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In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

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Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#181

Post by nicoburns »

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…

If your 1-4 are in I/E, S/N, F/T, P/J order then I have this instead:

(1 E/I) How much external stimulation do you prefer. this may be socialisation (Fe/Te), but it can be more general than that, to include things like physical sense stimulation (Se), and exposure to external ideas (Ne).

(2 S/N) I largely agree.

(3 F/T) Whether you focus primarily on values: good/bad (F) or facts (true/false) (T).

(4) What you've put for 3. Identical to Kahnmenan's Fast and Slow thinking.

Of course everyone has an expect of both sides of either dichotomy, but it is never-the-less useful to know where someone is inclined to place emphasis.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#182

Post by nicoburns »

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…

People's personality's certainly are malleable, but the MBTI does not purport to measure personality. It (attempts to) measure personality type. i.e. the underlying baseline from which your personality starts. At no point does it claim that people's personalities don't change. Of course they do.

Perhaps you are assuming that people are "tabula rasa" - blank slates - from which their personalities develop. The MBTI is a criticism of this: it asserts that there is variance in the nature component of people's personalities. That two people exposed to exactly the same environmental stimuli from birth will not react to it the same way.

IMO this is fairly obviously true if you think about it (even if you don't think the MBTI accurately describes the differences.)

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#183

Post by Retric »

bjoli wrote: post #164
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing in the field of psychology with better support than IQ. This is not true. See Wikipedia[0][1][2]. IQ actually holds little support, compared with (e.g.) bilateral sound recognition, or somatotopic arrangement on the postcentral gyrus. (Among psychologists, that is; IQ probably has more support amongst the general population, because it's pop-pseudoscience.) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor…

What we can say about iq tests is that they test something, and those results remain consistent through life. The results are positively correlated to many things (such as academic success. The people scoring a 9, the maximum result, on the tests used in the Swedish conscription live longer, etc...). Had it been completely pop-pseudoscience it would not be used by, say, the Swedish school system as a tool to gauge wh…

Raw IQ scores aren’t very stable over time. At 90+ peoples raw scores have dropped significantly vs age 30. Trauma, Alcoholism, and other diseases can also lower scores dramatically. You can correlate adult IQ’s with tests taken by 2 year olds, but the individual raw scores again vary significantly.

It seems stable because of how age is adjusting for and the huge sweet spot where 64.2% of the population is grouped between 85 and 115. Basically people with significant developmental disabilities at 5 don’t suddenly become normal, but an IQ of 180 at 5 isn’t stable long term.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#184

Post by nicoburns »

Twisol wrote: post #175
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of correlations, for example INTP/INTJ subreddits on Reddit being most popular while these types generally are one of the rarest. There's tons of things you can predict with this. INTPs are often going to face similar challenges and obstacles in life, there's similar things that will help them grow as a person that would not help other types.

Sure. Now can we do the same with the other fourteen types, or is the primary value here that there are two kinds of people: INTx and non-INTx? There's probably some bias here, but I've only ever heard INTx specifically singled out when talking about MBTI. That suggests that MBTI may make too many clear distinctions where reality draws a much softer line. A coarser-grained theory is likely to have more predictive pow…

Have you looked into the "Cognitive Functions" that MBTI theory uses? If not, I'd recommend reading through the 101, 201, and 301 articles here https://personalityjunkie.com/typology-101/

To me I see "INTx" and think that makes no sense because INTJ and INTP have completely different functional stacks. INTJ's are dominant "Introverted Intuition" (Ni) followed by "Extraverted Feeling" (Fe), whereas INTP's are dominant "Introverted Thinking" (Ti) followed by "Extravert Inuition" (Ne). So they're basically completely different.

Once you have a functional stack, then the MBTI theory becomes a lot more subtle: not only does everyone have 4 our of the 8 functions in their stack covering both sides of each of the distinctions, but the relative strength of each of these functions can vary continuously.

