Since almost the widespread inception of the internet, and perhaps before that with books, MBTI has become a sort of religion, people believing these 16 types without any evidence. I wonder, what attracts people to it? I suppose humans like to see patterns in things, even if there may not be, a confirmation bias. I guess it also gives a sense of "community" and "tribalism."
You are right on people have many motives on why they believe in MBTI because some people want to identify as a particular MBTI type for whatever reason, some want to belong to a particular type, etc. primitive reasons but it's not really the fundamental reason. The fundamental reason is it's because of how the brain works. Brain's purpose is making sense the perceived reality by finding answers by defining, determining, finding connections, etc. no matter if it's just made up or proven because it has to believe in something to function. Most people tend to choose the easy way because they prefer positive emotions and gaining more with less effort therefore they believe in any BS that makes them feel better.
About evidence, psychology is a field that is hard to find evidence but MBTI has its evidence enough in a neurological way as, for example, how the brain of a Ni user works is different than people who don't use Ni, et cetera. Also, only a fool ignores the obvious fact that those who have the same MBTI type show similar behaviours. Just ask uncle google for evidence on that. You may think the evidence ain't good enough to make you believe in it, then suit yourself, it's a different matter.
My only complaint about MBTI is, MBTI ain't a personality theory but a behaviour theory as the rest of the pseudo-personality theories that currently exist. Anyone who had a high school level psychology and biology class already knows every people has a unique personality therefore you can't group people with "personality types". because what makes us who we are is our genes, chemical difference in our body that affect our psyche and the life we had. It's impossible for two people to have the same life therefore even twins who were always close to each other have different personalities. Even as a behaviour theory it's a bad theory because it lacks many functions, it's not good enough about how people use functions and how functions really affect behaviour, etc. stuff — it's too simple and deficient. For example, Se functions are currently like a Joker function for a lot of cognitive processes, MBTI currently missing some types like Te-Ni-Fe-Si and whatnot for some excuse and why people can't have, for example, Te and Ti in their function stack is kinda nonsense.
With random mutations, it seems like we all may be unique and that there aren't really any common types among people. However, maybe we really aren't that different as we may think.
All life forms are the same on the biological programming part especially about survival and producing which makes the life forms behave in the same way. What makes life forms different is their personalities.
Currently primitive people even though they are a "scientist" consider humans are unique in their own way because they believe; consciousness, personalities, etc. are a quiddity which is exclusive only for humans but it's actually characteristic of a life form that is evolved in a particular degree therefore like humans other animals have consciousness and personality too, crows have gang mentality like humans does, whales name each other, they have a society pretty much similar to humans as whales have particular roles in their own society, et cetera et cetera.
It would be mildly interesting to see if there is any correlation of OCEAN / BIG 5 among the 16 types. intuitive types tend to all have openers to experience in common. F types perhaps have more agreeableness and neuroticism. Thinking types have more disagreeableness. Sensing types have conscientiousness in common.
There is actually:
• Openness to experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious): Ne users inventive/curious while Ni users are consistent/cautious.
• Conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. extravagant/careless): XXXJs are efficient/organized while XXXPs are extravagant/careless.
• Extraversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved): EXXXs are outgoing/energetic while IXXXs are solitary/reserved.
But being extrovert and introvert is different than extrovert and introvert behaviour therefore, for example, just because someone is an extrovert doesn't mean they won't prefer to be alone.
• Agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. challenging/callous): Fe users are friendly/compassionate while Fi users are challenging/callous, especially Fi + Te users.
• Neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. resilient/confident): Unhealthy Fi users are sensitive/nervous while healthy Fi users are resilient/confident.
You see, OCEAN/Big 5 is actually rip off of MBTI but it's deficient about Ti and Te functions.
