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Both C.G.Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers, in their different ways, claimed the label of science for their work. Transcriptions of Jung's seminars, as well as his written works, are littered with his claims to science and empiricism, often critiquing Freud and others in the process as not being scientific, and exhibiting familiarity with new ideas in science. Isabel Myers' process for creating the MBTI® was based on what could be described as informal but intensive training in a scientific approach from her father, and others. The available transcripts and tapes that give us Isabel Myers' own words show a preoccupation with facts and empiricism in her concern for the validity of her work. In either case, the claim of "science" and "scientist" was based on a particular understanding of scientific "method". In both cases, neither person was, or has been, acclaimed as such outside their network of influence, and probably by very few people within these networks. Not everybody thinks being scientific is a good idea.
There are many reasons for this. One that appears most important is that, notwithstanding over a century of effort by its practitioners, the discipline of Psychology is by no means universally recognised by intellectual peers and critics as a "science", defined conventionally in this case as generally meaning a field of enquiry modelling its method and practice on the claimed methods of physics.
Also, in the American cultural context at least, those working within Psychology who do see this field as a science (as defined above) have, over time, constructed a definition of science that effectively excludes Jung, Myers and their work. These people are generally in the applied field and also associated with tests and measurement. Jung's "empiricism" is not that of American Psychology, and Myers is excluded through both following Jung and not being a qualified professional in the field.
I contend that this view misrepresents and misinterprets actual scientific activity, denies the valuable contribution to understanding individuals brought to psychology by Jung and Myers and fails to adequately account intellectually and practically for the level of success Myers' work in particular has experienced. There are ways of looking at science that can give a more accurate and useful understanding of the origin, development, success and failure of the MBTI®.
What is Science? The respected scientist John Ziman calls it "reliable knowledge", implying consistency, dependency and regularity. He refers to Robert Merton's framework describing normative science as ethical (scientists use morally and technically efficient methods); universal (science has an impersonal and objective approach); communal (scientific knowledge is public, available to everyone), disinterested (scientific work has no special motives) and possessing organised scepticism (scientific work takes nothing for granted) (Ziman, 1991). These admirable principles are consistently held to by those identifying as scientists as broadly describing what they actually do.
However, many have argued that this view is more espoused than real. They contend that science is influenced by human culture because people, things and institutions play a large part in the definition, acceptance and application of things "scientific", including the question of its universality. An appropriate example is the development and use of psychological instruments. This is essentially an American approach to psychology, consistent with underlying cultural values of pragmatism and efficiency and its idiosyncratic definition of empiricism, based to some extent on notions of common sense that aren't necessarily applicable to scientific activity (Wolpert, 1993). Science isn't necessarily common sense. Ask any quantum physicist.
Pragmatism and efficiency are themes of many aspects of American history and culture in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, up until the present time. They are seen in the drive for systematisation, standardisation and "facts" in business and government in general, as well as in food, clothing and housing, even art, to give some examples (e.g. Ritzer, 1993; Banta,1994; Shi,1995). We can find this particularly in Anglo-Celtic dominated cultures today in movements like Managerialism, Thatcherism or Economic Rationalism. These are sets of ideas or frameworks which, interestingly enough, deny many of the facts that come from good, basic historical/cultural research.
The early history of American psychology can be described as a search for practical applications and social relevance in line with its desire to be perceived as an empirical science. While the conventional published histories of psychology have, with much post hoc reasoning, depicted this search in glowing and largely uncritical terms (e.g. Boring, 1963), more sophisticated historical research has indicated somewhat ambivalent and controversial results, in particular with testing and its business and social influences applications and consequences (e.g.Danziger, 1994; Gould, 1992; Gillespie, 1993) . This is a continuing feature of the field of the general history of psychology, and has its parallels in the general history of business, for instance, as well as science in general.
It's useful to note that the production of shorter forms of the MBTI® has as much to do with corporate pressures than anything else. Whether this is good or bad is incidental to the overall point that the pressures of the "outside" world naturally impact on scientific work. This leads us to a more complex perspective on science than what we can find from Merton, for example.
It is a world of many, endless attempts at ordering, somewhat like a systems theory, although this is not discussed within this framework. It is a continuous process with many, metaphorical actors, who can be human, or non-human (Law, 1994). Any particular actor network expands or increases its influence through effective translation of its ideas to enrol allies, or other actors, in the network. These allies pick up the idea, technique or process (artifacts) as they see it, which is not necessarily the same as that originally intended. This is really another way of talking about a web of influence.
