MBTI® Mayhem in Mexico

by Evelyn LaTorre

​I majored in psychology and sociology in college so I could study how individuals and human societies develop and function. My search led me to the MBTI. My interest has kept me in BAAPT, where my learning has continued for the past 40 years and heightened my understanding of myself, my family, and those with whom I work. 

My two major interests, personality type and the Latino culture, combined when the international women educators’ organization I belonged to, Delta Kappa Gamma (DKG), chose me to be the international speaker at Jalisco State’s Convention in February 1994. The planners of the two-day event requested that I administer, interpret, and give a talk in Spanish about the MBTI to 139 educators in a half-day session. Flora, a Spanish-speaking psychologist colleague agreed to accompany me. I packed my suitcase with 140 booklets of the MBTI in Spanish and two sets of scoring templates.

Mexico felt familiar the minute the plane descended. Cheerful buildings of bright yellow, orange, and green slid by my window to greet me. I heard lively Mariachi music coming from somewhere in the terminal. Only in Mexico would there be welcoming entertainment in an airline terminal. Flora and I disembarked and were greeted with hugs by Hilda, the local DKG chapter president.

“Our program tomorrow morning, Education in the Twenty-First Century,” Hilda said, “will feature a government official speaking for the first hour about the new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). You’ll speak for second hour and after lunch.”

As often happened to me in Spanish-speaking countries, the day didn’t unfold as planned. Instead of the 139 teachers I expected, 230 people were in the audience. The official speaking about how NAFTA would affect Mexico held the audience’s interest, so he just kept talking--for two and a half hours! He encroached an hour into my allotted time. His overage meant I couldn’t explain as much about the MBTI as I’d planned. In my forty-five minutes before the lunch break, I explained what I could, then distributed the booklets and answer sheets for the assessment. There weren’t enough pencils or booklets. From somewhere we obtained more pencils, and I asked the participants to silently share question booklets with each other. That broke the required test protocol, but I needed to get through this. Then, I was caught off-guard by a voice from the middle of the auditorium.

“Doctora, what do we do with the sheet full of circles?”

“I’ve never seen a page like this. What is this page of zeros for?” said another teacher.

It had never occurred to me that my audience wouldn’t know how to use this type of fill-in-the-bubble answer form, a staple in US schools for tests. I searched my Spanish vocabulary to explain the concept of filling in a bubble to correspond with an answer. Next problem: How to score the inventories during the hour lunch break.

Fortunately, 100 participants had been from another group and didn’t return any inventory sheets. Foregoing plates of delicious-smelling tacos, beans, and rice, Flora and I managed to hand-score all the forms using the two sets of templates. As the teachers present took the last bite of their flan dessert, I jotted down the total number of individuals in each of the sixteen personality categories. A bit frazzled, I hurriedly returned to the stage. Upon entering, I heard several participants expressing skepticism at how answering a series of questions could correctly describe them. But when these same individuals read the description of their type that I provided them, I heard gasps of surprise. Many exclaimed that they couldn’t believe how accurately the MBTI had depicted their personalities.

Using a series of overhead transparencies, I explained the importance of understanding personality differences and emphasized the instrument’s usefulness for successful communication and learning.

“Would the two of you with ENFP preferences care to identify yourselves?” I asked, searching the audience for those with my same personality type.

The two Mexican teachers with ENFP preferences were good friends and sat side by side. There was no time to do the required type verification. Based on research at that time, the expected percentage of ENFPs for a group of businessmen in the States would have been around 5 percent, not the .01 percent of the teachers here.

Cross-cultural research with the MBTI, at that time, had predicted my test results for Mexican businessmen. Fifty-three percent of my mostly female teacher instrument-takers fell into the STJ category and another 18 percent into the SFJ category for a total of over 71 percent in the SJ grouping. SJ types are broadly defined as systematic, factual, and conservative. The US population falls around the 40 percent level for SJ types. The differences maybe were partly attributed to the Mexican education system, which in 1994, tended to emphasize facts and “one correct” solution or what an authority says, instead of many possible outcomes.

I couldn’t say I liked the evaluations of my presentation. Quite a few of the attendees criticized the mistakes I’d made in speaking Spanish. However, many wrote that they now had new information about why people are different. I felt pleased to have facilitated new knowledge. However, I wouldn’t attempt such a bold teaching venture again any time soon. ❖

This reflection is an abbreviated excerpt (pp. 277-282) from Evelyn’s memoir, Love in Any Language.