A review by ameyawarde
The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing by Merve Emre

4.0

I already knew that the MBTI is not scientifically valid before reading this, but I still liked it, and honestly I still do too. I am of the era of knowing all my friends Hogwarts houses, too, though, so I don't go into a personality test assuming scientific validity. Anyway, I enjoyed this book, and I think the author did a fair job on biographies of the women, and the test ("INDICATOR") itself for being a super-not-fan and skeptic. I would have liked to hear more than just a passing "studies have shown it has no scientific validity" for it's critiques, though. I'm glad to have heard more about Katherine (the mom) as well because she is the same era of other women I do research on, and though it wasn't mentioned in this book, she seems to fit in very well with a few of the women I research-- Smart women trying to figure out how to balance their intellectual life and need for purpose with their still solid ideas that their #1 purpose in life is about improving first their own children, and then society as a whole.