Reflections of MBTI survey and ways to improve its results

This week, the main assignment for us to complete was the MBTI survey. MBTI stands for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The goal of this survey is to asses what traits of a person, while they may seem random, remain consistent and stable in the individual's life. By knowing these traits, it becomes easier to assess how that person will react to certain situations and behave when interacting with others. There are basically four areas this survey attempts to pinpoint personality into. They are; Extroversion vs. Introversion, Sensing vs. Intuition, Thinking vs. Feeling, Judging vs. Perceiving. 


While the survey's end goals are good, last year as a freshman and even this year as a sophomore I don't feel I can put much stock into this type of survey. Some areas of the evaluation may be spot on in determining who I am, what type of situation I feel most comfortable in or even how I will respond to certain situations. However, I feel that without taking this test more than once, and without being able to apply the questions to specific scenarios, it is just too great of a generalization. If the survey was set up to have multiple (let's say 3-5) different questionnaires presenting different scenarios to gauge the same type of responses, and if it were to be taken at different times, it would be a much better evaluation of personality. There are many factors that can go into how a person responds to the questionnaire. The person's mood (whether they had a good day vs. a bad day), their state of mind (busy, stressed, angry, sad, hyper, creative, adventurous, etc) and other variables that can affect the possible different responses. Having more than one survey to be taken at different times would help eliminate the mood driven responses to yield a better evaluation of personality. 


Additionally, in reference to the "pick a word" section. I struggled to find the term that could best encompass me. I found that responding as spontaneously as possible generated the answer associated with the exceptional behavior I may exhibit. This is because exceptions are what generally stand out in memory, as opposed to the everyday actions that might better classify my situation in life. If was also difficult to determine between concepts such as "just vs. mercy." This presents a problem that only context can resolve. An animal bites me making me bleed. Technically, for justice sake, the animal should be put down. But say that animal is not one that would intentionally cause harm. In that case a person might evoke mercy to make an exception. This may be an extreme or even random example but it demonstrates that context plays a large role in determining what word would describe day to day actions. In this way, I feel the MBTI survey would be much more applicable if we were able to receive a contextual reference.


While how the test is set up is important, perspective is everything. The way I perceive myself may be polar opposite from the way others see me. It's difficult to determine if I truly am introverted or if I simply see myself that way while others perceive me as an extrovert. (I see myself as a very strong introvert, enjoying time by myself, having only a few close friends, and not  feeling very comfortable in large groups of people, while after asking my mom and a few friends, they see me as an extrovert due to my love of sales and customer service, enjoying sports and enjoying being a leader during activities.) A different perspective can give incredible insight into who a person is. 


Finally, while most of the ideas I have presented so far reflect ideas within psychological theory of personality and a scientific approach, another idea that I think of when taking the test is that it is very possible to manipulate the results to reflect whoever I want to be. It's easy to pick out which questions are geared toward introversion vs. extroversion, sensing vs. intuition, etc. If I wanted to appear to be an extrovert, I would be able to mark the responses that most reflect extroversion. While, hopefully none of us want to manipulate the results in a certain way, many times it becomes difficult to gauge whether a response is due to how we see ourselves, how others see us or how we want to be seen. All these factors can play into the simple responses we give in the 144 item survey. 


I've kind of torn apart the survey but hope that it doesn't seem like pure criticism. I feel that the idea behind the survey is good and it can be very effective in gathering lots of data of many individuals quickly, easily, cost effectively, and in a way that the person responding knows exactly how they behave 100% of the time. In those regards the survey does it's job, however, implementing of the few ideas mentioned in this blog would increase the validity and reliability of the survey results.