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In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

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Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#11
The scale titles are terrible. Based on Kersey's work, I think of the four scales as answers to four questions:

(1) How do you get your batteries recharged: Extraverts do so by being with people, introverts by the world of ideas. (It's not about your social skills. I'm an introvert who can easily converse with strangers).

(2) How do you take in the world? Details, or larger, vaguer impressions. My wife's friend walks in after a 10 years absence and says "Oh, you got your couch recovered". That ain't me. You could paint the room purple and I wouldn't notice.

(3) How do you make decisions? From the gut, or by thinking about them. Thinking takes a lot longer, from the gut can be quick.

(4) How much need for closure do you have (firm plans vs playing it by ear, filing cabinets vs piles).

Anecdotally, I've found this useful to view myself, my wife, and the world, but it plays a little fast and loose with the science.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#13

I find it amazing that anyone uses it in the business world. Next up HR will be adding tarrot cards and oiji boards Then again I find it amazing that anyone uses it at all. It's complete trash

The voodoo I’ve seen from HR departments makes MB look like Newtonian Physics.

Yet they are so bad at stats that you can’t even enter a discussion on if it passes any kind of empirical test.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#14
post #10

An interesting thing about introversion/extroversion and testing: Assuming that I remember details right from a class I took over twenty years ago, taking caffeine before a test improves performance for introverts but not extroverts (unless I misremembered and it's the other way around). It's a remarkably strong result and one of the few strong results in experimental personality research.

What does "improve" mean on an introvert/extrovert test?

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#15
post #11

The scale titles are terrible. Based on Kersey's work, I think of the four scales as answers to four questions: (1) How do you get your batteries recharged: Extraverts do so by being with people, introverts by the world of ideas. (It's not about your social skills. I'm an introvert who can easily converse with strangers). (2) How do you take in the world? Details, or larger, vaguer impressions. My wife's friend walks…

I think the naming is intentional. The titles have to be short and simple, and none can be shameful. If you pick a shameful-sounding title like "neurotic" in the Big 5, few people would willingly admit to it and you certainly can't politely ask about it.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#16
post #14
post #10

An interesting thing about introversion/extroversion and testing: Assuming that I remember details right from a class I took over twenty years ago, taking caffeine before a test improves performance for introverts but not extroverts (unless I misremembered and it's the other way around). It's a remarkably strong result and one of the few strong results in experimental personality research.

What does "improve" mean on an introvert/extrovert test?

I think they mean improves performance on an unrelated skill/knowledge test, such as doing math problems. The benefit is realized either in introverts or extroverts apparently.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#17
post #11

The scale titles are terrible. Based on Kersey's work, I think of the four scales as answers to four questions: (1) How do you get your batteries recharged: Extraverts do so by being with people, introverts by the world of ideas. (It's not about your social skills. I'm an introvert who can easily converse with strangers). (2) How do you take in the world? Details, or larger, vaguer impressions. My wife's friend walks…

on question (1), there have been scientific researches that shows if you identify as "introvert" or "extrovert", it can be explained by your body's "efficiency" in releasing dopamine [1]

[1] https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/07/brain-chemistry-pla...

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#18
When I first heard about it in grade 8, I thought it was the dumbest thing ever. The first pair, Introvert or Extrovert made sense. But I could never make up my mind on the rest: Intuitive or Sensing, Thinking or Feeling, Judging or Perceiving? I felt I could be either, depending upon mood.

Later I learned that these terms had hyperspecialized meanings, different from how most people use them in everyday speech, especially the latter two pairs (thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving).

Finally I heard that the last pair is some kind of key, which turns the meaning of the middle two pairs. If that does't make sense, that is expected. The letters are just symptoms of inner causes, called the Cognitive Functions, which only the most serious of devotees have heard of, and even fewer understand.

---

To go back to basics, it is obvious to me that personality is partly biological. Whether you are introvert or extrovert, for example, doesn't seem to be changeable by sheer force of will or even long, continuous practice. The genetic origin doesn't mean you will match your parents. Just like hair color or the shape of the nose, it can vary, and genes from both sides interact to form a unique child each time. Child 1 can be the polar opposite of Child 2, and things are reinvented once again with Child 3 --- and I don't think it's all explained by birth order. I think there are personality genes.

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The best way I have found to approach Myers Briggs is backwards. Instead of taking a test or trying to understand the exact meaning of each letter, just read the prose descriptions of the 16. https://www.personalitypage.com/html/portraits.html I think you will find some familiar faces in there --- not only a few that sound like yourself but many that remind you of friends. And these are about how you are in default mode, when you are relaxed, not trying. Certainly you can imitate the others for a little while. But some things seem to go with your grain, and others against it. How are you when you behave automatically? That's all that it's about --- not your whole potential when you bring learning and effort into the mix. Some things that are easy and natural for others will always be harder for you, and vice versa.

So there's something to it. My main reservation is that I think 16 is too many, but only by a little. Maybe there are just 12 genetic types (which are further built upon by one's upbringing, experiences, etc., to make each of us unique).

---

As a final note, back to the Cognitive Functions, I think they may be hard to grapple with at first, but they are what make Myers Briggs distinctive. It is the only personality theory that posits that how you feel on the inside is often the opposite of how you appear on the outside. For example, I think I am probably an INFJ. Alone in my thoughts or in writing, I am analytical, logical, factual, always trying to come to judgment on this theory or that. But at a party I am open, agreeable (to a fault), even gregarious if my energy is up. Likewise someone else may feel in touch with humanity in their inner selves, but socially will come across as coolly decisive and a hard-nosed debater.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#19
I've never really understood the harsh criticisms of MBTI. It's not super predictive, but not to be honest, nothing else in psychology is either; the whole field is just not anywhere near the level of physics or chemistry (not to blame the researchers; predicting humans is very hard). The big 5 and I think more recently an 18 dimensional breakdown (using PCA or ICA?) just aren't that much better than MBTI, despite many online claims to the contrary.

Myers-Briggs at least has some small level of predictive power, so no, it's not like horoscopes. There was once a poll of engineers at the tech company I work at, and I think the results were like 70% INTJ, 25% INTP, and 5% other. If MBTI lacked all predictive power, you would expect a distribution roughly equivalent to that of the general population. Could people self-select what they "want" to be? Sure, but it's still predictive of something in that case.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#20

I've never really understood the harsh criticisms of MBTI. It's not super predictive, but not to be honest, nothing else in psychology is either; the whole field is just not anywhere near the level of physics or chemistry (not to blame the researchers; predicting humans is very hard). The big 5 and I think more recently an 18 dimensional breakdown (using PCA or ICA?) just aren't that much better than MBTI, despite ma…

> I've never really understood the harsh criticisms of MBTI. It's not super predictive [...]

I think the problem might be that people are using it to 'predict' things.

> Myers-Briggs

Wikipedia will give you a lot of references to research as to why this is not considered science (or even science-adjacent).

Anecdotally, I have been subjected to these (or something very similar at least) as a condition of employment. It was so incredibly transparent that I chose a personality at the outset and 'achieved' that outcome.

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