Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 352 posts

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

#221

Post by novaleaf »

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 am an INTP, and while a lot do consider Myers-Briggs as glorified Barnum statements, I do consider it somewhat valuable for self-introspection.

The main reason I don't think Myers-Briggs can be a true-ism is that each dimension is actually a spectrum. For example I am about 60% "I" (and thus 40% "E") so the various "I" true-isms only slightly factor on my personality.

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

#222

Post by pfarnsworth »

It's not foolproof, much like a lie detector test. But I do think it has value. I'm an INTJ, and understanding that other people are wired differently in very demonstrative ways, helped me understand how to relate to people. When I thought people were "phony" it was just that they were more extroverted than me. I've been told I'm too black-and-white, whereas I hated the wishywashiness in people that couldn't be decisive. This is also reflected in the Myers-Briggs test.

So it might not be completely accurate, but it did help me understand how I relate and differ with others due to these 4 major personality characteristics.

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

#223

Post by whitehouse3 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #211
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 (…

Your comment works surprisingly well like this: As an individual (Taurus) thoroughly interested in astrology, I often see this discussion brought up. As a short rebuttal, I feel as though many of those who tout astrology as a comprehensive personality test fail to understand what astrology 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…

No, that doesn't work at all. OP is saying that he draws conclusions about someone's personality based on the Meyers-Briggs type with which they identify. That logic doesn't apply to the zodiac because your star-sign is based on your birthday. People don't lie about their birthday to become a Virgo. But they might fudge the answers to the Meyers-Briggs survey so they appear more "introverted" and "thinking". If you compare someone's self-view ("I'm an introvert!") with their behavior (definitely an extrovert), you can draw conclusions. This is more than "fun to talk about". It's standard practice in psychology.

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

#224

Post by bunderbunder »

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 (…

As a conversation piece, sure, it is an interesting framework.

As a tool, though, its utility remains doubtful. Its test-retest reliability is very low, meaning that, if you give the same person the test at two different times, you're likely to get two different results. This strongly suggests that, while the test might capture aspects of a person's personality, it's also functioning like a glorified mood ring. Without some way to separate those two aspects, its utility as an indicator of anything useful about any one individual is highly suspect.

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

#225

Post by aaimnr »

iamnothere wrote: post #137

Lots of comments here mention the use of MBTI in the workplace. This is such a bad idea! As someone who has taken the test many times over the years, I have a lot of problems with the system in general, especially when applied to the workplace. That's not to say that the idea of personality types is invalid, but I have often seen them misapplied (and overapplied) in practice. In my experience, Gallup's Strengthsfinde…

I also had incredible "fit" with Enneagram. I'm not sure I agree about it not being a good business tool, though. I've met a great Quality Manager who almost certainly was a type 6 (which is naturally focused on finding risks and things that might go wrong). The level to which his position matched his personality was striking - he was extremely good at what he was doing and he loved it. I know a type 6 girl who dropped her job as editor and became a software tester as well. She just liked doing it.

Similarly you could reason about type 7 and their ideal job position: they see more opportunieties and options than others (Steve Jobs was said to be 7w8), but they often dismiss any risks involved. They also hate repetitive day to day work. Hence they would make better Architect, Analyst, UX Designer or Salesperson than a Project Manager (unless they are eg. balanced by a 6 in their team).

I'm not saying that we should choose job solely on the type, it just offers lot of opportunities to understand what is it specifically in given activity that we like and what goes naturally against our habits. Whether we change the job or just work on the weaknesses is up to us.

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

#226

Post by triplesec »

rayiner wrote: post #208
triplesec wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caution and scepticism are important. However, you imply that teaching and science are bad. That way lies creationism and magical thinking via truthy plausibilist hokum to end up teaching them to be conspiracy theorists

A lot of the science-y crap that is popular today is no better than creationism and magical thinking. The problem isn't science, it's "science for everyone" and scientists' failure to jealously guard their turf.

That's clearer and more reasonable. But what do you think should be done to achieve this?

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

#227

Post by gnaritas »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #211
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 (…

Your comment works surprisingly well like this: As an individual (Taurus) thoroughly interested in astrology, I often see this discussion brought up. As a short rebuttal, I feel as though many of those who tout astrology as a comprehensive personality test fail to understand what astrology 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…

They are not remotely comparable, Meyers Briggs is descriptive, Astrology is prescriptive and it's the prescriptive part that is nonsense. There is no connection to your personality and your birth date. Meyers Briggs is a classification system that groups similar personalities, it does not prescribe what your personality is or should be.

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

#228

Post by ebbv »

Karunamon wrote: post #182
ebbv wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assertion that it is good for anything is based on the idea that the data is valid in any way. It isn't. When people are retested the results are very inconsistent. Results being independently reproducible is the foundation of science. Meyers-Briggs fails that simple metric.

If the test is judging mindset, something that changes very regularly, of course the results will change as well. This is akin to saying testing blood sugar is worthless because the result varies throughout the day.

C'mon man. It purports to test personality, not mindset. It doesn't say "Run this after meals and first thing in the morning between meals to get an idea of your mindset throughout the day." Sheesh.

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

#229

Post by marcosdumay »

aaimnr wrote: post #214

Personality typing is obviously incredibly shaky ground because of the huge potential for the suggestion bias, but we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. It's almost obvious that there are patterns of human behaviour that are often distinctive and repetitive across society. It's hard to identify these regularities and we should be sceptical about any blatant simplifications, but we shouldn't stop trying…

The wikipedia article has way too little psychology references (I counted none - did I miss some?), and way too many theology references. No problem with the later one, except that it should bias researchers into getting many of the first ones, yet those are missing.

I tend to doubt classifications with dimensions that lack opposing extremes. Yes, I can imagine how is a person with heavy reforming personality, but how is one with very little of it? Besides the idea that those traits are formed at the infancy, or that they crystallize at all is so opposed to my experience that I can't take the idea seriously.

Post reply on HN