Live data from Hacker News

In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

dynomight.net

111–120 of 352 posts

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#111

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…

Getting different results is pretty common. But getting the same results isn't very rare. The article points to studies showing MBTI and Big 5 repeatability are comparable.

It was inspired by Jung's theories. It doesn't rely on them.

MBTI related literature stresses it measures preferences not abilities. It says no type is better than any other. And it tends to encourage developing what doesn't come naturally.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#112

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…

I agree with your points re. Myers-Briggs, however modern IQ tests are generally regarded as pretty reproducible and an individual’s score remains quite stable over long periods of time. Confidence intervals are about 10 points for decent tests. [1]

They are not perfect of course, but it’s a little unfair to compare MB with IQ tests in this manner. I know you caveated your comment by saying that not all IQ Tests are like this, which is certainly true. However, I see no statistical reason not to tell people the result of a high-quality IQ test.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Reliabil...

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#113

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.

> 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?

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#114

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?

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

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#116
I must say I was extremely amused when I took MBTI, that one of the last questions was essentially "did you think this test was a load of bollocks?"

It's like they created the test, administered it to a bunch of people to try it out, half of them said "your test is a load of bollocks", and they thought "hmm, well, the test can't be bollocks, so that must mean we've found another useful discriminator of personality types!".

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#117
VP wanted MB for team building for our division to assess our alignment and role effectiveness. [1] I mean who doesn't like free lunch and horoscopes? Well turns out it was like going to the shelter and hearing the bible sermon before the pay off in baloney sandwiches. Instead, the well paid consultant ate our baloney too. Questioning validity means you're of the SFTU type. At least she taught a great lesson: always convince the $uckers at the top.

[1] Golly extremely useful! https://jobtalk.indiana.edu/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/... https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-28315137

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#118

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…

> 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 that measure self-awareness and objectivity. The same persons that score poorly on objectivity are the ones less likely (less capable) to accept that suggestiveness and sensitivity are greater culprits in their measures.

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#119

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. You're assuming the types are proportionally represented in the general population, which we have no reason the believe even if the test works as advertised. For…

INTJ is 2.1% of the population

https://personalitymax.com/personality-types/population-gend...

Re: In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

#120

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.

There are a lot of people who agree with throwing out the field as it is entirely already. Many of them are published in the field.

Freud is a name that comes to mind when thinking of things to throw out

Post reply on HN