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HN Poll: What is your personality type?

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71–80 of 80 posts

Re: HN Poll: What is your personality type?

#72
post #23

I couldn't let this pass without bringing up the Forer Effect [1]: basically, that people will believe just about any vague generalization as long as they think it's been tailored to them. For all of the "science" that goes into building the models for these tests (not just MBTI), any that rely completely on self-evaluation (especially multiple choice questions), should be taken with a huge grain of salt. They're fin…

I'm not so sure. Years ago when I went to business school, they tested all 400 of my classmates. At the same time in the same room.

Then, they lined us all up on a scale from I to E and asked us to group up with the people next to us and do some simple things - like "plan a party".

The people at the I end of the spectrum planned a very, very different party than those at the E end. The difference was shocking. I think the extreme I people invited two close friends for dinner at their apartment. The E extremests planned a 10,000 person rager. All from the simple instructions "Plan a party."

Similar raknings for the other three pairings produced similarly dramatic differences in the way we approached common tasks. So I'm pretty sure it's not just entertainment.

You could argue people were just doing what they were "supposed" to do, but being one of those people - I don't think that was the case. We were just playing goofy icebreaker games as far as we knew.

On the other hand, practically speaking, all it taught me was "Don't assume everyone thinks like you." Not exactly a huge breakthrough, but not astrology either.

Re: HN Poll: What is your personality type?

#73
I'm a pure coordinator on the DISC[0] test, with natural values of 23, 7, 100, 100 for D, I, S, and C, respectively. School has brought the high values down and the low values up, but not too much.

This is a fairly common result for programmers, but rare for the rest of the population. Successful startup founders tend to be high D and C, iirc.

[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DISC_assessment

Re: HN Poll: What is your personality type?

#74
I got ENFP but it was a 1 on the Extroverted scale, compared to 50 50 44 on the others. The Intro/Extroversion questions are always tricky for me, because I generally would rather be social with people than alone by myself, but my adolescence was rocky so I'm still playing catchup on the social skills.

Re: HN Poll: What is your personality type?

#76
post #23

I couldn't let this pass without bringing up the Forer Effect [1]: basically, that people will believe just about any vague generalization as long as they think it's been tailored to them. For all of the "science" that goes into building the models for these tests (not just MBTI), any that rely completely on self-evaluation (especially multiple choice questions), should be taken with a huge grain of salt. They're fin…

I'm not so sure. Years ago when I went to business school, they tested all 400 of my classmates. At the same time in the same room. Then, they lined us all up on a scale from I to E and asked us to group up with the people next to us and do some simple things - like "plan a party". The people at the I end of the spectrum planned a very, very different party than those at the E end. The difference was shocking. I thin…

Personality tests aren't very revelatory though. Telling someone whether they are shy or not is almost the same as telling someone what color their eyes are -- they could've just as easily looked in the mirror and figured it out a long time ago.

Re: HN Poll: What is your personality type?

#77
post #9

ENFP checking in. Been doing this test every year or two for about 6 years now and has by far been the one I find the most accurate. I'm actually pretty interested to see how this survey turns out as well. Anyone have any predictions on what the distribution might look like?

I'm also an ENFP, and I always get the same result. I find it so odd that there are such individual differences in this test, and that those differences follow a predictable distribution in the general population.

I'm happy with the result anyway, but I wish I was better at finishing things :)

Re: HN Poll: What is your personality type?

#78
I'm an INTJ. INTJ wins these polls everywhere I've been on the internet. Allegedly only one percent or so of the population is INTJ.

This could be since my interests tend to attract lots of people like me, or because INTJ isn't actually that rare, or because internet forums as a whole attract a disproportionate number of INTJs. Perhaps the true reason is something else, though.

Re: HN Poll: What is your personality type?

#79

I just read a book called "The Millionaire Code" http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Code-Paths-Wealth-Building... that talked about these personality types as well. The premise of the book is that by understanding your type and choosing a career that is a good fit you are more likely to achieve financial independence. One thing that occurred to me while reading it was that so many of the holy wars in software might be…

Well, it's wrong about Edison and Jung. Edison was a classic Enneagram Eight, which corresponds to ENTx (Jung's "extroverted intuitive type"); Jung himself, I'd wager, was a One, which I think corresponds to ESTx (Jung's "extroverted thinking type").

I'm back at home now and I misquoted the book. Actually it is listing Edison, Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson as ENTP. The book does list Jung, Einstein, and Steven Hawking as INTP which it calls "Visionary Thinkers". That chapter actually discusses the fact that Jung was an introvert who would retreat to his secluded cabin to recharge.

Re: HN Poll: What is your personality type?

#80
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if the personality types in MBTI were that vague (as vague, for instance, as a horoscope) then I'd agree with you. But I know that certain types describe me a lot better than others, and it's clear that one which paints me as extroverted, feelings oriented and sensing is clearly wrong.

If you keep asking a person in different ways if they're always in the middle of a party or standing next to the wall, you'll eventually find out if they consider themselves to be introverted or extraverted. Likewise for the other traits. But, at their coarsest levels, people probably already have an inkling about those. (E.g. before you took the test, did you think you may actually be extroverted, feelings oriented,…

Everyone's a psychologist these days...
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