The usefulness of typologies like MB lies entirely in opening one's eyes to the ways that people can be different without necessarily being "better" or "worse",

The usefulness of typologies like MB lies entirely in opening one's eyes to the ways that people can be different without necessarily being "better" or "worse", which is good because it helps us to understand differences (including our own) without being judgemental about them. But in terms of predicting people's behavior or abilities, MB is more harmful than useful, as TFA said, and it should really be seen only as a very limited tool for self-knowledge and personal growth. Btw., I think in that regard the (just as unscientific) enneagram is a much better tool. It also mostly dispenses with the idea that you can "type" others... the enneagram is strictly for self-discovery. As the article says, Psychology now has some meassures of personality that are actually widely agreed on by researchers and which have some validated predictive power. There is the 5-factor model and also the 3 "dark traits". For more about the former I can recommend Daniel Nettle's book "Personality: What makes you the way you are".