WHY DO COMPANIES MAKE US TAKE THE MBTI TEST?

Some companies make their recruits take a personality test. One of the well known ones is the MBTI. But, why MBTI? What’s the use of it?

In this article, We're going to dive into what the MBTI is and how it works. We will also discuss some of the MBTI issues.

• What’s MBTI?

MBTI is an instrument developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katherine Briggs based on CG Jung’s theory of Psychological Types. The purpose of this is to make Jung’s theory more understandable and useful for society.

Based on this way of dividing personality, human personality can be divided into sixteen, namely as follows:

• How does it work?

First of all, we should know what the letters stand for. There are 8 letters used.

Please note that the MBTI does not just use these "letters" for typing. Following Jung's theory, the MBTI uses the "cognitive functions" for their typing. Cognitive functions according to Jung's theory are a set of mental or behavioral processes that are present regardless of common circumstances. Below is a simplification of these cognitive functions.

Every MBTI type has an E & I function and a J & P function side by side. This is because humans need a balance function to work properly. For example:

Based on the explanation above, it is clear that the MBTI classifies humans based on how humans receive information and make decisions. Since both of those things -receiving information and making a decision- is an instruments used to respond to a problem, it's safe enough to conclude that MBTI is a personality typing system that divides people based on how they respond to problems.

• The problem with today's use of MBTI

There are some major problems with the use of MBTI these days. Those problems affect the accuracy of Jung's theory, and make it feel like a mythos just like the astrology zodiac signs.

The "MBTI" used is oversimplified. Oversimplified means that it doesn't use the cognitive functions to type anymore. It just uses letters. This is the reason why there are a lot of misconceptions. As written before, the J & P / I & E needs to work side by side for humans to function properly. Using only the letters, it makes the meaning of the letters change. For example, the I / E type uses the Introvert/Extrovert in terms of social energy, not one's world focus (inner world focus or outer world focus). The J / P for instance, is used about how a person approaches the outside world, whether it's structured or adaptive. But, as it was discussed before, the J / P is nothing like that. If we use the original meaning of the J / P, it can't be an option. The reason is, no human could live a normal life by just making decisions (their decision/opinion might be invalid because they don't have a perceiving function) or just taking information (this makes them unable to choose or take action). Based on this explanation alone, it can be concluded that the "Oversimplified MBTI" is highly inaccurate and has strayed too far from the purpose of the MBTI and CG Jung's Personality Types theory.

The other problem is the use of stereotypes to type. Though every type might have a special trait, that does not rule out their different appearance. These differences might be the impact of one's motivations, social energies, temperaments, etc. This is why, if we dive deeper into the MBTI community, we'll see a lot of people mentioning The Enneagram. The Enneagram is a personality typing system based on one's motivations. You might see something like this.

For example, there are 2 people with the same MBTI in one room named A and B. Both are ENTP. A is an ENTP 7 and B is an ENTP 5. ENTP 7 is the one people see as a stereotyped ENTP. On the other hand, the ENTP 5 might get mistyped as an INTP because of their withdrawn nature from their enneagram. This explains why stereotypes can't be used to type.

• Why MBTI?

Based on all the discussion above, we can see that MBTI is a good instrument for companies to use because it types people based on how they face problems. This is useful because how people face problems affects the way they execute their work and the way they communicate. This way, the company can get the best out of their employees.

Then again, with all the problems with today's MBTI test, it is quite useless to do the test for recruits. It is hoped that with this article, The MBTI test provider has improved the test to be more accurate. That way it'll fulfill its purpose of making Jung's theory understandable and useful to society.