MBTI, short for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, is a forced-choice, self-report personality assessment tool initially created by the mother-daughter team Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers based on Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung’s eight main personality types.
On the Chinese Internet, opinions on MBTI are divided. Some see it as cyber mysticism, a step above tarot cards and astrology as a new trend, while others regard MBTI as a scientifically robust test with a century of historical backing and a standardized measurement system.
To defend their viewpoints, both sides present various arguments. The former delve into the history of the Myers-Briggs creation, citing numerous psychological perspectives, while the latter emphasise “practical wisdom,” citing the use of MBTI by Fortune 500 companies and attempting to intellectually overshadow their opponents.
So, how and why did MBTI become popular on the Internet? What are the new social phenomena and entertainments that have emerged as MBTI has become such a popular social tag among Internet users?
MBTI Trending Again
Recently, there’s been a surge of MBTI content on homepage feeds.
Fans who used to be busy supporting their idols are now writing MBTI essays about them. People who once indulged in astrology and cyber fortune-telling are now taking the MBTI test. Numerous active online socializers are incorporating their MBTI types into their social profiles.
Even idle Internet surfers are taking the test and remarking, “Pseudo-science actually depicts another me.”
In fact, before this widespread popularity, MBTI personality tests had intermittently appeared on the Chinese Internet. Sometimes they were part of job application questionnaires, and other times they were introduced to the public as an imported personality assessment tool by the media.
On April 11, 2015, the People’s Daily posted a related tweet – “10 minutes, 28 questions, see what job suits you!” tagged with #2015JobHuntingSeason.
Additionally, the DiDi product team organized an MBTI personality type test for 60 key or high-potential product managers.
Zhaopin even released a related data report – “MBTI Workplace Personality Type Big Data Report.” This report collected data from over 730,000 users and, through comprehensive analysis, identified the distribution of different MBTI types across various industries.
Today, MBTI’s dissemination dimensions have become bigger. In South Korea, there’s already film and television content following this “trend,” such as the observation variety show “MBTI Inside” (linked below) and the web drama “I Can See Your MBTI.”
On social media, MBTI has become another social tag alongside zodiac signs. Not only has it trended, but it has also sparked numerous novel expressions in its popularity and dissemination.
Weibo users are busy creating MBTI-related meme images; psychology enthusiasts on Douban and Zhihu are tracing MBTI’s origins and engaging in academic discussions; and speculators hidden in public accounts are selling interpretation services and localizing MBTI.
From being used by universities, businesses, and even government departments for career guidance, to its current entertainment-driven usage by netizens as a social pretext, MBTI, after a century, has found new meaning in the Internet world.
However, this entertainment-driven explosion might not be beneficial for the MBTI testing industry.
Science or Business?
As MBTI’s popularity grows, the seemingly scientific test has been scrutinized and increasingly questioned.
More and more people are beginning to disdain this social label, openly mocking users who include their MBTI type in their self-introductions.
There’s an ironic reality here. Although MBTI is the world’s most popular personality test, widely embraced in the global business world, it’s rarely discussed in the psychology community. The few discussions that exist often focus on the test’s flaws.
American media outlet VOX, often referred to as a media encyclopedia, sheds light on this.
VOX argues that the MBTI test is “meaningless.”
Firstly, the creators, the Myers-Briggs duo, lacked formal psychological training and had no affiliation with academic institutions. Essentially, they were full-time housewives and amateur novelists and psychoanalysts with no direct connection to psychology. Even Jung himself criticized them, stating that without scientific methods, their conclusions couldn’t be reliable.
Furthermore, the Washington Post’s interview with Carl Thoresen, the chairman of the board of the MBTI copyright holder, CCP, supports this. Thoresen, also a Stanford psychology professor, has never mentioned MBTI in any of his 150+ published papers. When questioned by the Washington Post, he explained that using MBTI in his research would invite skepticism from his colleagues.
