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The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless

• n-exploit 10y ago
  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 (especially employers) should rely heavily on Myers-Briggs, I think it can provide a decent framework (or starting point) outlining basic facets of an individual's personality based on their own perspective. Though I often distrust individual claims about belonging a certain type, given my interest in understanding myself and facets of my own personality, I enjoy discussing why a person may claim to be a part of a certain type. For me, Myers-Briggs tends to be little more than a starting point for discussing the finer parts of my own personality, values, and perspectives. I find that those who are equally interested in Myers-Briggs share similar values in self-understanding, thus a starting point for some interesting discussion.
  • jfoutz 10y ago
    That is a completely reasonable approach. Like astrology or tarot cards. Getting people thinking about big questions in a non threatening way can spark interesting conversations. There are a lot of cultural norms that prevent people from talking about themselves in that kind of way. A little hocus pocus can help cut through that. In that same spirit alcohol is a pretty great social lubricant. A little bit of booze lowers people's inhibitions enough to have fun conversations.
    • triplesec 10y ago
      When you say 'reasonable', you mean something orthogonal: rather it's 'rhetorically useful', or 'a social hack '. This does not make it scientific, nor based in reason, and more dangerous because it masquerades as reason much more truthily than tarot and other pretence magic
      • 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
        > more truthily than tarot and other pretence magic Depending on where you are from I suppose. Edit: I believe "pretense" was the incantation you were after.
      • jfoutz 10y ago
        I don't mean it's rational, i mean good enough, at least it's in the same ballpark of getting someone drunk. It's not scientific, it's totally based in reason. It's reasonable to deny global warming because winters are getting colder than ever. It's not reasonable to deny climate change because winters are getting colder than ever. There's nothing wrong with someone drawing a conclusion from their personal experience, that's going to be full of emotion, opinion and hopefully some logic. I get your concern, but the same folks who make hiring decisions based on Myers Briggs will tell you angels were watching over them when they narrowly avoided a car crash. Or their relative visited them a month after they passed away. it's mostly benign. When it's not benign, they're unreasonable. Only then is it possibly worth the effort to persuade them to be a bit more rational. But, yes. I mean 'rhetorically useful' or 'a social hack'
    • raverbashing 10y ago
      No Because those mentioned deal with random events, where X and Y are uncorrelated (being X a date of birth or card drawn from Tarot and Y is some personality characteristic) MB do ask you questions from which you can predict - to some degree - some outcomes (how do you think a strong Extrovert changes from a strong Introvert)? Just don't do something stupid like "this job requires a INTJ only" or think that the distribution is bimodal or that their behaviour will follow a strict pattern. (It's not like the rest of "behavioral science" can make repeatable predictions and reproduce papers compared to other scientific branches)
      • xkcd-sucks 10y ago
        Astrology is correlated to seasonal climate change etc. which can plausibly affect life outcomes, though
        • arde 10y ago
          Considering the planet has two hemispheres, no, it's not correlated.
      • jfoutz 10y ago
        That's such a J thing to say.
      • eastbayjake 10y ago
        I don't think about M-B or Tarot or astrology as predictive, they are mindfulness prods: interesting frameworks to break up and reframe the narratives we tell ourselves about who we are. A horoscope that tells me "this week will present challenges at work about money" is likely to prod me into mindfulness about work and money than I would be otherwise. Similarly, my ESTJ M-B type is more likely to make me mindful about where I get my energy and the ways in which rigorously analytical thinking may not be the way lots of other humans approach decisions.
    • Simon321 10y ago
      It's much more than 'astrology or tarot cards'. MBTI correlates with the big five personality traits. Which are backed up scientifically.
      • dragonwriter 10y ago
        It correlates poorly with any of the competing empirically-supportable models; e.g., as I recall, the I-E axis seems to be a blend of the extraversion and neuroticism axes shared by the EPQ (3 factor) and Big Five (5 factor) models. Better to use one of the scientific models directly than MBTI.
        • arde 10y ago
          Indeed. But that doesn't mean MBTI is really meaningless, only that there are better models.
  • Bartweiss 10y ago
    My primary concern with even cursory usage of Myers-Briggs is that retest consistency isn't as high as I'd like. Plenty of people retest very solidly, of course, but there's a large-percentage chunk of the population that walks or more boundaries and doesn't put up consistent tests. That makes it hard to say anything about the results, at least in simple "my type" terms. A nuanced discussion would probably accept that these are continuous axes, but instead they get treated as clusters, distorting even casual analysis.
