Hot Takes on MBTI

January 14th, 2024 (about 1 year ago) • 2 minutes

Most of the time, one of the topic when talking to a new person is about MBTI. It's definitely fun doing it, but I think it oversimplified complex human personalities to a few letters.

Here are some of my thoughts.

1. Either Or Personality. To form the 16 personality types, the test divides people right down the middle, you are either an introvert or extrovert, a dichotomous choices. However, people - according to the law of normal distribution - are most likely to be in the middle, with very few at either side. So it's not a good idea to divide people into two groups.

2. People's trait change very often. For example, I'm an introvert, but I can be very extrovert when I'm with my friends. I'm also a thinker, but I can be very emotional when I'm with my family. There are also cases where people's personality completely change after 1 month of the test.

3. Rating of choices is difficult. If the tests were setup with 3 choices where it's either Agree, Neutral or Disagree, it would be easier to rate. But with everything between, it's hard to choose how 'much' I am leaning to one side (if this score is off by 1, it might change a person's personality completely).

MBTI showing 7 option of choices

There's also a case for Barnum Effect to take place, where people will accept vague and general personality descriptions as their own. People are more likely to accept positive descriptions of themselves, and the descriptions are vague enough to apply to anyone. This also explains the popularity of horoscopes and fortune telling.

Nevertheless, I think MBTI is a good way to start a conversation, but it's not a good way to judge a person's personality. It's fun to do, but don't take it too seriously.