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Myers–Briggs Type Indicator

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The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator ( MBTI ) is a self-report questionnaire that makes pseudoscientific claims to categorize individuals into 16 distinct " psychological types " or "personality types".

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78-411: The MBTI was constructed during World War II by Americans Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers , inspired by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung 's 1921 book Psychological Types . The test assigns a binary value to each of four categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. One letter from each category is taken to produce

156-531: A clear preference. Point scores on each of the dichotomies can vary considerably from person to person, even among those with the same type. However, Isabel Myers considered the direction of the preference (for example, E vs. I) to be more important than the degree of the preference (for example, very clear vs. slight). The expression of a person's psychological type is more than the sum of the four individual preferences. The preferences interact through type dynamics and type development . Myers–Briggs literature uses

234-409: A dominant preference in each of the four pairs. The framework of the test has barely changed since Briggs first developed it. The MBTI is often criticized as pseudoscience by some who claim that Briggs developed the assessment in her home before doing any extensive scientific research, instead of the other way around. Henry Chauncey Henry Chauncey (February 9, 1905 – December 3, 2002)

312-607: A four-letter test result representing one of 16 possible types, such as "INFP" or "ESTJ". The perceived accuracy of test results relies on the Barnum effect , flattery , and confirmation bias , leading participants to personally identify with descriptions that are somewhat desirable, vague, and widely applicable. As a psychometric indicator, the test exhibits significant deficiencies, including poor validity , poor reliability , measuring supposedly dichotomous categories that are not independent , and not being comprehensive. Most of

390-454: A given set of rules. Those who prefer feeling tend to come to decisions by associating or empathizing with the situation, looking at it 'from the inside' and weighing the situation to achieve, on balance, the greatest harmony, consensus and fit, considering the needs of the people involved. Thinkers usually have trouble interacting with people who are inconsistent or illogical, and tend to give very direct feedback to others. They are concerned with

468-530: A lack of critical scrutiny. Many of the studies that endorse MBTI are methodologically weak or unscientific. A 1996 review by Gardner and Martinko concluded: "It is clear that efforts to detect simplistic linkages between type preferences and managerial effectiveness have been disappointing. Indeed, given the mixed quality of research and the inconsistent findings, no definitive conclusion regarding these relationships can be drawn." Katharine Cook Briggs Katharine Cook Briggs (January 3, 1875 – July 10, 1968)

546-460: A lifelong interest in "the application of objective tests to college admission." After transferring to Harvard, Chauncey continued studying the emerging science of testing under Philip Rulon. He was particularly fascinated by a Carnegie Foundation study that found that standardized testing was only weakly correlated with a student's real-life level of education, suggesting that "students' educational achievement could be scientifically measured across

624-501: A long range of schools." After graduating from college, Chauncey taught at Penn Charter School for a year. Harvard president A. Lawrence Lowell then gave him a job as the assistant faculty dean and head of the scholarship committee. Lowell strongly opposed any strict reliance on objective criteria in college admissions. Although he had reformed Harvard's entrance examination process to encourage public school students to apply, he soon realized that his reforms had drastically increased

702-403: A more in depth manner. Isabel, initially uninterested in type research, had a change of heart when she encountered work that attempted to identify people's appropriate type of work for their character. She decided to join efforts with her mother. Katharine and Isabel were greatly influenced by Jung. From here they began a twenty-year period of type watching. In 1945, Katharine and Isabel, with

780-520: A physicist and Director of the Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. On October 18, 1897, Katharine gave birth to Isabel Briggs Myers , the couple's only child who would survive infancy. Briggs was home schooled by her father. She never attended a formal school until she left for college at the age of fourteen. Briggs earned a college degree in agriculture and became an academic. She worked as

858-543: A project of reading biographies and subsequently developed a typology wherein she proposed four temperaments: meditative (or thoughtful), spontaneous , executive , and social . After the publication in 1923 of an English translation of Carl Jung's book Psychological Types (first published in German as Psychologische Typen in 1921), Briggs recognized that Jung's theory resembled, but went far beyond, her own. Briggs's four types were later identified as corresponding to

