If you’re one of the 2 million people who take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator every year, perhaps you thought Myers and Briggs are the two psychologists who designed the test. In reality, a mother-daughter team created the test essentially at their kitchen table. In this episode, we look at the unlikely origins of the Myers-Briggs, going all the way back to the late 1800s when Katharine Cook Briggs turned her living room into a “cosmic laboratory of baby training” and set out to raise the perfect child.
In this three-part series, we uncover the strange history of the most popular personality test in the world, and how two women revolutionized personality testing—for better or for worse.
Guest:Merve Emre is a writer and English professor at the University of Oxford.
Footnotes & Further Reading:Read Merve Emre’s book, The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing.
Credits:This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer, Chris Egusa, and Elah Feder. Our music was composed by Daniel Peterschmidt, who also mastered the episode. Fact checking by Danya AbdelHameid. Archival audio was provided courtesy of Peter Geyer. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.
New Show: Universe of Art
Saying Goodbye To Science Diction
American Chestnut: Resurrecting A Forest Giant
Vocal Fry: Why I’m Not Getting A Voice Coach
Juggernaut: Indian Temple Or Unstoppable Force?
Jargon: We Love To Hate It
Algebra: From Broken Bones To Twitter Feuds
Hurricane
Knock On Wood And Tsunami
The Rise Of The Myers-Briggs, Chapter 3: What Is It Good For?
The Rise Of The Myers-Briggs, Chapter 2: Isabel
Honeymoon: A Bittersweet Beginning
It'll Never Fly: When Gene Names Are TOO Fun
What Do You Call A Tiny Octopus That’s Cute As A Button?
Language Evolves: It’s Literally Fine
Serendipity and Syzygy: Fortunate Accidents
Ambergris: How Constipation Becomes A Luxury Product
Orphans Delivered The World's First Vaccine
Diction Dash: You Asked, We Answer
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
DNA Today: A Genetics Podcast
Museum of the Missing
Strange by Nature Podcast
Sasquatch Chronicles
Hidden Brain