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The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

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

#121

Post by amelius »

eivarv wrote: post #116
amelius wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

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.

Let me devise a test. The test is just "are you a man or a woman?".

Does this have predictive power? Yes. If I needed somebody to take care of small children, would this test be useful? Yes of course. If I had to pick people blindly for this task, except for the results of this test, then this test would be very useful. Now, MBTI is more sophisticated than this simple test. So to say that it has no predictive power is just silly.

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

#122

Post by [deleted] »

triplesec wrote: post #117
pcmaffey wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[deleted]

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

#123

Post by grandalf »

3minus1 wrote: post #118
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?

That comment was intended as a joke. No, I do not. Although I think I'd view MBTI less favorably if it said I had the same personality type as a variety of dictators, etc.

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

#124

Post by notacoward »

The main value of any "personality type" inventory is to help people with different personalities interact in mutually agreeable and beneficial ways. The very fact that people cling to their MBTI type designators indicates that the see some value in that, even if the value they see is not there. With that in mind, I have a simple question:

  ** If not MBTI, then what else instead? **
Rose Eveleth doesn't seem to have an answer. What she has is just sneering condescension for the only such inventory that has gained any popular traction (which is necessary for it to be effective). The comparison to astrology is particularly unhelpful. Does anyone else know of something that could succeed where MBTI has supposedly failed?

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

#125

Post by dbcurtis »

n-exploit wrote: post #24

As an individual (INFJ) thoroughly interested in Myers-Briggs, I often see this discussion brought up. As a short rebuttal, I feel as though many of those who tout Myers-Briggs as a comprehensive personality test fail to understand what the Myers-Briggs attempts to identify. While the "value-add" is more subjective, I'm going to go ahead and say it's not as useless as this article claims. While I don't think anyone (…

I think the M-B is useful, but I only apply it in the area of communication styles. As an INTP engineer, I run into a lot of ISTJ engineers. ISTJ and INTP viewpoints are markedly different in what information is considered critical, how and when to make decisions, and how they like information summarized. So I use M-B to help understand the audience I am writing for or presenting to.

When I first encountered M-B it rescued a sour relationship with an ISTJ boss who thought I wrote content-free status reports, where I thought I wrote well-summarized round-ups that avoided meaningless minutia. Later, the table was reversed when I had an ISTJ report who drowned me in more details than I could (or needed to) process. I used M-B to help us workout guidelines for talking with each other so that we were productive instead of both frustrated.

So M-B has been useful to me. But it should not be used for making hiring/placement decisions. I really see it as an information processing styles inventory and little more.

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

#126

Post by Bartweiss »

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…

> 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.

Unfortunately, the traits investigated by the MBTI seem to be normally distributed. So as true as this is, it still means that people who are decisively placed on all four axes are the exception rather than the rule.

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

#127

Post by cazum »

0xfffafaCrash wrote: post #69
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.

If say some person knows two people and that one tested as INTP and other as ESFJ and doesn't know for a fact who had which test results. Are you really sure they won't have better than even odds at figuring out which is which based on their interactions with the people that don't involve asking for their MBTI test results? If so, based on what study? If you can't demonstrate that, on what do you base that it has no…

You bring up an interesting case I think even you failed to consider:

Since mbti essentially neuters it's own usefulness in the "round those percentages down to binary" stage, you could end up with a situation where an INTP and an ESFJ have only an 8% total difference in mbti-measured personality between them.

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

#128

Post by mi100hael »

parasubvert wrote: post #30

The point of these IMO, isn't to pigeonhole people, it's for many practical reasons: - Engender some self awareness. It's astonishing how many people lack critical self-awareness about how they approach problems , handle change, communicate with others, or deal with their emotions. MBTI might be nonsense or unverifiable but for many people it's their first exposure to any written form of objective introspection. The…

Agree completely. Furthermore, the article falsely states that the MBTI asserts people are either 100% introvert or 100% extrovert or whatever other letter. Every time I've been exposed to any sort of MBTI material, it's been very clear that the individual letters are a continuum. Some people fall further out along the continuum than others for each letter pair. The goal is not to pigeon-hole people, but to provide a framework for discussing why people approach situations or react the way they do.

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

#129

Post by mi100hael »

amirmc wrote: post #51
liquidise wrote: post #19

> the most obvious flaw is that the MBTI seems to rely exclusively on binary choices….For example, in the category of extrovert v introvert, you’re either one or the other; there is no middle ground This is categorically false. Myers Briggs results are quite literally reported on a spectrum of 100 I - 0 - E 100, with your position on the spectrum shown. The 4 letter rollup is exactly that: a summary rollup of your te…

When I did this test, the trainer was pretty clear that it's not meant to be a 'spectrum'. You're either an E or an I and that was that. The only one they claimed might be a spectrum was P to J.

Sounds like your trainer was a doofus. Each pair is a continuum and most people exhibit at least a mild preference in one direction or the other.

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

#130

Post by psyc »

0xfffafaCrash wrote: post #28

This is so poorly thought out. I really don't get why some people can't seem to tell the difference between things like MBTIs and astrological signs/zodiacs/horoscopes in terms of their potential to classify people in a meaningful way... One is an arbitrary mapping of a person's date of birth to an set of traits and prophesies. The other is a brief summary of a person's personality/behavioral inclinations based on a…

You are correct, but I predict you will not have much success arguing this point in this forum. Hacker News already made up its mind that psychological tests don't predict anything.
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