Tag Archives: Personality

Lessons from a Masters In Business Administration: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: is based on Carl Jung’s psychological theory, and looks at possible psychological types, and consequences. People’s minds are always perceiving, taking in information, judging, and processing information. There are two different ways of perceiving: Sensation, and Intuition. Sensing is practical, intuition is imaginative, and Judging is about thinking, and feeling. People are either introverted or extroverted (see above). The questions in this test will ask: Which mistakes would be more natural for you: a) drifting from one thing to the next, or b) staying in a rut that didn’t suit you?

The problem is that the results may be likened to a horoscope which describes a Cancer or Taurus in sufficiently general terms to be correct most of the time. This is further exemplified by the Forer Principle. This test involved asking students to rate the accuracy of an analysis of their personalities on a scale of zero to five: and they on average rated their individual analysis at 4.25. The trick was that it was the same analysis for all of the test respondents; “You have a need to help people….At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decisions….some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.” People are more willing to accept positive things about themselves than negatives.

CareerLeader: asks questions to determine which MBA path you might want to take. You will have to sculpt a personal “best-self portrait” and be asked if your current day to day actions correspond with that goal.

[This is a synopsis of several books on the MBA experience including What They Teach You At Harvard Business School by P.D. Broughton]