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936-462: A sequence of four cognitive functions (thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition), each having one of two polar tendencies (extraversion or introversion), giving a total of eight dominant functions. The MBTI is based on these eight hypothetical functions, although with some differences in expression from Jung's model. While the Jungian model proposes the first three dichotomies, Myers and Briggs added

1014-623: A series of category mistakes; it provides, at best, a limited and incomplete account of type related phenomena"; and "type dynamics relies on anecdotal evidence, fails most efficacy tests, and does not fit the empirical facts". His studies gave the clear result that the descriptions and workings of type dynamics do not fit the real behavior of people. He suggests getting completely rid of type dynamics, because it does not help, but hinders understanding of personality. The presumed order of functions 1 to 4 did only occur in one out of 540 test results. The four pairs of preferences or "dichotomies" are shown in

1092-430: A teacher after college. Briggs looked at data from studies of contemporary children's educational and social developmental theories. She created a vocation test for children as she saw this as a key to a child's future happiness and well being. Her earliest research led her to identify four main personality types in 1917: meditative types, spontaneous types, executive types, and sociable types, which later developed into

1170-684: A third and a half of the published material on the MBTI has been produced for the special conferences of the Center for the Application of Psychological Type (which provide the training in the MBTI, and are funded by sales of the MBTI) or as papers in the Journal of Psychological Type (which is edited and supported by Myers–Briggs advocates and by sales of the indicator). It has been argued that this reflects

1248-459: Is directed outward toward people and objects, whereas the introvert's is directed inward toward concepts and ideas. Contrasting characteristics between extraverted and introverted people include: Jung identified two pairs of psychological functions: According to Jung's typology model, each person uses one of these four functions more dominantly and proficiently than the other three; however, all four functions are used at different times depending on

1326-401: Is dominant in an individual, a majority of the time. In MBTI theory, the four categories are introversion/extraversion , sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. According to the MBTI, each person is said to have one preferred quality from each category, producing 16 unique types. The MBTI emphasizes the value of naturally occurring differences. "The underlying assumption of

1404-446: Is especially vocal against MBTI. He called it "the fad that won't die" in a Psychology Today article. Psychometric specialist Robert Hogan wrote: "Most personality psychologists regard the MBTI as little more than an elaborate Chinese fortune cookie ". Nicholas Campion comments that this is "a fascinating example of 'disguised astrology', masquerading as science in order to claim respectability." It has been estimated that between

1482-426: Is generally used in a more conscious and confident way. This dominant function is supported by the secondary (auxiliary) function, and to a lesser degree the tertiary function. The fourth and least conscious function is always the opposite of the dominant function. Myers called this inferior function the "shadow." The four functions operate in conjunction with the attitudes (extraversion and introversion). Each function

1560-489: Is introverted, then the other functions are extraverted and vice versa. The MBTI Manual summarizes Jung's work of balance in psychological type as follows: "There are several references in Jung's writing to the three remaining functions having an opposite attitudinal character. For example, in writing about introverts with thinking dominant ... Jung commented that the counterbalancing functions have an extraverted character." Using

1638-412: Is often considered to be more associated with the unconscious, being most evident in situations such as high stress (sometimes referred to as being "in the grip" of the inferior function). However, the use of type dynamics is disputed: in the conclusion of various studies on the subject of type dynamics, James H. Reynierse writes, "Type dynamics has persistent logical problems and is fundamentally based on

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1716-473: Is used in either an extraverted or introverted way. A person whose dominant function is extraverted intuition, for example, uses intuition very differently from someone whose dominant function is introverted intuition. Myers and Briggs added another dimension to Jung's typological model by identifying that people also have a preference for using either the judging function (thinking or feeling) or their perceiving function (sensing or intuition) when relating to

1794-493: Is what fuels this natural instinct. Briggs' early interest in personality types developed from her attempts at fiction writing. To create richer characters for her fiction writing, she attempted to understand the details of human personality and behaviors. Briggs' first two articles were published in the journal New Republic . The first was published in 1926 ("Meet Yourself Using the Personality Paint Box") and