    • Kunix 10y ago
      The goal of the test is just to give an approximation. The test is not accurate (and is not claiming to be). The core of the theory is to highlight natural preferences in the way we use cognitive functions. It's a pretty good and useful model. It's not a definite one though, like all the models we have it's meant to be improved and replaced over the years (like in physics). 99% of the critics about MBTI are focusing on the tests (which I agree are not accurate) and the authors don't understand the theory behind it - which is the really useful part. (Carl Jung's work, cognitive functions preferences, etc)
      • Bartweiss 10y ago
        I think there's a cross-purposes argument happening here. I, for one, am totally alright with MBTI-style questions as a tool for analysis/introspection. RibbonFarm has some great writing about identifying 'dominant' cognitive functions based on magnitude data from MBTI. Strictly accurate? No. A useful framework for planning? Absolutely. MBTI is also an organization, though. It charges money for training, issues education materials, and gives trainers strict guidelines on what assessments are ok to make. That system is hideously inaccurate and deserves criticism. It asserts that the test is accurate to reality, that the personality types are 'opposed', and that people are bimodal on the four axes. Many of those claims explicitly contradict the Jungian theories that inspired them. So it's easy to overreach when criticizing the MB model, and most articles like this aren't clear about their target. But the actual MBTI organization - which is still popular with big companies in its original form - is wrong in terms of its own theoretical foundations, defended with bad data, and deserves extensive criticism.
  • ivan_gammel 10y ago
    What about considering other starting points and comparing the added value of them with MBTI? How differs "So, you are INFJ, let's talk about your personality" from "So, you are Captain America/Hobbit/Sith Lord, according to this online test. Let's talk about your personality"?
    • Declanomous 10y ago
      If you have a reasonable methodology to generate the comparison, I think being able to tell someone they are a Sith Lord can be helpful. I think tests can help provide a different perspective to people. I think tests are an issue when they present traits as concrete and unable to be changed, or only present the positive aspects of your personality.
      • spennant 10y ago
        I would never tell anyone that they are a Sith Lord.
        • JorgeGT 10y ago
          Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes.
    • SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      I expect you get about the same utility out of any 4-dimensional, 16-choice bucketing strategy. The MBTI is mostly just useful in that it's one of the few things that actually sorts humans in a hyperdimensional way, which is really how we're best categorized. We're all slight wobbles (well, statistically speaking) around the center of a like 20-100 dimension distribution. MBTI is basically just PCA on that space in to a 4-dimensional one, and while we can argue how evenly its bucketing split the actual distribution of people (not ideally, but not terribly), or how much information was lost in that downcasting (a lot!), I think the basic premise of viewing people as a composite of slight differences across many dimensions is a useful viewpoint we don't normally engage in. So if you could pick 16 LotR characters that form a hypercube of traits, then assigning LotR characters is the same as the MBTI. The problem is usually that LotR quizzes and the like are a) much smaller than that (4-8 characters) and b) not laid out in a hypercube (ie, there's not 4+ dimensions of wobble, there's 2 or 3).
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • dbcurtis 10y ago
    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.
  • ebbv 10y ago
    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.
    • Karunamon 10y ago
      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.
      • Graphon1 10y ago
        Well sure, but the point is that saying "I am INTJ" is like saying "My blood sugar is X." It may be true at the moment, but it's not a useful statement about the general prevailing conditions. But people take the test once, and then use the results for a long period of time. Guess what? At night, blood sugar level goes down. it's no longer X. And likewise with this test.
        • Karunamon 10y ago
          True, but by noting your blood sugar readings over a long period of time, taking note of the spikes, drops, and so forth, you gain some insight into your health and diet. Same thing, here. I wouldn't put much stock into a single result on a single test, but I think there's some broader value to be gained by examining the trend, the fluctuations, and what you wind up as more often than not.
      • ebbv 10y ago
        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.
        • 10y ago
  • zzleeper 10y ago
    I read your first paragraph and there is absolutely no information in those 851 characters (!). I actually had to go through your comment history to see that your account is not some sort of Markov generator. On a more productive point, your post gave no evidence at all about why M-B is useful
    • reitanqild 10y ago
      I suggest reading it again.
