Isabel Briggs Myers Explained

Isabel Briggs Myers
Birth Name:Isabel Briggs
Birth Date:1897 10, mf=yes
Nationality:American
Known For:Myers–Briggs Type Indicator
Alma Mater:Swarthmore College
Spouse:Clarence Myers
Children:2
Parents:Lyman James Briggs
Katharine Cook

Isabel Briggs Myers (born Isabel Briggs; October 18, 1897 – May 5, 1980[1] [2]) was an American writer who co-created the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) with her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs.[3] The MBTI is one of the most-often used personality tests worldwide; over two million people complete the questionnaire each year. Isabel Briggs Myers typed herself as an INFP (Mediator).

Background

Isabel Briggs Myers grew up in Washington, D.C. where she was home-schooled by her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs. Her father, Lyman J. Briggs, worked as a research physicist. Briggs had little formal schooling up until she attended Swarthmore College, where she studied political science. During her time at the college she met Clarence "Chief" Gates Myers who was studying law. The two married in 1918 and were together until his death in 1980.[4] When Briggs Myers died in 1980 she left the copyright to the MBTI (which was little known at the time) to her son Peter.[5]

Fiction

In August 1928, she participated in a mystery novel writing contest jointly offered by McClure's magazine and Frederick A. Stokes Company. Her novel Murder Yet to Come won the contest and was published periodically in the monthly magazine The Smart Set (which had absorbed McClure's in March 1929) between August 1929 and January 1930. It was later published in book form by Frederick A. Stokes Company on January 2, 1930.[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

The contest prize included a $7,500 cash award and a contract for a second work of fiction. Briggs Myers fulfilled her obligation by writing the novel Give Me Death, which revisits the same detectives from Murder Yet to Come. In it, a Southern family commits suicide one by one after learning they may have "Negro blood".[12] [13] The novel was published in 1934 and received harsh treatment from critics.[6]

MBTI personality indicator

See main article: Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. As WWII broke out, Briggs Myers read an article titled, “Fitting the Worker to the Job,” and she recognized a need for a “people sorting instrument,” especially as US involvement in the war in Europe seemed more likely. She wrote her epiphany in a letter to her mother, who was a staunch Carl Jung enthusiast.[14] Briggs Myers implemented the ideas of Carl Jung and added her own insights. She then created a paper survey which would eventually become the MBTI. The test was to assess personality type and was fully developed after 20 years of research by Briggs Myers with her mother. The three original pairs of preferences in Jung's typology are Extraversion and Introversion, Sensing and Intuition, and Thinking and Feeling. After studying them, Briggs Myers added a fourth pair, Judging and Perceiving.[15] Isabel Briggs Myers typed herself as an INFP (Mediator) personality and was an explorer of the concept of introversion and extroversion.

In the July 1980 edition of MBTI News, Briggs Myers attributed another reason for creating the MBTI to her marriage to Clarence Myers. Their differences in perceived psychological types inspired her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs, to keep studying differences among people and their actions. Her mother had come upon the work of Carl Gustav Jung and introduced it to her daughter who then started studying the psychological types.

In 1945, the dean of the George Washington School of Medicine allowed Briggs Myers and her mother to apply the MBTI to first-year undergraduates. This included about 5,500 students and Briggs Myers studied it for years by looking at patterns among dropouts and successful students.[16]

In 1975, Briggs Myers co-founded the Center for Application of Psychological Type with Mary McCaulley. CAPT is a non-profit organization run by the Myers & Briggs Foundation, which maintains research and application of the MBTI, also existing to protect and promote Briggs Myers' ideology.[17] Its headquarters are in Gainesville, Florida, and its motto is "Fostering human understanding through training, publishing, and research".[16]

, according to the Myers & Briggs Foundation, "research on the MBTI instrument has continued into the present, with dozens of articles published each year." The Isabel Briggs Myers Memorial Research Awards exist to further MBTI and psychological research. These awards are given twice a year, consisting of $2,000 for up to two people.[18] Most of the research supporting the MBTI's validity has been produced by CAPT and published in the center's own journal, the Journal of Psychological Type, raising questions of independence, bias, and conflict of interest.[19]

