It's time to stop blaming your bad behaviour on the MBTI

Are we letting our personality types define who we really are?

21 August, 2024

It's time to stop blaming your bad behaviour on the MBTI

Much like Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City’s Samantha), I hate to be in a ‘situation’. However, whenever I find myself in one—more often than not a self-inflicted mess that’s hard to talk my way out of—I simply blame it on my MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) personality type. According to the MBTI test, I’m an ISFP (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving), and I feel obligated to mention that so are Lana Del Rey (American singer) and Jungkook (Korean singer). We’re supposed to be adventurous, kind, passionate, and unpredictable, among other things. It is almost comforting to have these labels to fall back on, as if they provide an explanation for our quirks. Let’s find out if they really do.

The MBTI—developed by an American mother-daughter duo during the Second World War—is the most popular personality test in the world (yeah, that’s a thing). Inspired by Carl Jung’s Psychological Types, this test was initially created to help women understand the kind of industrial jobs they were best fit for. Little did Katharine (mother) and Isabel (daughter) know that their experiment would turn into a 21st-century obsession. Gen Z—mostly infamous for labelling, self-diagnosing, and psychoanalysing themselves and others around them—has stumbled upon the MBTI, and it might not be for the best. The MBTI test mentions 16 personality types, and we all have a preference for either extroversion or introversion, intuition or sensing, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. By knowing these preferences through the test, we can supposedly be better at our jobs and in our personal lives.

Not to be going out on a limb, but how accurate can the test really be? Sure, the test might help us get to know ourselves a little better, but since the test is entirely self-reported, it does beg the question—can’t we be deceived by our own perceptions? Radhika S Bapat, a clinical psychologist based in Pune, advises that the MBTI results should be taken with a pinch of salt since “the mother-daughter duo, at the time had no formal academic training”. Divija Bhasin, founder of The Friendly Couch (an online mental health organisation), concurs. She says, “The MBTI was meant to be used by those who understand the concepts of cognitive functions and have studied psychology.”

Not only are the test results partially reliable, but they can also lead to self-categorisation for an impressionable young person (like me), which may limit their potential. New Delhi-based counselling psychologist and content creator, Ekta Khurana, notes, “The MBTI test can contribute to a fixed mindset by making people think their personality type is unchangeable, thus limiting growth potential. For instance, an INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving) who is told they are naturally empathetic and idealistic might avoid roles requiring strong analytical or leadership skills.

However, if they adopt a growth mindset, they might discover that they can develop these skills through effort and practice.” While MBTI might be a fun quiz, it is important that we tread lightly when it comes to basing our entire personalities off of it. The binary classifications in MBTI fail to capture the full spectrum of human emotions and complexities. Even if we momentarily accept the results as somewhat accurate, the MBTI test still pigeonholes us into one specific personality type. So, instead of accusing the test for any bad behaviour on your part, hold yourself accountable—only you are responsible for the way you act.

Lead image credit: Illustration by Sumedha Abhyankar

This article originally appeared in the Cosmopolitan July-August 2024 issue.

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