1872-488: The Boston Braves ) and was elected class president. He graduated from Harvard in 1928. Chauncey's year at Ohio State proved formative for his career, as that year, Professor Toops convinced the university to allow him to administer a "psychological examination" to the incoming freshmen. Toops hoped that the exam would be predictive of freshman grades, which (at least for Chauncey) it was. For Chauncey, this ignited

1950-608: The Educational Testing Service , a private assessment-organization. Under these auspices, the first MBTI "manual" was published, in 1962. The MBTI received further support from Donald W. MacKinnon , head of the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley ; W. Harold Grant, a professor at Michigan State University and Auburn University ; and Mary H. McCaulley of

2028-533: The IXXXs (Introverts: "meditative"), EXXPs (Extraverts & Prospectors: "spontaneous"), EXTJs (Extraverts, Thinkers & Judgers: "executive") and EXFJs (Extraverts, Feelers & Judgers: "social"). Her first publications were two articles describing Jung's theory, in The New Republic , "Meet Yourself Using the Personality Paint Box" (1926) and "Up From Barbarism" (1928). After extensively studying

2106-475: The NEO-PI factor of neuroticism ). This factor's scales indicate a sense of overall comfort and confidence versus discomfort and anxiety. They also load onto one of the four type-dimensions: Also included is a composite of these called "strain". There are also scales for type-scale consistency and comfort-scale consistency. Reliability of 23 of the 27 TDI subscales is greater than 0.50, "an acceptable result given

2184-450: The University of Florida . The publication of the MBTI was transferred to Consulting Psychologists Press in 1975, and the Center for Applications of Psychological Type was founded as a research laboratory. After Myers' death in May 1980, Mary McCaulley updated the MBTI manual, and the second edition was published in 1985. The third edition appeared in 1998. In 1987, an advanced scoring-system

2262-464: The 16 four-preference types, one function is the most dominant and is likely to be evident earliest in life. A secondary or auxiliary function typically becomes more evident (differentiated) during teenage years and provides balance to the dominant. In normal development, individuals tend to become more fluent with a third, tertiary function during mid-life, while the fourth, inferior function remains least consciously developed. The inferior function

2340-691: The 1921 exam included "Name month and year when United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany", "Name three animals that hibernate", and "How is vinegar made?" Since his parents could not afford to send him to Harvard, Chauncey returned to Columbus after high school and spent his freshman year at Ohio State University , where he studied psychology under Herbert Toops, an early proponent of standardized testing. He transferred to Harvard after Groton's headmaster arranged for Wall Street financier Clarence Dillon to subsidize his Harvard tuition. An excellent athlete, Chauncey lettered in football and baseball at Harvard (he declined an offer to turn professional with

2418-675: The Conqueror 's 1066 conquest of England . In 1913, the Chaunceys moved to Columbus, Ohio when Egisto became the rector of Trinity Episcopal Church . By this time the family had lost much of its old wealth. Chauncey returned to the East Coast when he won a scholarship to Groton School , his father's old boarding school. Groton had recently begun offering scholarships by competitive examination, but its exams bore little resemblance to modern standardized tests. Sample questions from

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2496-672: The Educational Testing Service in 1962. It is estimated that 50 million people have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and that 10,000 businesses, 2,500 colleges and universities, and 200 government agencies in the United States use the MBTI. Briggs began her research into personality in 1917. Upon meeting her future son-in-law, she observed marked differences between his personality and that of other family members. Briggs embarked on

2574-643: The INTP type as an example, the orientation according to Jung would be as follows: Jung's typological model regards psychological type as similar to left or right handedness : people are either born with, or develop, certain preferred ways of perceiving and deciding. The MBTI sorts some of these psychological differences into four opposite pairs, or " dichotomies ", with a resulting 16 possible psychological types. None of these are considered to be "better" or "worse"; however, Briggs and Myers theorized that people innately "prefer" one overall combination of type differences. In

