adjusting, but she's adjusting for his life, right? And try as she might, she just wasn't really into the role of living for her husband. There's some writing where she kind of tries to convince herself that she's like, this is good.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

But she was like, clearly not into it. She kept a list of her future goals in a notebook that she called Diary of an Introvert Determined to Extrovert, write, and have a lot of children.

[Michael Hobbs]

That's the Michael Hobb story, other than the children part.

[Aubrey Gordon]

You and Isabelle, two peas in a pod.

[Michael Hobbs]

Two INFPs in a pod.

[Aubrey Gordon]

This is a comparison you will live to regret. Give me 15 minutes.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So after several years of just trying to kind of stick it out, out in this domestic life, in the late 1930s, Isabel was getting restless. She read an article about trying to match workers to the right job. This is sort of at the outset, at the outbreak of war in Europe, right? We're talking late 30s, we're talking Hitler on the move, we're talking rise of fascism. There's this article about. About matching workers to the right job. And she's like, nah, this is going to be really important if folks end up in war. It's going to be really important if, like, in a post war landscape, we're going to need some kind of tool to sort people into the right jobs. So she wrote to her mother, Katherine, who was then in her 60s, okay? Isabel started picking up on her mother's work, developing this personality type schema still based in Jungian psychology, but like the way a Lifetime movie is based on real events. She developed the Briggs Myers type indicator, okay, A test booklet that she would sell to sort of whoever would buy it. She And Catherine debuted the type indicator in 1943. It was originally called the Briggs Myers type indicator. Yeah, they switched it around because someone at some point did mention to Isabel, this is going to get turned into an acronym and you don't want to be the BM type indicator.

[Michael Hobbs]

Fair. That's actually very good advice.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So Isabelle starts really sort of digging in on the type indicator. Catherine does too. But Isabel's really sort of clearly in the lead here. And because she has envisioned this as a tool for workplaces, she needs an in with businesses. So she starts working with this family friend who was a management consultant. A thing that I did not know existed. Yeah, in the like 30s and 40s. Right.

[Michael Hobbs]

But it wasn't called McKinsey, it was called McGillicuddy.

[Aubrey Gordon]

She has this family friend who's a management consultant. His name is Edward Hay. By 1947, Hay started pitching the test to his clients. And he has some pretty big deal clients. He's working with General Electric, he's working with Bell Telephone, he's working with the National Bureau of Statistics. So they let Edward Hay and Isabel Briggs Myers come in and start testing this on some university students, some workers at these different businesses, sort of. It's a little all over the place. It is definitely not a randomized controlled trial test. It's just like how does this thing actually work out in the world?

[Michael Hobbs]

Right, so this is based on Catherine's experience in the daycare. What is Isobel drawing on?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Isabelle's drawing on her own personal observations as well.

[Michael Hobbs]

Just her life. Just this is People I know again.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Sort of like a Lacroix approach to Carl Jung.

[Michael Hobbs]

What does that mean?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Well, just like in the same way that if you're drinking like a Pompomous Lacroix, you're not eating a grapefruit.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It's like the Jolly Rancher flavor version.

[Michael Hobbs]

Of like a water down facsimile.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah, we should say that. According to the New Yorker, by 1952 1/3 of American companies were using personality tests in the workplace. So the Myers Briggs was jockeying to be part of a very large, growing and profitable field. Right. By 1957, Isabel starts a conversation with the Educational Testing Service. She wants them to distribute the test. They have a big library of educational tests, cognitive tests, psychometric tests, all that kind of stuff. She wants them to add it to their library of tests and distribute it for her. Basically they tested it internally to see if they wanted it, but ultimately they decided not to add it to their very large library of Tests, and they stopped working with Isabel pretty much entirely. Okay, that might be because of the test not measuring up again. It certainly doesn't measure up. Yeah, but it also might have been because of Isabel's presence in the office.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

She would just show up at ETS at the office all the time. She'd show up after the office was closed or before it was open and sort of rifle through people's stuff. She'd, like, interrupt their work day and chit chat with them. But the biggest complaint seems to be that she left finger, like, messy, sticky fingerprints. What? Everywhere. Like a kid.

[Michael Hobbs]

What?

[Aubrey Gordon]

And that's because she had a favorite energy drink that she liked to drink at the time.

[Michael Hobbs]

Another thing I didn't think existed then.

[Aubrey Gordon]

She called it Tiger's Milk.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It was a mix of milk, nutritional yeast, and Hershey bars.

[Michael Hobbs]

What?

