“E”, “S”, “T”, “N”, “J”, “I”, “P”, and “F”. If you’ve never taken the
Myers-Briggs personality test
Why is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (which is the test's full name) the
most popular
Author and scholar Merve Emre says that it offers a language for self-actualization.
“It gives people a sense of the absolute messiness of life,” she says.
In the
post-World War II economic boom
“It was an easy metric, and personality became one of the indescribable and ineffable qualities that people talk about in a consistent and standardized fashion," she says.
Today,
almost 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies
In her book,
The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing
“She wanted to figure out their personality types,” Emre says. “So she started ‘typing’ her daughter, Isabel, and children from around the neighborhood.”
Isabel Briggs Myers, having been raised by a mother who was infatuated with personality testing, went on to create the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which has set the groundwork for an industry that is now worth
millions of dollars.
But Emre is
skeptical
But, Emre believes, it makes people feel like they belong to a group that’s greater than themselves.
Aceel Kibbi is an intern at Innovation hub. You can follow her on Twitter: @aceelkibbi