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Short answer: personality is not strongly typed and interpretations vary wildly depending on which scale you use. In a sense, this is already being done in fi

Short answer: personality is not strongly typed and interpretations vary wildly depending on which scale you use. In a sense, this is already being done in fields like "organizational behavior", but the effect size of personality "type interfaces" (as it were) is relatively small, and varies greatly. Is it possible? Sure. Is it useful? In practice, rarely.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
backpropagated 11y ago
Personality could be strongly typed, we don't know if it is yet. The continuous distributions we see in traits could be due to people behaving in a socially desirable way, while their mental algorithms are distinctly categorical. To link something like "type theory" to personality theory, I would look to computational complexity theory. The link is conceptually simple - different types of people might be optimized for solving different classes of problems. There might be a more direct link with mathematical types - I'll have to put it in the burner and see.
- omginternets 11y ago
  I'm not sure we're using the term "strongly typed" in the same sense. Could we back up a bit? In what sense are you using the term "strongly typed"?
  - backpropagated 11y ago
    The difference between strongly typed and duck typed is not exactly equivalent to the difference between categorical and continuous variables, but it's close enough for now.
    - omginternets 11y ago
      Okay, that's good enough for me :) To speak plainly, the problem is that with duck-typing in computer science, it's trivial to determine whether or not an object has a given method. With regards to people, it's very difficult to reliably assess whether or not someone has a given personality trait, and it's even more difficult to know whether or not associating various personality traits together is beneficial. Different measures yield different results, both with regards to personality type and with regards to interactions between types.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

backpropagated 11y ago

Personality could be strongly typed, we don't know if it is yet. The continuous distributions we see in traits could be due to people behaving in a socially desirable way, while their mental algorithms are distinctly categorical. To link something like "type theory" to personality theory, I would look to computational complexity theory. The link is conceptually simple - different types of people might be optimized for solving different classes of problems. There might be a more direct link with mathematical types - I'll have to put it in the burner and see.

omginternets 11y ago
I'm not sure we're using the term "strongly typed" in the same sense. Could we back up a bit? In what sense are you using the term "strongly typed"?
- backpropagated 11y ago
  The difference between strongly typed and duck typed is not exactly equivalent to the difference between categorical and continuous variables, but it's close enough for now.
  - omginternets 11y ago
    Okay, that's good enough for me :) To speak plainly, the problem is that with duck-typing in computer science, it's trivial to determine whether or not an object has a given method. With regards to people, it's very difficult to reliably assess whether or not someone has a given personality trait, and it's even more difficult to know whether or not associating various personality traits together is beneficial. Different measures yield different results, both with regards to personality type and with regards to interactions between types.