  • ck425 10y ago
    I used MBTI in a similar way when I was younger. I identified strongly with the INTP type and wanted to become more outgoing and confident so I studied the descriptions of the ENTP type and deliberately cultivated some of those behaviours. It actually worked fairly well (though admittedly this was also around my 18th birthday so maybe it was just alcohol), nowadays I don't find it particularly useful nor the descriptions at all accurate but as a starting base for self analysis and improvement it's great.
  • taplogger 10y ago
    Myers-Briggs is incredibly useful for people who fall into INFJ because the categorization is relatively rare and can help them place a few of their more socially maladaptive tendencies in context. Admittedly, the test is arbitrary in many ways, but you can't deny the questions -- about introversion, how logical, emotive, and judgmental you are, etc -- represent the subjective experience we have of others' personalities, even if the categories are incomplete, nonlinear, redundant, or transient.
    • robobro 10y ago
      yes, I always score very very strongly in INTJ. It may not be as useful as a full psychological evaluation for describing my personality, but unlike Tarot/astrology, if you know what INTJ means, you can understand how I function and how I see myself. (not very social/emotional, very logical, stubborn, aptitude for systems-building)
  • TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    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 claims. While I don't think anyone (especially employers) should rely heavily on astrology, I think it can provide a decent framework (or starting point) outlining basic facets of an individual's personality based on their own perspective. Though I often distrust individual claims about belonging a sign, given my interest in understanding myself and facets of my own personality, I enjoy discussing why a person may claim to be a part of a certain sign. For me, astrology tends to be little more than a starting point for discussing the finer parts of my own personality, values, and perspectives. I find that those who are equally interested in astrology share similar values in self-understanding, thus a starting point for some interesting discussion. Your comment can be distilled to "it's fun to talk about".
    • whitehouse3 10y ago
      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.
      • TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
        That logic doesn't apply to the zodiac Sure it does. I've met people who will say things like "My sun sign is Virgo, but my personality is dominated by my Sagittarius moon", and then later say something like "I'm going through Saturn return, no wonder Pisces is such an influence". If you compare someone's self-view ("I'm an Aries!") with their behavior (definitely a Gemini), you can draw conclusions. It's standard practice in astrology.
  • novaleaf 10y ago
    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.
    • brianmartinek 10y ago
      Self-introspection is also where I find the most value in M-B. It gave me perspective on my ISTJ personality preferences (preferences is the key word) that I didn't understand about myself prior to having these results.
  • bunderbunder 10y ago
    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.
    • oldmanjay 10y ago
      Seems like a great tool for a science that draws conclusions first and looks for evidence later, as I've been led to believe has been happening in psychology.
      • bunderbunder 10y ago
        I wouldn't drop this one on psychology's doorstep - the MBTI has been pretty consistently critcized by the mainstream psychology community for decades.
  • c3534l 10y ago
    If you feel that way, why not just go for a scientifically-developed personality test like the Big 5? It seems to me that there's an alternative that is real, but there's an almost astrological appeal to Myers-Briggs because (not in spite of) it is opaque.
• 0xfffafaCrash 10y ago
  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 survey of that person's stated behavior and inclinations. When you say MBTI can be "just as arbitrary," what you're claiming is that it might be true that there is zero correlation between how any individual person of a given personality type answers any of the 93 MBTI questions. Sure, there is variation in people's self-assessments (and personalities for that matter, but let's ignore that for the moment) over time, but it wouldn't be "just as arbitrary" unless it had no correlation at all with basically anything about the person. I find that claim to be completely implausible. The only way it could be true that it is meaningless is if upon repeated testings, knowing a person's formerly reported MBTI provided no insight at all into what MBTIs are more likely than for the average person in subsequent testings. That's certainly not the case that's been found in the research, so at the very least, it provides insight into what a person thinks that they are like. Even if it were the case that all the MBTIs are only related to positive traits (which isn't true), the idea that it is meaningless is just nonsense.
  • Analemma_ 10y ago
    > 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.
    • trendia 10y ago
      Add to that "People receive different MBTI results even in the same week."
      • 0xfffafaCrash 10y ago
• jwmoz 10y ago
  I hear this and I'm a huge man of Science, but I can't ignore the similarities I have with my designated type ISTP and the lack of with the other types. Very interesting either way.
