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In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

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Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#231

Post by cb321 »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #215
cb321 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are all psychometricians INTx's, then? This sounds like exactly the kind of over-conclusion that bothers people about personality testing and its applications. ;-)

Of course not. It's all probabilistic. I feel like the people who think MBTI and personality tests don't make sense are themselves the ones making those over conclusions and they can only think in binary, black and white way, when it really could be something like INTx is likely to be overrepresented in psychometricians fields by 4x, ESFJ might be underrepresented by 5x, etc. So for instance maybe there's 6% INTXs in…

A simpler way to think about it might be "How would I assign a p-value to the personality type?" Once you have that answer, all your "over-representation" stats should, naturally, trim out (or otherwise down-weight) the poor p-value personality assignments (any such over-representation stats that you have heard very likely do no such filtering).

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#232

Post by Twisol »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #204
Twisol wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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? I started with INTx to have at least one detailed, specific argument that there is correlation and MBTI is at least not completely meaningless. There's also a correlation between INTx and IQ, to go as scientific as we can here. Just search for IQ by personality type. Now yo…

> E.g. INTX will LIKELY have to put in more conscious effort to improve social skills in order to better communicate with people

I knew I needed to work on my social skills long before I tested as an INTP. My criticism is not that the correlations don't exist. My criticism is that they don't seem helpful.

> It also gives insights into how a person thinks and perceives the world [...] which otherwise you would have to read tons of paper on that person

Can't you just talk with them? Somebody once asked me for my MBTI class as a shortcut to trying to understand how to interact with me. It didn't work very well for them, and I didn't much appreciate being binned that way.

I've always been binned as a logical person in particular, but my internal landscape has been, subjectively, dominated by creative thought and expression. Logic is just a tool I use to impose some structure on that experience. People who stop at the surface -- and worse, who label me under MBTI -- manifestly do not understand me, my motivations, my goals, or my challenges. (If you go point to some MBTI page on Logicians and say "it mentions creativity right here!" I will be very cross with you.)

To say this is a sore spot may be an understatement.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#233

Post by analog31 »

nitrogen wrote: post #73
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.

Wouldn't the manner in which a person interprets questions be part of their personality, especially if that interpretation is consistent between e.g. high school and their time in industry (as mine was)?

Indeed that might be possible. In fact there may be sub categories within the popular categories with different behaviors, e.g., a poet whose symbol is INTJ might be a different personality than an engineer with the same symbol. This would be hard to sort out because there are vastly fewer poets than engineers.

Intelligence may play a role too. Two people with the same symbols but widely different intelligence may behave differently to the point where they are identified as having different personalities. I'm speaking broadly about intelligence without necessarily believing in IQ testing.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#234

Post by fsloth »

nicoburns wrote: post #184
Twisol wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think those Cognitive Functions are just Jungian pseudoscience. They are based on work that is closer to fiction than science. Not any better or worse than any psychologically motivated work of fiction - but fiction never the less.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#235

Post by danaris »

Bodell wrote: post #206
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.

Jordan Peterson is a great example of the failing of Psychology in the academic world. I'll list some quotes by him below and you can decided weather or not he should be listened to, or if he is simply selling right wing propaganda on Youtube. "If men are pushed too hard to feminize they will become more and more interested in harsh, fascist political ideology." "the current hierarchy might be predicated on competenc…

Your conclusion ("the failing of Psychology in the academic world") is not supported by your evidence.

You have demonstrated that there is one prominent psychologist who holds some fairly-obviously terrible and inaccurate beliefs, and is willing to trumpet them to anyone who will listen.

This is no more an indictment of the field of psychology than the occasional right-wing "climate scientist" Fox News brings out to "prove" that climate change is not real is an indictment of the field of climate science.

Many scientific fields likely have a handful of far-right kooks who would be happy to rack up YouTube views promulgating alt-right talking points dressed up in the trappings of science. That says very little about the state of their fields, and a great deal about the state of our nation. And YouTube.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#236

Post by Xcelerate »

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…

> All you did lying on the test was to land in a different box than if you had not lied.

Again, which is why I mentioned in my post that there are scientific problems with the field as a whole, so I don’t understand the undue targeting of MBTI compared to everything else. You realize people are prescribed or not prescribed controlled substances on the basis of their responses to other questionnaires, right? You can look up the DSM criteria and get a diagnosis for just about anything based on your responses.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#237

Post by pseudalopex »

Smaug123 wrote: post #190
ncmncm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some people find it helps them understand themselves better. And people usually want to understand people they're close to or work with.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#238

Post by pseudalopex »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #49

It doesn't matter so much if MBTI is "real" as much as the fact that it's constantly applied in the wrong ways. Using MBTI / big five to help narrow down the selection of a sales candidate? Okay. Choosing only sales candidates with a specific MBTI / big five? Crap.

The first isn't good either. MBTI literature stresses it measures preferences not abilities.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#239

Post by Smaug123 »

Isinlor wrote: post #230
Smaug123 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm aware of this effect and I never cared for horoscopes, Harry Potter houses and what not. But INTP description is very specific. > Chief among Logicians’ interests is exploring and building models for underlying principles and ideas, even going so far as to find these concepts, in their own way, beautiful – this makes them natural mathematicians, systems analysts, and career scientists, especially in more abstract…

Can you distinguish yourself from the INTJ description? This was my main problem with the personality types: I agreed wholeheartedly with the (rather long!) descriptions of maybe five of the sixteen.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#240

Post by einpoklum »

Having taken this "test" a good number of years ago, and I remember I often did not have a proper straight answer to give. On many questions, I would want to say something like:

* You're mis-representing the choices.

* Well, you say that, but I'm not sure what it would actually mean.

* Depends on the circumstances.

* I'm not sure.

* I might choose one option and then regret it, and maybe switch to another.

* Those things don't contradict.

* I would have done something different early on which would preclude this scenario altogether.

* This question looks like an earlier one. I choose X there, but that doesn't sit well with me. Maybe I'll choose Y here for good measure.

* None of the above.

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