00:32:10.740while raising her two young kids she followed her husband to memphis first for the air force
00:32:19.720and then to philadelphia where he went to law school so she's like following him around the
00:32:25.080country for his work and she's sort of constantly adjusting but she's adjusting for his life right
00:32:31.680and try as she might she just wasn't really into the role of living for her husband there's some
00:32:38.800writing where she kind of tries to convince herself that she's like this is good oh yeah
00:32:42.780but she was like clearly not into it she kept a list of her future goals in a notebook that she
00:32:49.560called diary of an introvert determined to extrovert write and have a lot of children
00:32:55.800that's the michael hobbs story other than the children part you and isabel two peas in a pod0.98
00:33:00.340two inf peas in a pod this is a comparison you will live to regret oh damn it 15 minutes okay0.66
00:33:06.460so after several years of just trying to kind of stick it out in this domestic life in the late0.54
00:33:17.3201930s isabel was getting restless she read an article about trying to match workers to the
00:33:25.840right job this is sort of at the outset at the outbreak of war in europe right we're talking
00:33:33.360late thirties. We're talking Hitler on the move. We're talking rise of fascism. There's this0.50
00:33:39.520article about matching workers to the right job. And she's like, this is going to be really
00:33:45.580important. If folks end up in war, it's going to be really important if like in a post-war
00:33:50.280landscape, we're going to need some kind of tool to sort people into the right jobs. So she wrote
00:33:58.220to her mother, Catherine, who was then in her sixties. Okay. Isabelle started picking up on
00:34:04.100her mother's work, developing this personality type schema still based in Jungian psychology,
00:34:10.520but like the way a lifetime movie is based on real events. She developed the Briggs Myers type
00:34:19.000indicator. Okay. A test booklet that she would sell to sort of whoever would buy it. She and
00:34:24.860Catherine debuted the, uh, the type indicator in 1943. It was originally called the Briggs
00:34:32.420Myers type indicator. Yeah. They switched it around because someone at some point did mention
00:34:39.040to Isabel, this is going to get turned into an acronym and you don't want to be the BM type
00:34:46.820indicator fair that's actually very good advice so isabel starts really sort of digging in uh on
00:34:55.780the type indicator catherine does too but isabel's really sort of clearly in the lead here and
00:35:01.660because she has envisioned this as a tool for workplaces she needs an in with businesses so
00:35:07.220she starts working with this family friend who was a management consultant a thing that i did
00:35:12.440not know existed. Yeah. In the like 30s and 40s. Right. But it wasn't called McKinsey. It was
00:35:17.580called McGillicuddy. She has this family friend who's a management consultant. His name is Edward
00:35:22.160Hay. By 1947, Hay started pitching the test to his clients. And he has some pretty big deal
00:35:32.460clients. He's working with General Electric. He's working with Bell Telephone. He's working with
00:35:38.820the National Bureau of Statistics. So they let Edward Hay and Isabel Briggs Myers come in and
00:35:45.480start testing this on some university students, some workers at these different businesses sort
00:35:51.700of it's a little all over the place. It is definitely not a randomized controlled trial
00:35:57.760test. It's just like, how does this thing actually work in the world? Right. So this is based on
00:36:01.780Catherine's experience in the daycare. What is Isabel drawing on? Isabel's drawing on her own
00:36:07.080personal observations as well just her life just this is people i know uh again sort of like a
00:36:12.820la croix approach to uh carl young what does that mean well just like uh in the same way that like
00:36:19.880if you're drinking like a like a pomplemousse la croix you're not eating a grapefruit oh right
00:36:25.160yeah yeah yeah it's like the jolly rancher flavor version of right like a watered down facsimile
00:36:31.120Yeah, we should say that, according to the New Yorker, by 1952, one third of American companies were using personality tests in the workplace. So the Myers-Briggs was jockeying to be part of a very large, growing and profitable field, right?
