In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#121

Post by mudita » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

feanaro wrote: post #113

souprock wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article covers reproducibility. The test does reliably reproduce results, at least if you don't quantize to boolean. Jung doesn't matter. Being a cash cow doesn't matter. There is nothing in the field of psychology with better support than IQ. If you aren't going to accept IQ, then you've entirely tossed out the field of psychology. There is nothing left.

> There is nothing in the field of psychology with better support than IQ. If you aren't going to accept IQ, then you've entirely tossed out the field of psychology. There is nothing left. Huh. That's quite a bold and incorrect claim. Are you a psychologist?

Let's hear it from a psychologist: "If you don’t buy IQ research, you might as well throw out all the rest of psychology." (Jordan Peterson)

https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=2938

For anybody interested in personality research, I warmly recommend this lecture series, by the way. These are the basics, which psychology students learn at university.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#122

Post by itbm » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

The theory behind Jung and MB deals with the idea of cognitive functions.

https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/underst...

The underlying claim is that people's mental processes fall under these behaviors and from observation it appears that there are four pairs of functions. It is these functional stacks that determine the 16 buckets/types and not any sort of dichotomy of the letters.

1. The breakdown of the letters doesn't make any sense and doesn't appear to lead to any insight. This is a completely valid critique of how MBTI is being pitched and presented. But, at least personally, I find the cognitive functions at least point in the right direction after examining my own mental processes and what is present or absent.

2. If we are measuring the quality of a test to be how well it can repeat the same result, it is not surprising that once you get into a higher dimensionality of representing a person's personality that we don't have a great repeatable way to test. This is a product of both the test and the difficulty of conveying and capturing what it is trying to represent, and the general inexperience of people to be able to accurately enumerate their own thought process.

Happy to hop on zoom or discord and explain functions to anyone interested.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#123

Post by fsloth » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

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…

Being predictive of something is the beef here. There is no sound theory of what that something is and what specifically it would predict.

Binning people into excel rows by an arbitrary process is one of the hallmarks of either a pseudoscientific hoax, or an entertaining but scientifically unremarkable party game.

You might as well divide people into Hogswarts houses by a similar test and it would serve similar purpose.

In other words, it's a pastime driven by fictional representation of human psyche. Some groups may find this exercise fun.

But this is no reason to stop hating Meyers-Brigs given it's driven by psedoscientific marketing. While it might not be harmful, it totally is a similar type of activity like homeopathy.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#124

Post by erhk » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

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…

Arbitrary questions do not assess your personality. If I ask you if the sky is blue and then call you a liar when you say "no it's red" that doesn't mean you're a liar. It means that you think my question is stupid.

Similarly asking someone if they make friends easily is hardly a metric of how extroverted they are. I hope that much is obvious to everyone.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#125

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:30 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #28

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 Herrm…

[deleted]

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#126

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:31 AM UTC

jbay808 wrote: post #65

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…

In grad school I joined an extracurricular social society where you meet around a table with other grad students and discuss various topics selected in advance while eating pie and other goodies. Sort of like debate but without the structure or positions. Anyway one time the topic was Myers Briggs and so we all filled out our profiles in advance so we'd have something to discuss. It was a group of 20 people, and we d…

[deleted]

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#127

Post by IndySun » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:35 AM UTC

smokey_circles wrote: post #75

I don't know how/why people defend this test. 1. It's inaccurate. And that's not just "technically true", it's very rare that the test reproduces results. 2. Jung's theories (the ones used in the test) aren't just "controversial". They're wrong. He says it himself, in the same document they used to create the test. It is just a cash cow now. The _biggest_ problem with the test is it is harmful, not helpful. People be…

Agree, the test has been dismissed enough times. People are far too complex.

It has recently been renamed and represented by Jordan Peterson. Unfortunately, the JP readers I've met who mention his version were unaware of the MB version. The critical history of MB should serve as a warning. They are not eureka moments, but smaller steps.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#128

Post by lukebuehler » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

MBTI depends on Jung's personality type theory. Jung's ideas on personality are actually quite interesting and involve a lot of nuance. If you go and read Psychologial Types, you'll quickly realize that Jung developed his notions regarding personality as a tool for literary criticism. That is, to have a way to explain why authors, throughout history, took opposite stances on issues. For example, he begins the book by interpreting the Trinitarian and Christological debates at the dawn of Christianity. My takeaway is that Jung's typology is less of a science than it is a philosophy of the psyche, or even a philosophy on how the psyche expresses itself, and thus belongs more in the domain of the humanities.

I like MBTI as a shortcut to talk about Jung's theories. As a scientific tool, MBTI is obviously extremely blunt. Testing for your MBTI type is therefore not a very good idea, IMO. As far as I can tell, many people who really are into MBTI will rather try to "type" you in a guided conversation than you merely taking a test. This is much more in the spirit of analytical psychology anyhwow.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#129

Post by erhk » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #39

Quekid5 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For somebody who admits having no idea what it's for I'm sorry, what? I did ask that as a rhetorical flourish in a different thread (as a response to you, in fact), but c'mon. You specifically said > 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. I note that you didn't answer my other question: how do you justify its use if it's not 'scienc…

Some people insist science=good, therefore not-science=not-good. But the world is bigger than that. Your responsibility as a human is to discover value in things you encounter. Failing to find it is just failing, and says more about you than about things.

Science is a method not a political ideology. Rejecting science is rejecting ration. You can attack the validity of the data or you can point out flaws in conclusions but to claim science as a concept is flawed is to reject evidence based conclusions.

At which point there can be no faithful discussion.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#130

Post by mudita » Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 9:37 AM UTC

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…

This is a nice, very readable article by a psychologist specialising in lifespan personality development: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/06/30/4840534...

"while personality traits are relatively stable over time, they can and often do gradually change across the life span. What's more, those changes are usually for the better. Many studies, including some of my own, show that most adults become more agreeable, conscientious and emotionally resilient as they age. But these changes tend to unfold across years or decades, rather than days or weeks"