And that's before you even get to variations based on experience, which the MBTI doesn't even attempt to describe (you'd typically use someone's MBTI type in conjunction with their life experience to explain their personality as a whole).

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#185

Post by mudita »

feanaro wrote: post #161
mudita wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do not understand this statement as claiming that IQ is the entire content of the field of psychology. Do you?

No, of couse not, that would be a very, very strange claim. I agree with rcxdude's reading of the statement: 'if you reject IQ, you have raised your standards of evidence so high you must logically reject everything else in psychology/psychometry as well'

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#186

Post by todd8 »

criddell wrote: post #176
heliodor wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What surprises me about Myers Briggs is that people are placed on each dimension either on one side or on the other. Three no center for each dimension. Yet these traits are normally distributed so most people would fall in the center. Telling most people they are average would not sell well. So yeah, this test is unnecessarily polarizing.

I never thought about the lack of a neutral trait, but you are right. However I don't think there's any reason to expect these traits to have a normal distribution. Humans have plenty of bimodal-ish traits.

The Central Limit Theorem is one big reason to expect that traits have a normal distribution. Wikipedia has a good explanation. [1] and [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Moivre–Laplace_theorem

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#187

Post by zippy5 »

Retric wrote: post #183
bjoli wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we can say about iq tests is that they test something, and those results remain consistent through life. The results are positively correlated to many things (such as academic success. The people scoring a 9, the maximum result, on the tests used in the Swedish conscription live longer, etc...). Had it been completely pop-pseudoscience it would not be used by, say, the Swedish school system as a tool to gauge wh…

Raw IQ scores aren’t very stable over time. At 90+ peoples raw scores have dropped significantly vs age 30. Trauma, Alcoholism, and other diseases can also lower scores dramatically. You can correlate adult IQ’s with tests taken by 2 year olds, but the individual raw scores again vary significantly. It seems stable because of how age is adjusting for and the huge sweet spot where 64.2% of the population is grouped be…

At quantum scale or near the speed of light newtonian mechanics breaks down, so we know it a local approximation. However, for set circumstances it approximates it does it well. For many decades physists searched universally true theory to no avail.

My point is this, IQ seems to have signal. It probably doesn't hold up in extreme circumstances. Psychology in particular seems to have a difficult time holding large enough studies to find universal constants that we should accept that IQ might be the best local approxination for now.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#188

Post by Smaug123 »

xvector wrote: post #131
austincheney wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. It's inaccurate. Reproducibility is most directly correlated against certain identifiers. For example no matter where or how I take a MB assessment I am always INTP. This indicates that for some persons, as associated to certain scored identifiers, this test is always reproducible. That is less a flaw in this test than the test subjects and further suggests MB becomes more valid when correlated with other tests…

Same here. I have taken the test multiple times throughout my life and I get INTP every single time. The description is completely accurate too, down to the individual nuances describing an INTP. It’s frighteningly accurate. I wonder if less common MBTI types are more accurately defined.

You are aware of the Barnum effect, I presume? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect)

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#189

Post by phreeza »

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…

Or INTJ is what you get when you answer questions in a way that you expect to be conforming to what your fellow grad students will respect, before going to a meeting and revealing your result to them.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#190

Post by Smaug123 »

ncmncm wrote: post #55
Quekid5 wrote: post #30

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. Ok, so what is it for? And how do you justify its use? I've seen what it's being sold for/as.

If you do not see it how it would be useful, my recommendation is do not buy it . I have not bought it, but I have used it. I justify using it because it is useful to me: It helps me understand how people very different from myself interact with their world. These other people are not wrong, just different. Remarkably often, the differences are quite comprehensible. It helps to organize those differences. The precise…

If the purpose is merely to understand how people different from you view the world, then why take the test at all, rather than just reading about the ~sixteen personality types MBTI distinguishes between? The MBTI consultant who administered the test to me couldn't answer that question.
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