Is there a smartest MBTI type? What the research says about MBTI and IQ

Lists of the “smartest MBTI types” and charts of “average IQ by type” keep circulating on social media and forums. Many put INTJ or INTP at the top, and some give every type its own IQ number. It is natural to wonder where your type lands, or where a classmate or coworker would rank. But these charts rarely say who was tested, or with which test.

The short answer: the MBTI does not measure ability, and we found no research-based IQ ranking of the 16 types. A few studies did give the same people the MBTI and an intelligence test. Several found that people leaning toward Intuition (N) or Perceiving (P) scored a little higher on average, but in the one study whose sizes we could check, every letter’s link was small (all below 0.2), and the results for Thinking-Feeling and Extraversion-Introversion varied from study to study. Every type includes people who score high on intelligence tests and people who score low. And an IQ score does not measure a person’s worth.

This guide covers what the MBTI and intelligence tests each measure, which letters were linked to test scores in studies that used both and by how much, and what a large meta-analysis of the Big Five personality traits and intelligence adds. The last sections explain how to read a type ranking with a critical eye, and what you can and cannot check on mind.io.

The MBTI describes what feels natural to you through four preferences. On each of four axes, Extraversion-Introversion (E–I), Sensing-Intuition (S–N), Thinking-Feeling (T–F) and Judging-Perceiving (J–P), you lean one way or the other, and the four leanings together name one of 16 types. There are no right or wrong answers. Agreeing with a statement like “I’m drawn more to future possibilities than to the facts in front of me” moves you toward Intuition; it says nothing about how well you see what is coming.

An intelligence test works the other way around: its questions have right answers. It might ask what a word means, what rule links a set of shapes or how to solve a number problem, then compare your score with those of people your age. That is why an IQ is a relative score: it shows where you stand in your age group. What intelligence tests measure and how accurate they are is covered in our IQ test guide.

One is a questionnaire about how you like to do things; the other is a test of how well you do them. So you cannot read an IQ off an MBTI result. Whether the two are related at all can only be checked by giving the same people both.

The MBTI manual itself touches on intelligence. The 1985 edition reported that students who scored further toward Intuition (N) also tended to score higher on an intelligence test, the California Test of Mental Maturity, and on the verbal section of the SAT (Myers & McCaulley, 1985, as cited in Furnham et al., 2005). We could not read the manual, and the citation gives no figures for the size of the gap.

One study gave the MBTI to 1,297 people aged 14 to 94 across the United States while a new intelligence test, the KAIT, was being standardized. The authors expected Intuition (N) and Thinking (T) to go with higher scores. Intuitive types did earn higher overall IQs than sensing types, but most of the other predictions did not hold (Kaufman et al., 1996, from the abstract). According to a later paper that cites it, the study found no meaningful difference between thinking and feeling types, and no link between Extraversion-Introversion and intelligence (Furnham et al., 2005). The abstract does not say how many points apart the groups were, and we could not read the full text.

A British team gave 900 people a critical thinking test and an abstract reasoning test, along with the NEO PI-R personality inventory and the MBTI. According to the abstract, the traits that predicted intelligence scores most consistently were higher openness and lower neuroticism, and lower extraversion and lower conscientiousness predicted them too (Moutafi et al., 2003, from the abstract). As the same team summarized it two years later, the study’s MBTI results pointed the same way: scores rose toward Intuition (N), correlated positively with Perceiving (P) and negatively with Judging (J), and Extraversion (E) predicted lower scores (Furnham et al., 2005). We could not read this study’s full text either, so we do not know how large these links were.

The study whose numbers we could read is that team’s 2005 paper. It drew on 4,547 job applicants (3,720 men and 819 women) whom a testing firm had assessed with numerical, verbal and abstract reasoning tests and the Jung Type Indicator, a different questionnaire built on the same four axes as the MBTI. Correlations with an overall intelligence score combining the three tests were 0.19 for Perceiving (P), 0.14 for Thinking (T), 0.06 for Intuition (N) and 0.04 for Introversion (I). Taking age and sex into account, they were 0.19, 0.11, 0.07 and 0.09, and the four scales, age and sex together explained 14% of the differences in intelligence scores, with age the strongest single predictor. Intuition correlated 0.12 with verbal reasoning but −0.01, close to zero, with numerical reasoning (Furnham et al., 2005).

