Katharine Elizabeth Cook Briggs
Personal Information
Born: 1875
Died: 1968
Country of Birth: USA
Nationality: USA
Ethnicity: White
Education
Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) degree in Agriculture 1893
"“One need not be a psychologist in order to collect and identify types any more than one needs to be a botanist to collect and identify plants.” (mentalfloss.com); “For five years, five of the most exciting and interesting years of my life, friends laughingly referred to Jung’s Types as my Bible,” (marketplace.org); "
— Katharine Elizabeth Cook Briggs
Professional Life
Field of Study: Author; Personality Test
Institution/Corporation: Myers-Briggs Foundation
Degrees & Memberships: None found
Awards & Achievements
Awards: None found
Achievements: with her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, created the psychological test Myers–Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI; created a vocation test for children as she saw this as a key to a child's future happiness and well being by studying data from studies of contemporary children's educational and social developmental theories; identified four main personality types in 1917: meditative types, spontaneous types, executive types, and sociable types, which later developed into the MBTI terms Ixxx, ExxP, ExTJ, and ExFJ; they identified 16 personality types
home schooled by her father until leaving home for college at age 14
wrote essays about child-rearing and education, believing that children have an innate curiosity and that education is what fuels this natural instinct
was inspired to write erotic fiction about Jung
1945, Katharine and her daughter Isabel, with the help of Katharine's husband, Lyman Briggs, ran the first assessment on George Washington Medical School students
typed herself as an INFJ (Advocate) using the test she and her daughter made
Katharine was primarily the driving force and inspiration behind the creation of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Isabel was the work force that created the physical test itself
MBTI was formally added to the Educational Testing Service's collection of tests in 1962
wanted to discover the fundamentals of personality and behavior, so that she might create better characters for her fiction
1923 read C.G. Jung’s Psychological Types & was greatly influenced by his theories
she contacted Jung & they corresponded for several years & she met him when he visited the US i 1935
Form A of the instrument was copyrighted in 1943
became interested in studying the psychology of personalities after meeting her daughter's future husband & noting his personality was different from anyone else she knew & if she wanted to remain close to her daughter she needed to understand his personality
wanted to raise the perfect child & turned her living room into a “cosmic laboratory of baby training"
wrote articles about child-rearing & child psychology in popular magazines of the time under the pseudonym of "Elizabeth Childe"
scientists discount the MBTI because it is not backed by hard science & is unreliable but it remains widely used by Human Resource departments