The adaptation of Jung's ideas on Introversion and Extraversion is a classic example of this process. The history of the development of psychological instruments is also a good example. In the case of the MBTI® actors in the network range from Isabel Myers herself, her family and other connections as well as the instrument in all its forms, the MBTI® Manual, ETS, CPP and so on.
The most effective translations of ideas, or artifacts, occur when they become a "black box". This is where there is general agreement about what something comprises or contains so that it is not challenged or questioned. This happens particularly in the use of terms as jargon: it's presumed that everybody knows what is meant by a term or idea, so we just use a name. Economic Rationalism is an excellent example, as is democracy, parenthood or spirituality, even genetics.
The notion that the psyche can be quantified is a black box for the use and application of psychological instruments, for instance. Querying this proposition and thus opening the black box qualifies an instrument's use and application.
Not surprisingly, opening black boxes is discouraged by those promoting the idea it represents. It's something like an article of faith, in many ways, no matter the scientific work that can go into its construction.
Professional groups such as lawyers, doctors, engineers and psychologists are actor networks where one aim is to attempt to regulate specific activities as being able to be undertaken by "qualified" people (e.g. Marvin, 1988). Psychological instruments are the purview of professionals called psychologists, who don't need to demonstrate any knowledge or skill other than their appropriate qualification. This sort of system is predicated on a view of science not unlike that of Merton. With the MBTI®, people who are not qualified psychologists can be qualified through successfully completing programs approved by its publisher, Consulting Psychologists Press. The current status held by many professions can be put down to successful networks and strong black boxes.
Jung inevitably breaks with Freud by promoting his own view of psychology, including a theory of psychological types, based on his observations and influences, which he introduces in 1913, as simply extraversion and introversion. He then develops this idea more completely in the book Psychologische Typen in 1921, and in subsequent seminars, speeches and published papers over the following decade or more. These are all examples of actors and artifacts designed to extend his network. This network expands with the English translation, Psychological Types, in 1923, by members of Jung's network . Even though complex and erudite, the book is a potential black box for his ideas on the subject and the later focus for Myers and Briggs in constructing the MBTI®. However, Jung's network, although international and wealthy, has little impact in American academic psychological circles. Too many people question or reject the notion of Psychological Types and so do not join Jung's network.
When Jung's ideas are published in American academic Journals over a thirty year period into the mid-1940s, they are invariably as other people's versions of extraversion/introversion, comments and applications of his word association work and his work on types prior to his seminal, but complex book. A.A.Roback is perhaps the major exception (Geyer,1995).
Jung's ideas were also not successfully translated to the American experience, because they did not meet the needs of American culture i.e. they were not standardised or systematised for practical use. In keeping with his philosophical and cultural roots, Jung did not care for the mathematical or psychometric approach to personality and warned against the dangers of rigidifying his type framework. He continued to use type throughout his professional life in his preferred context. The task of standardising, in keeping with the American cultural context, was to be undertaken by Isabel Myers, assisted by Katharine Briggs' knowledge and experience.
The lack of connection between the Briggs and Myers family network with the network of American Psychology is shown in their encountering personality instruments through a Reader's Digest article on the Humm-Wadsworth Temperament Scale and the lack of awareness of the development of the Gray-Wheelwright Jungian Type Survey (Saunders 1991). The cultural affinity with these instruments is shown by the decision to develop what became the MBTI®. People in another culture would have developed another solution.
Notwithstanding its distance from formal psychological networks, there are many useful connections the family network can make, and the private funding for the MBTI® project maintains autonomy and integrity of the idea of the MBTI® in its developmental stages. Contacts with Edward Hay and Donald MacKinnon come through this network and Lyman Briggs provides the scientific context, a stimulus to statistical study for Isabel Myers and some useful connections for a research study which, over time, leads to Educational Testing Service (ETS), close association with the precepts of psychometric professionals and further developments (Saunders, 1991). As with all actor-networks, not all those contacted become allies. Isabel Myers' non-professional status, her gender, the theory she promotes and her idiosyncratic approach ultimately leads ETS to let the MBTI® go, although some individuals such as David Saunders join her network.
Myers also enters the field of psychological testing at a time where the development of instruments is becoming increasingly professionalised and their use more effectively limited to those with approved qualifications, directly or indirectly limiting the access of women to this area. Her position as a professionally unqualified female researcher in a field increasingly challenged in terms of the social and cultural bias of its output is also a significant handicap (Buchanan, 1992).
Notwithstanding all this, the MBTI® network slowly expands, with people beginning to use it in their research, following its publication for that purpose. Myers' production of an MBTI® Manual for publication by ETS in 1962 was a significant factor as a translation device for enrolling actors and allies. A 1965 review in Buros' Mental Measurements Year Book also ultimately leads to a meeting between Isabel Myers and Mary McCaulley and their later collaboration. Related events that follow include the Typology Laboratory (later CAPT), MBTI® Conferences, and the foundation of a membership association in APT.
