By Heather L.E. McKay
Most of my working career I was a manager of different things; retail, petroleum, HR, training, rosters, events, hospitality, etc etc etc. And I was great at it… because I’m autistic – NOT INSPITE OF IT!!!!!!!!
I have a keen eye for detail, I set great schedules and routines for people, and because I’m also ADHD – I’m able to be flexible in those things.
I have a great ability at identifying cost cutting opportunities and how to do things better. This is because autistic people often have great pattern recognition and also have a good justice orientation that means we love everything to be fair and equal. We also hyperfocus and work ourselves to the bone to get the job done, done the right way (within constraints and legalities), and with no (or little) mistakes. Some would call it perfectionism – but I just call it ‘me’ and how I prefer to work.
Yes I have high standards that either tend to put others off, but I don’t put those expectations on others, I put them on me – because that’s how my brain works.
I changed jobs frequently (mostly due to my ADHD side becoming bored constantly), and every time I changed jobs there were set ridiculous routines that HR departments insisted on doing during the onboarding process. One of those utterly ridiculous and ableist/racist/agist/sexist etc things – was the Myers Briggs personality test.
You may have also undertaken this test and can understand what I’m talking about. But if you haven’t experienced this test I’ll give a quick rundown.
The Myers-Briggs personality test was invented by a couple of women (Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers) who were influenced by the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his book: "Psychological Types”. Jung was an analytical psychologist of the early 1900’s. He proposed that there were different types of personality: extrovert/introvert etc. Myers-Briggs built on his work during the Second World War to develop a ‘pseudoscience’ (later debunked) analysis tool /personality test to discover what sort of personality ‘type’ (which they made up) that you fit into. From this test- they hoped to devise a way to figure out what job or career you would be suited for.
This test has since been OVERused and inappropriately used to decide people’s fate and career. It’s especially overused in Australia, where I believe Universities and companies are still teaching it and/ or relying on it to pick future employees.
This test was questionable when it was developed, because a person would receive a different score/ personality type each time they took it. Researchers, with criticism and scepticism for the tool, began to print articles and studies to prove its ineffectiveness and pseudoscience approach. It was considered debunked sometime between 2000 and mid 2010’s. The arguments against its use in (specifically) workplaces began in the 1990’s and rose year after year, and yet it’s still being used as justification to deny a person a position or roll at some workplaces in Australia today.
But why do I hate it? Well, for one – it was used against me to deny me a few jobs, and it was once used against me (publicly) too deny my autistic brain/being, but I hate it because it’s ableist and specifically neuro-phobic!
It’s based on assumptions and not scientific research. It relies on the neuro-typical persons experience of the world and how they fit into it. It has no basis in real science, but it especially discriminates against the ND neurotype.
The questions in the test are themselves extremely vague and cause the individual to answer differently each time they take it depending on capacity and life influences. But it also skews the questions towards neurotypicality.
In the Myers-Briggs test, people’s personalities are split into either:
Judging or Perceiving
Thinking or Feeling
Sensing or Intuiting
Extrovert or Introvert
You can’t be both thinking and feeling – or extrovert and introvert (which obviously is a problem for people who are autistic AND ADHD). Once you have a score that puts you more in the J (judging) that the P (perceiving) type – you end up with a full personality type like: ISFJ etc. As seen in the pic from: source: https://www.insider-consulting.com/mbti-myers-briggs-teams-individuals (see pic attached)
Transcript of Pic:
“(E) Extroverts: are energised by people, enjoy a variety of tasks, a quick pace, and are good at multitasking.
(I) Introverts: often like working alone, or in small groups, prefer a more deliberate pace, and like to focus on one task at a time
(S) Sensors: are realistic people who like to focus on the facts and details, and apply common sense and past experience to come up with practical solutions to problems
(N) Intuitives: prefer to focus on possibilities and the big picture, easily see patterns, value innovation, and seek creative solutions to problems
(T) Thinkers: tend to make decisions using logical analysis, objectively weigh pros and cons, and value honesty, consistency and fairness
(F) Feelers: tend to be sensitive and cooperative, and decide based on their own personal values and how others will be affected by their actions
(J) Judgers: tend to be organised and prepared, like to make and stick to plans, and are comfortable following most rules.
(P) Perceivers: prefer to keep their opinions open, like to be able to act spontaneously, and like to be flexible with making plans.”
Can you already see some glaringly obvious problems if you are both autistic and ADHD? Because I can.
The time it was used against me in public, I didn’t know I was autistic or ADHD, I was predominantly ‘acting’ ADHD during those years, so most of my answered corresponded with the ADHD neurotype, but some were glaringly Autistic type responses. During the specific occurrence of discrimination; I was in a training session at work. We had all the managers from all the different stores, who had undertaken the test a week prior. When we arrived to the two-day training session; we were given the results of the test and then given activities to explain each of the personality types.
For each of the activities, we were asked to get into groups of types, eg: “thinking” on one side of the room and “feeling” on the other. One of the examples they used was a situation where a store was trying to decide whether or not to install blue/black lights in the toilets because of the drug use problem in that neighbourhood. I very quickly reacted with an answer (verbally), while everyone else was silent. The trainer immediately told me off and told me (and the rest of the class) that I was in the WRONG personality group type, and immediately demanded that I move to the opposite group of “Feelers”. He even went so far as to tell me (and the room), very loudly – that I had “lied on the test” that I wasn’t a ‘thinker’ that I was a ‘feeler’, and possibly all of my answers had been wrong and my whole test is now invalid. They then reported me to my direct line manager at the store, and I was later fired. Yes, I sued that company and won, but I would’ve won more if I’d known back then what I know now – that I’m autistic and ADHD, and that Myers-Briggs is total discrimination BS.
