This is not supported by the data.
For one, many studies of identical twins raised in separate households show they have the same personality type at a much higher rate than chance.
Two, there are incredibly strong correlations in the data. In different surveys of 100k+ people, the highest earning type has twice the salary of the lowest type. This is basically impossible by chance.
The letters (like ENTJ) correlate highly to the variables of Big 5, the personality system used by scientists. Its just that it's bucketed into 16 categories vs being 5 sliding scales.
Scientific studies are looking for variables that can be tracked over time reliably, so Big 5 is a better measure for that.
But for personal or organizational use, the category approach is a feature, not a bug. It is much more help as a mental toolkit than just getting a personality score on each of the 5 categories.
Fade_Dance•3h ago
So what you were left with is sort of an arbitrary way to divide people up, resulting in 16 fuzzy final categories.
Anecdotally I found it extremely accurate. The first time I visited "my" forum, all of forum avatars were bizarrely from shows and characters that I was close to, the topics were all exactly in line with how I perceive the world, etc. but I'm someone who maxes out all four of the categories in a specific direction. I also have some friends who are blended and have x in parts of their description, so at the end of the day it's sort of an arbitrary classification system, but better than nothing and extremely descriptive for, of course, the people who happen to fit these descriptions.
cm2012•3h ago