Can you change your Myers Briggs type?

[AgnestaVipers]

Before I start, I realise Myers Briggs isn't some sort of oracle, set in stone, but I have found it to be very accurate in many respects.

I did the 16 Personality quiz in the last few days and my MB type has changed from INFJ to INTJ. I've gone from advocate to architect.

Has anyone else had this experience? What would you put it down to? I had to re-do the quiz just to check I was not imagining it. However, I must admit that if anything about my personality has changed lately, it's a desire to inject more rational thinking into my life. I have become very interested in philosophy, for example. Could this be why the F has changed to T?

Yea it can change because it’s all a load of bollocks and has been discredited by many.

Can you point me to where it's been discredited?

I just googled. Found this.
www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/my-brothers-keeper/202002/in-defense-the-myers-briggs

The next time someone tells you that the Myers-Briggs is debunked, ask them for a citation. The truth is that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is no less valid or reliable than other personality tests. Nonetheless, rumors persist that the test is wholly unreliable and is not based on research.

Unfortunately, the propagation of such falsehoods is particularly rampant among my fellow academics. As a personality researcher, whose work focuses on Jungian type theory (the foundation on the MBTI), I have encountered my fair share of skepticism and good-tempered ribbing from other researchers. One of my colleagues (an INTJ) pokes his head into my office at least once a week to ask me how my “astrology research” is going. Of course, I have to forgive him, since it is in an INTJ’s nature to be dubious.

What I never understand about it is that is asks for your preference as opposed to what you actually have form for doing! In my case what I aspire to and prefer and what I do are nearly always completely different!

That is a fair point. Perhaps my latest test reflects my aspiration to be more objective and rational...

Exactly!

I did it twice on two consecutive days, not really remembering what I'd put the day before, and got a different result on day two. My personality hasn't changed, I was just in a different mood!

If you look further down from your Google search which returned Psychology Today (hardly unbiased) then you’ll find plenty of discussion about why it has been.

(In a way this thread =QED)

You use the word "discredited" as if the MB test was ever really regarded as something scientifically sound, dependable and proven.

Surely it was only ever a guide or tool, and thus hardly on a par with the discovery of gravity.

See also those IQ tests!

Yes, it can change. I am usually ESTJ, journalist. When I was very miserable at work I became ESTP, entrepreneur. Six months out of that job I switched back. Later in life with a cause I became ENTJ, the commander. I suspect I'm off the boil with that now and would probably test as ESTJ again. I was heavily E but very near the middle for the other four letters.

It's the principle of classification of personalities that some people object to. I'm happy to go along with it because it's all pebbles on the beach, whatever helps us understand the world. You could say that about horoscopes though. I certainly think a lot of psychology is people trying to understand by overlaying frameworks of their own creation. This is no different.

It's bullshit. I see it a a red flag for a bad manager if they put great store in myers briggs or any of these "there are 4/8/12 types of people" tests. Its a way of not having to think too much, just stereotype people, easy!

Does anyone remember the Kuder test for Aptitude. It was multi page and the moderator stuck a pin through the answer and saw how many had joined up with the one underneath.
Supposed to be good but such a faff to use. Mine came out well.

I retain a healthy scepticism towards all these tools. We use them a lot at work and I find them useful as long as you use them as a basis for discussion around development rather than anything being set in stone. My own view, based on experience, is your scores at the ends of the spectrum tend to remain the same, but if you scored nearer the middle on something one time, you can move ‘over the line’ into another box another time. I have seen people move over time between S and N for example depending on how they are feeling/how their job has changed, etc.

I was a total introvert when young, now often come out as extrovert on MB test.

It's a tool, yes. I'm not sure why people are getting so sneery. The idea that any manager might use it as a central tool in managing people is laughable. But it has its place in understanding how people tick. Just the introvert-extrovert bit can be helpful.