[Aubrey Gordon]

So she apparently mixed it with her fingers and left her little chocolate milk, nutritional yeast fingerprints everywhere.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay, you're right. I'm not an infp, because I'm judging whatever the judging one is. I'm judging this. I'm an ijj.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Also, just a reminder, Catherine Cook Briggs made her name on raising this woman.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yes.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Leaving fingerprints everywhere, just, like, fucking up people's days.

[Michael Hobbs]

I feel like if you want to be an expert on parenting, you have to prove that you didn't raise a caveman. Someone who just sticks their hand into liquid and just, like, stirs it around like you're mixing pottery glaze.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So she had a nickname in the ETS office. She had one nickname when she was sort of on the younger end. And then as she got older, that nickname changed. The young nickname was that horrible woman.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, my God. Thw. That's on their type. I took the test, and I got a thw.

[Aubrey Gordon]

The older nickname was that horrible old woman.

[Michael Hobbs]

She's like, can you guys please call me something else? And they're like.

[Aubrey Gordon]

This is straightforwardly a horrible way to talk about someone that you know and work with unless they.

[Michael Hobbs]

Have sticky little fingers all over the desk.

[Aubrey Gordon]

But also, as a story from, like, decades ago, it's extremely funny.

[Michael Hobbs]

Were there others? She must have been annoying in other ways. It can't just be the fingers.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So Isabel wasn't just, like, kind of quirky or annoying. She had some deeply terrible ideas. At one point, she wanted to create separate test result packets for men and for women. Okay, so if you and I both tested as an infp, you would get the dude INFP packet, and I would get the lady INFP packet.

[Michael Hobbs]

Mike, a powerful mediator. Aubrey, a Weak surrenderer.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So, like, that one's not great. Here's one that's worse. She reportedly refused to administer the test to people with an IQ of under 100 because she believed that they lacked the capacity to develop a personality.

[Michael Hobbs]

Ugh. So it's like 16 types and then. Not applicable.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah. There's like a whole passage with, like, Catherine writing about how much she hates flappers.

[Michael Hobbs]

I love the irony of creating this entire framework that's like, all personality types are equally worthy and valuable. And then being like, unless they wear their hair short. Unless they're out doing boop boop be doop on Fridays.

[Aubrey Gordon]

At one point, she wrote a letter to her business partner expressing serious anger and frustration at a trainee who she. She ran a Myers Briggs workshop. One of the attendees suggested that all RA and genders should be equal. And she wrote this, like, wild ass angry letter to Edward Hay being like, get out of town. What's this person talking about?

[Michael Hobbs]

I like the episodes of the show where we just judge people from previous times.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Listen, I was thinking about this while I was putting this episode together that you and I in the Grifties last year talked about. Brian Johnson, the anti aging millionaire. We were the anti aging guy. And you were like, we didn't really talk about this on the main feed because a lot of the coverage is just like, get a load of this guy.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

And this episode is fully. Get a load of these ladies.

[Michael Hobbs]

Get a load of these ladies stirring shit with their fingers. Fingers. We're doing very sophisticated work here today.

[Aubrey Gordon]

In the late 1960s, Isabel recruits a psychology professor from the University of Florida named Mary McAuley to join the team to help essentially professionalize the Myers Briggs. Right. But it's, like, worth noting. That didn't change really, their research. This is not someone who then came in and like, reverse engineered the whole thing and was like, all right, we're scrapping it. We're starting from scratch. We're starting with data. Here we go. This was someone whose job it was to, like, package it up differently.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right. It's more marketing than anything else. It's like the doctor approved personality test.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Totally. In 1975, Isabel finds her distributor that she's been looking for all this time. Consulting psychologists, Press, CPP, started distributing the Myers Briggs in 1975. Isabel doesn't love that they're trying to sort of gloss it up, but they do. They package it for sale. And it absolutely took off.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

CPP's revenue went through the roof. Some reports say that their revenue shot up a thousand percent in four years.

[Michael Hobbs]

What explains why it took off so much?

[Aubrey Gordon]

CPP was well positioned to distribute it, and it had this sort of foothold with employers after years and years and years. Right. And that gave them this built in customer base. And the Myers Briggs was one of the only tests that was like, we're not here to hurt your feet feelings.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So you could administer it to employees without risking the level of, like, blowback of a test that did measure something like neuroticism or job performance or dedication or any other sort of, like, you know, things that might ruffle some feathers. Right.

[Michael Hobbs]

There's also, I guess, this trend of, like, scientific management practices.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yep.

[Michael Hobbs]

And one of the problems with frameworks like the Myers Briggs is that they see seem quantitative, they seem like you're doing real science, even though they're very qualitative exercises.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I also think, just like, on an individual level, the Myers Briggs can be really comforting, and it gives us a mirror to see our own behavior, which I think is something that, like, a lot of us are, like, hungry for feedback that feels grounded and real and actionable and compassionate. Right.

