A Psychometric Instrument Better than Myers Briggs.

Can you, or anyone, could offer an objective (scientific) way to test the claims that the Myers-Briggs believers are making?

Actually, the Myers-Briggs is a valid instrument, but it depends entirely on honest answers from the test taker.

The Myer-Briggs is empirically validated.

Myers-Briggs can tell you how people approach problem solving

Reliability and Validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Instrument


Reliability

What is reliability? Reliability is how consistently a test measures what it attempts to measure. Why is consistency important? Because when you measure something with an instrument two times, you want it to come out with the same answer (or close to it) both times. (This is called test-retest reliability, and it is an important measure of any kind of scientific testing.)

Personality is qualitative and therefore difficult to measure, so psychological instruments cannot have the same consistency you would expect from, say, a ruler. But there are generally accepted standards for psychological instruments. The MBTI® instrument meets and exceeds the standards for psychological instruments in terms of its reliability.

Facts about the MBTI instrument reliability:

* Reliability (when scores are treated as continuous scores, as in most other psychological instruments) is as good as or better than other personality instruments.
* On retest, people come out with three to four type preferences the same 75% to 90% of the time.
* When a person changes type on retest, it is usually on one of the dichotomous pairs (e.g., E-I or S-N), and in a dichotomy where the preference clarity was low.
* The reliabilities are quite good across most age and ethnic groups. (The T-F pair tends to have the lowest reliability of the four scales.)
* For some groups reliability can be low, and caution needs to be exercised in using the MBTI instrument with these groups, e.g., children, underachieving students. When the MBTI instrument is used with groups that are reported to have been demonstrably lower, the results can be used as a jumping-off point for discussion.

Validity

Validity is the degree to which an instrument measures what it intends to measure, and the degree to which the “thing” that the instrument measures has meaning.

Why is this important? If personality type is real (or rather, if it reflects the real world with accuracy), then we should be able to use MBTI type to understand and predict people’s behavior to some degree. Type should help us differentiate the values, attitudes, and behaviors of different people.

Many studies over the years have proven the validity of the MBTI instrument in three categories: (1) the validity of the four separate preference scales; (2) the validity of the four preference pairs as dichotomies; and (3) the validity of whole types or particular combinations of preferences. Many of these studies are discussed in the MBTI® Manual (Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc., 1998).

Adapted from Building People, Building Programs (chapter 7) by Gordon Lawrence and Charles Martin (CAPT 2001).

For additional detailed research information for the MBTI instrument, including psychometrics, reliability, and validity, refer to the MBTI® Manual, third edition (Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc. 1998).

Abstract
The present study presents a brief summary of four extensive psychometric analyses of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) items. Positive empirical evidence supports the MBTI item validity. However, several measurement issues on item construction were raised to caution the future users.

Factor adequacy and other results based on data from college students (N=359) provided positive evidence regarding the construct validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Second order factor analysis supported the appropriateness of the MBTI item weighting procedures. (Author/ABB)

Abstract
The present paper focuses on approximately two dozen recent published studies that examined reliability and validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) in clinical, counselling, and research settings. Several assessments of split-half and test-retest reliability of the standard Form F and shorter Form G of the Inventory have yielded generally satisfactory correlations for all four scales. A larger number of studies of construct validity of the MBTI have yielded support for research hypothesis is situations ranging from correlations of the MBTI with a personality inventory, to couples problems in a counseling setting, to line judgments in groups, and others. Therefore, the applications of the MBTI have been broad, although somewhat unsystematic, and with generally favorable validity assessment. Continued attempts to validate the instrument in a variety of settings are needed.

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Reliability and Validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Instrument

1. This is the most commonly used personality assessment in the world.

Thirty or forty years of research behind it.

Also, you still have not addressed your glaring error at the beginning of this thread.

I don't care if you accept the Myers-Briggs as a valid instrument.

What do you consider a glaring error?

1. This is the most commonly used personality assessment in the world. Thirty or forty years of research behind it. Do you really think the wool has been pulled over all of these people's eyes for all this time?

3. You're some random "skeptic" on the Internet, who I doubt would admit the sky was blue if he walked outside and saw it himself.

That's basically a tautology: The Meyers Briggs test measures what the Meyers Briggs test measures.