MBTI2 vs MBTI 1 – a quickie

I recently described MBTI step 2 as being as far ahead of the ‘traditional’ MBTI (now known as step 1) as the MBTI1 is beyond astrology. I thought it might be nice, in the light of their confused reaction (“MBTI too what?”) to explore some of the pros and cons of MBTI step 2 to vs MBTI step 1.

The main difference between MBTI1 and MBTI2 is this: whereas the step one profile (something like INTJ) breaks personality down into four binary division, giving 16 ‘Types’ of personality, MBTI step 2 breaks each of the four divisions into five subscales. That gives a total of twenty measures of personality… That’s a massive increase in how specific the MBTI profile can be!

So then, here goes with a whistle-stop MBTI-comparison! 🙂

Let’s start by looking at the cons… to my mind they tend to be more logistic than conceptual but that could be just me! 🙂

• it’s more expensive – that’s not to be sneezed at if you’ve got a group, to be honest and it’s not something your MBTI practitioner can do anything about
•  it takes longer to debrief – there’s so much more information it can take quite a while for people to get their brains around it: because of this extra information, it’s worth seriously considering one-to-one debriefs of the MBTI profile
•  the mathematical details of exactly how it’s constructed aren’t public – the beauty of MBTI 1 is that the principles are very easily understood but the statistics behind step 2 aren’t made public
• it’s probably best done with an MBTI step 1 to explain all the principles.

To be honest the last point is just an attempt to reduce the costs – you don’t have to do it with an MBTI1 at all – it’s just cheaper to do a group introduction. Actually, having said that, a group MBTI session has all kinds of advantages in terms of the exercises and group interactions that can be explored, so perhaps a group MBTI1 is the best option.

I should probably confess something here, too, at risk of sounding horribly conceited: on my training sessions to qualify as an MBTI2 practitioner we discussed the statistical issues behind it – and frankly I was the only one in my group interested (and probably one of only a few in the country to be able to understand it… a PhD which relies on statistical analysis does funny things to a man for the rest of his life! 🙂  )

Okay, now for a brief idea about the pros…

• more information – more information – more information!  Did you get that there’s more information?
• it takes more account of the inevitable “yes but” responses that people have because it more easily allows (compared to the MBTI1 process) for things like “I’m generally E but…”
• it begins to account (quite strongly in fact) for situational issues and – in a lot of circumstances – behavioural ones too. One of the big weaknesses of MBTI1 is that it’s a bit crude (you’re E or I, for example) whereas MBTI2 can recognise that for example you are “Generally E but will behave as an I when…”