Is the 16 personalities test reliable, and what can MBTI types tell you and not tell you? A psychological look for anyone who defines themselves by a type.
Four letters in the corner of social media profiles: INFJ, ENTP, ISFJ. In a group of friends' WhatsApp chat, everyone shares their result, and someone writes, "I'm an INTJ anyway, so of course I don't get on with people." A note on a dating app saying "Non-ENFPs need not apply", the question "What's your personality type?" in a job interview. In recent years the 16 personalities test has become one of the most popular ways of getting to know yourself. Many people who take the test say they find themselves in the type description to a surprising degree. But does this test really measure your personality, or is it simply a mirror that makes you feel good? In this article I explain where the 16 personalities test comes from, why it is so appealing, where it stands scientifically, and how you can use your result without limiting yourself.
What Is the 16 Personalities Test, and Where Does It Come From?
When people hear "16 personalities test", most think of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI for short. The MBTI was developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, based on the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung's theory of psychological types. Its first versions appeared in the 1940s. Neither of its developers had academic training in psychology; the test was shaped largely by their interest in Jung's theory and their curiosity about observing people.
The MBTI describes personality through four opposites:
- Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I): Do you draw your energy more from the outside world, people and activities, or from your inner world and time spent alone?
- Sensing (S) – Intuition (N): Do you gather information more through concrete details and experience, or through patterns, possibilities and meanings?
- Thinking (T) – Feeling (F): When making decisions, do you give more weight to logic and consistency, or to values and the effect on people?
- Judging (J) – Perceiving (P): Do you prefer to live your life in a planned and orderly way, or in a flexible and spontaneous way?
One letter is chosen from each pair, and the combination of four letters produces one of sixteen types. However, the most widely shared versions that can be taken free online are often not the official MBTI. Some of them use the MBTI's letter system while relying on a different model in the background, and add a fifth dimension to the four letters. In other words, quite different tools are circulating under the name "16 personalities test".
Why Is It So Appealing?
The popularity of the 16 personalities test is no accident. It meets several psychological needs at once.
The wish to understand oneself: The question "Why am I like this?" is on everyone's mind. A four-letter answer provides a quick and understandable response to it.
A sense of belonging: Content shared by people of the same type creates the feeling that "There are others who understand me." This exerts a strong pull, especially for young people who feel different or lonely.
Positive language: Type descriptions almost always highlight strengths. No type is "bad"; each has its own particular talents. This is reassuring for someone used to criticising themselves.
General statements that seem personal: Psychology has long recognised a tendency: we perceive general statements that could apply to many people as if they had been written just for us. Sentences such as "Sometimes you're sociable, but you also need time alone" or "Although you seem calm on the outside, you have a rich inner world" ring true for almost everyone who reads them. Part of the striking sense of accuracy in type descriptions comes from this.
The wish to find direction amid uncertainty: In Turkey, many young people face great uncertainty during the YKS (Turkey's national university entrance exam) preference period or when choosing a subject stream in high school. The family says "Become a doctor," the teacher says "You're good at maths and science," and friends say something else. In this confusion, a list of "careers that suit your type" feels like something to hold on to. Yet choosing a career is a much broader process shaped by interests, values, abilities, working conditions and real experience. Making a choice by looking at a list for a type can get in the way of a person listening to their own curiosity.
Is the 16 Personalities Test Scientifically Reliable?
The main criticisms that researchers in personality psychology make of the MBTI and similar type tests are as follows:
Personality is spread along a spectrum, not sorted into boxes. Traits such as extraversion and introversion are continuous traits on which most people cluster somewhere in the middle. The test, however, places everyone at one of two ends. Two people very close to the middle are described with different letters despite there being only a small difference between them, while two people who receive the same letter may be very different from each other.
Results can change over time. It is known that a substantial proportion of people who retake the test after a short time get a different result on at least one letter. A personality measure being so sensitive to a person's mood on the day calls its reliability into question.
Its power to predict daily life is limited. Knowing a person's type does little to predict their job performance, the success of their relationships or the career in which they will be happy. For this reason, many experts consider it inappropriate to use type tests in hiring and promotion decisions.
An important dimension is missing. Emotional stability, that is, how prone a person is to stress, anxiety and negative emotions, which research regards as one of the core dimensions of personality, does not appear in the classic MBTI.
These criticisms do not mean the test is entirely worthless. But it is more realistic to approach it as a conversation starter that helps you think about yourself rather than as a scientific tool that measures personality.
A More Robust Model in Psychology: The Big Five
One of the most researched and widely accepted approaches in personality psychology is the Big Five model of personality. This model looks at personality along five broad dimensions:
- Openness to experience: Curiosity, imagination, interest in new ideas and experiences.
- Conscientiousness: Orderliness, planning, self-discipline, reliability.
- Extraversion: Sociability, energy, enjoying being among people.
- Agreeableness: Cooperation, trust, compassion, attending to other people's needs.
- Neuroticism: A tendency towards anxiety, sadness, anger and stress.