00:36:50.760by 1957 isabel starts a conversation with the educational testing service she wants them to
00:36:59.660distribute the test they have a big library of educational tests cognitive tests psychometric
00:37:07.100tests all that kind of stuff she wants them to add it to their library of tests and distribute
00:37:11.280it for her basically they tested it internally to see if they wanted it but ultimately they decided
00:37:18.820not to add it to their very large library of tests. And they stopped working with Isabel
00:37:25.620pretty much entirely. Okay. That might be because of the test not measuring up. It's again,
00:37:32.120it certainly doesn't measure up. Yeah. But it also might have been because of Isabel's presence
00:37:37.760in the office. Okay. She would just show up at ETS at the office all the time. She'd show up
00:37:46.760after the office was closed or before it was open and sort of rifle through people's stuff
00:37:51.220she'd like interrupt their work day and chit chat with them but the biggest complaint seems to be0.86
00:37:58.560that she left finger like messy sticky fingerprints what everywhere like a kid what and that's because1.00
00:38:07.260she had a favorite energy drink that she liked to drink at the time another thing i didn't think
00:38:14.280existed then she called it tiger's milk okay it was a mix of milk nutritional yeast and hershey bars
00:38:24.680what so she apparently mixed it with her fingers and left her little chocolate milk nutritional
00:38:35.060yeast fingerprints everywhere okay you're right i'm not an infp because i'm judging whatever the
00:38:41.120judging one is i'm judging this i'm an i j j j also just a reminder katherine cook briggs made0.97
00:38:48.100her name on raising this woman yeah leaving fingerprints everywhere just like fucking up
00:38:54.600people's days i feel like if you want to be an expert on parenting you have to prove that you0.81
00:38:59.320didn't raise a caveman someone who just sticks their hand in the liquid and just like stirs it
00:39:05.740around like you're mixing pottery glaze she so she had a nickname in the ets office she had one
00:39:14.620nickname when she was sort of on the younger end and then as she got older that nickname changed1.00
00:39:19.100the young nickname was that horrible woman oh my god1.00
00:39:24.980thw that's another type i took the test and i got a thw the older nickname was that horrible old1.00
00:39:34.840woman she's like can you guys please call me something else and they're like okay
00:39:41.320this is straightforwardly a horrible way to talk about someone that you know and work with unless
00:39:50.960they have sticky little fingers all over the desk but also as a story from like decades ago
00:39:57.620it's extremely funny were there others she must have been annoying in other ways they can't just1.00
00:40:01.740be the fingers. So Isabel wasn't just like kind of quirky or annoying. She had some deeply0.99
00:40:08.980terrible ideas. At one point, she wanted to create separate test result packets for men and for
00:40:15.880women. So if you and I both tested as an INFP, you would get the dude INFP packet and I would
00:40:22.740get the lady INFP packet. Mike, a powerful mediator. Aubrey, a weak surrenderer. So like
00:40:28.720that one's not great. Here's one that's worse. She reportedly refused to administer the test
00:40:34.920to people with an IQ of under 100 because she believed that they lacked the capacity to develop
00:40:40.300a personality. So it's like 16 types and then not applicable. Yeah. There's like a whole passage
00:40:47.300with like Catherine writing about how much she hates flappers. I love the irony of creating this0.93
00:40:52.340entire framework that's like all personality types are equally worthy and valuable. And then being
00:40:57.980like unless they wear their hair short unless they're out doing boop boop be doop on fridays
00:41:02.680at one point she wrote a letter to her business partner expressing serious anger and frustration
00:41:08.180at a trainee who she she ran a myers brings workshop one of the attendees suggested that0.52
00:41:13.720all races and genders should be equal and she wrote this like wild ass angry letter to edward
00:41:19.320hey like get out of town what's this person talking about i like the episodes of the show
00:41:24.360we just judge people from previous times. Listen, I was thinking about this while I was putting this
00:41:28.660episode together that you and I in the grifties last year talked about Brian Johnson, the anti
00:41:33.720aging millionaire guy. And you were like, we didn't really talk about this on the main feed
00:41:37.900because a lot of the coverage is just like, get a load of this guy. Yeah. And this episode is fully
00:41:42.900get a load of these, get a load of these ladies stirring shit with their fingers. We're doing1.00
00:41:47.680very sophisticated work here today. In the late 1960s, Isabel recruits a psychology professor
00:41:53.160from the University of Florida named Mary McCauley to join the team to help essentially
00:41:59.220professionalize the Myers-Briggs, right? But it's like worth noting that didn't change
00:42:04.620really their research. This is not someone who then came in and like reverse engineered the
00:42:10.140whole thing and was like, all right, we're scrapping it. We're starting from scratch.
