美国国家公共电台 NPR How The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Began In A Mother's Living Room Lab

 

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

In the early 1900s, a housewife in Michigan started studying young children in her living room. She called it a cosmic laboratory of baby training. From that inauspicious beginning sprang something that is now a multimillion-dollar industry. The housewife was Katharine Briggs. She and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, created what became known as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator¹. It's a personality test or people-sorting device, a series of questions designed to reveal just who you are - an extrovert² or introvert³, sensing or intuitive, thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving - one of 16 total personality types.

Writer Merve Emre digs into the origins of all this in her new book "The Personality Brokers⁴: The Strange History Of Myers-Briggs And The Birth Of Personality Testing." And she joins me now from the BBC in Oxford⁵, England. Merve Emre, welcome to the program.

MERVE EMRE: Hi. Thank you for having me.

BLOCK: And let's talk about these two characters, Myers and Briggs. They're not scientists by training. They were two housewives, mother and daughter. What was it that Katharine Briggs was trying to do in that first living room study with those children?

EMRE: Well, Katharine was an exceptional woman. She had gone to college at the age of 14, and upon graduating, she graduated No. 1 in her class and married the man who was No. 2. And there was never any assumption that she would go on to do anything professional with her life. When she graduated, her mother gave her husband $200 for his graduate education and gave her a chest full of linens⁶ to decorate their new home. And she wanted to figure out how she could do something in her home that would be as rigorous and as important as what everybody thought her husband was doing in his laboratory. He was a scientist.

And so what she started to do was to gather the neighborhood children in her home and test their personalities⁷. She wanted to help them design programs of education that would help each one of them individually self-actualize. So she started by giving their parents a forced choice questionnaire, which meant there were only two answers - A or B - and you had to choose one. And they asked parents questions like, is your child calm or impulsive⁸? Does he get upset very often or rarely? Does he sleep in your bed at night or sleep by himself? And from these questionnaires, she devised her first set of different personality types of children. And this was the origin for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as we know it today.

BLOCK: So she's very analytical⁹ about this. And then Katharine Briggs discovers the work of the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung and his personality types, and she becomes completely obsessed¹⁰.

EMRE: She does. You know, she spends so much of her adult life caring for children, both hers and others, that when her only daughter Isabel goes off to school, she falls into this very deep depression because she doesn't know what to do with her life. And it's during that depression that she first reads Carl Jung's "Psychological Types" and becomes absolutely devoted¹² to it. And she starts writing to him. She strikes up a correspondence with him where she asks him to tell her what he means by intuitive or what he means by feeling and how it is that she can take these somewhat abstract categories that he's devised and use them to actually help the people in her life figure out what type they are and how to be the best type of person they can be.

BLOCK: Her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, gets involved. What was the practical idea behind this typing? What were they trying to do?

EMRE: When Katharine first discovered Jung and became attracted to his idea of type, for her, it was really a spiritual quest. She was a deeply religious woman. And she believed that the only way to really save your soul was to figure out who you were and to live life according to that best version of yourself. Isabel, her daughter, inherits this language of type a little bit later on, right around World War II.

And Isabel thinks about the language of type that she has been hearing from her mother for the past 20 years. And she thinks, what if I could design a questionnaire that would help fit people to the jobs that were best suited for them? And I could do it using this language of type which wouldn't separate people into categories of normal or abnormal, good or bad workers, but would just say that every type of person is different, and every different type has different strengths and different weaknesses and are better suited to doing some things over others.

BLOCK: So how did this personality sorter, this people sorter that was dreamed up by these two women, how did it take off and become the huge industry that it ultimately is?

EMRE: Well, it takes off slowly in a creeping sort of way. So initially¹³, the first person to ever purchase the indicator is the - one of the directors of a station of the OSS, the precursor¹⁴ to the CIA. And he purchases it so he can figure out how to match covert¹⁵ operatives during World War II to the secret missions that are best suited to their personalities. Slowly, over time, it circulates in wellness centers, in hospitals. And it just sort of creeps into all of the major institutions that shape our everyday lives. Where it really, really takes off is in corporations after Isabel Briggs Meyers dies in the 1980s or so.