• parasubvert 10y ago
  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 belief that these are immutable traits somehow isn't usually dwelled on. - Help team members recognize that there are different styles/preferences of thinking and reasoning. You'd be amazed how many inter-office conflicts get resolved just through spending time getting to know one another. MBTI or HBDI workshops (not just the test) are helpful for this On a final note, there is a fairly popular executive MBA program where I took a one week survey course on leadership about a decade ago. In both this course and the program, they were pretty stoked about the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrmann_Brain_Dominance_Instrument https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrmann_Brain_Dominance_Ins... With the hope it was a bit more rooted in science than MBTI. It focuses more on cognitive preferences than on personality.
  • delgaudm 10y ago
    For me, I appreciated obtaining and knowing my MBTI result for exactly this self-awareness. It allowed me to recognize in myself when certain behaviors and patterns were occurring, and how others might perceive me in those moments. Scientific or not, having a way to codify my personal introspection helped me in many ways career-wise.
  • mi100hael 10y ago
    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.
• josh_carterPDX 10y ago
  We recently took the Kolbe Index test and I found it WAY more useful than the Myers-Briggs. It's much more intuitive and the results, at least to me, seemed to be much easier to relate to. It's a great process to put higher level execs and team members to learn how best to draw from their strengths and weaknesses.
• kingkawn 10y ago
  Except for what you put into it. The conceptualization of meaning as being located only in quantifiable scientific measurement is a denigration to the immense benefits and resilience a person can derived from the places they choose to locate meaning, rather than only the places that any formalized worldview insists are the acceptable ones.
• pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
  the second any psychological test is made public, all true personality disorders it is meant to identify will evolve to produce false results. you're all idiots.
• amelius 10y ago
  What is wrong with recording personality traits of people, and determining correlations between them? Because that is essentially what the test does.
  • ivraatiems 10y ago
    Nothing's wrong with the idea, but the MBTI does it in a way which does not have external validity.
    • flubert 10y ago
      Interesting to see the results of the polls on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=204240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=204240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7365294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7365294
  • CoryG89 10y ago
    The whole point of the article is that the test does not accurately record personality traits of people or the correlations between them. I've never bought into the test. IMO, it's much too simplistic to describe human behavior. People don't fit cleanly into one of just a few categories.
  • Renaud 10y ago
    No statistical measurement or actual attempt at a scientific investigation was done. The classification was purely validated by Isabel Briggs Myers' own free interpretation of what a particular trait should be. That's self-deception, not science. There's nothing wrong in trying to build an understanding of personalities but making things up just because you think your intuition is all you need to build theories, well, that doesn't inspire much confidence. The Myers-Briggs Test smells like science -it has codes and categories!- but like most pseudo-sciences, no-one has really been interested in validating the assumptions with actual data. Pseudo-Psychology is rife with these wishful-thinking theories that sound kind of right but have no solid data to support them. Not bashing Psychology, I think it's a hugely interesting field, but the science behind a lot of it still remains fishy.
• adekok 10y ago
  Similar comments have been raised about the MMPI. On a quick look again, I found: https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2009/08/fascinating-tale-about-us-mmpi-controversy https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2009/08/fascinating-... he original developers of the MMPI questionnaire went about choosing their "normal" control group. They compared test answers from patients in hospitals for the mentally ill with answers from people working in and visiting those hospitals. Who’s to say those workers and visitors were mentally healthy? It's well known that certain kinds of mentally ill people are drawn to working in the mental health industry. I know a psychiatrist who's a narcissist, and a psychiatric nurse who's probably BPD or NPD. Bootstrapping a test from a hand-picked set of people is just bad methodology.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• Symmetry 10y ago
  If you want a scientific measure of personality you can use the Big Five. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
  • lmm 10y ago
    Which notably do correlate closely with Myers-Briggs traits, so if you believe the one is meaningful then so is the other.
    • chx 10y ago
      The primary problem with Myers-Briggs, besides the four traits not at all correlating with the big five is the test itself because it's binary. Correlations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Big_Five https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi... 0.44 / -0.49 is not correlation.
      • lmm 10y ago
        The test measures a scale. Reporting the result as binary is indeed extremely misleading.
• wutf 10y ago
  The covariance of the Big 5 and MBTI is high. This means that if you give both inventories to the same population you can do a factor rotation of one onto the other with much of the variance being preserved. This has been demonstrated multiple times in the academic literature. I have never read an article against the MBTI that mentioned this, and that's because the people who write these articles do not understand statistics. The MBTI is approximately as valid as the Big 5.
  • anbende 10y ago
    That's very interesting. I'm in psychology and I've never heard this. Do you have a source for that covariation? Thanks!
