Have you noticed the huge disconnect between human relations professionals and the academic community in regard to personality assessment? Human relations professionals use the Myers Briggs personality assessment, which the academic community has criticized as being "pseudoscientific." What is going on here? Why is an instrument negatively evaluated by academia so popular?

The message of Myers Briggs is powerful: We are very different from each other in terms of our traits, values, and perceptions of the world. The differences are so great we often misunderstand each other, which leads to unnecessary conflicts and other problems. We need to see the world more through the eyes of others to appreciate why they do what they do. We need to stop confusing individuality for disorder. The solution is tolerance, not diagnostic labels.

Academics have criticized Myers Briggs because of issues arising from the theory of personality types and concerns about the psychometric validity of the measure, especially factorial validity. In my opinion, however, the popularity of Myers Briggs has more to do with its broader message of tolerance than its specific theory of personality types. Historically, we have seen advocates for tolerance of race, culture, and sexual orientation. Myers Briggs is a rare example of tolerance of diverse personalities.