Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Myers-Briggs Test Mistypes

Whilst Myers-Briggs and Jungian cognitive functions test are presented as the best way of determining your type, the truth is they are not always accurate. In fact I believe the test only to be about 60% accurate (these are not official statistics as there is no objective way of determining someone's personality type) at best and quite possibly less. It is impossible to measure a person’s psyche 100% accurately from a written test. Here are some of the possible reasons why you might get a mistyping from the MBTI test...

...you don’t know yourself and your inner motivations well enough

...you have a well developed personality, have worked hard on your weaknesses and are comfortable making decisions with logic or feelings, being adaptive or directive when required etc. (you will still have a natural preference though)

...you may be a reserved extrovert or an articulate introvert

...you dislike certain aspects of yourself and want to dissociate yourself from these

...you are projecting qualities you wish you had, but don’t

...your development pattern might be abnormal for your type (i.e. your tertiary cognitive function being developed at a higher level than your secondary cognitive function)

...some of the questions were ambiguous and could be the result of a number of different cognitive functions at work

So even if the official test says you or someone else is XXXX type, don't take it as gospel. Consider the possibility and investigate further.

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