Personality and Occupational Behavior: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Correlates of Managerial Practices in Two Cultures

Summary & key facts

Researchers compared an MBTI-style test and a Big Five test in studies of U.S. adults and found the Big Five predicted 37 measured life outcomes about twice as well as the MBTI-style test. The MBTI-style test did better than astrology but worse than the Big Five. The MBTI-style test often leaves out the Big Five trait called neuroticism and forces people into categories, which the researchers say reduces its ability to predict life outcomes. People tended to like the MBTI-style report more, even though it was less predictive.

Key facts:

• The study tested how well personality measures predicted 37 life outcomes in a sample of 559 U.S. participants.
• On average, the Big Five test was about twice as accurate as the MBTI-style test at predicting those 37 outcomes.
• Using astrological sun signs (e.g., Aries, Pisces) produced zero prediction accuracy for those same outcomes in the study.
• Adding MBTI-style results to Big Five results did not improve prediction accuracy beyond the Big Five alone.
• When the Big Five test’s information about neuroticism was removed, the overall predictive accuracy fell by 22% (correlation dropped from 0.23 to 0.18).
• The researchers estimated the MBTI-style test would be about 38% better at predicting major life outcomes if it did not force people into two categories for each trait.
• In a survey of 236 people who took both tests, 10% disagreed that the MBTI-style report made them feel good about their personality, while 19% disagreed for the Big Five report.
• The MBTI-style measures corresponded roughly to four Big Five traits: its extraversion, intuition, and feeling scales mapped to Big Five extraversion, openness, and agreeableness, while its judging scale mixed openness, extraversion, and (l

Abstract

This study aimed to determine whether widely-used personality test scores would be significantly related to the actual ratings of managers' performance in two different cultures. Chinese and European middle and senior management of an Asian-based international airline completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) which was related to reliable, behavioral ratings of the managers actual managerial practices (innovation, direction, support, decision making, planning, commitment, and participation) and departmental organizational climate (recognition, participation, unit-relations, standard maintenance, clarity, inter-unit communications, and inter-unit relations). The internal reliability of these measures was first checked and then both sets of scales were correlated with the four dimensions arising from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator - separately for the European expatriates and local Chinese managers. Because there were major cultural (and to a lesser extent gender) differences on the MBTI but not the management practices or climate survey results, correlations were done separately for each cultural group. Whereas extroversion and introversion seemed important correlates of management practices and climate for the Chinese group it was the thinking/feeling dimension for the European group. Introversion, however, was a strong negative correlate of climate in both cultural groups. Implications for using this personality measure for management selection and training is discussed.

Topics

Emotional Intelligence and Performance Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior Personality Traits and Psychology

Categories

Clinical Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Applied psychology Big Five personality traits Biochemistry Chemistry CLARITY Extraversion and introversion Feeling Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory Organisation climate Organizational culture Personality Political science Psychology Public relations Social psychology