    • wutf 10y ago
      IIRC the first one was done in the original McCrae & Costa paper introducing the Big 5. Will dig it up in a bit. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Big_Five https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...
  • bradleyjg 10y ago
    What's the mapping?
    • wutf 10y ago
      You can see the original mapping here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Big_Five https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...
      • bradleyjg 10y ago
        Interesting. Looks like extroversion is the best correlated (.74) which I suppose makes sense. But nearly as strong (.72) is intuition/sensing to openness to experience, which I would not have predicted. Conscientiousness to judging/perceiving is only .49 and agreeableness to thinking/feeling is only .44. MBTI has no good correlate for neuroticism. I'm no statistician, but "is approximately as valid" looks to be overselling the situation.
• Lambdanaut 10y ago
  > For example, in the category of extrovert vs introvert, you’re either one or the other; there is no middle ground. That's not entirely true. The final answer that people wear as a badge is binary, but the result is calculated as a percentage, and usually presented to the test-taker as a percentage.
• andrewclunn 10y ago
  The more I learn, then more all of the social sciences appear to be less solid regarding the demarcation problem.
• m0llusk 10y ago
  This is making light of a difficult problem. Personality is an interesting and relevant aspect of individual behavior and socialization that remains incompletely characterized by science. One of the most popular modern alternatives to Meyers-Briggs is the Five Factors model which also has limitations. Utility for corporate applications may not be the best metric for these early attempts to characterize personality.
• ivraatiems 10y ago
  This is not a new finding. MBTI has never really been a serious psychological tool. In fact, a lot of the personality assessments used in business are really just woo - MBTI isn't even the worst. It at least is internally consistent. For a real personality exam with actual use in psych research, check out the Five Factor metric.
  • Xcelerate 10y ago
    Five Factor is not much better than MBTI. See http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ajp.161.10.1743 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ajp.161.10.1... for better (and more recent) research on the subject.
    • AstralStorm 10y ago
      Dead salmon study is nowhere near comparable to a psych survey with a lot of data behind it like Big Five.
• triplesec 10y ago
  It's basically horoscope for geeks More articles https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/give-and-take/201309/goodbye-mbti-the-fad-won-t-die https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/give-and-take/201309/go... Edit: http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2014/09/29/the-mysterious-popularity-of-the-meaningless-myers-briggs-mbti/#4f75ae8950ad http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2014/09/29/the-mysteri... And the Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/mar/19/myers-briggs-test-unscientific https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/mar/...
  • alex_anglin 10y ago
    I first read about the Myers-Briggs controversy via Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker over a decade ago: http://gladwell.com/personality-plus/ http://gladwell.com/personality-plus/
  • aaronchall 10y ago
    I'd characterize it as a pseudo-scientific horoscope. It's marginally analogous to the Big Five personality traits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits - this is the personality paradigm recognized by academia), it just leaves out the tendency to experience negative emotions (probably because neuroticism is a negative thing, and businesses like their HR experiences and training to be as positive and feel-good as the bottom line allows.) It is unfortunate that people like the false dichotomies and the Forer effect (the generic but positive descriptions that apply to just about everybody.) I'm sure the Myers Briggs people would be selling the Big Five if they thought they could copyright it.
  • bognition 10y ago
    Not just geeks. Anyone who is looking for easy to digest oversimplification of who they are.
  • david927 10y ago
    I think your missing the point. Do you know what flavor of ice cream you like? I think you do -- and why not know that about yourself? Everyone is some range of introverted to extroverted, for example. It's their preference, such as the flavor of ice cream they like. It can change often, under circumstances, or even not be present, of course. It's not set in stone; it's just a preference. It doesn't define you; you define it. Myers-Briggs is unfortunate in that it assigns that preference as letter. You like Chocolate. You're a C. There are some who have no problem with this sort of designation. They love chocolate always and in every circumstance. Many, however, are not one letter, and so it's a poor test. The point is not the letter. The point is asking yourself the question: do you feel more energized after a dinner party or after a quiet day alone? The point is to know, not just what flavors your prefer usually, but what situations (in this case) you prefer. And why not know that about yourself?
• lexman0 10y ago
  Oh no! Now where will I get my smug sense of satisfaction from?
