Whats Your Type? (Paperback)

Merve Emre

ISBN 10: 0008201412 / ISBN 13: 9780008201418

Editore: HarperCollins Publishers, London, 2019

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Paperback. A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEARHistory that reads like biography that reads like a novel a fluid narrative that defies expectations and plays against type New York TimesBrilliant and savage Philip Hensher An unprecedented history of the personality test conceived a century ago by a mother and her daughter fiction writers with no formal training in psychology and how it insinuated itself into our boardrooms, classrooms, and beyond.The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It has been harnessed by Fortune 100 companies, universities, hospitals, churches, and the military. Its language of extraversion vs. introversion, thinking vs. feeling has inspired online dating platforms and Buzzfeed quizzes alike. And yet despite the test's widespread adoption, experts in the field of psychometric testing, a $500 million industry, struggle to account for its success no less validate its results. How did the Myers-Briggs insinuate itself into our jobs, our relationships, our internet, our lives?First conceived in the 1920s by the mother-daughter team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, a pair of aspiring novelists and devoted homemakers, the Myers-Briggs was designed to bring the gospel of Carl Jung to the masses. But it would take on a life of its own, reaching from the smoke-filled boardrooms of mid-century New York to Berkeley, California, where it was honed against some of the 20th century's greatest creative minds. It would travel across the world to London, Zurich, Cape Town, Melbourne, and Tokyo; to elementary schools, nunneries, wellness retreats, and the closed-door corporate training sessions of today.Drawing from original reporting and never-before-published documents, Whats Your Type? examines nothing less than the definition of the self our attempts to grasp, categorise and quantify our personalities. Surprising and absorbing, the book, like the test at its heart, considers the timeless question: What makes you you? A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEARHistory that reads like biography that reads like a novel a fluid narrative that defies expectations and plays against type New York TimesBrilliant and savage Philip Hensher Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Codice articolo 9780008201418

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Whats Your Type? (Paperback)
• Editore: HarperCollins Publishers, London
• Data di pubblicazione: 2019
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0008201412
• ISBN 13: 9780008201418
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: new

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘History that reads like biography that reads like a novel – a fluid narrative that defies expectations and plays against type’ New York Times

‘Brilliant and savage’ Philip Hensher

An unprecedented history of the personality test conceived a century ago by a mother and her daughter – fiction writers with no formal training in psychology – and how it insinuated itself into our boardrooms, classrooms, and beyond.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It has been harnessed by Fortune 100 companies, universities, hospitals, churches, and the military. Its language – of extraversion vs. introversion, thinking vs. feeling – has inspired online dating platforms and Buzzfeed quizzes alike. And yet despite the test's widespread adoption, experts in the field of psychometric testing, a $500 million industry, struggle to account for its success – no less validate its results. How did the Myers-Briggs insinuate itself into our jobs, our relationships, our internet, our lives?

First conceived in the 1920s by the mother-daughter team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, a pair of aspiring novelists and devoted homemakers, the Myers-Briggs was designed to bring the gospel of Carl Jung to the masses. But it would take on a life of its own, reaching from the smoke-filled boardrooms of mid-century New York to Berkeley, California, where it was honed against some of the 20th century's greatest creative minds. It would travel across the world to London, Zurich, Cape Town, Melbourne, and Tokyo; to elementary schools, nunneries, wellness retreats, and the closed-door corporate training sessions of today.

Drawing from original reporting and never-before-published documents, What’s Your Type? examines nothing less than the definition of the self – our attempts to grasp, categorise and quantify our personalities. Surprising and absorbing, the book, like the test at its heart, considers the timeless question: What makes you you?

Informazioni sull'autore

Merve Emre is associate professor of English at the University of Oxford and fellow of Worcester College. She is the author of Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America. Her work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and other similar publications.