[Michael Hobbs]

I would actually like less feedback on my personality. But I also also know that most Americans cannot check itunes reviews for a star rating of what kind of person they are.

[Aubrey Gordon]

And I think on a corporate level, it does a similar sort of thing. Labor is the largest cost for most businesses, and bosses want a sense that they're making sort of a surefire investment in a person.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

They want, like a Carfax of people.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah. Which is ridiculous.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Can I illustrate to you, Michael.

[Michael Hobbs]

Ooh.

[Aubrey Gordon]

How well it went for cpp?

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

CPP has since rebranded and they are now known as just the Myers Briggs Company.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, right. Okay. That makes sense.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Since cpp, the Myers Briggs Company took over distribution. Of course, Catherine and Isabel have both since passed. Catherine died in 1968. She was 93. Isabel died at 82 in 1980. They both saw the test grow in popularity and in use, which I'm sure was, like, very rewarding for both of them. But they both missed its continued rise as this, like, sort of widespread language of personality that people picked up in this, like, colloquial kind of way. It really seems like this would have been a dream scenario for them. Right. Like, the initial goal for Catherine certainly was for people to, like, know themselves, have a real sense of themselves, and then give of themselves from that knowledge. Right. That really is sort of what I think a lot of Myers Briggs content now does think that it's doing.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, totally. Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

That is what it's aimed at.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Since then, the Myers Briggs has had waves of popularity in the 90s and 2000s. It gets a big boost when tests are computerized and people can take them more easily and just get immediate scoring back. Right. There's a big wave of popularity on YouTube and on TikTok. There has been in just the last few years a big uptick in popularity in both South Korea and China in employment, but also in dating, especially since the onset of COVID 19, that people are like, don't waste my time.

[Michael Hobbs]

I've even heard of some low effort podcasts doing them as Patreon bonus episodes. Now it's really taken over. Very worrying.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It comes and goes in terms of media interest, but by all accounts, it is. Is really, really profitable.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah, it must be. Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Today, taking the test on the Myers Briggs website costs $60.59.95.

[Michael Hobbs]

We're going to pay money when we do it.

[Aubrey Gordon]

We're not going to take the official one. We're going to take one of the many free ripoffs.

[Michael Hobbs]

Okay, good. Okay. Okay.

[Aubrey Gordon]

As a result of all of that powerful distribution, all of that popularity and all of that profitability, the Myers Briggs is as popular now as it has ever been, especially in the world workplace. Major, major corporations across the US and around the world use personality tests. Government agencies use personality tests and the Myers Briggs in particular. The US Military uses the Myers Briggs. Oh, The National Institutes of Health uses the Myers Briggs. The US Geological Survey.

[Michael Hobbs]

Shouldn't they be doing like, what type of rock are you? Buzzfeed quiz.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Perhaps both the darkest and the funny funniest is that the Myers Briggs has also been used by law enforcement. Okay, I just sent you a book cover.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, no, this is not real. Oh my God. Okay, so it's a book called Thinking Cop Feeling Copyright. An interesting look at how the deviations from two true north uncommon Jungian personality types function in the law enforcement profession.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Jesus Christ.

[Michael Hobbs]

I mean, I would rather have both more thinking cops and feeling cops.

[Aubrey Gordon]

You can only do one, Mike. It's a forced binary.

[Michael Hobbs]

The thing is, I think that's where, to the extent that there's harm of Myers Briggs, this is where the harm comes in. It's like employers using it to separate, you know, the people that they're going to hire or not hire or promote or not promote.

[Aubrey Gordon]

The Myers Briggs Company has a whole thing that they say about how, like, we actually don't allow clients to use it in that way anymore. And one time we found out that a client was using it for Hiring and firing, and we severed ties with that client. But I also feel sort of like the best case scenario is that just becomes another sort of hoop to jump through to get a job. Is like, you got to figure out how to game these personality tests.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

There's like a whole nonprofit in New York that is, like, working to train lower income people and unemployed people on, like, how to take these tests.

[Michael Hobbs]

It then just becomes a huge waste of everybody's fucking time because you're not measuring personality. You're just measuring, did this person have the money or the time to get.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Test prep SAT style?

