아메리칸 모녀가 만든 MBTI(Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)

[석수]

MBTI 또는 마이어스-브릭스 유형 지표(영어: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)

(왼쪽) 엄마 카타린 브릭스와 (오른쪽) 딸 이사벨 브릭스 마이어스

Katharine Cook Briggs (January 3, 1875 – July 10, 1968) was an American writer who was the co-creator, with her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, of an inventory of a widely popular personality type system known as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Isabel Briggs Myers grew up in Washington, D.C. where she was home-schooled by her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs.


Her father, Lyman J. Briggs, worked as a research physicist. Briggs had little formal schooling up until she attended Swarthmore College, where she studied political science. During her time at the college she met Clarence "Chief" Gates Myers who was studying law. The two married in 1918 and were together until his death in 1980.

When Briggs Myers died in 1980 she left the copyright to the MBTI (which was little known at the time) to her son Peter.

https://youtu.be/uXA8OC23w6Q?si=rke3BnS0Y4FtH5xb

MBTI는 개인이 쉽게 응답할 수 있는 자기보고서 문항을 통해 인식하고 판단할 때의 각자 선호하는 경향을 찾고, 이러한 선호 경향들이 인간의 행동에 어떠한 영향을 미치는가를 파악하여 실생활에 응용할 수 있다는 유사과학적인 주장에 입각해서 제작된 심리 검사이다

George Will was once asked how he chooses topics for his columns. He responded that about once a day something gets under his skin and that is what he chooses to write about.

Perhaps this explains why George Will is so much more prolific than I. And please I am not comparing myself to George Will. Indeed, I confess to relying on a dictionary whenever I read one of his columns. But when I read unfair criticisms of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, it gets under my skin.


Benjamin Hardy’s recent book, Personality Isn’t Permanent (2020) was reviewed by Fast Company’s Stephanie Mazza in July of 2020. Her headline caught my attention, and yes, got under my skin: Why Personality Tests Could Derail Your Future Goals.
I had not heard of Hardy previously, but evidently, he is some sort of a self-help guy who offers up tips like these from his 2016 top 50 list:

 Say Thank You Whenever Served

 You Can’t be Unhealthy and Understand Health

 Make Your Bed

 Replace Warm Showers with Cold Ones (after all, Tony Robbins does.)

 Stop Reading Newspapers

His criticisms of the MBTI are aligned with those of Merve Emre’s 2018 Personality Brokers and fall into two categories: 1 the MBTI treats personalities as permanent and; 2 It is unscientific.
Bryan writes:

“Briggs proposed that differences in people are innate and unchangeable.”

Of course, he offers no citation for this absurd statement which is totally contrary to the MBTI approach and Jungian theory upon which it is based. In my 2018 review (https://www.tildensst.com/2018/10/12/another-shot-at-the-mbti/) of this same false assertion by Emre, I wrote:


“dynamic”, not “fixed” and never evolving.”

Simply put, neither Jung nor Briggs nor Myers ever suggested that personalities were unchanging. They are dynamic.
Now to the second criticism that the MBTI is “unscientific.”


The evidence Emre offers, echoed by Bryan, is that neither Katharine Briggs nor her daughter, Isabel Myers, were academically trained in psychology. This is true. But let’s reflect on the era when psychology was in its infancy and most of the field’s key figures, like Freud and Jung, were physicians. Katharine began work on what became the MBTI in 1942 and the American Psychological Associations first discussions of advanced degrees in psychology began seven years later.


What Katharine did was discover Carl Jung and sought, with the eventual assistance of her daughter, to explicate his theory of personality with an assessment so others could benefit from Jung’s genius. Today, the MBTI is the world’s leading personality assessment and millions around the globe have benefited from learning more about themselves and their similarities and differences with others in how we think and communicate. And yes there is a small army of academically credentialled people who carry on the work of Jung, Briggs and Myers at places like the Center for the Applications of Psychological Type at the University of Florida.


In terms of the science, the MBTI Manual meets all the standards of the American Psychological Association and is chock full of studies supporting both its reliability and its validity.
In closing, I’ll simply assert that the science behind the MBTI is far more substantive than pabulum like make your bed.