TESTING THE BIPOLARITY OF THE JUNGIAN FUNCTIONS

In this article, I offer an alternative explanation for recent studies that have questioned the assumed bipolarity of the Jungian functions measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) due to the failure to observe negative correlations between the hypothesized opposite fun ctions when a Likert format is used in place of the MBTI's forced-choi ce format (Cowan, 1989; Girelli & Stake, 1993; Loomis & Singer, 1980). It was suggested that the acquiescence response set might be partiall y responsible. A new instrument was constructed using agree-disagree i tems. Negative correlations between the hypothesized opposite function s were not observed. To deal with the acquiescence response set, parti cipants were ranked on the number of statements endorsed, and the scor es for the middle third of participants were analyzed again. For these participants, correlations of -.67 and -.69 between each pair of theo retically opposite functions were found. I conclude that this largely refutes criticisms of the bipolarity assumption, but there is still re ason to develop a measure not relying on the assumption.