Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 352 posts

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#91

Post by Aeolun »

esperent wrote: post #58
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…

The problem with these results is not that they're inaccurate, it's that people think they measure a permanent aspect of themselves. In truth, people's personalities are malleable - if you spend all your time working on a computer, you become more introverted - or at least, you start to express your introverted tendencies more strongly. If you switch jobs and have to spend all your days talking to people, you'll beco…

I dunno? It seems my type is pretty much fixed between INFL and INTP.

Everyone thinks I’m extroverted because most of my job involves talking to people.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#92

Post by pseudalopex »

TuringNYC wrote: post #59
ncmncm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> But one box is not better than another box, so what good did that do? If one box was "you get the job" and the other was "rejected" -- I can see why people would lie to achieve one result or another.

That's a problem with using any personality test for hiring. Not just MBTI.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#93

Post by tonyedgecombe »

rntksi wrote: post #17
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…

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...

I seem to remember reading that introverts are more likely to suffer from depression.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#94

Post by [deleted] »

jplr8922 wrote: post #22

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. Acor…

[deleted]

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#95

Post by Udik »

d_silin wrote: post #56

I took M-B test and was surprised how accurate it was in describing my personality type. I suspect my personality traits are closer to endpoints of its scales, making it more precise for me.

Same for me. My MBTI personality portrait is so spot on that the feeling is that the test really is providing more information than you put in by answering the questions.

That said, a lot of people who took it didn't have that instant of perfect self-recognition- the results are often mixed.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#96

Post by croes »

visarga wrote: post #81
analog31 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> people within different occupations tend to interpret the questions differently There are also other types of ambiguity. For example when asking: "Do you keep your room in order?" - you might answer "yes" because that's what you do, but you only do it because it has been enforced into you over time, while if you were alone and free you'd keep it messy. Do people respond with their instinctive reaction or with their…

There is even more ambiguity in questions like "Do you keep your room in order". First what order for some, is chaos for others. Second some people just lie to them self or ignore the truth. For example, how would a hoarder answer that question. So the self perception could differ much from the real behaviour.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#97

Post by pzone »

souprock wrote: post #70
sunstone wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best that can be said of MBTI is that it has a slight correlation with one of the Big 5 dimensions. So it's not useless but it's close to useless. On the other hand it's expensive whereas the Big Five has been validated and it's free. Really MBTI is just a waste of time and money.

Not that correlation with Big 5 should be a determining factor, but... The chart in the article shows that E/I is strongly correlated with extraversion, S/N is strongly correlated with openness, T/F is moderately correlated with agreeableness (and weakly with conscientiousness), and J/P is moderately correlated with conscientiousness (and weakly with openness). It's not a slight correlation, so if MBTI is useless the…

Only one of the two systems stands up to modern standards of psychological science. If you are an HR rep and you want to predict an applicant’s job performance, you are using inferior data if you choose an MBTI test. It may have other uses, like fostering a useful discussion during an interview, but there is a very real case in which it is inferior and 5-factor personality is the standard to be judged against.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#98

Post by jbay808 »

calt wrote: post #69
jbay808 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For all we know urban environments are 70% INTJ. There are 16 categories, which means you'd expect about 6% in each if the test sorts evenly. It doesn't; in fact only between 2% and 3% of the population is INTJ. Unless one of the questions is literally "are you a tech worker", that's very conspicuous selectivity.

The test doesn't sort evenly. One of the most popular online test sites says in one of their descriptions - I forget which one - that "this is the rarest type with only x% of the population." I had a female friend who was an INTJ, and told me that it was very rare among women. Being very, INTJ, she was referencing some rigorous statistics.

Yes, I mentioned in the next line that it doesn't sort evenly, and INTJ is particularly a minority.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#99

Post by pdamoc »

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'm an introvert who can easily converse with strangers

The 10 Aspects scale [1] has an easy answer to this. You might be the kind of introvert that is high in Enthusiasm and low in Assertiveness.

I've got a lot of people being puzzled when I told them I'm an introvert. They only knew my activated, event mode where I was just enthusiastic about sharing my ideas.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5863998_Between_Fac...

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#100

Post by pdamoc »

jplr8922 wrote: post #22

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. Acor…

> I now understand it as a gateway to Jung ideas, which I find helpful during my current period of professional questionning.

Jung's ideas are quite attractive, I'll give you that. We all love a good story, especially if feels so full of meaning.

That being said, I would point out that there are stories and good research that might be a lot more helpful. I would suggest: Chris Argyris work on management, especially his ideas around defensive-reasoning vs productive-reasoning. Toyota Kata work by Mike Rother might also be helpful. This is about switching to an evidence backed mode of thinking (scientific thinking).

Next would be Robert Kegan's work on constructive developmental framework and immunity to change. His work presents both a vision about human development and the obstacles we have in the way.

And finally, Carol Dweck's recent work on the foundation of personality. Here is a summary of that work.[1] It might be useful to understand how your own BEATs got entangled in your identity, which of them are useful, which are sabotaging you.

[1] http://www.progressfocused.com/2017/11/carol-dwecks-new-theo... Her

Post reply on HN