In the 1980s, one of the things that you see in corporations is a new push to try to help workers figure out how to love what they do. And I think there, the type indicator emerges as this incredibly useful tool for convincing people that they are doing exactly what it is that they are meant to do and that they should bind¹⁶ themselves to their work freely and gladly.

BLOCK: Yeah. Clearly, in your book, you have a great deal of skepticism for the validity of the test. It's been shown to be scientifically unsound. But it is a huge moneymaker, a big, big industry. Why do you think so many of us are drawn¹⁷ to personality tests like the MBTI?

EMRE: Well, I think what makes the MBTI so compelling and so seductive is that it offers us a really easy and non-judgemental language of the self. It offers us a vocabulary to talk about who we are and what our desires are. And it doesn't make us feel like we have to apologize for those desires. And I think there is just a real hunger for self-knowledge, particularly at times of great transition.

So I don't think it's an accident that many of the people who encounter the indicator encounter it for the first time in couples counseling, when they're starting a job, when they're trying to decide if they want to leave a job or not, when they're going off to college, or even that Katharine Briggs thought about it as a parenting tool, you know. And so I think the language of type can be immensely clarifying. And even though I'm skeptical¹⁸ of its validity, and I'm skeptical of its social uses and even of the language that it uses, I am not skeptical of people's individual experiences with the indicator, which I think can be tremendously liberatory.

BLOCK: One of the things - one of the rules of type, as it's put here, is that type is supposed to be immutable¹⁹, unchanging. It's something you have since birth, and it stays with you for the rest of your life. Do you think that's legitimate²⁰?

EMRE: No, I don't think that's legitimate at all. But I think it is a very comforting fiction that is offered to people. On the one hand, believing that there is something innate²¹ or essential about who you are means that you don't have to apologize for who you are. That just is who you are. And I think many of us grow up, or at least I did, thinking that who I was was the sum total of what I had accomplished²². And I think it really shifts you away from that language of accomplishment²³ toward a language of the self.

BLOCK: What do you think Katharine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel, what would they think about how their creation is being used now?

EMRE: Well, Katharine would have been appalled²⁴. She was never a fan of Isabel actually transforming her theory of types into a questionnaire in the first place. She believed that she had spent so much of her life studying young and that the only way you could really type somebody was being initiated²⁵ into his thinking over a very long period of time. And so she was sceptical of the questionnaire from the get-go.

I think Isabel Briggs Myers would also be quite disappointed. And I think she would have felt quite sad by how, you know, people can just take knockoff versions of it online, how quizzes like Buzzfeed quizzes basically parody²⁶ the logic¹¹ of type by saying things like, you know, by asking you which Taylor Swift song reveals something about which "Friends" character you might be. And I think she would be quite disappointed by how loosely and what an unregulated fashion the indicator was allowed to circulate.

And I also think she, you know, her primary objective was not to make money with it. She wanted it to truly be useful to people, to help them figure out what it was that they should be doing in their lives because as a mother and a wife herself who often felt like her potential had been thwarted²⁷, that emerged to her as one of the most important questions that anybody could answer.

BLOCK: That's Merve Emre. Her book is "The Personality Brokers: The Strange History Of Myers-Briggs And The Birth Of Personality Testing. Merve, thanks so much.

EMRE: Thank you, Melissa.

