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In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

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Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#21

Post by analog31 »

souprock wrote: post #15
lcuff wrote: 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.

I suspect that in a business setting, "introvert" is also seen as a negative. The other MTBI symbols are confusing enough that nobody is likely to remember them off hand, so they are probably neutral. I would advise against self identifying as an introvert. Also, "conscientious" and "openness" probably each have only one right answer.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#22

Post by jplr8922 »

I took the MBTI in my early twenties, then forgot about it. I got into the much more scientific big-5 to understand different types of personalities, and in order to flesh out the possible ranges of behaviors in my mind. Then 10 years later I find myself going back to the MBTI. Why? Because I now understand it as a gateway to Jung ideas, which I find helpful during my current period of professional questionning.

Acording to what I understand, the original idea is that our minds all share basic different functions : thinking, feeling, sensing, intuition, each coming into an introverted or extraverted way. Depending on your lifepath, your self concept (ego) will ''cling'' to certain functions because of perceived talent, events, etc. Then, you will start to realize that you are weaker than what social norms dictate about using some other functions. You might also realize that you judge other for using their functions in an ''inferior'' way, and that some of yours are present but less agile than your favorites. That the last ones are subcounscious and silencious because using them (or seeing other using them) will trigger repressed emotions. Finally, that developping a healthy ego, containing workable 'stack' of cohesive functions which both fits your aspirations and society's expectation is hard. And that maybe one way, your mind will be fluid and adjust itself according to the situation.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#23

Post by analog31 »

Xcelerate wrote: post #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 ma…

Something I wonder is if people within different occupations tend to interpret the questions differently. That would explain a trend in the results, unrelated to personality.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#24

Post by souprock »

Quekid5 wrote: post #20
Xcelerate wrote: post #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 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. I…

Check the math in the article. (the correlation tables especially, both against the "Big 5" and for repeatability) If Myers-Briggs is not science, then the "Big 5" personality traits are also not science. They are tied together, each strongly predictive of the other. Results are repeatable, especially if not rounded to boolean values.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#25

Post by Quekid5 »

anotherfish wrote: post #8

Its good as a one-off. Then you feel all warm and fuzzy as you go "oh yeas this makes sense". I did an experiment using these tests. I ran them every week. Did a different test from a different website. Very little consistency at all. I came to the conclusion it was a waste of time.

It's worse than a waste of time. It's harmful.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#26

Post by Quekid5 »

souprock wrote: post #24
Quekid5 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I…

Check the math in the article. (the correlation tables especially, both against the "Big 5" and for repeatability) If Myers-Briggs is not science, then the "Big 5" personality traits are also not science. They are tied together, each strongly predictive of the other. Results are repeatable, especially if not rounded to boolean values.

I'm going to suggest a hypothetical. Let's ignore any personality test specifics just to generalize.

Ok, so I have a candidate for a position, who shows +5% to "conscientiousness". What does that mean, practically, for me as an employer? It means exactly nothing, because that trait is so vague as to be ... meaningless. (That's just the start of the problems with these tests.)

Even if it M-B (or whatever) is a repeatable effect it has no value as a predictor of performance of a single individual. In aggregate, maybe... (but also no, see the wiki).

It's just people playing Management Consultant extracting money from Management.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#27

Post by abhayb »

combatentropy wrote: post #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, espe…

Sorta sounds like Enneagram types is what you're looking for?

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#28

Post by MattGaiser »

Xcelerate wrote: post #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 ma…

> 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.

I was once part of an accelerator that used the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, which basically seemed like MBTI except with more fees. And it got very similar results for the engineers in the room. Introverted analysts.

And anecdotally, I know very few non INTJ engineers and the few that aren't are INTP (among those of us that have taken the test for career planning or personality testing for the workplace).

I get how it may not be a rigorous way to sort people, but I want some research on whether it at least clusters them.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#29

Post by ncmncm »

Quekid5 wrote: post #20
Xcelerate wrote: post #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 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. I…

It's not science, or science-adjacent, or anything to do with science. It doesn't pretend to be. That's not what it's for.

You can always lie, about anything you like. You can put salt in the sugar bowl. You can substitute decaf in for the coffee at the office, and give everybody caffeine-withdrawl headaches. You can have your dog crap in the sandbox at the park. What do you imagine you would prove, by that? (I give you exactly one guess.)

All you did lying on the test was to land in a different box than if you had not lied. But one box is not better than another box, so what good did that do? It means somebody who looks and believes it will find it harder to communicate with you. What you achieved was to throw sand in the gears. Congratulations.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#30

Post by Quekid5 »

ncmncm wrote: post #29
Quekid5 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I…

It's not science, or science-adjacent, or anything to do with science. It doesn't pretend to be. That's not what it's for. You can always lie, about anything you like. You can put salt in the sugar bowl. You can substitute decaf in for the coffee at the office, and give everybody caffeine-withdrawl headaches. You can have your dog crap in the sandbox at the park. What do you imagine you would prove, by that? (I give…

> It's not science, or science-adjacent, or anything to do with science. It doesn't pretend to be. That's not what it's for.

Ok, so what is it for? And how do you justify its use?

I've seen what it's being sold for/as.

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