2652-507: The J indicates that the dominant function is the preferred judging function (extraverted thinking). The ENTJ type introverts the auxiliary perceiving function (introverted intuition). Their tertiary function is sensing and their inferior function is introverted feeling. Conversely, because the INTJ type is introverted, the J instead indicates that the auxiliary function is the preferred judging function (extraverted thinking). The INTJ type introverts

2730-422: The MBTI and Verifying Type Despite its popularity, the MBTI has been widely regarded as pseudoscience by the scientific community. The validity ( statistical validity and test validity ) of the MBTI as a psychometric instrument has been the subject of much criticism. Media reports have called the test "pretty much meaningless", and "one of the worst personality tests in existence". The psychologist Adam Grant

2808-438: The MBTI is that we all have specific preferences in the way we construe our experiences, and these preferences underpin our interests, needs, values , and motivation ." The MBTI Manual states that the indicator "is designed to implement a theory; therefore, the theory must be understood to understand the MBTI". Fundamental to the MBTI is the hypothesis of psychological types as originally developed by Carl Jung. Jung proposed

2886-484: The MBTI terms Ixxx (meditative), ExxP (spontaneous) ExTJ (executive), and ExFJ (social). However, while investigating the works of various philosophers, scientists and psychologists, she was unable to identify one definitive theory of type that encompassed all aspects. From the lack of findings, she decided to begin to distinguish her own theory of type. She wrote essays about child-rearing and education, believing that children have an innate curiosity and that education

2964-434: The MBTI. It is used in areas as broad as executive development and marital counseling. Since it was formally added to the Educational Testing Service 's collection of tests in 1962, it is estimated that 50 million people have taken the MBTI. The MBTI classifies personality types along four pairs of categories. Katharine and Isabel claimed that everyone fits into one of the 16 possible combinations of personality type, with

3042-450: The SAT did not perfectly gauge intellectual promise since students from more privileged socioeconomic backgrounds tended to perform better on the test. Chauncey also felt that in contrast to the 1930s and 1940s, improving data about individual high schools across the country made it easier for admissions offices to evaluate report cards from a diverse range of secondary schools without recourse to

3120-470: The SAT, and by 1937 other colleges, including Yale, Princeton, and Columbia, agreed to accept the SAT. Even so, the SAT was not a national exam. Before World War II , the SAT was never administered to more than 18,000 people in a single year. Chauncey broadened his testing efforts during World War II, when the military used standardized tests to grant intellectually promising students draft deferments so that they could spend some time in college and then enter

3198-502: The adjacent table. The terms used for each dichotomy have specific technical meanings relating to the MBTI, which differ from their everyday usage. For example, people who prefer judgment over perception are not necessarily more "judgmental" or less "perceptive", nor does the MBTI instrument measure aptitude ; it simply indicates for one preference over another. Someone reporting a high score for extraversion over introversion cannot be correctly described as more extraverted: they simply have

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3276-413: The belief that a knowledge of personality preferences would help women entering the industrial workforce for the first time to identify the sorts of war-time jobs that would be the "most comfortable and effective" for them. The Briggs Myers Type Indicator Handbook , published in 1944, was re-published as "Myers–Briggs Type Indicator" in 1956. Myers' work attracted the attention of Henry Chauncey , head of

3354-612: The brevity of the subscales". In 1989, a scoring system was developed for only the 20 subscales for the original four dichotomies. This was initially known as "Form K" or "the Expanded Analysis Report". This tool is now called the MBTI Step II. Form J or the TDI included the items (derived from Myers' and McCaulley's earlier work) necessary to score what became known as Step III. (The 1998 MBTI Manual reported that

3432-405: The case of intuition, which uses the abbreviation "N" to distinguish it from introversion). For instance: These abbreviations are applied to all 16 types. The interaction of two, three, or four preferences is known as "type dynamics". Although type dynamics has received little or no empirical support to substantiate its viability as a scientific theory , Myers and Briggs asserted that for each of

3510-453: The circumstances. Because each function can manifest in either an extraverted or an introverted attitude, Jung's model includes eight combinations of functions and attitudes, four of which are largely conscious and four unconscious. John Beebe created a model that combines ideas of archetypes and the dialogical self with functions, each function viewed as performing the role of an archetype within an internal dialog. Sensing and intuition are