• JohnKacz 10y ago
  My opinion is that the real value of tools like this is to give people a common vocabulary to talk about themselves and understand others. I think StrengthsFinder[0] does a particularly good job at this. The danger is when people assume they understand somone (or themselves) based on the letters/scores/etc. sans dialogue/reflection. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now%2C_Discover_Your_Strengths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now%2C_Discover_Your_Strengths
  • raverbashing 10y ago
    Yes, it seems BM is measure people in 4 axis and assign a name for each of the 16 types. That's it By forcing people to think in these characteristics to evaluate someone it makes it easier to have a common vocabulary and to predict stuff along those lines
  • ivraatiems 10y ago
    That is valuable and true. The problem is that people take them to mean "this is what I'm like" when it really means "this is how I responded to this test."
    • visarga 10y ago
      Sometimes, people strive to be different, perhaps to improve themselves. When answering a MB question, the answer could be understood in two possible ways: "I usually do that" and "My instinct is to do that". For example, she might keep the room clean but when she was younger, she was sloppy - her instinct is still to be sloppy by she is more disciplined now and keeps clean. How should she answer? These kinds of confusions could change a type.
  • crispyambulance 10y ago
    Yep, personality indicators are a useful way to understand oneself and others in terms of personal interaction. Sadly, these tests are misused by well-meaning HR departments who are in no position, as amateur psychologists, to make _any_ decisions based personality test results.
• deleted 10y ago
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• mjmasn 10y ago
  The Birkman Method is a far better tool that doesn't 'put you in a box' so to speak. We use it exclusively at Elaura and with our hoozyu and expresso apps. https://hoozyu.com https://hoozyu.com https://expresso.elaura.com https://expresso.elaura.com
  • arenaninja 10y ago
    I found this blog post interesting along the same lines: The Tests Who Think They Know Me http://exilelifestyle.com/tests/ http://exilelifestyle.com/tests/ Disclaimer: I work for Birkman
• J-dawg 10y ago
  It is well worth watching Derren Brown's demonstration of the Barnum / Forer effect [0]. If you've never heard of it, I recommend watching the video before you Google anything. It's only a short video (less than 4 minutes) and is a brilliant demonstration. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bCjzLij54k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bCjzLij54k
• liquidise 10y ago
  > 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 test results.
  • jplahn 10y ago
    Then why do we use the summary rollup when it completely loses any of the granular insights? It makes no sense for me to say I'm an E when it was 51E, 49I. For me personally, shouldn't I instead say something like 51E64N60F65J? Likewise, the "insights" you get into your 4 letters is based on whatever the majority letter was, even when your percentages are nowhere near 100% for each.
    • mordocai 10y ago
      Eh, I'm right on the E/I border and pretty strongly test one way in the other categories so I just say i'm barely an I and then NTJ.
      • personlurking 10y ago
        I believe this is classified as an "x" within the MBTI community, where x means on the border.
        • mordocai 10y ago
          So xNTJ? Cool
    • Anasufovic 10y ago
      A lot of the tests will give you those granular numbers, but as a summary it's easy to see why they use only 4 letters compared to your example. Personally I'm surprised any reasonable person would think the test is strictly binary.
• bognition 10y ago
  I get highly skeptical whenever I encounter things like this. I've been subjected to "DiSC" profiling at a previous employer. After taking the test we were subjected to a 3 hour session where we slowly discovered and learned about our unique profile. The best part was I compared my strengths and weaknesses with someone who had an "opposite" personality and they were pretty close to identical. Granted there is a lot to be gained by getting a group of people in a room to talk about the different ways they interact with the world and how they go about solving problems. However, as soon as you start providing formulas for how to interact with people my bull shit detector goes off.
  • programmarchy 10y ago
    And when your employer totally buys in to the bullshit, there's a strong incentive to game the system -- make sure you're classified as a DI (Dominance/Inducement) if you want to move up the management ranks.
    • analog31 10y ago
      This is good to know. It would probably be useful for someone to catalog the "desirable" categories for the various personality tests. We know the tests are used for screening, and it's a pretty safe bet that the screening is based on stereotypes. I don't think it's necessary to precisely nail a specific set of quanta, but simply to avoid the symbols that are associated with negative stereotypes such as introverted, obstinate, or lazy. When I had to take one of these kinds of tests, I just put myself into a mind set of being outgoing, cheerful, agreeable, diligent, etc.