, although the MBTI is widely used by businesses, coaches and psychologists, the MBTI has been found to have significant validity issues,[20] and is not widely endorsed by academic researchers in psychology, often dismissed as pseudoscience. [21]

Publications

Further reading

Saunders, F. W. (1991), Katharine and Isabel: Mother's Light, Daughter's Journey, Davies-Black Publishing, U.S. (biography of Briggs Myers and her mother)

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The AJPT Interview: Otto Kroeger. June 28, 2004. Peter Geyer.
  2. Web site: Global Citizens All: An Interview With Rebecca Chopp. Swarthmore College. December 5, 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20081027090513/http://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/index.php?id=286. October 27, 2008. dead.
  3. Web site: The Story of Isabel Briggs Myers. 23 January 2023.
  4. Web site: The Story of Isabel Briggs Myers - CAPT.org. www.capt.org. February 24, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180121092259/https://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/isabel-myers.htm. January 21, 2018.
  5. https://eu.themyersbriggs.com/en/About/News/1802-Peter-Briggs-Myers-obituary Obituary on the Meyers-Briggs Company website
  6. Diebel, Anne (December 20, 2018). "Simple Answers to Profound Questions". The New York Review of Books. 65 (20): 57–59.
  7. Web site: McClure's magazine v.61 no.2 Aug. 1928. . 2023-09-23 . HathiTrust . 2027/uva.x030751674?urlappend=%3Bseq=1 . en.
  8. News: 12 August 1928 . Books and Authors . 5 . The New York Times .
  9. Book: Myer, Isabel Briggs . Murder Yet to Come . Frederick A. Stokes Company . 1930. 001746769 .
  10. Web site: Norris . J. F. . 2012-12-01 . Pretty Sinister Books: The Enigma of the New McClure's Mystery Contest . 2023-09-23 . Pretty Sinister Books.
  11. The Smart Set Magazine, August 1929 - January 1930
  12. Book: Murder Yet to Come . Frederick A. Stokes Company, Inc.. 7621206 .
  13. Web site: Uncovering The Secret History of Myers-Briggs . April 4, 2012.
  14. News: Rifkin. Glenn. Carey. Benedict. Overlooked No More:Katherine Briggs and Isabel Myers, Creators of a Personality Test. 14 October 2022. 23 January 2023. New York Times.
  15. Web site: Judging or Perceiving. The Myers & Briggs Foundation. February 19, 2012.
  16. Web site: The Story of Isabel Briggs Myers. Center of Applications of Psychological Type. Center of Applications of Psychological Type, Inc.. February 19, 2012.
  17. Web site: Isabel Briggs Myers and Her Mother, Katharine Cook Briggs . February 19, 2012 . The Myers & Briggs Foundation .
  18. Web site: Memorial Research Awards. The Myers & Briggs Foundation. February 19, 2012. March 20, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170320105554/http://www.myersbriggs.org/myers-and-briggs-foundation/memorial-research-awards/. dead.
  19. Book: Science and pseudoscience in clinical psychology . 2015 . Scott O. Lilienfeld . Steven J. Lynn . Jeffrey M. Lohr . 978-1-4625-1751-0 . Second . New York . 890851087.
  20. Stein . Randy . Swan . Alexander B. . 2019-01-25 . Evaluating the validity of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator theory: A teaching tool and window into intuitive psychology . Social and Personality Psychology Compass . 13 . 2 . e12434 . 10.1111/spc3.12434 . 150132771 . 1751-9004.
  21. Bailey . Richard P. . Madigan . Daniel J. . Cope . Ed . Nicholls . Adam R. . 2018 . The Prevalence of Pseudoscientific Ideas and Neuromyths Among Sports Coaches . Frontiers in Psychology . 9 . 641 . 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00641 . 1664-1078 . 5941987 . 29770115. free .
  22. Web site: Rev. of Gifts Differing: Understand Personality Type, by Isabel Briggs Myers. https://web.archive.org/web/20121116234221/http://innovationwatch.com/gifts-differing-understanding-personality-type-by-isabel-briggs-myers-and-peter-b-myers-cpp-books/. dead. November 16, 2012. Innovation Watch. February 19, 2012.