In honor of the occasion a big party hosted by its publisher, CPP, kicked off on March 14, complete with its own website, www.mbtiparty.com. The festive site includes contests, historical information, and party favors, or in other words free gifts. The birthday slogan looks something like this:
70
Years
Myers-Briggs(R)
Forever Jung
Though it is 70 years old, I mean Jung, the MBTI tool is probably unique in having had a gestation period of 20 years and thus, in a way, being much older than it looks. The fact that its "parents" spent their lives studying human behavior did not guarantee it a quick or easy birth. The seed which eventually blossomed into the MBTI instrument was sown in 1923 when Katharine Briggs (1875-1968) read the new English translation of Psychological Types, a book by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961). She shared what she learned from it with her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers (1897-1980), and they found his ideas powerful and potentially life - changing, so they wanted everyone to know about them.
According to Frances Wright Saunders in her book Katharine and Isabel, which I highly recommend, Isabel Myers stated that the purpose of the MBTI "...was to implement Carl Jung's theory of type". This theory centered around "...four basic psychological functions, - sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling (p. 107)." Sensing and intuition are ways of taking in information, while thinking and feeling are ways of reaching conclusions. Introversion and extraversion, which refer to whether one's energy is derived from one's internal or external world, are also part of Jung's theory.
The first MBTI questions, which consisted of two or three choices, were written on 3x5 cards given by Isabel Myers to family and friends whom she thought fit these various functions and personality types. Questions were discarded as invalid for that particular function or type if the person did not respond as expected at least 60% of the time.
Form A of the Indicator, which Isabel hoped would contribute to a more peaceful world by helping people understand each other better, was 18 pages long and completed in the spring of 1943. According to Saunders on p. 111 "...it was made up of 172 questions, printed on both sides of nine 8 1/2-by-11 mimeographed sheets and stapled together. The answers, or choices, were to be marked on a separate sheet, from which the scoring was done by hand."
Since then, the MBTI instrument has been revised several times. Form M, which has 93 questions, has been in use since 1998 when I first became a Certified Practitioner, or Qualified User as we were called then. At my qualification training in November of that year we trained on both form M and the previous version, Form K.
I hope this short biography of the guest of honor has enhanced your enjoyment of the birthday party! This is just the tip of the iceberg of the long and fascinating story of the MBTI assessment and the two amazing women who made it a reality. For more of this great story there is a nifty timeline, complete with photos, at www.mbtiparty.com.
Most importantly, since its humble birth 70 years ago as a family project, the MBTI tool has changed countless lives throughout the world by enabling us to better understand ourselves and others and to use our differences in positive ways. Happy 70th Birthday, MBTI tool!!! Let the richly deserved celebration begin!