• delecti 10y ago
  I wonder how MBTI would be perceived if instead of simply a binary EI/NS/FT/PJ, anyone within a standard deviation of the mean got an X, so you could be INXX if you were solidly introverted and intuitive, but not particularly strongly aligned on the later two axes. Naturally most people would have at least an X or two, but it would be much more useful if people didn't have to advertise an F or T if it didn't really matter for describing them. Though it probably wouldn't have caught on. Who wants to be the XXXX in a situation.
  • ivraatiems 10y ago
    It might be perceived differently, but the underlying system would still not be a solid one.
• grandalf 10y ago
  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 results, several usually think it was uncannily accurate, and a few are immediately defensive because the result does not jive with their self-perception (usually because the personality type is described as similar to some unsavory characters from history). When I read articles criticizing Meyers Briggs, I always assume it was written by one of these people. If you are in a relationship, one interesting game to play with your significant other is to take the Meyers Briggs test and then read some of the stuff that has been written about relationship compatibility through the Meyers Briggs lens. I've found it to be quite accurate for many couples I know. There is also a very amusing book called Please Understand me II which has detailed write-ups about the characteristics of each type. It's great for parties to read out loud everyone's results over a glass of wine. IMHO Personality tests are useful mainly to encourage self-awareness, introspection and empathy. As a Meyers Briggs ENTP I find the descriptions of an ENTP personality flattering and desirable. I suspect nearly any type would find their own type description equally flattering and desirable.
  • imagist 10y ago
    The problem here is that since the MBTI only collects your own perceptions, it is only as accurate as your own perceptions--it isn't going to tell you anything you don't already think. There's some value in bringing what you think of yourself into your conscious awareness, but I don't think that can be represented as increasing self-awareness--it only can cause you to think what you already think. There's even some risk that it may reinforce incorrect ideas you may have about yourself. > As a Meyers Briggs ENTP I find the descriptions of an ENTP personality flattering and desirable. Of course, they're your descriptions and therefore they're biased. (Incidentally, I'm an ENTP too).
    • grandalf 10y ago
      > it isn't going to tell you anything you don't already think. Well, if you take a 2000 word write-up about your own type, there may be some thought-provoking generalizations either about your own type or about patterns that are consistent when people of different types interact... things which derive from what you believed about yourself but are consequences of the MBTI's generalizations about human interactions. But I agree, it would be interesting to incorporate the sort of information in the MBTI along with less subjective metrics and come up with a more rich analysis.
• cylinder 10y ago
  And it can be harmful. People use their categorization as an excuse (I know I have). "I'm an INTP, I can't have a normal career, I always lose interest and move on to the next thing!" Yeah... this is called being undisciplined. Experts and Masters aren't born with the discipline to master their craft. They struggle like anyone else, but they break through those barriers and continue their mastery. Don't use your personality as an excuse to get around the discipline and practice components of success. Don't let the introvert label be an excuse for you being a standoffish asshole or a hermit. Go on the subreddits for these ... such as /r/INTP and browse a bit ... they are sad.
  • emodendroket 10y ago
    I believe it, but I don't find it hard to believe that, to some extent, differences in diligence are ingrained.
• joeclark77 10y ago
  The weirdest job interview I ever went to was for a sales position at a software development company. These guys had me do a Myers-Briggs test online a few days before the interview. After taking a day off and making a long drive to see these guys, the manager introduced himself by saying "We don't want you for this job. With your personality type you can't be a salesman. I let you come here anyway, though, because our web developer is really overwhelmed. Would you be willing to meet him and talk about working for him?" It was so bizarre it took me a while to decide if they were insane or just incredibly rude. Upon reflection, they were both.
• brightball 10y ago
  At the company I work for, everybody took the test and then we all sat down with a coach to go over the scope of Meyers Briggs and exactly what each part meant. As we were going through this with our team we each had a card in front of us with our type on them. Explaining the profile parts while seeing your team members profiles was a great exercise for us because it effectively taught us how to communicate better with each other. I'm an ENFJ on a team of highly technical introverts INTJ. We learned how to work better together, how to communicate better and they also learned how/when to better utilize me for interactions with the rest of the company. Until we did this exercise it was just some interesting test results.
• Zikes 10y ago
  The Myers-Briggs was developed in a time where lobotomies were still considered to be a valid psychological treatment.
• CoffeeDregs 10y ago
  I greatly appreciate the Myers-Briggs test, but I've only seen it applied as a tool for self-understanding: I think I've been given the test a couple of times by schools and universities. Taking it has helped me understand a little bit more about myself and there are very few tools in the world that help you learn anything about yourself. AFAICT, the only reasons for a company to administer it are: employee development (same as universities); to attempt to fix a deficient interview process (which is BS).
