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The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

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

#261

Post by mgkimsal »

Bartweiss wrote: post #169
mgkimsal wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 distribution…

:)

The folks who have argued that point with me over the years all happened to be strong E. I'm talking perhaps 3-4 people over 20 years - not a huge number to go on, but it was the only consistent I saw (male/female/old/young/etc).

Me: "Wow, I took this a few years ago and was a moderate F, but now I'm a slight T".

Them: "That's just not possible. It doesn't work that way. You just don't remember what you had before. It doesn't change".

Me: "WTF??"

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

#262

Post by a3n »

I've never been interested in Myers-Briggs. I have no idea what the designations are or what they mean. I have no idea what my score (?) is, and I'm profoundly uninterested.

My uninterest only increased when I was in an environment where this was a frequent point of reference among co-workers, as I watched people with no education and training in psychology or other relevant fields make pronouncements and direct people's work lives based on four letters.

As far as I can see (and obviously, I don't know a lot about MB), it's words pulled out of legitimate fields of study and used ignorantly and out of context, sometimes with real consequences.

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

#263

Post by Bartweiss »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #205
Bartweiss wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I made my point clearly. I'm not suggesting that MBTI claims we're 100% E or I. I'm saying that it assigns binary distributions on those axes, which would make it meaningful to talk about "E dominant" and "I dominant" people. Every study I've seen of the actual data, though, says that these are normally distributed traits. So there are some people with distinctive, meaningful dominant modes on these axe…

I thought the MBTI gave an X if you were actually at the middle? So you'd get an I at less than 45%, an E at more than 55%, and an X if you were on the border. Further, you said they were normally distributed, but didnt talk about the variance. It's possible that people who are just a little from the middle by % of population are meaningfully different than the average -- a quarter standard deviation could be a meani…

I'm oversimplifying, yes.

Several instances I've seen of MBTI didn't offer X, but that's definitely an improvement. The one I got for high school career services actually crashed if you 'tied', because that hadn't been accounted for at all.

Without the X band, "normal distribution" is enough to say things are broken. It means that you're consistently dividing similar people while grouping dissimilar people, which isn't what I like in a cluster.

With the X band, SD becomes important and a wide distribution might provide good results. Anecdotally, this could match the high attention given to E/I versus F/T - high SD axes would be relevant to more people.

Having said that, I'm still skeptical of much of the MBTI literature. It definitely deals in bimodal distributions, asserting that these clusterings are features of the territory rather than the map. If the peak frequency is a value the test can't inform about, I think that still invalidates much of the literature even if the test has some predictive power.

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

#264

Post by btilly »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #211
n-exploit wrote: post #24

As an individual (INFJ) thoroughly interested in Myers-Briggs, I often see this discussion brought up. As a short rebuttal, I feel as though many of those who tout Myers-Briggs as a comprehensive personality test fail to understand what the Myers-Briggs attempts to identify. While the "value-add" is more subjective, I'm going to go ahead and say it's not as useless as this article claims. While I don't think anyone (…

Your comment works surprisingly well like this: As an individual (Taurus) thoroughly interested in astrology, I often see this discussion brought up. As a short rebuttal, I feel as though many of those who tout astrology as a comprehensive personality test fail to understand what astrology attempts to identify. While the "value-add" is more subjective, I'm going to go ahead and say it's not as useless as this article…

The difference is that astrology is a starting point with zero correlation with who you are, while Myers-Briggs is a starting point with positive correlation with who you are. The positive correlation can be surprisingly helpful to understand differences between people.

However you don't need anything so complex for such a starting point. A classic demonstration that I saw was a large group of people who marked where they were on two lines. The first was how organized you were. The second was how extroverted you were. Based on this we divided into 4 groups, and began talking. It was surprising how much people in each group had in common. And how differently the groups behaved. The groups were:

Introverted and disorganized: Supporter. Good shoulder to cry on.

Introverted and organized: Analyst. They make good accountants.

Extroverted and disorganized: Promoter. High energy, lots of ideas, not a lot of carry through.

Extroverted and organized: Controller. They generally relate to, "My way or the highway."