00:42:13.200We're starting with data. Here we go. This was someone whose job it was to like package it up
00:42:17.800differently. Right. It's more marketing than anything else. It's like the doctor approved
00:42:21.940personality test. Totally. In 1975, Isabel finds her distributor that she's been looking for all
00:42:30.420this time. Consulting Psychologists Press, CPP, started distributing the Myers-Briggs in 1975.
00:42:40.000Isabel doesn't love that they're trying to sort of gloss it up, but they do. They package it for
00:42:44.800sale and it absolutely took off. Yeah. CPP's revenue went through the roof. Some reports say
00:42:51.400that their revenue shot up a thousand percent in four years. What explains why it took off so much?
00:42:57.760CPP was well positioned to distribute it. And it had this sort of foothold with employers after
00:43:03.860years and years and years. Right. And that gave them this built in customer base. And the Myers
00:43:08.940Briggs was one of the only tests that was like, we're not here to hurt your feelings. Right. So
00:43:13.840you could administer it to employees without risking the level of like blowback of a test
00:43:19.280that did measure something like neuroticism or job performance or dedication or any other sort of
00:43:25.760like, you know, things that might ruffle some feathers, right? There's also, I guess, this trend
00:43:30.100of like scientific management practices. Yep. And one of the problems with frameworks like
00:43:36.120the Myers-Briggs is that they seem quantitative. They seem like you're doing real science,
00:43:41.040even though they're very qualitative exercises. I also think just like on an individual level,
00:43:46.080the Myers-Briggs can be really comforting and it gives us a mirror to see our own behavior which I
00:43:53.440think is something that like a lot of us are like hungry for feedback that feels grounded and real
00:43:59.000and actionable and compassionate right I would actually like less feedback on my personality
00:44:03.100but I also know that most Americans cannot check iTunes reviews for a star rating of what kind of
00:44:09.620person they are and I think on a corporate level it does a similar sort of thing labor is the
00:44:15.620largest cost for most businesses. And bosses want a sense that they're making sort of a surefire
00:44:21.980investment in a person. Right. They want like a Carfax of people. Yeah, which is ridiculous.
00:44:27.280Can I illustrate to you, Michael, how well it went for CPP? Okay. CPP has since rebranded,
00:44:34.040and they are now known as just the Myers-Briggs Company. Oh, right. Okay, that makes sense.
00:44:38.740Since CPP slash the Myers-Briggs Company took over distribution, of course, Catherine and
00:44:45.100Isabel have both since passed. Catherine died in 1968. She was 93. Isabel died at 82 in 1980.
00:44:53.460They both saw the test grow in popularity and in use, which I'm sure was like very rewarding for
00:44:58.960both of them. But they both missed its continued rise as this like sort of widespread language of
00:45:06.700personality that people picked up in this like colloquial kind of way. It really seems like this
00:45:12.560would have been a dream scenario for them, right? Like the initial goal for, for Catherine certainly
00:45:19.000was for people to like know themselves, have a real sense of themselves and then give of
00:45:24.360themselves from that knowledge. Right. That really is sort of what I think a lot of Myers-Briggs
00:45:30.400content now does think that it's doing. Oh, totally. Yeah. That is what it's aimed at. Yeah.
00:45:36.360Since then the Myers-Briggs has had waves of popularity in the nineties and two thousands.
00:45:41.740It gets a big boost when tests are computerized and people can take them more easily and just get immediate scoring back.
00:45:53.900There has been in just the last few years, a big uptick in popularity in both South Korea and China in employment, but also in dating, especially since the onset of COVID-19 that people are like, don't waste my time.
00:46:06.660I've even heard of some low-effort podcasts doing them as Patreon bonus episodes.
00:46:34.700As a result of all of that powerful distribution, all of that popularity and all of that profitability, the Myers-Briggs is as popular now as it has ever been, especially in the workplace.
00:46:48.800Major, major corporations across the U.S. and around the world use personality tests.
00:46:54.120Government agencies use personality tests and the Myers-Briggs in particular.
00:46:58.780The U.S. military uses the Myers-Briggs.
