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The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#161

Post by amelius »

good_gnu wrote: post #146
amelius wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me devise a test. The test is just "are you a man or a woman?". Does this have predictive power? Yes. If I needed somebody to take care of small children, would this test be useful? Yes of course. If I had to pick people blindly for this task, except for the results of this test, then this test would be very useful. Now, MBTI is more sophisticated than this simple test. So to say that it has no predictive power i…

According to your logic, sophistication implies better predictive power. You completely ignore the fact that someone could devise a very elaborate system for judging e.g. fitness for a certain job, make very good assumptions and work very hard and still achieve poor predictive power.

True, but not very likely.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#162

Post by alexbanks »

amelius wrote: post #97
Analemma_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't get why some people can't seem to tell the difference between things like MBTIs and astrological signs/zodiacs/horoscopes Then let me try to help clarify. MBTI has no predictive power ("I'm an INTP, so... ?") and is not falsifiable. Those are the delineators between science and pseudoscience, so that's why I bucket it with astrology.

.

You're saying that, because companies use it to test employees, that means it has predictive power? Or is it that companies BELIEVE it has predictive power, so companies use it?

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#164

Post by 77pt77 »

amelius wrote: post #97
Analemma_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't get why some people can't seem to tell the difference between things like MBTIs and astrological signs/zodiacs/horoscopes Then let me try to help clarify. MBTI has no predictive power ("I'm an INTP, so... ?") and is not falsifiable. Those are the delineators between science and pseudoscience, so that's why I bucket it with astrology.

.

> MBTI has predictive power; for starters, it is used by companies to test if a person is fit for certain tasks.

This is a null argument.

Unless you show that those predictions actually assess whether someone is fit for those tasks this is absolutely content free.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#165

Post by rlucas »

ivraatiems wrote: post #92
0xfffafaCrash wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a scientist, so I kind of know how science works. There's a difference between saying the extent of something's effectiveness hasn't been established by existing research and saying that it is ineffective. I've read the publication you are linking to before and it is saying the latter without the evidence necessary to back up the claim.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you. You are lacking a basic understanding of how the research process works in social sciences. I don't want to be "credentials guy," but I have a degree in cognitive science and I've conducted human subjects research. What you are saying is simply wrong. That publication cites dozens of studies to back up its claims. Are you suggesting they are all invalid? If so, why?

Did you read the same linked article I did? There were not cites to "dozens of studies;" rather, there were quotes from the Guardian and something called Skeptoid, plus a quoted but uncited "researcher."

Combined with the fact that this is basically a listicle ("quoticle?") clickbait from a mid/low-brow popsci website, with no analysis or synthesis, and you can pretty much throw TFA away, regardless of your side of what's shaping up to be a religious war here on HN.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#166

Post by dragonwriter »

amelius wrote: post #97
Analemma_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't get why some people can't seem to tell the difference between things like MBTIs and astrological signs/zodiacs/horoscopes Then let me try to help clarify. MBTI has no predictive power ("I'm an INTP, so... ?") and is not falsifiable. Those are the delineators between science and pseudoscience, so that's why I bucket it with astrology.

.

I suppose that demonstrates that MBTI had predictive power as to whether one will be hired by one of those companies, but it doesn't demonstrate anything beyond that.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#167

Post by gh1 »

Bartweiss wrote: post #120
gh1 wrote: post #82

This article is as unscientific as it claims the Myers-Briggs test to be. It does not prove the Myers-Briggs test wrong, but instead claims that there is no evidence to support it. Well, in science, if you want to claim that something is wrong, you need two things: the theory must be falsifiable and you need to falsify it. Just claiming something has no evidence is not enough. Some more critique on the article. 1. Th…

For these points, I think it's crucial to distinguish "Myers-Briggs style tests" from The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The first thing, MB-style tests, are amorphous and have been improved in various ways since the invention of the test. That second thing is a formalized test with licensed practitioners. It's been used to disqualify people from jobs, and has produced a huge amount of secondary literature/analysis whi…

I guess you are referring to this. http://www.myersbriggs.org/

This is a valid point. If the version that most companies are using needs a binary classification, then this is a meaningful criticism of the test.

However, note that this is just be a criticism of the test. It says nothing about whether the tests are effective or not, which is what the article tries to prove.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#168

Post by eivarv »

amelius wrote: post #158
eivarv wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm not a huge fan of Myers-Briggs (or rather, how it's used), that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the fact that some people are using it for some purpose doesn't mean that it's actually useful for that purpose. As for your response, the burden of proof really lies with its proponents - is there any proof of its alleged predictive power?

Strictly speaking you are right, my logic was flawed (hidden assumption). But let's stick with the orignal issue here, which is whether the test is predictive.

Agreed - this is why I asked whether there is any proof of its alleged predictive power.

Without this, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that it is in fact predictive.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#169

Post by Bartweiss »

mgkimsal wrote: post #155
Bartweiss wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My primary concern with even cursory usage of Myers-Briggs is that retest consistency isn't as high as I'd like. Plenty of people retest very solidly, of course, but there's a large-percentage chunk of the population that walks or more boundaries and doesn't put up consistent tests. That makes it hard to say anything about the results, at least in simple "my type" terms. A nuanced discussion would probably accept tha…

I've retested several times, and while I'm normally I (strong), my other values were weaker, and fluctuated some (sometimes F, sometimes T, for example). Amazingly, I've had arguments about this with folks. (probably E folks). They claimed that "it never changes", which is just patently untrue. Perhaps E folks don't introspect enough to re-evaluate their views on things? I know I tested different 5 years ago compared…

I've flipped at least two letters over time, and at least one letter on next-morning retest. J/P in particular has never seemed clear or significant to me.

I think this is actually the most common experience. The data I've seen says that scores on all four 'axes' are normally distributed. So it's actually fairly exceptional to have strong, predictable positions for every letter; cutting a bunch of normal distributions down the middle means most of us are on a boundary.

And yes, it's probably those silly E folks saying they never change. God forbid we wake up tomorrow testing as E, we'll have a paradox on our hands.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#170

Post by xkcd-sucks »

raverbashing wrote: post #156
jfoutz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a completely reasonable approach. Like astrology or tarot cards. Getting people thinking about big questions in a non threatening way can spark interesting conversations. There are a lot of cultural norms that prevent people from talking about themselves in that kind of way. A little hocus pocus can help cut through that. In that same spirit alcohol is a pretty great social lubricant. A little bit of booze lo…

No Because those mentioned deal with random events, where X and Y are uncorrelated (being X a date of birth or card drawn from Tarot and Y is some personality characteristic) MB do ask you questions from which you can predict - to some degree - some outcomes (how do you think a strong Extrovert changes from a strong Introvert)? Just don't do something stupid like "this job requires a INTJ only" or think that the dist…

Astrology is correlated to seasonal climate change etc. which can plausibly affect life outcomes, though
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