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Originally Posted by Triptanes
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
Originally Posted by Triptanes
myersbriggs= no validity according to someone i know who works for a psychometric firm.
psychometric firms = no validity according to someone i know who works for the myersbriggs foundation.
Originally Posted by arkana
Seing as though I work in this industry I think its my duty to tell you guys that the Myers Briggs Type Indicator is not a very good tool, its validities are close to non existant.
Below is a copy of a report of a study done on it:
Nowack, K. (1996). Is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator the Right Tool to Use? Performance in Practice, American Society of Training and Development, Fall 1996, 6
Personality measures are typically included in many career counseling and development programs. Personality inventories can assist employees in several ways related to career development including:
1. Increasing self-insight and self-understanding;
2. Clarifying suitable work/occupational environments to best match one's abilities;
3. Increasing awareness about effectively managing interpersonal relations with others; and
4. Increasing understanding about one's own behavior and style.
To be useful, personality inventories must be based on sound theory and have established research supporting their use (e.g., reliability, validity, and effectiveness). One of the most popular personality inventories being used today by many career practitioners is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
The MBTI uses four indices which represent personality tendencies: "extraversion-introversion" (E-I), which is the distinction between whether a person prefers the external world of people and things or the internal world of ideas; "sensing-intuition" (S-N) which distinguishes between whether a person pays more attention to realistic, practical data or to one's imagination and possibilities of a situation; "thinking-feeling" (T-F) which is the distinction between whether a person prefers valuing logic or personal emotions and values when processing information and making decisions; and "judgment-perceiving" (J-P) which distinguishes between analyzing and categorizing the external environment or responding to it in an unplanned and spontaneous manner. The combination of these four indices is a "type" or representation of how one operates in the world (e.g, INFJ or ISFP). The MBTI type typically serves as a basis for guided discussions related to either interpersonal relations or career planning and decision-making processes.
A recent review of the literature on the MBTI with regards to its use in career development was recently conducted by the National Academy of Sciences in 1991 and published in a recent book (National Research Council, In The Mind's Eye, 1991, Washington, DC: National Academy of Science). The special committee reviewed existing publications and focused on the use of the MBTI in organizational and individual career development applications as well as its reliability, validity and overall effectiveness. A brief review and critique of the major committee findings are summarized below (See also critical reviews by Pittenger, D. (2005). Cautionary comments regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 57, 210-221; Caparo, R. & Caparo, M. (2002). Myers-Briggs Type Indicator score reliability across studies: A meta-analytic reliability generalization study. Educational & Psychological Measurement, 62, 590-602.).
Reliability of the MBTI. Although different types of reliability exist (e.g., internal consistency, stability over time, equivalence etc.) test re-test reliabilities are most relevant to personality inventories used in career development. In general, the National Academy of Sciences review committee found that the test re-test reliability of the MBTI appears to be weak in most previous research (e.g., only 47% of respondents retained their initial type designations over a period of 5 weeks in one major review study). These findings suggest that caution should be used when MBTI classifications (i.e., "types") are used to facilitate career decision making or planning processes with employees. Additionally, some limited research also suggests that the "judgment-perception" (J-P) scale is not completely independent from the "sensing-intuition" (S-N) scale with correlations between these scales ranging from .23 to .48 (i.e., sensors tended to be judgers, while intuitors tended to be perceivers in the research samples studied). Although adequate reliability is essential for all personality instruments, they must also be valid if they are to be useful.
Validity of the MBTI. Although there are various types of "validity" the most important ones are related to construct validity (i.e., does the MBTI relate to other scales measuring similar concepts?) and criterion-related validity (i.e., does the MBTI predict specific outcomes related to interpersonal relations or career success/job performance?). The National Academy of Sciences committee reviewed data from over 20 MBTI research studies and concluded that only the I-E scale has adequate construct validity (i.e., it has high correlations with comparable scales of other instruments and low correlations with instruments designed to assess different concepts). In contrast, the S-N and T-F scales show relatively weak validity. No mention is made in this review about the J-P scale. Overall, the review committee concluded that the MBTI has not demonstrated adequate validity although its popularity and use has been steadily increasing by career practitioners.
Effectiveness of the MBTI. Overall, there appears to be a lack of systematic research on the effectiveness of the MBTI and much of what is published is based on weak methodological designs. However, it may be that a more complete picture would be presented by taking into account the unpublished literature (e.g., technical reports, and dissertations). The review committee concluded that, although popular, the overall effectiveness of the MBTI has not been adequately demonstrated.
Conclusion. Although the MBTI is one of the most commonly used personality instruments used in career and organizational development interventions, the 1991 National Academy of Sciences review committee concluded that: "at this time, there is not sufficient, well-designed research to justify the use of the MBTI in career counseling programs" (page 101). As with all career assessment instruments, practitioners are encouraged to cautiously utilize all assessments in facilitating career planning and decision-making processes with employees. Further critical reviews by Pittenger (2005) and others suggest that the MBTI, while offering much intuitive appeal, may not yet be able to support all the claims its supporters make. Using the MBTI in your individual and organizational interventions may simply come down to whether you are a Thinker (T) or a Feeler (F); either more research is required to really establish the instrument's validity and practical usefulness in organizations or if it seems to be working, why try to fix it?
Stepping out of my fun-internet poster shoes and into my just-read-all-that shoes, I don't see how your statement and that quote correlate.
To clarify, you said it's full of shit and the quote says it hasn't yet been substantially proven in a systematic way.
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