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Science Diction

The Rise Of The Myers-Briggs, Chapter 3: What Is It Good For?

Science Diction

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Friday, Society & Culture, Science, Origin, Culture, Words, History, Word, Language

4.8 • 610 Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Isabel Briggs Myers imagined that her homegrown personality test would change the world, she couldn’t have pictured this. Today, millions take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator each year. Countless organizations use it, from General Motors to the CIA. But there’s one field that mostly rolls its eyes at the test: psychology.  In our final chapter, Isabel rescues her indicator from the verge of extinction, but has to make some compromises. And we explore what the Myers Briggs does (and doesn’t) measure, and why people love it despite psychologists' complaints. Listen to Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of this series. Guests:  Merve Emre is a writer and English professor at the University of Oxford. Annie Murphy Paul is a science journalist and author.   Dan McAdams is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University.  Quinisha Jackson-Wright is a writer and the author of Working Twice as Hard.  Jeffrey Hayes is the President and CEO of the Myers-Briggs Company. Rich Thompson is Senior Director of Global Research at The Myers-Briggs Company. Peter Geyer is a Myers-Briggs practitioner in Melbourne Australia. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Check out Merve Emre’s book, ​​The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing. Read Annie Murphy Paul’s book, The Cult of Personality Testing. Credits: This episode of Science Diction was produced by Johanna Mayer, Chris Egusa, and Senior Producer Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer, and they mastered the episode. We had fact checking help from Sona Avakian. Special thanks to Peter Geyer for providing archival audio. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey there. This is chapter three of our series on the rise of the Myers-Briggs. If you haven't heard

0:06.2

chapters one and two yet, I recommend going back and listening to those first. And if you invited some

0:11.5

kids to join you, or if you are a kid, be warned that this episode includes at least one four-letter

0:18.3

word that begins with an S.

0:21.9

Okay, here we go.

0:26.8

A few years ago, Kuenisha Jackson Wright got some bad news.

0:30.3

Her company was having a staff retreat, mandatory.

0:33.3

She was not looking forward to it.

0:36.3

Because, you know, you have all these group activities,

0:40.1

and you have to talk, and you have to, like like share your feelings. And one of the big activities at this retreat?

0:43.6

The Myers-Briggs type indicator.

0:46.6

Everyone had to take the test a while back.

0:48.8

And the plan was that at the retreat, they do a big reveal of the results.

0:53.5

And Kanisha was pretty sure this wouldn't go well. I mean, they do a big reveal of the results. And Quanisha was pretty sure this wouldn't go well.

0:57.0

I mean, they do say there's no wrong personality, but I definitely get the vibe that there is a wrong personality.

1:04.6

And mine, I believe, is the one that was considered wrong.

1:09.3

Quinitia was an introvert at a company that liked extroverts.

1:13.2

So I was kind of dreading the results because I'm like, of course, it's going to come out,

1:17.6

you know, that I'm an introvert.

1:19.0

And, yeah, slapping labels on themselves and their coworkers didn't go so great.

1:24.3

Introverts would have to write down some words that they associate with extroverts and then

1:29.7

vice versa. So like the extroverts were saying, oh, we think that introverts are too

...

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