What does MBTI stand for? Spelled out, the name is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality questionnaire that places people into one of 16 types, each named with four letters such as INFP or ESTJ. It was created by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, building on psychologist Carl Jung's ideas about psychological types.
You may run into MBTI at a workplace team day, in a career class, on a dating profile or in friendly chats where someone says, "I am an introvert, classic INTJ." The questionnaire describes preferences, not skills or intelligence, and there is no better or worse type.
Quick facts
Stands for
Myers-Briggs Type IndicatorType
Initialism, said letter by letterNumber of types
16Based on
Carl Jung's theory of psychological typesDeveloped
By Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, starting in the 1940sUsed in
Team building, career counseling, self reflectionRelated terms
Introvert, extravert, personality type
What does MBTI stand for, word by word?
Every part of the name hints at how the questionnaire works:
- Myers: Isabel Briggs Myers, who did much of the work turning the theory into a questionnaire.
- Briggs: Katharine Cook Briggs, her mother, who began studying personality types first.
- Type: the idea that people fall into broad categories of preference.
- Indicator: the tool points to a likely type rather than measuring a fixed trait.
MBTI is read as four letters, "M B T I." Since you never blend those sounds into one word, the term counts as an initialism. Where that line falls is the subject of what is an acronym.
The four pairs behind each type
The questionnaire looks at four pairs of opposite preferences. Your result takes one letter from each pair.
| Pair | Letters | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Extraversion or Introversion | E or I | Where you tend to get energy |
| Sensing or Intuition | S or N | How you take in information |
| Thinking or Feeling | T or F | How you tend to make decisions |
| Judging or Perceiving | J or P | How you like to organize your life |
Notice that intuition uses N, because I is already taken by introversion. Judging does not mean judgmental. It refers to a preference for plans and closure, while perceiving leans toward flexibility.
What an MBTI type looks like
Combine one letter from each pair and you get a four-letter code. Four pairs with two choices each make 16 possible types. A few examples:
- INFP: introversion, intuition, feeling, perceiving
- ESTJ: extraversion, sensing, thinking, judging
- ENFP: extraversion, intuition, feeling, perceiving
- ISTP: introversion, sensing, thinking, perceiving
Team workshop email: "Please finish your MBTI questionnaire before Thursday so we can talk about how our types work together." Here the letters refer to the questionnaire itself, and each person will get a four-letter result.
How people use MBTI at work and in life
Companies sometimes use the questionnaire in training to help coworkers talk about communication styles. Career counselors use it to start conversations about job interests. Many people take free online quizzes inspired by it, though those are not the official instrument.
The official version is meant for self understanding and development. Its publisher and many psychologists advise against using it to hire, promote or reject people, since it reports preferences, not ability. Researchers have also questioned how consistent the results are over time, as some people get a different type when they retake it. Treat your type as a starting point for reflection, not a fixed label.
MBTI, IQ and EQ are different things
People sometimes lump these together, but each measures something else:
- MBTI describes personality preferences.
- IQ, intelligence quotient, is a score from tests of reasoning and problem solving.
- EQ, emotional quotient, refers to how well a person understands and manages emotions.
A person's MBTI type says nothing about how smart or emotionally skilled they are. Our famous acronyms hub collects many more short forms from daily life.
Writing MBTI in a sentence
- "Our manager asked everyone to share their MBTI results."
- "She took the MBTI in college and tested as ENFJ."
- "Is your MBTI type the same as last year?"
- "An MBTI session is planned for the retreat."
Keep MBTI in uppercase, dot free. Pick "an" as the article, because M is spoken "em." Type codes such as ENFJ are uppercase too.
Questions people ask
What does MBTI mean in text?
In a message, MBTI almost always refers to someone's personality type, as in "What is your MBTI?" The person wants your four-letter type, such as INTP.
Is the MBTI scientifically valid?
It is widely used, but many psychologists point out that people can get different results when they retake it. Most experts see it as a tool for discussion and self reflection rather than a precise measurement.
How many MBTI types are there?
There are 16. Each one combines four letters, one from each of four preference pairs.
Why is intuition N in MBTI?
The letter I already stands for introversion. To avoid confusion, intuition uses its second letter, N.
Who created the MBTI?
Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers developed it, drawing on the ideas of Carl Jung.