5 ms·

This looks about as useful and sophsticated as the MBTI (ie, not very): 'A study on human behavior has revealed that 90% of the population can be classified int

This looks about as useful and sophsticated as the MBTI (ie, not very): 'A study on human behavior has revealed that 90% of the population can be classified into four basic personality types: Optimistic, Pessimistic, Trusting and Envious.' I can't see how this contingent typing, apparently done for the purposes of being able to group people to do game theory experiments, can have much external validity, especially as there will be so many edge cases and double- or even triple-class members. This just doesn't look worthwhile, from this article.

mbil 10y ago
Classic Pessimistic
- StillHocus 10y ago
  see this is the type of gold we lose thanks to HN's brutal anti-humor policy.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Pyrite.
Zikes 10y ago
The MBTI was developed in an era of psychology when lobotomies were still performed, so I never gave it any weight. But that's probably just the INTJ in me talking.
- triplesec 10y ago
  Funny, and true. This is a huge aside to the article topic, but, as the joke goes. MBTI is astrology for geeks. As used by lots of businesspeople and in popular media, MBTI is bunk. No professional psychologist worth their salt uses it in the way that it is misused, and most who are academically up to date look at things like Big 5 as having much more utility.
tpeo 10y ago
Well, all things have to start somewhere. Right now, it's just some curiosity thing, but maybe it will turn out useful. It could already be for making simulations using agent based models with "realistic" hypotheses by feeding in the strategies and the frequencies corresponding to these personalities into the model. Could be useful to social science research already. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-based_model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-based_model
- triplesec 10y ago
  I like your constructiveness in searching for a solution,. However, it seems to me that any data based upon 'categories' which are constructed out of poorly-operationalised variables are not going to be particularly valid, linear algebra or not! Edit: to be fair, we don't know how they got to their categories, but the naming of them inspires no confidence.
  - tpeo 10y ago
    I wasn't previously acquainted with the term "operationalization" as used in this sense. Okay, it may turn out that this categorization is no better than Humourism, which seem to have suffered of the issues of poor variable operationalization as you described: ancient doctors frequently heaped together distinct phenomena ("hot" meant anything which was hot to the senses, whether it was a glowing hot iron, a flesh wound or a bowl of Jalapeños). But I don't think it's quite the case here: they're grouping users by their choices in a game. That's well defined enough, isn't it? The names don't arouse any suspicion to me, either. I think it's just a case of researchers trying to "sexy up" their findings. It's something that might happen almost involuntarily: either because they started with a sexier model in their minds, or because in seeing their findings, it just came up to their minds and stuck there. I'm actually rather hard pressed for real examples right now, besides calling the transfer of a quantum state "teleportation" (because I just readn about that today), but it's something that happens quite often.
psyc 10y ago
When I read about my MBTI type, I can reasonably say "Yes, I am exactly like that, and no, I'm nothing like the others." When I read about these categories, my reaction was "I'm all of these."
- qb45 10y ago
  Don't forget the fifth category constituting 10% of people: sly and unpredictable ;)
- wtbob 10y ago
  That's because MBTI is about as scientific as astrology. Frankly, when I studied psychology in college (real psychology, not e.g. some Scientology 'psychologists are evil space aliens' claptrap), I came to the conclusion that most of it is equally unscientific. It has the form but not the substance.
tkxxx7 10y ago
We shouldn't trivialize Jung's and Myer's work because of the pop culture surrounding it. Psychological Types and it's surrounding works (though, I haven't read The Red Book yet) contain a great deal of insight.
- triplesec 10y ago
  Agreed that Jung is still a fine historical and useful psychological figure. However, this was 80-100 years ago. time moves on. I didn't really want to start a MBTI storm, but it was illustrative of a categorisation-creation issue, and the limitations of doing quantitative (and pseudo-quantitative) academics without well-grounded variables.

mbil 10y ago

Classic Pessimistic

StillHocus 10y ago
see this is the type of gold we lose thanks to HN's brutal anti-humor policy.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Pyrite.

Zikes 10y ago

The MBTI was developed in an era of psychology when lobotomies were still performed, so I never gave it any weight. But that's probably just the INTJ in me talking.

triplesec 10y ago
Funny, and true. This is a huge aside to the article topic, but, as the joke goes. MBTI is astrology for geeks. As used by lots of businesspeople and in popular media, MBTI is bunk. No professional psychologist worth their salt uses it in the way that it is misused, and most who are academically up to date look at things like Big 5 as having much more utility.

tpeo 10y ago

Well, all things have to start somewhere. Right now, it's just some curiosity thing, but maybe it will turn out useful. It could already be for making simulations using agent based models with "realistic" hypotheses by feeding in the strategies and the frequencies corresponding to these personalities into the model. Could be useful to social science research already. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-based_model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-based_model

triplesec 10y ago
I like your constructiveness in searching for a solution,. However, it seems to me that any data based upon 'categories' which are constructed out of poorly-operationalised variables are not going to be particularly valid, linear algebra or not! Edit: to be fair, we don't know how they got to their categories, but the naming of them inspires no confidence.
- tpeo 10y ago
  I wasn't previously acquainted with the term "operationalization" as used in this sense. Okay, it may turn out that this categorization is no better than Humourism, which seem to have suffered of the issues of poor variable operationalization as you described: ancient doctors frequently heaped together distinct phenomena ("hot" meant anything which was hot to the senses, whether it was a glowing hot iron, a flesh wound or a bowl of Jalapeños). But I don't think it's quite the case here: they're grouping users by their choices in a game. That's well defined enough, isn't it? The names don't arouse any suspicion to me, either. I think it's just a case of researchers trying to "sexy up" their findings. It's something that might happen almost involuntarily: either because they started with a sexier model in their minds, or because in seeing their findings, it just came up to their minds and stuck there. I'm actually rather hard pressed for real examples right now, besides calling the transfer of a quantum state "teleportation" (because I just readn about that today), but it's something that happens quite often.

psyc 10y ago

When I read about my MBTI type, I can reasonably say "Yes, I am exactly like that, and no, I'm nothing like the others." When I read about these categories, my reaction was "I'm all of these."

qb45 10y ago
Don't forget the fifth category constituting 10% of people: sly and unpredictable ;)
wtbob 10y ago
That's because MBTI is about as scientific as astrology. Frankly, when I studied psychology in college (real psychology, not e.g. some Scientology 'psychologists are evil space aliens' claptrap), I came to the conclusion that most of it is equally unscientific. It has the form but not the substance.

tkxxx7 10y ago

We shouldn't trivialize Jung's and Myer's work because of the pop culture surrounding it. Psychological Types and it's surrounding works (though, I haven't read The Red Book yet) contain a great deal of insight.

triplesec 10y ago
Agreed that Jung is still a fine historical and useful psychological figure. However, this was 80-100 years ago. time moves on. I didn't really want to start a MBTI storm, but it was illustrative of a categorisation-creation issue, and the limitations of doing quantitative (and pseudo-quantitative) academics without well-grounded variables.