What does your MBTI facilitator say?

im assuming you’ve done some rip-off version as no trained facilitator would give you your report like that? Basically your “type” may not be the type that comes out from the questionnaire as that just shows your consistency in answering the questionnaire. Understanding your true type and how you can use the report for your own development, teams etc is done through the facilitated session

Which I am guessing must be paid handsomely for. 😆

It's crap. I mostly test as INFP but I've also tested as INFJ, ISFP and INTP, or was INTJ I can't remember. Hard to take seriously.

@AgnestaVipers or your employer may have trained facilitators as it’s a tool used primarily for personal development and developing teams. What’s the point in doing some half baked online questionnaire just to find out 4 letters which you don’t understand?

I got a lot out of doing it at work, understanding how others I work with look at things differently to me, what we should change to allow everyone to have their say, what behaviours I naturally prefer to use that I need to be aware of annoy others and vice versa. The stress report I also got with it was an eye opener and there’s bits in it I use every week to help my own well-being.

So, to be clear, you only think it has worth when used in teams, and not by individuals like me who read carefully the info online?

What seems most strange about that is it sounds a bit like an argument for the priesthood.

I can go back and forth between 2 categories.

i find these types of tests useful for self-reflection. The problems with them come when they are used for external evaluation.

It's just a tool for giving an insight into yourself/ other people and a basis for reflection. It can be helpful when looking at how teams work together.

Some people overestimate its purpose. You're not supposed to take it as gospel and yes of course it will change if you change your answers from one day to the next.

Obviously, an online quiz cannot accurately tell you everything about something as complex and nuanced as your personality!

I just took it for the first time in ages - I was always INFJ previously but now I'm ENFJ. This aligns with how I feel about myself. As I've gotten older and my self esteem has improved I've become way more extroverted. I think I was always an extrovert but my lack of self esteem hindered me.

It's poppycock - akin to the 'what type of friend are you' quizzes you get. Anyone can become a facilitator if they go through the training at ££££s, which just teaches them how to administer the poppycock. Just mix up your answers and hey presto, your personality is changed! www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless

How interesting!

"criticism of the MBTI did not begin in 2005. When the test was first published in 1943, and despite years of research and testing by Isabel Myers and her mother Katherine Briggs, their work was rejected out-of-hand by an academic community that was unwilling to take seriously the work of two women without graduate degrees. In the opening to Meyers’ book, Gifts Differing, her son, Peter Myers, describes the opposition that the MBTI faced at its inception; he writes “when, in 1943, they [Myers and Briggs] produced the first set of questions destined to become the MBTI, they came face-to-face with a double-barreled opposition from the academic community. In the first place, neither was a psychologist, neither had an advanced degree… and the academic community had little use… for a self-report questionnaire purporting to identify Jungian type created by two unknown women who were ‘obviously totally unqualified’” (Myers, 1980).

Was it this initial bias that forever tainted the Myers-Briggs in the eyes of academics?

Keep in mind that while Myers didn’t have an advanced degree (a rarity for any woman in the 1940s, to be sure), she had been mentored by Edward N. Hay in test construction, scoring, validation, and statistics. She went on to conduct research at the University of Pennsylvania, Cal Tech, and other institutions to refine the Indicator. In 1962, when the first MBTI manual was published, the Indicator was backed by the Educational Testing Service and had the support of Donald MacKinnon, head of the Institute of Personality and Social Research at UC-Berkley; Harold Grant, professor at Michigan State and Auburn universities; and Mary McCaulley at the University of Florida, among others. Myers spent the next 20 years deepening her understanding of the effects of type on the lives of people and refining the Type Indicator through quantitative and qualitative study."

@AgnestaVipers no it’s useful for individuals and teams. I think you are right about some criticism stemming from the historical stuff and bias. They wanted Jung’s theories to be able to be accessible and understandable by all so devised MBTI as a way of doing so. I assume some weren’t happy with that.

The questionnaire / type indicator people can do now is still being refined and researched. Think there’s papers on the official Myers-Briggs foundation website.

MBTI is not a psychometric tool for recruitment or selection it’s about understanding and development.