Online MBTI test, which categorizes personality into 16 types, is also popular in Japan and is being used for hiring employees. However, experts are questioning this scientific basis for personality test.
According to an Asahi report on the 2nd, Japan’s Toyama Prefecture introduced a free MBTI test service called “16 Personalities” as a means to identify one’s personality at an online seminar for society people considering changing jobs in June.
The service shows the result of dividing the personality into 16 types when answering multiple-choice questions for about 10 minutes.
In Japan, a website for job seekers has also appeared, saying that people looking for employees and those looking for jobs can reduce “mismatches” with each other.
In an interview with Asahi, Nawata Kengo, an associate professor of social psychology at Fukoka University’s humanities department, said he first heard the MBTI from a student about two years ago. When asked about 200 students at an introductory psychology lecture in April this year, about 90 percent of them said they had heard of the MBTI.
Meanwhile, social networking services (SNS) often report that people with certain personality types are not hired at work. “This kind of discrimination has also been observed in personality diagnosis based on blood type (in the past),” Asahi said. “Since the 1990s, people with blood type B and AB have been told that they do not want to live next to each other more than other blood types.”
MBTI is a personality testing tool developed in the U.S. since the 1960s based on Swiss psychologist Karl Gustave Jung’s theory. The English acronym for Myers-Briggs type index named after the developer is MBTI.
In a related development, the U.K.-based operator 16 Personality explains on its website that it combines the advantages of MBTI and other theories. Japan’s MBTI Association said the service has not been validated. Asahi said it is mimicking MBTI but claims it is “totally different.”
Professor Miura Asako of Osaka University, a social psychologist, said, “MBTI is used as a tool to deliberately blur the other person, just like blood type diagnosis, which was popular in the past.” He pointed out, “It doesn’t matter if it’s just fun, but at important moments that determine the future, such as employment, shouldn’t we increase the resolution?”
SALLY LEE
US ASIA JOURNAL