1 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

2 extrovert   

n.性格外向的人

参考例句：

• A good salesman is usually an extrovert,who likes to mingle with people.一个好的推销员通常很外向，喜欢和人们交往。
• Do you think you're an extrovert or introvert?你认为你是个性外向的人还是个性内向的人？

3 introvert   

n.性格内向的人

参考例句：

• You are very much an introvert.你是一位地道的内向性格者。
• The same conversation that energizes the extravert also drains the introvert.同样的交谈能让外向者荣光焕发，却让内向者精神颓靡。

4 brokers   

n.（股票、外币等）经纪人( broker的名词复数 )；中间人；代理商；（订合同的）中人v.做掮客（或中人等）( broker的第三人称单数 )；作为权力经纪人进行谈判；以中间人等身份安排…

参考例句：

• The firm in question was Alsbery & Co., whiskey brokers. 那家公司叫阿尔斯伯里公司，经销威士忌。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• From time to time a telephone would ring in the brokers' offices. 那两排经纪人房间里不时响着叮令的电话。 来自子夜部分

5 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

6 linens   

n.亚麻布( linen的名词复数 )；家庭日用织品

参考例句：

• All linens and towels are provided. 提供全套日用织品和毛巾。 来自辞典例句
• Linen, Table Linens, Chair Covers, Bed and Bath Linens. Linen. 采购产品亚麻布，亚麻布，椅子套子，床和沭浴亚麻布。 来自互联网

7 personalities   

n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
• Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。

8 impulsive   

adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的

参考例句：

• She is impulsive in her actions.她的行为常出于冲动。
• He was neither an impulsive nor an emotional man,but a very honest and sincere one.他不是个一冲动就鲁莽行事的人，也不多愁善感.他为人十分正直、诚恳。

9 analytical   

adj.分析的；用分析法的

参考例句：

• I have an analytical approach to every survey.对每项调查我都采用分析方法。
• As a result,analytical data obtained by analysts were often in disagreement.结果各个分析家所得的分析数据常常不一致。

10 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

11 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。

12 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

13 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

14 precursor   

n.先驱者；前辈；前任；预兆；先兆

参考例句：

• Error is often the precursor of what is correct.错误常常是正确的先导。
• He said that the deal should not be seen as a precursor to a merger.他说该笔交易不应该被看作是合并的前兆。

15 covert   

adj.隐藏的；暗地里的

参考例句：

• We should learn to fight with enemy in an overt and covert way.我们应学会同敌人做公开和隐蔽的斗争。
• The army carried out covert surveillance of the building for several months.军队对这座建筑物进行了数月的秘密监视。

16 bind   

vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬

参考例句：

• I will let the waiter bind up the parcel for you.我让服务生帮你把包裹包起来。
• He wants a shirt that does not bind him.他要一件不使他觉得过紧的衬衫。

17 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

18 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

19 immutable   

adj.不可改变的，永恒的

参考例句：

• Nothing in the world is immutable.世界没有一成不变的东西。
• They free our minds from considering our world as fixed and immutable.它们改变着人们将世界看作是永恒不变的观点。

20 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

21 innate   

adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的

参考例句：

• You obviously have an innate talent for music.你显然有天生的音乐才能。
• Correct ideas are not innate in the mind.人的正确思想不是自己头脑中固有的。

22 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

23 accomplishment   

n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能

参考例句：

• The series of paintings is quite an accomplishment.这一系列的绘画真是了不起的成就。
• Money will be crucial to the accomplishment of our objectives.要实现我们的目标，钱是至关重要的。

24 appalled   

v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• They were appalled by the reports of the nuclear war. 他们被核战争的报道吓坏了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

25 initiated   

n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入

参考例句：

• He has not yet been thoroughly initiated into the mysteries of computers. 他对计算机的奥秘尚未入门。
• The artist initiated the girl into the art world in France. 这个艺术家介绍这个女孩加入巴黎艺术界。

26 parody   

n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文

参考例句：

• The parody was just a form of teasing.那个拙劣的模仿只是一种揶揄。
• North Korea looks like a grotesque parody of Mao's centrally controlled China,precisely the sort of system that Beijing has left behind.朝鲜看上去像是毛时代中央集权的中国的怪诞模仿，其体制恰恰是北京方面已经抛弃的。

27 thwarted   

阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过

参考例句：

• The guards thwarted his attempt to escape from prison. 警卫阻扰了他越狱的企图。
• Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the rain. 我们的野餐计划因雨受挫。