"Are you ENTJ or ENTP?" Nowadays, in the social circle of young people, if you want to make friends and "break the ice", you need to match the "code" first. These mysterious codes composed of four English letters have become the social labels of many young people. It is the MBTI test that is popular on social networks. Casually search an MBTI test software on the Internet, and the number of testers exceeds ten million. On Weibo, the reading volume of MBTI related topics reached 800million. Many groups named after MBTI personality types have emerged on major online social platforms, and the expression packs and various "stem maps" made based on MBTI have been played by young people. When making friends and dating, young people will also add MBTI code to their self introduction. While the MBTI test has become popular, it has also attracted a lot of controversy. Many people call it "superstition" and "pseudoscience". So is this test reliable or not? 4 letters "unlock" 16 personality types The full English name of MBTI test is "Myers Briggs Type Indicator", which was compiled by American writer miles and her mother Briggs in the 1940s. It is a self-reported personality evaluation tool to describe people's psychological activity rules and personality types in obtaining information, making decisions and treating life. "The theoretical basis of psychology involved in MBTI test comes from the works of Jung, the founder of famous analytical psychology." Chenzhiyan, a professor of the Institute of psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced in an interview with the science and Technology Daily that Jung published a book called psychological types in the 1920s and 1930s. In this book, he divided personality types for the first time. For example, the well-known concepts of introversion and extroversion came from this book. While Jung put forward the concepts of introversion and extroversion, he also put forward the four functions of personality (thinking, emotion, intuition and feeling). He believes that everyone may have these four functions, but the degree of these four functions is different in everyone. Therefore, according to the superior function of each person, plus the introverted and extroverted variables, he divided people into eight types: extraverted thinking type, introverted thinking type, extraverted emotion type, introverted emotion type, extraverted intuition type, Introverted iNtuition type, extraverted sensation type and introverted sensation type. MBTI test is an evaluation tool developed based on Jung's psychological type theory. It measures individual behavior differences in four dimensions, including spiritual energy orientation, information acquisition mode, decision-making mode and life attitude orientation. Each dimension includes two directions, representing different preference tendencies, namely e (extroversion) and I (introversion), n (intuition) and S (sensing), f (feeling) and t (thinking), P (perceiving) and J (judging). The different preferences of the four dimensions are arranged and combined to form 16 personality types. When the four letters are combined, a class of personality characteristics are formed. For example, ENTP represents a curious debater, and INTP is an idealist who stands aloof from the world The scientific nature of MBTI is controversial in academic circles "In fact, based on Jung's personality theory, there are many measurement tools developed, among which MBTI is the most famous." Chen Zhiyan said that Kelsey temperament type test is also well-known, and the reason why MBTI can "get out of the circle" is mainly because it is relatively successful in commercial promotion, so it is currently more influential in the world. Different from other personality tests, MBTI is easy to operate and the test results are more intuitive. What you see is what you get without further interpretation and thinking. At the same time, MBTI skillfully combines the test results with romantic copywriting. For example, infp personality with personality characteristics such as shyness, sensitivity, perfectionism and inferiority complex is described as a "healer", "visionary" or "philosopher". Such expression is easier to accept, and MBTI test has obtained a wider dissemination effect. "MBTI, based on Jung's personality theory, is a widely used tool in personality testing, but researchers in personality psychology have always disputed MBTI." Chen Zhiyan cited examples, such as whether personality can be divided into 16 types. Some scholars believe that such a classification method is very simple and rough. In addition, the scientific degree of a test is also affected by many other factors. "For example, the Chinese version of MBTI test is widely used in China. A psychological test is introduced from abroad and needs to carry out various research work to ensure its accuracy and application value. However, users may not know whether the MBTI test used by someone is a Chinese version verified by research." Chen Zhiyan said. Although the scientificity of the test has been questioned, many people can't help sighing that "every one has been successful" when forwarding their MBTI type description. They think the test results are very accurate. "Such feedback is caused by many reasons. One of them is that only those who think the test results are accurate will share, and those who think they are inaccurate will not share." Chen Zhiyan analyzed, "in addition, a person feels that whether the test is accurate or not is more the result of subjective judgment, that is, a psychological feedback. Maybe only some part of the test results hit the tester's heart, he will feel that the test results are very accurate." The test results are for reference only and should not be blindly believed Since its inception, MBTI test has often been used for employee recruitment and dating. Is it reliable to do so? "In fact, not only the MBTI test, many personality assessment tools are used in recruitment or other fields." Chen Zhiyan said. "If MBTI test results are obtained under the guidance of professionals, employers can use them as a reference." Chen Zhiyan pointed out that from the perspective of professional psychology, no single test result can be used as the only criterion for employment. To investigate whether a person is competent for a job, we must combine the test data with past data for analysis. Only in this way can we get a relatively reliable result and make the final judgment. Chen Zhiyan believes that dating and mate selection is a more complex problem than recruitment. "Most of the problems involved in recruitment are at the level of people's consciousness, and many problems at the level of unconsciousness are involved in dating and mate selection, which is difficult to be tested." She said. "I also found that some online MBTI tests will significantly reduce the number of evaluation questions in order to enable subjects to obtain evaluation results in a short time, which may increase the error of evaluation results." Chen Zhiyan warned that when the error increases, the test results will be more inaccurate. At this time, the risk will be greater if you follow the chart to find another half or recruit employees. "Therefore, whether the MBTI test is used for dating, mate selection or employee recruitment, the first thing to be clear is that any test has limitations." Chen Zhiyan said, "MBTI test can help us better understand people's personality characteristics, but we can't infer a person's psychological characteristics only from a single test result. To really investigate a person, we must use a variety of methods and from multiple angles, and then use the psychological test results for auxiliary analysis, so as to get a more reliable and objective result." (Xinhua News Agency)