3588-741: The cognitive functions can operate in the external world of behavior, action, people, and things ("extraverted attitude") or the internal world of ideas and reflection ("introverted attitude"). The MBTI assessment sorts for an overall preference for one or the other. People who prefer extraversion draw energy from action: they tend to act, then reflect, then act further. If they are inactive, their motivation tends to decline. To rebuild their energy, extraverts need breaks from time spent in reflection. Conversely, those who prefer introversion "expend" energy through action: they prefer to reflect, then act, then reflect again. To rebuild their energy, introverts need quiet time alone, away from activity. An extravert's flow

3666-422: The data. Thinking and feeling are the decision-making (judging) functions. The thinking and feeling functions are both used to make rational decisions, based on the data received from their information-gathering functions (sensing or intuition). Those who prefer thinking tend to decide things from a more detached standpoint, measuring the decision by what seems reasonable, logical, causal, consistent, and matching

3744-424: The discipline of psychology , and both were self-taught in the field of psychometric testing . Myers therefore apprenticed herself to Edward N. Hay (1891–1958), the head personnel officer for a large Philadelphia bank . From Hay, Myers learned rudimentary test construction , scoring , validation , and statistical methods. Briggs and Myers began creating their indicator during World War II (1939–1945) in

3822-502: The dominant perceiving function (introverted intuition). Their tertiary function is feeling and their inferior function is extraverted sensing. ... a major task in interpretation is to help respondents with less clear reported preferences arrive at a comfortable and accurate assessment of their type. This is accomplished in an interpretation session mainly through an exploration of how type preferences appear in client behaviors. The MBTI Manual, Chapter 6: Interpreting Results of

3900-430: The elite he grew up in with a new elite that he probably wouldn't have been in." Chauncey was not inflexible about the use of standardized testing. At ETS, Chauncey periodically considered supplementing the SAT with a wider battery of personality and psychological tests, which were not implemented. In addition, according to Chauncey's son Sam (who later became an admissions officer at Yale ), Chauncey acknowledged that

3978-550: The existence of two dichotomous pairs of cognitive functions: Jung believed that for every person, each of the functions is expressed primarily in either an introverted or extraverted form. Based on Jung's original concepts, Briggs and Myers developed their own theory of psychological type, described below, on which the MBTI is based. According to psychologist Hans Eysenck writing in 1995 the 16 personality types used in MBTI are incomplete, as Jung's theory used 32 types, 16 of which could not be measured by questionnaire. Per Eysenck, it

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4056-431: The help of Lyman Briggs, ran the first assessment on George Washington Medical School students. Keeping in mind her mother's early work, during World War II, Isabel created a test that would help identify a person's appropriate war-related job. Katharine typed herself as an INFJ (Advocate) using the test she and her daughter made. The rest of Briggs' life was devoted to bringing the ideas of Jung forward. Isabel took over

4134-410: The information-gathering (perceiving) functions. They describe how new information is understood and interpreted. People who prefer sensing are more likely to trust information that is in the present, tangible, and concrete: that is, information that can be understood by the five senses. They tend to distrust hunches, which seem to come "out of nowhere". They prefer to look for details and facts. For them,

4212-530: The judgment-perception preference. The most notable addition of Myers' and Briggs' ideas to Jung's original thought is their concept that a given type's fourth letter (J or P) indicates a person's most preferred extraverted function, which is the dominant function for extraverted types and the auxiliary function for introverted types. Jung hypothesized that the dominant function acts alone in its preferred world: exterior for extraverts and interior for introverts. The remaining three functions, he suggested, operate in

4290-400: The meaning is in the data. On the other hand, those who prefer intuition tend to trust information that is less dependent upon the senses, that can be associated with other information (either remembered or discovered by seeking a wider context or pattern). They may be more interested in future possibilities. For them, the meaning is in the underlying theory and principles which are manifested in