The departure of Isabel Myers and the MBTI® from ETS in 1975 to Consulting Psychologists Press (CPP) is a stimulus for a more generally available MBTI® and further publications such as an updated Manual and the posthumously published Gifts Differing.(1980). Both CPP publications and those externally published such as Please Understand Me (1978) Type Talk (1988) and so on, have enrolled many in the MBTI® network, which can be considered successful under any terms.
Why is this ? The actor network framework can provide an answer. Because an important aspect of an actor network is the individual choice available to a potential actor or ally to take up an idea, adapt it to their own purpose, or reject it. The variety of applications and uses of the MBTI® is evidence of this, as well as the ongoing discussion within the network on ethical and professional use; such issues very often depend on individual perspective. So people professionally rejecting the MBTI® can say that they don't see a use for it that meets their needs. They may prefer another method, for instance.
They may also query the black box surrounding the MBTI®. This is easily done with Type in general, as it's an idea that hasn't got universal acceptance and so the theory can be examined and the MBTI® black box opened in such a way that has been avoided with the MMPI, for instance, where its creators have managed to convince potential users that it has no theoretical base. So people just use it and don't get into debates about content. The MBTI®'s scoring method is also another issue that can be questioned. It seems very difficult for many professionals inside and outside psychology to accept that it sorts rather than measures and indicates rather than determines.
The MBTI® can be easy to complete, but be complex in its interpretation. It's an attempt to quantify a complex systemic theory, which includes Type Dynamics and Development, using linear cause and effect logic and a two-dimensional format. This complexity and depth can be different from the sometimes quite literal expectations of many users of psychological instruments. Many Jungians, perhaps sharing Jung's dislike for mathematics and interest in the acausal, do not care for the MBTI® and some of its uses. So the weakness of the MBTI® is its strength, the theoretical complexity and its psychometric implications enabling its black box to be opened time and again. Many users of the MBTI® also don't care for, or are unaware of, the complex underlying theory and just use it because "it works", which can mean that public understanding of what the MBTI® entails is more than a little confused. Rejection of the MBTI® can also occur because of the impact of uninformed methods of application.
This also leads to the uneven quality of published papers in the academic world. Articulate, consistent and comprehensive examinations of the MBTI® are rare, whether critiquing or supporting the instrument and its underpinning ideas. Not enough Psychological Type and MBTI® researchers have entered theintellectual field to vigorously debate issues of perspective and content in academic forums and journals.
Actor network theory provides a reason for this in indicating that control of a network means that dissidents or promoters of alternative views, no matter how well researched, must use the language and formats of the network they want to change. The "cost of disagreeing", (Latour 1986) is still too high, apparently. The ambivalence of Jung's network towards the MBTI® is also a factor.
The use of the actor network perspective in explaining the public facts of the origin and development of the MBTI® enables Isabel Myers to be seen as the scientist and researcher she was without separating her from her culture and experiences, as well as the connections with her fellow scientist, albeit with a different method in C.G. Jung. It also enables an understanding and explanation of the successes and non-successes of the MBTI® to date in the context of American psychology, and those places which either follow its model or closely parallel it.
It can also indicate where we might go with Psychological Type in understanding personality. Psychological instruments, no matter how successful or empirical are necessarily contingent on culture and are in some ways self-referential: the statistical construction of a response to a particular idea about personality. Systems theories and processes, and much research outside the field of psychological instrumentation (e.g. Kagan, 1994; Moir & Jessel 1991) can say a lot about personality and we need to look there more often if we are interested in understanding something about the reality of personality rather than preferring a particular framework because it "works".
That's both a cultural and a scientific question.
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Moir, Anne and Jessel, David (1991) Brainsex: The real difference between men and women London Mandarin Books
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Myers, Katharine D.(1987), "Katharine C.Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers:The Women Behind the MBTI®" , in Journal of Psychological Type Vol.13 pp 2-8.
Ritzer, George (1993), The McDonaldization of Society, Newbury Pk, Pine Forge Press.
Saunders, Frances Wright (1991), Katharine and Isabel:Mother's Light, Daughter's Journey, Palo Alto, Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto.
Shi, David E. (1995), Facing Facts: Realism in American Thought and Culture, 1850-1920 New York, Oxford University Press.
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Videotapes: Conversations with Isabel , CAPT 1993.
Please contact me if you have any thoughts, questions or ideas about this article.
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