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Describes the MBTI’s type theory background, requirements for certified administration, and key limitations including lack of values, motivation, pathology measurement, and inability to assess performance of preferred or shadow functions.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-mbti-potential-uses-and-misuses-in-personnel-administration-293129/293129/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-mbti-potential-uses-and-misuses-in-personnel-administration-293129/293129.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Bill Black","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-11","2026-09-17",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",13,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"How can the MBTI be used effectively in organizations?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"The MBTI is presented as useful for team building, strengthening communications, improving decision making, and helping diagnose organizational dysfunctions. It can also support leadership identification, training for better cooperation, conflict resolution, and team composition.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"What are common misuses of the MBTI in personnel administration?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"Misuses include using the MBTI for employee selection and applying it unfairly to stereotype people. The text links these problems largely to inadequate training and insufficient understanding of the instrument’s limitations.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What limitations does the MBTI have according to the document?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"The MBTI does not indicate values or motivations, does not measure pathology, and does not assess how well preferred functions are performed. 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Usesand Misuses in PersonnelAdministration\n\nThe Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTT)is a useful instrument for team building,strength-ening communications,decision making,and for diagnosing organizational dysfunctions.The MBTI is,however,also misued if used for employee selection,or to unfairly stereotypeMisuses of the MBTI and not seeing the instruments'full potential in the organization,stemlargely from inadquate training.Training in the MBTI should be expanded to teach how totypewatch,shadow integration,and how to use the MBTI to improve customer relations.  \nThe Myers-BriggsType Instrument(MBTI)is apsychological test thatmeasures personality types and preferences.Until relatively recently,useof the MBTI in government has been limited.Persons administering theMBTI are required to be certified by the Center for Psychological Type;aprerequisite of this certification is having had a course in psychometrictesting and measurements.Thus,use of the MBTI was mostly limited tolarger governmental agencies that had trainers or those who could affordconsultants.  \nThis picture changed in 1985with the publication of Please UnderstandMe(Keirsey and Bates,1985).The book includes a Myers-Briggs test in it,and thus anyone could determine their Myers-Briggs personality type.Please Understand Me quickly became a best seller and remains one today.Further popularizing Myers-Briggs was the publication of second book,Type Talk(1988),by Otto Kroeger and Janet Thueson,who have conductedextensive MBTI training with federal agencies.  \nWith its popularization,the MBTI has grown in use and has beenshown to improve personnel management in a wide variety of ways.Forexample,psychological type is useful for:identifying leadership styles(Gardner,1987and Barr,1986);trainingemployees towork betterwitheachother(McAlleer,1989 and Pickering,1989);resolving employee conflicts(Gould and Sink,1985 and Carpenter et al.,1983);and forming work teamsthat best complement each other (Seeley and Seidler,1985).  \nThese useful applications notwithstanding,the MBTI is also some-times misused because it is poorly understood.Many people using theMBTI do not sufficiently understand its limitations and its possible pitfalls,one of which is to unfairly stereotype people,thereby hurting both moraleand productivity.To avoid such misuses and to discuss ways that the MBTIcan be more broadly applied to the public sector work setting,this articlediscusses uses and misuses of the MBTI.  \n## Background on the MBTI\n\nThe notion of psychological type began with the Swiss psychiatrist,Carl Jung,who theorized that human behavior is not random but isclassifiable and predictable(1923).Based on his clinical observations,Jungproposed that behavioral differences are caused by personality differences.In 1942,upset with the carnage of World War ll and with the early reportsof Nazi atrocities,and convinced that the war was largely caused by afailure to understand each others'differences,Isabel Myers and KatherineBriggs developed an instrument to measure Jung's theory of behavior(Kroeger and Thueson,1988:282).The instrument is called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI),which was published by the EducationalTesting Service in 1962.  \nType theory assumes that each person is born with a genetic predis-position toward four of eight functions:extraversion or introversion,sensing or intuiting,thinking or feeling,and judging or perceiving(Myersand McCaulley,1985:14).The first three behavioral dimensions werepostulated by Jung;Myers and Briggs added the fourth.Extraverts areprone to communicate more easily than introverts.They talk to think andare energized by people.In contrast,introverts think to talk and morereadily tire from extensive contacts with people(Myers and McCaulley,1985:13).Sensors are inclined to take in information through their fivesenses;in contrast,intuitors more often take in information through theirsixth sense:intuition.A sensor's time orientation is","cbCaihDvyING1DSN","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaihDvyING1DSN","pdf",637694,12,"English","# The MBTI: Potential Uses and Misuses in Personnel Administration\n## Background on the MBTI","[{\"question\":\"How can the MBTI be used effectively in organizations?\",\"answer\":\"The MBTI is presented as useful for team building, strengthening communications, improving decision making, and helping diagnose organizational dysfunctions. It can also support leadership identification, training for better cooperation, conflict resolution, and team composition.\"},{\"question\":\"What are common misuses of the MBTI in personnel administration?\",\"answer\":\"Misuses include using the MBTI for employee selection and applying it unfairly to stereotype people. The text links these problems largely to inadequate training and insufficient understanding of the instrument’s limitations.\"},{\"question\":\"What limitations does the MBTI have according to the document?\",\"answer\":\"The MBTI does not indicate values or motivations, does not measure pathology, and does not assess how well preferred functions are performed. It is also unable to measure how well shadow functions are performed and can be misunderstood as an either/or proposition.\"}]","The MBTI: Potential Uses and Misuses in Personnel Administration | PDF"]