4368-631: The military at higher grades. Conant released Chauncey to the Pentagon to help the war effort. In April 1943, Chauncey successfully administered a standardized test to 325,000 young men. After the war, Chauncey left Harvard to join the College Entrance Examination Board . He then established the Educational Testing Service in 1947, with funding from Devereux Josephs of the Carnegie Corporation . He led

4446-437: The number of Jewish students at Harvard and began looking for ways to limit Jewish enrollment (see Jewish quota ). He implemented subjective policies such as applicant interviews, teacher recommendations, and character references, which gave Harvard's admissions office discretion to choose well-born gentile students over academically superior Jewish students. Lowell died in 1933 and was succeeded by James Bryant Conant , who

4524-415: The opposite orientation. Some MBTI practitioners, however, place doubt on this concept as being a category error with next to no empirical evidence backing it relative to other findings with correlation evidence, yet as a theory it still remains part of Myers' and Briggs' extrapolation of their original theory despite being discounted. Jung's hypothesis can be summarized as: if the dominant cognitive function

4602-421: The organization until his retirement in 1970. Before the war, the adoption of the SAT had not significantly altered the composition of Harvard's student body. Financial aid was limited (as Chauncey's own experience as a Harvard undergraduate illustrated), and even top universities "were for the most part willing to accept any boys who could pass the [entrance examinations of the period] and whose fathers could pay

4680-419: The outside world (extraversion). They held that types with a preference for judging show the world their preferred judging function (thinking or feeling). Those types who prefer perception show the world their preferred perceiving function (sensing or intuition). According to Myers, judging types like to "have matters settled", while perceptive types prefer to "keep decisions open". So, TJ types tend to appear to

4758-502: The research supporting the MBTI's validity has been produced by the Center for Applications of Psychological Type, an organization run by the Myers–Briggs Foundation, and published in the center's own journal, the Journal of Psychological Type (JPT) , raising questions of independence, bias and conflict of interest . Despite controversies over validity, the instrument has demonstrated widespread influence since its adoption by

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4836-581: The same problem that Chauncey had faced at Harvard: how to evaluate students from around the country. University admissions became significantly more competitive, pressuring out many students from the Ivy League's traditional feeder schools: a 1969 study of 14 private feeder high schools found that while 52% of their alumni matriculated to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in 1953, the figure had more than halved to 25% by 1967. Educational historian Nicholas Lemann wrote that Chauncey "work[ed] ceaselessly to replace

4914-434: The same way that writing with the left hand is difficult for a right-hander, so people tend to find using their opposite psychological preferences more difficult, though they can become more proficient (and therefore behaviorally flexible) with practice and development. The 16 types are typically referred to by an abbreviation of four letters – the initial letters of each of their four type preferences (except in

4992-451: The second in 1928 ("Up From Barbarism"). In 1923, Briggs read the work of Carl Jung and introduced it to her daughter. His theory focused on innate differences between people in regard to their decision making and their intake of information. She was inspired to write erotic fiction about Jung. After reading C.G. Jung's Psychological Types , Briggs abandoned her own creation of a personality theory and began to focus on Jung's ideas in

5070-484: The studies and with hers, her mother's and Jung's observations, was able to initiate the creation of a pencil-paper questionnaire to assess type. Briggs was primarily the driving force and inspiration behind the creation of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Isabel was the work force that created the physical test itself. Briggs and her early personality type research were instrumental in creating

5148-404: The terms extraversion and introversion as Jung first used them. Extraversion means literally outward-turning and introversion, inward-turning. These specific definitions differ somewhat from the popular usage of the words. Extraversion is the spelling used in MBTI publications. The preferences for extraversion and introversion are often called " attitudes ". Briggs and Myers recognized that each of

5226-572: The truth and view it as more important. As noted already, people who prefer thinking do not necessarily, in the everyday sense, "think better" than their feeling counterparts, in the common sense; the opposite preference is considered an equally rational way of coming to decisions (and, in any case, the MBTI assessment is a measure of preference, not ability). Similarly, those who prefer feeling do not necessarily have "better" emotional reactions than their thinking counterparts. According to Jung, people use all four cognitive functions. However, one function

