INTERACTIVE FEEDBACK: A NECESSITY, NOT A LUXURY
Every now and then I am asked to correct, refute or comment on negative statements about the MBTI® assessment. These criticisms are annoying, misguided and often just plain wrong, but I’ll let you into a little secret. In one way, jibes about the psycho-metric properties of the questionnaire aren’t so important. Ultimately, it’s what is done with the assessment results that is crucial, not just the results themselves, the four letters that make up reported type or the ‘scores’. No personality assessment works in vacuum and in reality, “the MBTI” is more than just a questionnaire.
Now this may sound a little odd coming from someone who used to work for The Myers-Briggs Company, and whose salary was therefore paid by people who buy MBTI® assessments, other products or training. So let me spell out what I mean. I see “the MBTI” as a whole process, not just as a questionnaire, assessment or test. It’s a process that involves not only completing the questionnaire but also going through an interactive feedback session where you can decide for yourself what type fits you best. Your reported type, your questionnaire results, are a useful signpost on the journey towards finding out the type pattern that is most like you, but the results are not prescriptive. People can and do decide that their type is different from what the assessment suggests. This is not some failing in the construction of the MBTI® assessment, but part of the ethos of using tools like the MBTI®. The point of MBTI® feedback is not that you go away with a report based solely on your questionnaire results clutched in your hand, to be filed away in a desk drawer and for-gotten. The point is that you have come to some conclusions about what your type is (or may be) and that you can apply this knowledge to your self-development and to what is going on in your life and work. Interactive feedback is an essential part of this process.
This client-led approach has always been different to that taken by many trait questionnaires and indeed most personality instruments in general. The traditional approach here was that the ‘expert’ would interpret the results and that therefore they would have the final word on what this said about the individual’s personality. This paradigm may be appropriate in selection and recruitment, or in some clinical contexts, but is likely to work less well in development applications where an individual needs to internalise the feedback and use this knowledge to take responsibility for their own development. In contrast, the role of the practitioner in type feedback is to facilitate a process of self-discovery. It is very definitely not the practitioner’s job to tell people their type; the client should de-cide this themselves.
However, the advent of the internet has disrupted traditional approaches, with both positive and negative effects. People can now complete the MBTI® assessment or other type instruments online, making ac-cess easier. Feedback can be carried out via video conferencing apps like Zoom or Teams; this may lack some of the nuances of face-to-face feedback but is certainly better than telephone feedback. Automat-ed interactive feedback systems such as MBTIComplete and MBTIOnline have been developed to help individuals decide for themselves what type may best fit who they really are, even when time and re-sources are short. But there have been negative impacts too. In particular, it is now quite straightforward for almost anyone to create an assessment that purports to be a type questionnaire and to make this available online with some kind of report – but without any interactive feedback.
Let’s take a moment to think about the implications of this. If you visit social media sites like Facebook or online platforms like Reddit, you will find several very flourishing groups and communities discussing personality type. And as someone who has seen the positive effects that using type can have, this has possibilities for good. But a closer inspection reveals that not all is at it seems. Even though many of these forums are labelled with the magic letters “MBTI”, and participants talk about their “MBTI type”, very few of these individuals have completed the official MBTI® assessment or had interactive feedback. Most will have taken a free online test, been given their four letters, and are now running with that under the assumption that this is all they need to do. Try typing “free MBTI test” into Google yourself and see how many hits you get.
Most free online assessments have no information on their reliability, validity, or other technical properties – something that is particularly galling for The Myers-Briggs Company, when they hear people criticise the MBTI® and then find out that in fact this is referring to a cheap copy that has nothing to do with them. It’s as if someone was criticising Rolex watches because the “Rolox” they bought from the cheap stall at the market didn’t keep time accurately. But just as importantly, almost none of these assessments offer interactive feedback. You complete an online quiz, get your four letters, and off you go. There is no opportunity to explore whether this is really you, whether another type preference might fit you better, or whether there are individual nuances that make you unique. In effect, you are following the ‘expert knows best’ approach, with the added wrinkle that in many cases the ‘expert’ doesn’t know what they are talk-ing about. And of course, it doesn’t end there. Some platforms double down by sending instant messages and involving users in discussions or interactions all based on an unverified and unnuanced choice of type preference.
Now, you may feel that there is a big divide between school students surfing the internet looking for free personality advice, compared with the services that organisations and professional clients are looking for. But that gap is getting smaller all the time. As recessionary forces increase and margins become tighter, so does the motivation to look for quicker and cheaper approaches, and hence the temptation to see interactive feedback as unimportant. As type practitioners, we should be able to stand firm against this, and to make it clear that in using the MBTI® assessment, or any reputable type questionnaire, it’s not just the initial results that are important, but rather the enhanced understanding of oneself gained from that interactive feedback. That type results without verification or validation may not be fit for purpose, irrespective of how pretty or lengthy the report is. Online systems that allow an individual to evaluate the accuracy of their questionnaires results and come to their own conclusion about which type fits them best are in my view fine, indeed useful; online systems that say “these are your results” without any opportunity for verification are not.
Let’s take this back to the question of why people might think about completing tools like the MBTI® in the first place. I would say that typically, the purpose here is for the individual to decide for themselves which type fits them best, and why this is, to then use this knowledge to understand themselves and others better, and then maybe to be able to apply this to specific issues that they are facing. Ultimately type may be a tool that helps them in many aspects of their life. Interactive feedback is an integral part of this. Removing it, just giving people their questionnaire results, short-circuits the process. For many, it reduces the likelihood that they will agree with and buy in to the report, making it less likely that they will internalise any of the information, or gain and make use of any insights. For others, it may reinforce a narrow, unnuanced and unthinking view of their personality. Neither is good news for the individual’s ongoing development, or for the reputation of type assessments.
(Originally published in Typeface, Volume 33, No. 4 10 Autumn 2022)
I am a Chartered Psychologist with over 30 years' experience of helping individuals to better understand both themselves and other people by using psychometric tests and questionnaires. I started my career in research, moving on to roles in training and consultancy, finally coming back full circle to head up research as Director, Thought Leadership, for the Myers-Briggs Company.
I first discovered psychological type and the Myers-Briggs instrument back in 1997. Over my career, I have used many different assessments, but there is something unique about the type approach that makes it come alive for people, and as a result it is especially suited to helping them understand themselves, understand others, and further their development. In my research projects I have tried to show how type can be applied to the challenges and contexts that we face in today’s world, such as environmental sustainability, working from home, and using type by and with neurodivergent people.
Psychological type can be misunderstood. I want to promote and carry out research that dispels the myths and shows how type can be used in our everyday lives. And I want to hear from you. What ideas do you have for type research? Get in touch at bapt.research@personality-type.uk.
John Hackston
Director of Research at BAPT.
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