I was in the Promoter quadrant. One of the things we had in common was that our spaces look like a tornado just tore through it, but please don't clean up because then we won't know where anything is. :-)

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

#265

Post by [deleted] »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #234
whitehouse3 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that doesn't work at all. OP is saying that he draws conclusions about someone's personality based on the Meyers-Briggs type with which they identify. That logic doesn't apply to the zodiac because your star-sign is based on your birthday. People don't lie about their birthday to become a Virgo. But they might fudge the answers to the Meyers-Briggs survey so they appear more "introverted" and "thinking". If you c…

That logic doesn't apply to the zodiac Sure it does. I've met people who will say things like "My sun sign is Virgo, but my personality is dominated by my Sagittarius moon", and then later say something like "I'm going through Saturn return, no wonder Pisces is such an influence". If you compare someone's self-view ("I'm an Aries!") with their behavior (definitely a Gemini), you can draw conclusions. It's standard pr…

[deleted]

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

#266

Post by rlucas »

ivraatiems wrote: post #171
rlucas wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

I'm talking about the study I just linked, not the article that started this discussion.

Apologies, I missed that. The review paper you linked was indeed deeply researched and had a good synthesis of what it discussed. Decided not a pop Sci listicle :)

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

#267

Post by michaelborromeo »

MBTI is a very misunderstood system. People tend to take it too far and in directions it shouldn't go. It's not surprising when it's labeled as meaningless.

Here's one example: I'm an ISTP which is only one letter away from ISFP. That's pretty similar right?

No, they're actually pretty different.

The letters ISTP are just a shorthand for a system developed by Carl Jung. ISTP actually means that I have a stack of behaviors that I tend towards and that I've developed as I've aged.

The stack goes as follows: Introverted Thinking which I have (supposedly) developed since I was young. http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-thinking/

Extraverted Sensing which, again supposedly, I started developing since I was in my teens and through my 20s. http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-sensing-se/

Introverted Intuition which I've been developing more recently (30s). http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-intuition/

And finally Extraverted Feeling which is still moderately awkward for me (like trying to write with my off hand). It's getting less awkward as I get older. http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-feeling-fe/

An ISFP, on the other hand, has the following stack: Introverted Feeling, Extraverted Sensing, Introverted Intuition, and Extraverted Thinking.

And other types have their own function stack that they've developed as they've aged. Some faster, some slower. This is one potential reason why people test differently as they age. I first took the test I was in my 20s when I was at a different point in my maturation process. Nowadays I'm much more focused on long term goals as opposed to short term satisfaction. Maybe I'm just developing my Introverted Intuition which is typically associated more with long term thinking. Maybe it's just part of the maturation process everyone goes through.

I will say, though, some people I've observed have gone through the process in reverse -- being interested in long term goals when they're young and then realizing they should also pay attention to short term gratification a little as they age. Maybe they're a type that leads with Introverted Intuition. Who knows.

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

#268

Post by pmarreck »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #211
n-exploit wrote: post #24

As an individual (INFJ) thoroughly interested in Myers-Briggs, I often see this discussion brought up. As a short rebuttal, I feel as though many of those who tout Myers-Briggs as a comprehensive personality test fail to understand what the Myers-Briggs attempts to identify. While the "value-add" is more subjective, I'm going to go ahead and say it's not as useless as this article claims. While I don't think anyone (…

Your comment works surprisingly well like this: As an individual (Taurus) thoroughly interested in astrology, I often see this discussion brought up. As a short rebuttal, I feel as though many of those who tout astrology as a comprehensive personality test fail to understand what astrology attempts to identify. While the "value-add" is more subjective, I'm going to go ahead and say it's not as useless as this article…

If I'm not mistaken, isn't "confirmation bias" basically the thing at play in the existence of both of these?

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

#269

Post by mturmon »

logfromblammo wrote: post #254
jplahn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why do we use the summary rollup when it completely loses any of the granular insights? It makes no sense for me to say I'm an E when it was 51E, 49I. For me personally, shouldn't I instead say something like 51E64N60F65J? Likewise, the "insights" you get into your 4 letters is based on whatever the majority letter was, even when your percentages are nowhere near 100% for each.

You're rolling perilously close to the cliff that has your Geek Code signature block at the bottom.

Precise geek coding is typical behavior for NTPs. ;-)
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