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In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

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Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#261
post #206
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…

>Most of this can be found on YouTube or his Wikipedia page.

Not a Peterson acolyte, a Jungian, or even right wing for that matter, but I'm a political philosophy junkie so I have some familiarity with Peterson's claims, mostly from watching debates and listening to arguments. And I will say this, your random out of context quoting, and hiding behind "check his Wikipedia page and YouTube yourself" is the same sophistry you're accusing him of. To give just one example, the claims around Western Civilization you bring up imply neo fascism, while they are in defense of Enlightenment ideals. Forget Peterson, there has been a debate between idealists and materialists about the value of Enlightenment ideals since the horrors of WWII (Frankfurt School being prominent critics), and a defense in the 90s by Idealists and classical liberals (The End of History) and an attacks by Postmodernists since the 70s (Foucault et. al).

Today there still is that debate, because the Postmodernist epistemology dominates and both other dominant alternatives, let's call them free market Western liberals and Marxists, don't agree. For you to summarize the debate Peterson weighs in on as a Western superiority is straight up manipulation on your part. You hide behind the manipulation by telling readers to go to his Wikipedia page and YouTube videos as if you've just cited something.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#262
post #249

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.

The more straightforward explanation is that the INTP/INTJ descriptions are much more exciting to someone with introverted traits than any other MBTI result. They are much more likely to be discussed for that reason alone. The glamor of the result affects its distribution, when in reality people who meet the description in a plausible way are quite rare and exceptional.

INTJ and INTP sound awful to other introverts in my experience.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#263

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…

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.

IQ—or more accurately the theory of general intelligence—is highly controversial inside the field of psychology. In fact a part from developmental psychologists—which might use IQ tests to determine if a child requires special needs—I bet by far most psychologists go their entire career without ever touching an IQ test or citing a paper because of IQ results.

It is true that the debate about general intelligence is huge. So you see a lot of papers written about it. But this is a subfield inside psychology (in fact a subfield of psychometrics which is a subfield of psychology; the whole field of psychometrics invoking skepticism among many scientist).

I’m gonna do you a favor and list sub-fields of psychology that work regardless of the theory of general intelligence and therefor work just fine without IQ:

* Cognitive psychology (and computational psychology)

* Neuropsychology

* Social psychology (and psychological sociology)

* Pathological Psychology and Psychiatry

* Developmental psychology (although they might use IQ tests; but for different reason as psychometricians do)

* Psychological first aid (not a science but a method; similar to paramedics but for trauma victims)

And here are some generic theories inside psychology which have nothing to do with—and might reject—the theory of general intelligence.

* Behaviorism

* Neurological determinism

* Evolutionary psychology

* Psychoanalysis

Even inside psychometrics (which is the believe that any psychological effect that exists is measurable; and that operational definition is a legitimate way to describe psychological effect) I bet there are people that reject the theory of general intelligence on the grounds that IQ is not measuring general intelligence, but something else.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#264
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>Some people find it helps them understand themselves better. Some people have said the same of astrological signs. (EDIT: As per @simias' comment on confirmation bias. This is why "text blurb profile"-oriented reasoning is especially suspect. We already have ample evidence of that reasoning being as unreliable guide to truth as is unreliable a belief that your birthday determines your personality.)

MBTI results correlate moderately to strongly with Big 5 scores. Is Big 5 equivalent to astrology too?

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#265
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The results are positively correlated to many things (such as academic success. They would be so correlated even if they were a bad metric. Imagine a score that multiplies academic success and the highest Tetris score obtained within 100 miles of your birthplace, then subtracts 50 points if you're a girl. That would also be positively correlated with academic success. IQ tests measure something , yes, but they're n…

IQ tests measure the g factor and also happen to be the best way to measure it. So those opposed to IQ should either come up with a better way to measure g or be open about their rejection of the existence of differences in cognitive abilities.

> IQ tests measure the g factor

Ah, yes. The g factor: “that which is measured by IQ tests”.

The main arguments for IQ tests, as far as I understand, that they correlate with an assortment of cognitive metrics, which all correlate with each other. This is a question. “It's the g factor” is not an answer; you've just stuck a circularly-defined label on the question (or, rather, on a particular frequentist analysis of the question) and declared it solved.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#266
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a bit lost. Combining 1) and 2), it means the test is against contextual and “fakeable” traits ? Setting apart 3), as I would imagine a rotated iceberg might not come back to a resting state identical to before the rotation. If the goal is to predict anything, we could also assume that context will change with time (even working at the same company, people change, assignments change, incentives change). All in al…

You're the exact same person at church, work, hanging out with your buddies watching sports (or playing board games), doorbelling for a political campaign, baby sitting your nieces, etc? Per the article, your traits are on a spectrum. Not binary. You may be more extroverted at church and less at work.

While the article does mention non-"binarizing" (I prefer "non-discretizing" as the more common parlance) in the sense of treating the 4 dimensions as axes not buckets, the article does not mention context sensitivity like church-home, buddies, babysitting, same/opposite sex, older/younger, etc., etc.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#267
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really saying that testing as intj (for example) doesn't correlate with anything? Because that seems incredibly unlikely. E.g. three years ago Slate Star Codex readers were surveyed and found to be 10 times more likely to be INTJ/INTP than the general population.

INTJ and INTP are basically the "coolest" introvert result of the Myers-Briggs. For a supposedly rare result, it's one of the most trumpeted online and one with which people identify the strongest. The description of the result is essentially what those introverted readers imagine themselves to be when reading rationalist literature.

Thinking INTJ and INTP descriptions sound cool says more about you than the descriptions.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Perhaps the word "psychometry" would have been better. There isn't any psychometric test more stable than IQ.

How do you define/consider “stable” this specific context?

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#269
post #232

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? 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 t…

Helpful is subjective. I don't feel like sharing something personal here though.

Do you take the time to understand everyone you meet, their motivations, their goals, and their challenges? Even the ones who don't want you to?

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#270
post #249

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.

The more straightforward explanation is that the INTP/INTJ descriptions are much more exciting to someone with introverted traits than any other MBTI result. They are much more likely to be discussed for that reason alone. The glamor of the result affects its distribution, when in reality people who meet the description in a plausible way are quite rare and exceptional.

The actual influence seems to be N - I - T - P.

If you look at raw subscriber counts, but it may still be I - N if there are that many more extraverts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/entp/comments/56tfmi/of_subscribers...

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