The reason I reacted so quickly to the example in the training session was for multiple reasons. If they’d given me a chance to explain, instead of discriminating against me – I could’ve proved my response as a “Thinking” response. But this test is so black and white in its conception and delivery that it has no place in neurodiversity, and definitely no place in the workplace.
I have a very high processing speed. I was able to ‘think’ about the scenario we were given, come up with a ‘pro and con’ list and decide given specific long term and in-depth prior and current experience of the same scenario, as well as experience of studies from university knowledge of the outcomes of doing such a thing in actual stores (in two different countries). And my quick response was one of experience and knowledge – not of “feeling” and reacting with my gut. They not only invalidated my experience and knowledge they gaslit and invalidated my neuro-type and my co-occurring ability to process information quicker than 98% of my peers.
When you look at the individual letters and what they represent you can even see it from a specific ‘stereotype’ of ADHD or autistic.
Eg: (I) – autistic stereotype
(E) – ADHD stereotype
If you are both, you will likely fluctuate between the two depending on your capacity, the situation and your current trauma and ability to deal in those situations. Each day you may jump between being more extroverted or more introverted. And even if you are autistic without ADHD (and vice versa) your capacity will still see you being more ‘able’ in one category than another, day to day, hour to hour.
For example: take the S and N categories:
“(S) Sensors: are realistic people who like to focus on the facts and details, and apply common sense and past experience to come up with practical solutions to problems”. A lot of autistic people will fall into this category, because we are pragmatic, fact oriented and have concrete thinking or what NT’s call “special interests” and or “rigid thinking”.
“(N) Intuitives: prefer to focus on possibilities and the big picture, easily see patterns, value innovation, and seek creative solutions to problems”. This is also an autistic trait/stereotype because so many of us are gestalt processors and/or bottom-up thinkers that see everything in gestalts and big picture or systems thinking – and then break up the knowledge and gestalts into smaller pieces.
J and P have exactly the same impact for ND people:
“(J) Judgers: tend to be organised and prepared, like to make and stick to plans, and are comfortable following most rules.” This is a stereotype of autistic people.. but if you look at P below:
“(P) Perceivers: prefer to keep their opinions open, like to be able to act spontaneously, and like to be flexible with making plans.” This is the stereotype of a ADHD person – OR that of an autistic or ND person who is masking and possibly suffered discrimination and trauma throughout their lifetime and knows that if they show the J personality type – that they are likely to be ostracised and segregated, but also – not given the job in some circumstances, but also possibly given the job – if the employee likes to take advantage of ND people – we cant win no matter how we answer. Because ND people tend to have personality types that are either prized or hated, depending on the business and the job.
So … many of us, when we come to answering the questions that put us in the ridiculous ‘pigeon hole’ of either S or N, I or E, J or P and T or F – can’t decide which answer truly speaks to our ND/Autistic brains, or which is us when masking, or what the employer really wants to see or hear.
We may be actually both S and N… ALL OF THE TIME. Or we may be neither! AND we might be both simultaneously! Because our brains are not that simple and are not square pegs.
So…. when we are given the result of predominantly N or S -it’s always going to be wrong, because we are able to sit directly on the fence, because of our divergences. But this test doesn’t allow for fence sitters or for ‘different’ brains or ‘different’ personalities. That’s the problem with analytical psychology in the first place – it’s myopic and its singular want for all people to fit into that square hole is ridiculous. They want all people to be square – but if you are round or perhaps triangular (ND of any type) – these tests and their pigeonholes only ever discriminate against us and harm us.
We don’t fit that square hole and never will… a test that tests based on information wholly about squares within square societies, and only their understanding of square brains and personalities will never accurately measure the ND experience or help us to live in that square space.
I have completed the Myers-Briggs test many times, and I always try to answer it the way that I ‘think’ that NT’s want it answered. Which also skews my results. So yes – I guess in a way that I do “lie” on these tests, but it’s not a lie in the way that NT’s see it and understand it. It’s actually me lying to myself – me MASKING my ND self in order to fit their myopic discriminatory square hole.
I’m so afraid of unmasking, of being discriminated against again, and of being taken advantage of again, that I have no idea how to answer these things anymore. The first time I answered one of them – I was a heavily masking unidentified ND person. The next time I did one, I was a traumatised still masking unidentified ND person – and the result was different to the first. Now I’m a traumatised identified ND person -and I wonder what the result would be now… I think it would also depend on who I’m doing it for. If I’m doing it for me, it’ll have a different result than a masking me doing it for a job. So no matter what – it won’t give a true result, not just because of my experience of these tests and resulting trauma, but because of the test itself being extremely faulty and biased towards NT people.
As I’ve said, I’ve been denied access to jobs based on this test, and every time, it’s because my ND responses to the questions don’t make sense to their discriminatory view of what my answers ‘should’ve’ been to their NT view of people and the world.
This test should be banned, not because it’s outdated and wasn’t based on rigorous science in the first place – but because it’s discriminatory as hell – and any business that uses it (should, in my opinion) be sued for discrimination.
What do you think? Have you undertaken this test, what did it say? Have you gotten different results? Have you been discriminated against by someone using it to ‘judge’ you. Have you had other ‘tests’ that aren’t Myers-Briggs but do the same discriminatory things? Let me know, please – I’d love to do a deep dive into this topic.