The most important difference between this model and type tests is that instead of putting a person in a box, it places them on a spectrum for each dimension. Instead of "You are an introvert," it says, "You are slightly below average on the extraversion dimension." It is less striking, but closer to reality.
In clinical assessment, however, the aim is different. When mental health professionals assess personality, they use research-supported tools administered under standard conditions, aimed at understanding the source of the difficulties a person is experiencing. For information on one of these tools, the MMPI, you can take a look at the article on the MMPI test.
Your personality is not a label but a story; four letters could, at most, be written on its cover.
The Hidden Risks of a Personality Type Label
Being curious about a test result and sharing it is innocent fun. But a problem arises when the result begins to narrow how a person sees themselves and others. Some common traps are:
Limiting yourself: "I'm an introvert, I can't give presentations," "I'm an emotional person, I'm no good at maths." These sentences present areas for growth as if they were permanent traits. Yet an introvert can also learn to give a good presentation; they may simply need different preparation and time to recharge.
Excusing behaviour: The sentence "I'm a T type, emotional conversations aren't for me" can become a cover for ignoring the other person's needs in a relationship.
Judging relationships by type: The thought "Our types are incompatible, this relationship won't work" overshadows the real dynamics of the relationship, namely communication, trust and how you resolve conflicts.
Putting others in boxes: Describing a colleague at work as "She's an ESTJ, she's controlling" removes the opportunity to get to know her as a person.
Mistaking emotional difficulties for personality traits: Some people explain withdrawal that may actually be linked to intense social anxiety or depression with "I'm just an introvert." Introversion means enjoying time alone; being afraid of being with people or being unable to enjoy anything is a different matter and may need support.
Let's say a first-year university student, after getting the result "introvert" on an online test, stops joining clubs and going out for meals with classmates. They tell themselves, "This is my nature." But in fact they are afraid of being judged in every social setting and cry from loneliness at night. Here the test result has become a curtain covering the need to ask for help. Yet once their social anxiety is recognised and addressed, the same young person can become someone who both enjoys time alone and can comfortably spend time with people; the two are not mutually exclusive.
How Can You Use Your Test Result in a Healthy Way?
You don't need to remove tests like this from your life altogether. But using your result as a starting point rather than a verdict is far more helpful. To do so, you can ask yourself these questions:
- Which parts of this description really fit me, and which don't? Give the parts that don't fit at least as much weight as the ones that do.
- In which situations does this trait help me, and in which does it make things harder? For example, being organised may be useful at work but cause tension when unexpected changes happen.
- Am I using this result to avoid something? Does the sentence "This is just how I am" open a door or close it?
- Was I like this a year ago, and do I want to be like this in five years' time? Personality is relatively stable, but behaviours and habits can change.
- What am I missing when I describe others with these letters?
Test results can also be useful for talking about differences in close relationships, as long as they don't become a tool for blame. For example, a couple might notice that one of them wants to plan the weekend in advance while the other likes to do whatever they feel like on the day. Being able to say "For you, a plan means security; for me, flexibility means room to breathe" instead of "You always want to control everything" makes it possible to talk about the same difference in a much gentler way. What is valuable here is not the letters but putting names to needs.
For suggestions on how to approach various online psychology tests in general, you can take a look at the article on online psychology tests, and for more lasting ways of getting to know yourself, the article on self-awareness.
What Does Therapy Offer for Getting to Know Yourself?
Beneath the interest in personality tests there is often a real need: to understand yourself, to see why you always get stuck at the same point, to untangle recurring patterns in your relationships. This need is too deep to be met by a four-letter answer.
In individual therapy, personality is approached not as a label but as patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour shaped over time. Cognitive behavioural therapy examines a person's core beliefs about themselves and the world, and how these beliefs affect their everyday decisions. Schema therapy focuses on understanding patterns that come from childhood and recur in adulthood, such as schemas like "Nobody trusts me" or "I have to do everything perfectly." This work helps turn the sentence "This is how I am" into "I learned to be this way because of certain experiences, and now I can be different too."
Frequently Asked Questions
I get a different type every time I take the test. Why?
This is very common. Because you are close to the middle on many traits, small differences in your answers can move you from one letter to another. Your mood on the day you take the test, what you are going through at the time and which version you use also affect the result. This does not mean your personality is constantly changing, but that the test struggles to sort you into boxes.
Is it right to use the 16 personalities test in hiring?
Many experts consider it inappropriate to use type tests in hiring or promotion decisions, because their power to predict job performance is limited and they can screen out candidates unfairly. Tests like this can be used as a conversation tool in team-building and communication sessions, but they should not be used as a decision-making tool.
Is being an introvert a problem?
No. Introversion is an ordinary personality trait meaning that you draw energy more from time spent alone or with a few people. However, if the reason you stay away from people is not that you enjoy being alone but a fear of being judged or an inability to enjoy anything, it may be helpful to talk about this with a professional.
My partner's type and mine came out as incompatible. Does that mean our relationship won't work?
Type compatibility does not predict the success of a relationship. What shapes a relationship is how you listen to each other, how you resolve disagreements, how you support each other and the values you share. Differences, when handled well, can enrich a relationship.
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Eda Erkan Alapala
Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.
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