Research on gifted students points in a similar direction. A synthesis of 14 studies (19 samples, 5,723 participants in all) found that the most common preferences among gifted adolescents were Intuition (N) and Perceiving (P), and that they scored further toward Introversion (I), Intuition (N), Thinking (T) and Perceiving (P) than high school students in general (Sak, 2004, from the abstract). That describes who ended up in gifted programs, though. “Most common” does not mean students with other preferences were absent, and it does not mean everyone of a given type is gifted.

In November 2026 we also searched the Crossref research database and the Korean database RISS and found no journal article that compared the intelligence scores of all 16 types and ranked them. Of the 32 Korean academic papers RISS returned for “MBTI intelligence” (searched in Korean), most were about emotional intelligence, multiple intelligences or artificial intelligence, and none measured the MBTI alongside an intelligence test.

Since few studies link the MBTI and intelligence directly, the Big Five can serve as a bridge. McCrae and Costa reported that the four MBTI scales partly measure four of the five Big Five dimensions (McCrae & Costa, 1989). When the British team mentioned above gave both tests to 900 people, Extraversion-Introversion lined up with extraversion, Sensing-Intuition with openness, Thinking-Feeling with agreeableness and Judging-Perceiving with conscientiousness (Furnham et al., 2003). Neuroticism, the tendency to feel negative emotions such as worry and tension easily, has no MBTI scale at all. The mind.io Big Five test calls it Emotional sensitivity.

The link between the Big Five and intelligence has been studied far more. In a large meta-analysis published in 2022, openness was the trait most strongly linked to intelligence. Across 209 studies (112,737 people) that measured both, the correlation was 0.17, or 0.20 after correcting for measurement error. Neuroticism came next (−0.08), while extraversion (−0.01), agreeableness (0.00) and conscientiousness (−0.02) were close to zero. Among the NEO inventory’s openness facets, openness to ideas, which is about enjoying ideas and intellectual exploration, had the largest link at 0.25, and openness went more with accumulated knowledge (crystallized intelligence) than with solving new problems (fluid intelligence) (Anglim et al., 2022).

Carried across the bridge, openness’s correlation of 0.17 suggests that people leaning toward Intuition (N), the openness side, may score a little higher on average. That fits the studies that measured the four axes directly, where Intuition kept pointing the same way. Extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness as whole traits were close to zero. At the facet level, though, the same meta-analysis found small negative links (each below 0.1 in size) for sociability and for orderliness, the facet of conscientiousness most tied to Judging-Perceiving (Furnham et al., 2005), so the bridge suggests only that people leaning toward Introversion (I) and Perceiving (P) may score very slightly higher. The direct studies agree on Perceiving: it went with higher scores in both studies that reported Judging-Perceiving and was the largest link (0.19) in the job-applicant study. They were mixed on the other two axes. Thinking (T) went with higher scores in the job-applicant study but made no difference in the KAIT study. Extraversion-Introversion showed no link in the KAIT study, while Introversion (I) went with higher scores in the other two. In the job-applicant study, the one whose sizes we could check, the correlations for all four letters stayed below 0.2.

None of this means that intuitive types are smarter. Researchers describe the link as running both ways. People who enjoy thinking and learning put more time and effort into them, so they build up more knowledge; and people who are good at such problems come to enjoy them more, since we tend to like what we are good at (Anglim et al., 2022). The authors of the job-applicant study offered the first of these readings for Intuition’s link with verbal reasoning: knowledge building up in people who pursue intellectual interests (Furnham et al., 2005). Getting an N on the MBTI does not raise anyone’s intelligence, and getting an S does not lower it.

First, most rankings show no data. It is hard to find one that says how many people took which intelligence test, or how their types were decided. Be even more careful with a chart built from an online poll in which people enter their own type and IQ. In a meta-analysis of 41 studies, people’s own estimates of their intellectual ability correlated about 0.33 with their measured scores (Freund & Kasten, 2012). A score from a free online IQ test is not the same as an IQ from a professional test, either. And there is no telling which types are more likely to answer such polls in the first place.

Second, a preference is not an ability. Intuition (N) means you tend to notice possibilities and patterns before concrete facts; it does not mean you are good at finding patterns. Enjoying a conversation about ideas and being good at solving hard problems are different things. The yardstick matters, too. The MBTI manual noted that perceiving types tend to score somewhat higher on intelligence tests and judging types tend to earn somewhat higher school grades (Myers & McCaulley, 1985, as cited in Furnham et al., 2005), and a meta-analysis of personality and grades found that conscientiousness predicted grades largely independently of intelligence (Poropat, 2009). How MBTI preferences relate to studying is covered in our MBTI study tips guide.