5304-532: The tuition." In 1940, Harvard accepted 76 out of 77 applicants from the St. Grottlesex schools. During Chauncey's years at ETS, the SAT evolved from an Ivy League scholarship examination into a national allocator of student talent. The postwar government expanded the pool of students who could afford college by backing student loans ( Higher Education Act of 1965 ) and providing G.I. Bill funding for veterans. As such, many more college admissions offices were facing

5382-539: The two instruments were one and the same) Step III was developed in a joint project involving the following organizations: the Myers–Briggs Company, the publisher of all the MBTI works; the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT), which holds all of Myers' and McCaulley's original work; and the MBTI Trust headed by Katharine and Peter Myers. CAPT advertised Step III as addressing type development and

5460-431: The use of "perception and judgment" by respondents. The MBTI is based on the influential theory of psychological types proposed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in 1921, which was partially based on the four elements of classical cosmology. Jung speculated that people experience the world using four principal psychological functions— sensation , intuition , feeling , and thinking —and that one of these four functions

5538-620: The work of Jung, Briggs and her daughter extended their interest in human behavior into efforts to turn the theory of psychological types to practical use. Isabel Myers was particularly fascinated by the concept of introversion and she typed herself as an "INFP". However, she felt the book was too complex for the general public, and therefore she tried to organize the Jungian cognitive functions to make it more accessible. Although Myers graduated from Swarthmore College in political science in 1919, neither Myers nor Briggs were formally educated in

5616-457: The world as logical and FJ types as empathetic . SP types tend to appear as concrete and NP types as abstract. The J or P indicates the dominant function for extraverts, whereas for introverts, the J or P indicates their auxiliary function. Introverts tend to show their dominant function outwardly only in matters "important to their inner worlds". For example, because the ENTJ type is extraverted,

5694-891: Was a founder and the first president of the Educational Testing Service (ETS). As a Harvard University administrator, he helped popularize the use of the Scholastic Aptitude Test in college admissions . Chauncey was born in Brooklyn, New York to the Reverend Egisto Fabbri Chauncey and Edith Lockwood Taft Chauncey. Although Chauncey's father was an Episcopalian , he came from a long Puritan lineage; his ancestors on his father's side included Charles Chauncy , president of Harvard College from 1654 to 1671. The Chaunceys originally descended from Norman nobility that participated in William

5772-672: Was an American writer who was the co-creator, with her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers , of an inventory of a widely popular personality type system known as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Katharine Cook Briggs was born on January 3, 1875, in Ingham County, Michigan. Her father Albert John Cook was on the faculty of Michigan State University, previously known as Michigan Agricultural College. Her mother, née Mary Harris Baldwin, attended Oberlin College. After Katharine graduated from college she married Lyman James Briggs ,

5850-529: Was developed for the MBTI. From this was developed the Type Differentiation Indicator (TDI), which is a scoring system for the longer MBTI, Form J, which includes the 290 items written by Myers that had survived her previous item analyses. It yields 20 subscales (five under each of the four dichotomous preference scales), plus seven additional subscales for a new "comfort-discomfort" factor (which parallels, though not perfectly measuring,

5928-408: Was more interested than Lowell in improving the academic quality of the undergraduate student body. Conant provided Chauncey with a financial aid budget and encouraged him to "figure out a way to select the scholarship students." This was an initially daunting task, since Harvard traditionally drew most of its students from a select group of feeder schools with whom Harvard had a close relationship. He

6006-413: Was unfair to Jung to claim the scale accurately measured Jungian concepts. Both Jung's original model and the simplified MBTI remain hypothetical, with no controlled scientific studies supporting either. Jung did not see the type preferences (such as introversion and extraversion) as dualistic, but rather as tendencies: both are innate and have the potential to balance. Jung's typology theories postulated

6084-454: Was unsure how to evaluate report cards from schools across the country, which might have tougher or more relaxed standards than the traditional feeder schools. After evaluating several proposals, Chauncey selected Carl Brigham 's Scholastic Aptitude Test , which had been introduced on an experimental basis in 1926 but had not gained significant traction with college admissions offices. By 1936 Harvard required all scholarship applicants to take

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