00:47:01.840oh the national institutes of health uses the myers-briggs the u.s geological survey
00:47:08.540shouldn't they be doing like what type of rock are you buzzbee quiz perhaps both the darkest and
00:47:14.680the funniest is that uh the myers-briggs has also been used by law enforcement okay i just
00:47:21.880sent you a book cover oh no this is not real oh my god okay so it's a book called thinking cop
00:47:36.400an interesting look at how the deviations from two true north uncommon youngian personality types
00:47:48.320function in the law enforcement profession jesus christ i mean i would rather have both
00:47:55.220more thinking cops and feeling cops you can only do one mike it's a forced binary the thing is i
00:48:01.020think that's where to the extent that there's harm of myers-briggs this is where the harm comes in
00:48:06.240it's like employers using it to separate you know the people that they're going to hire or not hire
00:48:11.460or promote or not promote the myers-briggs company has a whole thing that they say about how like
00:48:16.820we actually don't allow clients to use it in that way anymore. And one time we found out that a
00:48:22.840client was using it for hiring and firing and we severed ties with that client. But I also feel
00:48:27.920sort of like the best case scenario is that just becomes another sort of hoop to jump through to
00:48:32.900get a job is like, you got to figure out how to game these personality tests. There's like a whole
00:48:38.360nonprofit in New York that is like working to train lower income people and unemployed people0.98
00:48:45.260on like how to take these tests it then just becomes a huge waste of everybody's fucking time0.80
00:48:49.440because you're not measuring personality you're just measuring did this person have the money or0.91
00:48:54.020the time to get test prep sat style it's just how good are you at faking this thing which i guess
00:48:59.460is also what job interviews are yeah i mean yes the whole the whole process is a facade and i think
00:49:05.660yeah so we're zooming out here from myers-briggs to personality tests in the workplace writ large
00:49:11.120Just to be clear, a number of that sort of broader set of workplace personality tests will issue a red light for some results, barring the applicant from being hired in that company and sometimes also in affiliated companies owned by the same parent company.
00:49:27.200This is something that's been documented quite a bit in reporting around these personality tests.
00:49:31.920The person is not notified that they have been red lighted.
00:49:35.500They just get rejected for that job and rejected for any other jobs in that company.
00:49:41.120And you can be red lighted for answering honestly about your own preferences. Right.
00:49:47.660For example, if there is a question on a personality test, it's like, hey, in conflict,
00:49:52.580do you prefer to speak up or hang back? Right. Right. That's a question about a preference.
00:49:58.280They are ostensibly interpreting that through the lens of your job. Right. Right. But like you can
00:50:03.820go, yeah, yeah, yeah. My preference is to stay quiet. But I understand that at my job, I might
00:50:09.560need to step up, right? Like, but my, you're asking about my preference. My preference is
00:50:13.280stay quiet. Right. That's a kind of answer that could get you a red light. Never tell the truth
00:50:18.500at work. Even if it's an annoying hoop to jump through, fine. As you note, that's so much of
00:50:23.640the hiring process is annoying hoops to jump through. These kinds of tests can and likely do
00:50:29.480penalize people with disabilities. I'm sure. Yeah. Because the tests ask about behavior and
00:50:35.240inclinations and preferences. They don't explicitly ask about mental illness or developmental
00:50:40.200disabilities or autism or whatever. Right. But they screen on the basis of behaviors that may0.99
00:50:46.360be a direct result of those conditions. It's basically asking people, are you disabled? But
00:50:50.120you can't ask, are you disabled? But a lot of these questions are essentially synonyms for
00:50:54.260are you disabled? They hew so closely to that question that the EEOC has actually cracked down
00:51:00.640on large corporations for violating both the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities
00:51:06.540Act. Part of the reason that they're able to do this, I read like a law blog that was ostensibly
00:51:11.840sort of addressed to their clients, being like, hey, please, please, please stop using these
00:51:16.640personality tests. They expose you to so much legal risk. And one of the first things that
00:51:20.840they listed was that they were like, it definitionally puts every question in writing.
00:53:56.900I mean, I think ultimately all of this amounts to there's all this bad press, right? And it doesn't really seem to make a difference in the popularity of the Myers Briggs. And I think that's just the appeal of reaching for certainty in an uncertain world. Yeah. That's like somebody can tell you for sure that you're making the right hire. Somebody can tell you for sure that the person you're engaged to is the right partner for you. Right.
00:54:21.860Somebody can tell you for sure that you're not going to screw up a major life decision
00:54:26.140or that things aren't going to go badly this time.