Big 5 Personality Test vs Myers Briggs – How Do They Stack Up Against Each Other?

Big 5 personality tests vs. Myers Briggs would help us compare these personality tests, look into their similarities, and differences and find out which one is better than the other. 

Personality is built based on an idea, which denotes that people would behave similarly across situations and time. 

No one will have a true personality if they cannot maintain stability across time and situations. People’s behavioral patterns are stimulated by external forces like who they interact with, where they belong, and what others tell them now and then. 

Let us check out further details below –

Big 5 Personality Test vs Myers-Briggs

It will be interesting to see what the Big 5 personality test and Myers Briggs 16 personality test are all about. Then, we can move on toward drawing comparisons between the two revealing other details.

Big 5 Personality Test

The Big 5 or Five Factor or OCEAN model emerged out of several decades of personality research along with an improvement of statistical methods. One of the most significant methods is the exploratory factor analysis. 

Most of the psychologists had followed just about any theory of personality that they liked over the years. They used to more or less make them up based on their theories and observations. None could come to an understanding and the research had gone on and on for decades.

Some theories had 2 dimensions; others had 4 while several others had 16. Therefore, there was no universal theory of personality. Things started to change when psychologists began looking into the data neutrally. They discovered 5 personality dimensions, which finally led to the emergence of the Big 5 personality theory.

The Big 5 theory is developed based on personality traits and not types. These traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. 

Every individual scores raw data on each of these five dimensions. The score of most people remains in the middle, while scores of very few lie at the very high and very low end. Finally, the combination of the scores of 5 traits is your personality profile.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The MBTI or Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most renowned and popular personality test that helps determine different personality types of individuals. It was developed by the mother-daughter duo of Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers. They had borrowed the idea from a renowned psychoanalyst, Carl Jung.

The MBTI is built based on four core dimensions:

• Introverted/Extraverted
• Sensing/Intuition
• Thinking/Feeling
• Judging/Perceiving

A person belongs to one of the 16 personality types based on these four dimensions. Each personality type carries a set of unique strengths and weaknesses. The following chart will give you a clear picture of different personality dimensions:

Myers-Briggs Personality Dimensions

Big 5 Personality Test vs. Myers Briggs – A Comparison

Let us now look into the differences between these two tests based on some aspects that help set them apart from one another –

Big 5 Personality Test vs. Myers-Briggs Test- Basis Of Personality Classification 

The Big 5 depends on the assumption that human personality’s complexity is revealed through their languages. This approach is known as lexical analysis. Modern factor analysis along with lexical analysis helps determine personality traits. 

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assumes that one can classify human beings into different personality types, with each of us belonging to a different type. For some time, personality types have not received the credit they deserve. Carl Jung himself did not believe in the conscious idea of having different personality types.

Five Functions Make Up the Big 5 Personality Test Whereas MBTI or Myers Briggs is Made of Four Functions

The Big 5 personality is often referred to as OCEAN. It includes the five functions of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. They point toward broad domains of behavioral patterns among individuals. Therefore, they even account for differences that lie in decision-making and overall personality. 

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung speculated that people experience various aspects of the world using four principal psychological functions. They are, sensing, intuition, feeling, and thinking. He also mentioned that one of these four functions plays a dominant role in an individual on most occasions. 

The four categories include introversion/extroversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. As per the MBTI, everyone carries one preferred quality from each category, thereby producing 16 unique personality types.

Big 5 Personality Test is the Result of Numerous Studies, while Myers-Briggs Has Emerged After a Limited Number of Studies

Psychological researchers have undertaken in-depth studies over the years before coming up with the Big 5 personality test. Therefore, there is more confidence among people about the test delivering proper results.

On the other hand, the 16 personalities test of Myers Briggs was developed after a limited number of studies. Hence, there is an element of doubt that exists in the minds of individuals who take this test. 

Big 5 Personality Test is Authentic with its Results, While Myers-Briggs’ Authenticity is Questionable

In psychological research, you would always want to measure things accurately. It is just like how you would expect in the case of engineering. When you want to measure the length of an object in your house with a ruler, you would want the ruler to be consistent. If the ruler expands or shrinks as per the room’s temperature, then it will not give accurate results.

The same applies to measuring five functions within a personality. Once you receive a specific result from the Big 5 personality test, you would want to get a similar result when you take the test again after a month. Uniformity is a must. You get exactly that in the Big 5.

On the other hand, there is a big question mark over the authenticity of the Myers-Briggs test. Many take this test on two occasions and tend to get different results. It is a clear indication that the basis of measurement is not uniform. Thus, an individual finds it difficult to determine their exact personality type. Due to this reason, they cannot make decisions 

Big 5 Personality Test Is Rational Whereas Myers Briggs Lacks Rationality

Rationality has various meanings in the field of psychology. We are focused on finding out if the test’s establishments are valid. It is also important to consider whether the thing that you are trying to measure has any substance, or you thought it exists but in reality, it does not.

The authenticity of the results we get from conducting the Big 5 Personality Test proves that there is strong validity of the same across all the dimensions of the personality spectrum. The extent of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism inside an individual’s personality is determined through scores, stays uniform, and gives logical conclusions.

Unfortunately, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator falls flat yet again. Its dimensions do not remain intact over some time. If we categorically consider the thinking and feeling dimension of MBTI, it shows irrationality. It is not a single dimension. You are neither a person who is filled with compassion, nor you are an intellectual scientist. There is every chance that a person can be high in both, and hence these are separate constructs.

Big 5 Personality Test Can Make Predictions Regarding Behavioral Patterns, Whereas Myers Briggs Does Not Have Any Proof of Doing So

Big 5 Personality Test measures an individual’s personality based on five personality traits including, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. It assigns a score on each of these traits and based on those scores, one can easily get clarity regarding how they portray themselves while facing different circumstances in life. 

On the other hand, Myers Myers-Briggs personality test only tells about the personality type and the features associated with it, which help an individual mold their actions accordingly while leading their life. Unfortunately, there is no concrete proof that it will guide your behavior patterns.

Big 5 Can Easily Predict How Your Efforts Would Yield Results While Myers Briggs Is Not Capable of Doing So

The Big 5 Personality Test can make predictions regarding the success you will have in your career, the amount of money you will make, how you will fare in married life, etc. All these allow you to make conscious efforts and take the necessary steps toward realizing your dreams. It helps the Big 5 in gaining popularity among the masses.

Myers Briggs cannot predict anything other than determining an individual’s personality type. Therefore, if anyone looks for information about your career, marriage, or future of kids, unfortunately, they would not receive any information regarding these aspects of life.

Summing Up from “ThePleasantPersonality”

In this article, we have discussed in detail the various aspects to differentiate between the Big 5 Personality Test and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI which talks about the 16 personality test. 

We can conclude that Big 5 is way ahead of Myers Briggs in all respects, including, presumptions, authenticity, functionality, rationality, predicting behavioral patterns, and also in determining various outcomes of activities in daily life.