As the Washington Post noted, openly praising MBTI in the academic world is taboo, and openly criticizing it is equally taboo. While it’s unscientific, it’s a lucrative side business for many.
According to Oxford University associate professor Merve Emre, CCP’s personality tests have created a $2 billion market with nearly 800 associated products translated into multiple languages and sold worldwide.
Blossoming Abroad and Thriving at Home
Despite frequent criticisms, some people on the Chinese Internet still apply this test rigorously.
Searching “MBTI” on CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), you’ll find papers from various angles. From assessing the qualifications of military school cadets, training emergency room nurses, to the professional conduct of university counselors and whether accountants commit fraud, MBTI testing is seamlessly integrated into modern career guidance.
For those seeking more entertainment, CNKI also features papers like “Research on Hero Character Traits in Chinese Animated Films Based on MBTI Theory,” where characters like Sun Wukong (aka Monkey King) are described with ENTP traits, and McDull with INTJ traits.
Moreover, product managers in the social field have recognized MBTI’s peculiar appeal. A social app for young people called “Tuo Shui” includes MBTI in its user matching criteria.
Even if product managers don’t incorporate MBTI into their apps, users will find prominent places to display their MBTI types. On platforms like Jike, you’ll find plenty of “high-quality” users flaunting INTJ, ENFP, and INFJ tags.
For a more self-consistent MBTI culture, you might turn to Douban; where Zhihu lurks test administrators seeking monetization, Weibo is the domain of meme images, Douban gathers “the essence of the sixteen-type theory.”
The Douban group MBTI Central Station outlines a development history of the sixteen-type theory, dividing MBTI into five stages: Stage one, Jung’s initial exploration; stage two, the basic understanding of the Myers-Briggs duo; stage three, the four major groups discovered by Keirsey; stage four, the work profiles and couple profiles discovered by the Tiegers and Avila; and stage five, Little W, the group leader who charges five yuan for judgments.
Following the zodiac signs’ categorization of human personalities, the 16-type personality test continues to label Internet users, considering they’ve added four more types, which is somewhat an improvement.
An Egalitarian Flattery Scale
Reflecting on the rise of MBTI, a new question arises: Why has such an unscientific test become so widely accepted, even used by Fortune 100 companies?
From a psychological perspective, it’s not very scientific. However, from a management perspective, the test does have some utility.
While MBTI is not a professional psychological scale, it is a successful commercial marketing case. After studying MBTI for years, Merve Emre, author of “The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing,” found that MBTI has always been a perfect tool for shaping organizational people.
“It appears to radiate the glow of liberalism but actually hides an extremely conservative dark core – it’s a tool for maintaining the status quo, not a scale for changing society or understanding oneself.”
This traces back to the early days of MBTI’s popularity.
In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the Myers-Briggs duo found it hard to make a living from writing novels and turned to MBTI. Initially, they successfully marketed MBTI to the newly established OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and then convinced over forty medical schools to use it for admissions.
After these moves, MBTI gained fame, and companies like GE, Standard Oil, and Bell Labs began using it for recruitment and team building.
During this period, sociologist William Whyte also played a significant role. In his 1956 bestselling book “The Organization Man”, he highly recommended that businesses adopt MBTI.
The reason was filled with blatant managerial false virtue: MBTI made people believe their bodies and minds were whole, their work and souls aligned, thereby reinforcing employment management privileges, dissipating desires for group resistance, and ultimately increasing employee productivity while masking the alienation caused by work.
This explains why taking the MBTI test might feel like being labeled but not offensive. Even if labeled as sensitive and introverted, one feels flattered.
In essence, MBTI is an egalitarian flattery scale, a tool that doesn’t necessarily help one understand oneself.
Ultimately, instead of seeking self-discovery through the test, it’s better to relax and enjoy the memes. We can not only take the test ourselves, but also test other people, friends, families, idols, and even anime characters just like in CNKI papers.
