The Importance Of The MBTI Test

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Test for Critique Frank Parsons opened the world’s first career guidance center in Boston in 1908, he began by asking prospective clients “116 rigorous questions about their ambitions, strengths, and weaknesses” ( Myer 25 ). But then he did something more unusual: He measured their skulls. Parsons was a committed believer in phrenology. If you had a large forehead, he might recommend you become a lawyer or engineer. But if your skull was more developed behind the ears, you were of the “animal type”(Myer 45) and best suited to manual work. Career advice has, thankfully, come a long way since then. But now, instead of measuring the outside of people’s heads, it has become common to measure the inside using psychometric tests. Personality …show more content…

I will examine two important pieces of evidence. First, we can determine if the four dimensions described in the MBTI theory really exist. This is accomplished by using a statistical procedure known as "factor analysis (Quenk 34).” Secondly, we can determine whether knowing a person’s MBTI type really allows us to predict how that person will perform under different circumstances. The importance of this question of validity is obvious. It must be shown that there is a consistent and meaningful relation between MBTI results and success in career …show more content…

If we are in a state of confusion, they can be a great emotional comfort . They also raise interesting hypotheses that aid self-reflection: Until I took the MBTI, I had certainly never considered that IT could offer me a bright future.MBTI is not a magic pill that offers a secret path to a dream job. Wise career counsellors should treat such tests with caution, using them as only one of many ways of exploring who you are (Kroeger 99) . Some even take the sensible step of avoiding them altogether, recognizing that human personality does not neatly fall into 16 or any other definitive number of categories: We are far more complex creatures than psychometric tests can ever

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