Third, an average does not describe a person. Even the largest correlation in the job-applicant study, 0.19, only means that two groups’ averages differ a little: the scores of people leaning toward Perceiving and toward Judging mostly overlap, and the same goes for Intuition and Sensing. The finding that Intuition and Perceiving were common among gifted teenagers describes a group, not anyone’s ability. On top of that, the MBTI measures four fairly independent dimensions rather than truly distinct types (McCrae & Costa, 1989), so an axis near 50:50 can change letter when you retest. Someone who comes out INTP today might get ISTP next month, and their intelligence will not have changed in between. Our guide to MBTI accuracy explains why.

Fourth, IQ is one number among many. Intelligence tests measure some abilities, such as reasoning, vocabulary and knowledge. They do not measure kindness, persistence, creativity or what a person is worth. How research views the theory that splits intelligence into several kinds is covered in our multiple intelligences guide.

Fifth, type descriptions fit almost everyone a little. A line like “quiet on the outside, with a mind that never stops turning things over” sounds right to nearly anyone. The tendency to accept descriptions that would fit almost anyone is called the Barnum effect. Words like “analytical” or “insightful” in your type’s description do not mean you would score high on an intelligence test.

mind.io has no IQ test. The tests mentioned in this guide are all personality questionnaires, and none of them measures intelligence. Where and how to take a professional intelligence test is covered in the FAQ of our IQ test guide.

The MBTI test (32 statements, about 4 minutes) shows how far you lean on each of the four axes, in percent. An axis close to 50:50 is marked “Near 50:50.” If your Sensing-Intuition axis gets that mark, the letter could change next time.

If you are curious about openness, try the Big Five test (30 statements, about 6 minutes) as well. It scores each of the five traits from 0 to 100. The scores come from your own answers, not a comparison with other people. 33 or below reads as low, 34–66 as mid and 67 or above as high. Your openness score shows how strongly new ideas and experiences draw you in; it is not a stand-in for an intelligence test score, and in the meta-analysis above the link between the two was small.

No page reads your Sensing-Intuition result together with your openness score. My Results shows both results, but its “Reading them together” note compares only Extraversion-Introversion with extraversion, so open both result pages and compare them yourself. Coming out as an N with a mid openness score, or as an S with a high one, is nothing unusual: the two tests overlap only in part and do not measure the same thing.

All the tests in this guide are tools for self-reflection, not diagnoses. The mind.io MBTI test is not the official MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator); it is a free MBTI-style test built around the same four preference axes. The Big Five test is a self-report questionnaire built from mind.io’s own statements, and neither test measures intelligence.

Free “IQ tests” online are not validated measures either. Please do not treat a score you got for fun as evidence of your own ability or anyone else’s.

Above all, please do not use four letters as a label for someone’s ability. Remarks like “you’re an N, so you must be bright” or “that type just isn’t cut out for school” hide what a person has actually done and can still do, at school or at work. The same goes for screening people by MBTI type in hiring or selection. The mind.io MBTI result page itself says the result is not meant for diagnosis, hiring or selection.

References: Myers & McCaulley (1985), Manual: A guide to the development and use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press (book, cited in Furnham et al., 2005); Kaufman, McLean & Lincoln (1996), Assessment 3(3), 225-239, https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191196003003004 (from the abstract); Moutafi, Furnham & Crump (2003), European Journal of Personality 17(1), 79-94, https://doi.org/10.1002/per.471 (from the abstract); Furnham, Moutafi & Paltiel (2005), Intelligence in relation to Jung’s personality types, Individual Differences Research 3(1), 2-13, https://doi.org/10.65030/idr.03001; Sak (2004), Journal of Secondary Gifted Education 15(2), 70-79, https://doi.org/10.4219/jsge-2004-449 (from the abstract); McCrae & Costa (1989), Journal of Personality 57(1); Furnham, Moutafi & Crump (2003), Social Behavior and Personality 31(6); Anglim, Dunlop, Wee, Horwood, Wood & Marty (2022), Psychological Bulletin 148(5-6), 301-336, https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000373 (table figures from the authors’ preprint, https://osf.io/ar6g3); Freund & Kasten (2012), Psychological Bulletin 138(2), 296-321, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026556 (from the abstract); Poropat (2009), Psychological Bulletin 135(2), 322-338, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014996.