The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing
Written by Merve Emre
Narrated by Ellen Archer
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About this audiobook
An unprecedented history of the personality test conceived a century ago by a mother and her daughter—fiction writers with no formal training in psychology—and how it insinuated itself into our boardrooms, classrooms, and beyond
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It is used regularly by Fortune 500 companies, universities, hospitals, churches, and the military. Its language of personality types—extraversion and introversion, sensing and intuiting, thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving—has inspired television shows, online dating platforms, and Buzzfeed quizzes. Yet despite the test's widespread adoption, experts in the field of psychometric testing, a $2 billion industry, have struggled to validate its results—no less account for its success. How did Myers-Briggs, a homegrown multiple choice questionnaire, infiltrate our workplaces, our relationships, our Internet, our lives?
First conceived in the 1920s by the mother-daughter team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, a pair of devoted homemakers, novelists, and amateur psychoanalysts, Myers-Briggs was designed to bring the gospel of Carl Jung to the masses. But it would take on a life entirely its own, reaching from the smoke-filled boardrooms of mid-century New York to Berkeley, California, where it was administered to some of the twentieth century's greatest creative minds. It would travel across the world to London, Zurich, Cape Town, Melbourne, and Tokyo, until it could be found just as easily in elementary schools, nunneries, and wellness retreats as in shadowy political consultancies and on social networks.
Drawing from original reporting and never-before-published documents, The Personality Brokers takes a critical look at the personality indicator that became a cultural icon. Along the way it examines nothing less than the definition of the self—our attempts to grasp, categorize, and quantify our personalities. Surprising and absorbing, the book, like the test at its heart, considers the timeless question: What makes you, you?
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Reviews for The Personality Brokers
26 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I don't think I've ever read a book that I so thoroughly enjoyed. As a person that uses all types of personality tests and books to learn how to best manage and relate to people; the history behind myers-briggs creation was fascinating. I couldnt exactly point to another test now that has such in depth classifications. A bit of a dry read but because I like the subject matter it only took me 4 days to finish. You will enjoy this if your an ISFJ. ?
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Starts off very interesting then gets weird. There's a complete shift in tone. Finally, it slows down to a creep and you fight boredom to finish the thing. At this point I don't know if this was documentary or infotainment.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Informative look at the origin of this popular measure. Recommend reading.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ok read, would not recommend spending time on this book.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Tangential rantings that elucidate all the reasons why the MBTI is not taken seriously by academics. Unless you are interested in learning about the creators and cult of the MBTI don’t waste your time. If you are hoping to understand how the test was validated, or take away some applicable information, you will be very disappointed.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The author seemed butthurt about MBTI.
The fact that something is effective, and why that thing is effective -are two different issues to be addressed. The author throws the baby out with the bath water.
Should have spoke to the effectiveness of it, then address the origin.
Instead she banked on the fact that it was created by housewives (so what!). She doesn’t give enough credit to Carl Jung (biggest mistake of the book).
Good attempt though.1 person found this helpful