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The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#111

Post by wutf »

jessriedel wrote: post #98
wutf wrote: post #6

The covariance of the Big 5 and MBTI is high. This means that if you give both inventories to the same population you can do a factor rotation of one onto the other with much of the variance being preserved. This has been demonstrated multiple times in the academic literature. I have never read an article against the MBTI that mentioned this, and that's because the people who write these articles do not understand st…

Yea, it's very frustrating that this sort of article gets written when the author does not even address the arguments on the wikipedia page! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi... That said, I don't think it's quite true that "The MBTI is approximately as valid as the Big 5". It seems to me that the Big 5 is a strict improvement on the MBTI. First, the discrete nature of the MBTI incorrectly…

They both have strengths and weaknesses. Strengths of the MBTI include the text descriptions, which are very valuable, and that it focuses on positive psychology. Of course, if you rotate the MBTI onto the Big 5, you see that it does in fact measure neuroticism, although not that strongly.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#112

Post by wutf »

wutf wrote: post #111
jessriedel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, it's very frustrating that this sort of article gets written when the author does not even address the arguments on the wikipedia page! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi... That said, I don't think it's quite true that "The MBTI is approximately as valid as the Big 5". It seems to me that the Big 5 is a strict improvement on the MBTI. First, the discrete nature of the MBTI incorrectly…

They both have strengths and weaknesses. Strengths of the MBTI include the text descriptions, which are very valuable, and that it focuses on positive psychology. Of course, if you rotate the MBTI onto the Big 5, you see that it does in fact measure neuroticism, although not that strongly.

PS: I'm the one who added that table to Wikipedia - many years ago.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#113

Post by AlexandrB »

amelius wrote: post #97
Analemma_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't get why some people can't seem to tell the difference between things like MBTIs and astrological signs/zodiacs/horoscopes Then let me try to help clarify. MBTI has no predictive power ("I'm an INTP, so... ?") and is not falsifiable. Those are the delineators between science and pseudoscience, so that's why I bucket it with astrology.

.

That's meaningless unless you confirm that their fitness for that task was actually correlated to their MTBI, e.g. by mixing those "fit" and "unfit" (based on MTBI) on the same task and comparing their performance. I'm pretty sure most companies don't do this. They just assume MTBI has predictive power and use it anyway since it gives them something to go on besides gut instinct.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#114

Post by wutf »

bradleyjg wrote: post #96
wutf wrote: post #6

The covariance of the Big 5 and MBTI is high. This means that if you give both inventories to the same population you can do a factor rotation of one onto the other with much of the variance being preserved. This has been demonstrated multiple times in the academic literature. I have never read an article against the MBTI that mentioned this, and that's because the people who write these articles do not understand st…

What's the mapping?

You can see the original mapping here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#115

Post by JorgeGT »

spennant wrote: post #93
Declanomous wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a reasonable methodology to generate the comparison, I think being able to tell someone they are a Sith Lord can be helpful. I think tests can help provide a different perspective to people. I think tests are an issue when they present traits as concrete and unable to be changed, or only present the positive aspects of your personality.

I would never tell anyone that they are a Sith Lord.

Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#116

Post by eivarv »

amelius wrote: post #97
Analemma_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't get why some people can't seem to tell the difference between things like MBTIs and astrological signs/zodiacs/horoscopes Then let me try to help clarify. MBTI has no predictive power ("I'm an INTP, so... ?") and is not falsifiable. Those are the delineators between science and pseudoscience, so that's why I bucket it with astrology.

.

The fact that (some) companies may use it to test if a person is fit for certain tasks doesn't mean that it really indicates whether a person is fit for certain tasks.

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#117

Post by triplesec »

pcmaffey wrote: post #94
Analemma_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't get why some people can't seem to tell the difference between things like MBTIs and astrological signs/zodiacs/horoscopes Then let me try to help clarify. MBTI has no predictive power ("I'm an INTP, so... ?") and is not falsifiable. Those are the delineators between science and pseudoscience, so that's why I bucket it with astrology.

You're doing a disservice to astrology. MBTI is a subjective categorization. Astrology is more like your DNA. You're born with a specific set pattern. Just like we don't understand what most of our genetic patterns mean, we don't understand what most of our astrological patterns mean.

There are no data to support the magical thinking of astrology. You are unlikely to find supporters here for your assertions of pre-enlightenment pseudo science

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#118

Post by 3minus1 »

grandalf wrote: post #41

I've found that Meyers Briggs feels accurate to people whose classifications don't fall right on the margin. If two of the letters fall close to the margin, parts of the description will feel a bit inaccurate. In my opinion, the Meyers Briggs is useful mainly because it can help people become more self-aware and more empathetic toward others. I've observed that in a group of 15 people who just got their Meyers Briggs…

> When I read articles criticizing Meyers Briggs, I always assume it was written by one of these people

how dismissive of you. do you dismiss the science in those articles as well?

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#119

Post by amelius »

AlexandrB wrote: post #113
amelius wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

That's meaningless unless you confirm that their fitness for that task was actually correlated to their MTBI, e.g. by mixing those "fit" and "unfit" (based on MTBI) on the same task and comparing their performance. I'm pretty sure most companies don't do this. They just assume MTBI has predictive power and use it anyway since it gives them something to go on besides gut instinct.

Well, I know for sure that a person with an INTJ personality type is not suited for marketing and sales (statistically speaking of course). Would you claim otherwise?

Re: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

#120

Post by Bartweiss »

gh1 wrote: post #82

This article is as unscientific as it claims the Myers-Briggs test to be. It does not prove the Myers-Briggs test wrong, but instead claims that there is no evidence to support it. Well, in science, if you want to claim that something is wrong, you need two things: the theory must be falsifiable and you need to falsify it. Just claiming something has no evidence is not enough. Some more critique on the article. 1. Th…

For these points, I think it's crucial to distinguish "Myers-Briggs style tests" from The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

The first thing, MB-style tests, are amorphous and have been improved in various ways since the invention of the test.

That second thing is a formalized test with licensed practitioners. It's been used to disqualify people from jobs, and has produced a huge amount of secondary literature/analysis which requires the binary distribution to be meaningful. This formalized test has been worth a small fortune for the people who own it, and their training seminars and public literature aggressively go against both points 1 and 2.

It's fair to criticize MBTI as, say, needing to be binary. 16personalities is a secondary group which is doing a different thing than the still-popular, rigorously-bounded original.

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