Personality Tests Revised in Taking the Myers-Briggs

Personality Tests REVISED

In taking the Myers-Briggs personality test, my results indicated ENFJ, or Extraverted Intuitive Feeling Judging. One interpretation calls this type "The Teacher" for shorthand (presumably because Extraversion is required for a teacher or professor to willingly stand in front of a classroom and "perform," while the Judging component helps with grading papers). Another weblink offered to show me a list of famous people with the ENFJ type: after scanning the various names (some of whom I identified with, some of whom I didn't) I began to consider what these tests were actually measuring, if anything. I was reading a list of "famous ENFJ personalities" but I wondered if they had lists of famous Introverts. With the possible exception of certain creative artists or eccentrics -- e.g., Marcel Proust, Greta Garbo, Nikola Tesla -- there are not many professions which offer wide fame to those who lack Extraversion altogether. Is there a famous historical figure who could truly be considered an "Introvert"? Surely the definition of historical significance means that you have an effect upon the lives of other people, and even a historical figure who might seem more introspective like the melancholy Abraham Lincoln was also clearly extraverted enough to deliver the Gettysburg Address without hyperventilating. The oxymoron of a list of "Famous Introverts" told me that these tests had now become a kind of cultural shorthand precisely like the "signs of the zodiac" which are still featured in some media venues in the form of a "daily horoscope." These will routinely include a list of "famous personalities" by whom you are invited to measure yourself. Famous Scorpios include Hillary Clinton, Charles Manson, and Nick Lachey; famous ENFJs apparently include Leon Trotsky, Oprah, Pope John Paul II, and Ralph Nader. I do not know how these designations were achieved. I'm fairly sure that Trotsky died of an icepick to the skull in Mexico City long before a match was made in pop-psych heaven and Myers met Briggs, and so therefore could not have actually taken the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory. So who decides that Leon Trotsky was an ENFJ?

In fact, the Myers-Briggs or any "Pseudo Personality Test" has no greater claim to credibility than the daily horoscope. There are three logical fallacies at play, which may prevent the Myers-Briggs test from achieving anything resembling a scientific assessment of the human personality. Listed on page 486 of the course text, these are the "Barnum Effect," the "Fallacy of Positive Instances," and the "Self-Serving Bias." The Barnum effect offers language so broad and hazy that it could apply to virtually anyone in a pinch: an example of this comes when I am told by the Keirsey temperament website that "ENFJ personalities" "in whatever field they choose…consider people their highest priority." Surely any of the other seven types of Extraverts will have that in common with the ENFJ. The Fallacy of Positive Instances is the basic tendency to note information that confirms one's previous expectations while ignoring that which does not fit with the existing mental template -- for example, let us imagine that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas somehow took the Myers-Briggs got a result of ENFJ. In scanning the list of his fellows, he might note that he is African-American like Oprah and Roman Catholic like Pope John Paul II, while ignoring the presence of Ralph Nader and Leon Trotsky (with whom one imagines he has very little in common). Those pieces of information which serve as positive confirmation of the assumption are given more weight than those which contradict it. Finally the "Self-Serving Bias" is the tendency people have to attribute success to their own efforts but to attribute failure to external factors. Since the Myers-Briggs questions require self-assessment, this sort of bias calls into question whether there is any kind of objectivity involved. In point of fact, Psychology in Action cites Guastello et al. (1989) who showed that "the more favorable a personality description, the more people believe it, and the more likely they are to believe it is unique to themselves." A glance at the Myers-Briggs questions shows that they are generally couched in such a way as to indicate positive traits: the test asks things like "Do you often think about the nature of the universe" rather than "Do you waste a lot of time in idle uninformed speculation." If the latter is obviously hostile, it may at least demonstrate the way in which Myers-Briggs try to couch their statements in vague neutral language while clearly leaving open the possibility that the reader can select the most flattering interpretation possible.