“But isn’t MBTI unscientific nonsense? This just sounds like astrology for men!”
Yes, the way MBTI is used today is mostly unscientific. This is undeniable. It changes over time based on a person’s mood, so it is hard to say whether it is tracking anything objective. However, I believe this is because of the tests themselves and how they are structured, rather than the model. I want to clarify that the following are my opinions based on years of personality research, and not scientific fact by any means. However, I believe they are nonetheless valuable.
The problem with the MBTI and other common internet personality tests is 1) they track actions rather than behaviors and 2) unlike the Big 5, they ask questions in a way that biases people to answer in a certain way. Let us take, for example, a question that is phrased as “Even a small mistake can cause you to doubt your overall abilities and knowledge.” This question is taken from the infamous 16personalities.com. This question is used to track a trait that roughly maps onto neuroticism in the Big 5. However, the way it is phrased can read to many people as “are you insecure?”. This can potentially bias people to disagree with this question, even people for whom the statement may be true. When questions are phrased in a way that depicts a positive or negative trait, most people will lean towards saying they have the positive trait. This is why tracking behaviors, in my opinion, is such a bad way of describing personality.