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A Mexican media outlet focused on the popularity of the personality type test MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) in Korea, pointing out that "Korea tends to blindly trust MBTI."

Singer Seo Taiji, who reported his survival after one year, revealed his MBTI along with a greeting, causing a sensation. [Image source=Seo Taiji Company SNS capture]

Excelsior Online, one of Mexico's major daily newspapers, reported on the 24th (local time) an article titled "MBTI, a personality test regarded as astrology among Generation Z."

MBTI is a personality type test that classifies personalities into 16 types based on indicators such as extraversion-introversion, sensing-intuition, thinking-feeling, and judging-perceiving, expressed as a combination of four alphabets. The media introduced MBTI in detail and analyzed that "young people regard it similarly to star signs or horoscopes and identify themselves with specific personality types."

It also mentioned that MBTI has become popular worldwide in recent years, especially after the pandemic, with high interest in countries like Korea and China. The media reported, "In countries like Korea, MBTI is considered an important factor in making friends or partners," adding, "It was even a topic during the last presidential election where conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol won."

[Image source=MBTI test website]

However, it pointed out that the popularity of MBTI does not necessarily prove the accuracy and usefulness of its results. Although thousands of research papers using MBTI have been published in numerous scientific journals, experts question its objectivity and the reliability of its questions, and MBTI is regarded as pseudoscience among them.

That said, it noted that in the early 2000s, there was a trend of applying MBTI test results in practical work environments. For example, it was believed to help improve productivity, enhance collaboration among employees, and assist in task allocation. In fact, the media reported that some companies among the Fortune 500, selected by the American business magazine Fortune, have used MBTI as a guideline in hiring and personnel processes.

However, it criticized that MBTI is excessively used in Korea. Excelsior pointed out, "In Korea, there is job discrimination where applicants are forced to disclose what their MBTI is," adding, "In the worst cases, there are extreme demands to hire specific personality types." No related evidence or cases were presented regarding this.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.