[Michael Hobbs]

It's just, how good are you at faking this thing? Which I guess is also what job interviews are.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah. Yes. The whole. The whole process is a facade. And I think.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So we're zooming out here from Myers Briggs to personality tests in the workplace writ large. Just to be clear, a number of that sort of broader set of workplace personality tests will issue a red light for some results barring the applicant from being hired in that company and sometimes also in affiliated companies owned by the same parent company. This is something that's been documented, documented quite a bit in reporting around these personality tests. The person is not notified that they have been red lighted. They just get rejected for that job and rejected for any other jobs in that company. And you can be red lighted for answering honestly about your own preferences. Right. For example, if there is a question on a personality test that's like, hey, in conflict, do you prefer to speak up or hang back? Right, right. That's a question about a preference. They are ostensibly interpreting that through the lens of your job. Right, right. But, like, you can go, yeah, yeah, yeah. My preference is to stay quiet. But I understand that at my job, yeah, I might need to step up. Right. Like, but my. You're asking about my preference. My preference is stay quiet.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

That's a kind of answer that could get you a red light.

[Michael Hobbs]

Never tell the truth at work, even.

[Aubrey Gordon]

If it's an annoying hoop to jump through. Fine. As you note, that's so much of the hiring process is annoying hoops to jump through. These kinds of tests can and likely do penalize people with disabilities, I'm sure.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Because the tests ask about behavior and inclinations and preferences. They don't explicitly ask about mental illness or developmental disabilities or autism or whatever.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

But they screen on the basis of behaviors that may be a direct result of those conditions.

[Michael Hobbs]

It's basically asking people, are you disabled? But you can't ask, are you disabled? But a lot of These questions are essentially synonyms for or are you disabled?

[Aubrey Gordon]

They hue so closely to that question that the EEOC has actually cracked down on large corporations for violating both the Civil Rights act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Part of the reason that they're able to do this. I read, like, a law blog that was ostensibly sort of addressed to their clients being like, hey, please, please, please stop using these personality tests. They expose you to so much legal risk. And one of the first things that they listed was that they were like, it definitionally puts every question in writing.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, y. Yeah, yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

And every answer.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Like, you have a record now.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Plus, questions from some personality tests, including the Myers Briggs, can overlap with, like, diagnostic criteria for disabilities and mental illnesses. Right. So it ends up being this sort of backdoor into asking about disability and making personnel decisions based on disability, both of which are illegal.

[Michael Hobbs]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Because of those EEOC charges, several companies have been required to stop using personality tests. CVS has had to stop. Target paid a $2.8 million settlement, which sounds like a lot, but it's not very much for Target.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

And Best Buy have all stopped using tests in the 2010s. Those were all in the 2010s. Some have stopped using them without an investigation just because they didn't work very well. Xerox stopped using them. Whole Foods stopped using them because they were like, we're getting all this information on personality, but we're not getting very good information on, like, food prep. Yeah.

[Michael Hobbs]

It just seems like the question should be like, have you done this work before? I don't know what it offers to be like, are you a thinker or a perceiver?

[Aubrey Gordon]

So while all of this is happening, the Myers Briggs framework and personality tests as a whole continue to get mostly bad press from journalists, from professional associations, from psychologists, from science organizations. Like, since the 80s, researchers and clinicians have been extremely skeptical, by and large, about the utility of the Myers Briggs, to the point that board members of the Myers Briggs Corporation, who are psychologists, have been asked, hey, do you use the Myers Briggs in your research at your university? And one of them was like, no. All of my colleagues would make fun of me.

[Michael Hobbs]

Oh, that's great.

[Aubrey Gordon]

In 1991, a national academy of Sciences review committee went over research related to the Myers Briggs. Their review included the choice phrase, quote. The popularity of this instrument in the absence of proven scientific worth is troublesome.

[Michael Hobbs]

I think there's this bottomless desire for kind of scientific ways of classifying people. Something that's real. Like, there's an objective metric for what kind of employee you're going to be or what kind of boyfriend or whatever. And I just don't think that there is. I think that every person has to be assessed qualitatively.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yes. Yes.

[Michael Hobbs]

I just don't think that the kinds of decisions that we make that are important in our lives are ever going to be that easy.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I mean, I think ultimately all of this amounts to. There's all this bad press. Right. And it doesn't really seem to make a difference in the popularity of the Myers Briggs. And I think that's just the appeal of reaching for certainty in an uncertain world. Yeah. That's like somebody can take. Tell you for sure that you're making the right hire. Somebody can tell you for sure that the person you're engaged to is the right partner for you.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Somebody can tell you for sure that you're not going to screw up a major life decision or that things aren't going to go badly this time. Right, right.

[Michael Hobbs]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

It's very human and it's very flawed.

[Michael Hobbs]

There's also. There's so many institutions like this in America where everyone kind of knows that they suck and we. All we talk about is how much they suck and then nothing ever fucking changes. It's like the Oscars, man.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I bet Isabelle would have loved Green Book.

[Michael Hobbs]

She's a crash gal.

[Aubrey Gordon]

She's really into crash.