• Allower 10y ago
  no fucking kidding - and we will continue making asinine mistakes like this, because humans are dumb.
• jackcosgrove 10y ago
  As an INTJ, I am part of 1% of the population and 25% of people who know their MBTI. Systematizers FTW! The MBTI is more useful than an astrological sign, and less useful than a 15 minute conversation with someone, if you want to understand their personality. That said I think it's a mostly harmless way of classifying people, unlike race, class, nationality, profession, etc.
• Allower 10y ago
  no fucking kidding - and we will continue making asinine mistakes like this, because humans are dumb.
• acaciapalm 10y ago
  I get a different score nearly every time I take it. Am I alone in this?
  • Practicality 10y ago
    No, I get a different one nearly every time too. I figured it was part of learning: I adapt my personality as I learn. Of course, my theory is that personality tests just tell you what you think of yourself, and I change my opinion about that often.
• cel1ne 10y ago
  Emotional styles by Richard Davidson are a much better and neuro-scientifically / experimentally validated way of mapping personalities: http://www.beinghuman.org/article/six-emotional-styles http://www.beinghuman.org/article/six-emotional-styles
• cozmo 10y ago
  This article is as unscientific as it claims the Myers-Briggs test to be. It does not prove the Myers-Briggs test wrong, but instead claims that there is no evidence to support it. Well, in science, if you want to claim that something is wrong, you need two things: the theory must be falsifiable and you need to falsify it. Just claiming something has no evidence is not enough. Some more critique on the article. 1. The Myers Briggs test result does not need to be binary. There are variants of the tests that give you a score on each of its 4 axes (Introvert/Extrovert, Sensing/Intuitive, Feeling/Thinking, Judging/Perceptive). For example, see https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test 2. The test results do not always talk about positive qualities. For example, here is a discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the ISFJ personality. https://www.16personalities.com/isfj-strengths-and-weaknesses https://www.16personalities.com/isfj-strengths-and-weaknesse... Finally, on the point of falsification, I would like to suggest the following test. Take a group of people and let them take the test. Now let the close friends of the test taker read all the personality type descriptions and chose one for the test taker. Find the correlation between the friends' choices and the test results. If the correlation is significant, then the test is meaningful. Otherwise not meaningful.
• rayiner 10y ago
  As a society, we believe in a lot of pseudo-scientific garbage, from management principles, to nutrition theories, to psychological tests. Ironically it's an outgrowth of our glorification of science and education: kids are taught from an early age to defer to those who clothe themselves in the trappings of the academic, and so as adults people voluntarily entertain very stupid ideas so long as they sound sufficiently "science-y."
  • triplesec 10y ago
    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
    • rayiner 10y ago
      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.
      • triplesec 10y ago
        That's clearer and more reasonable. But what do you think should be done to achieve this?
• JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Really? I used to have to take these tests in the '80s but nobody has made me do one for decades. I thought we were all past this hoax years ago.
• elorant 10y ago
  I don’t feel that it’s meaningless. I’ve taken it multiple times in a span of a decade and most of the times I get the same result (INTJ) - I guess P’s and J’s must be pretty dominant in here. As any test, it gives me a rough estimate. It’s not meant to define you, it’s meant to give you a guideline to understand yourself better. In that aspect it works just fine for me.
• gh1 10y ago
  This article is as unscientific as it claims the Myers-Briggs test to be. It does not prove the Myers-Briggs test wrong, but instead claims that there is no evidence to support it. Well, in science, if you want to claim that something is wrong, you need two things: the theory must be falsifiable and you need to falsify it. Just claiming something has no evidence is not enough. Some more critique on the article. 1. The Myers Briggs test result does not need to be binary. There are variants of the tests that give you a score on each of its 4 axes (Introvert/Extrovert, Sensing/Intuitive, Feeling/Thinking, Judging/Perceptive). For example, see https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test 2. The test results do not always talk about positive qualities. For example, here is a discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the ISFJ personality. https://www.16personalities.com/isfj-strengths-and-weaknesse.. https://www.16personalities.com/isfj-strengths-and-weaknesse.... Finally, on the point of falsification, I would like to suggest the following test. Take a group of people and let them take the test. Now let the close friends of the test taker read all the personality type descriptions and chose one for the test taker. Find the correlation between the friends' choices and the test results. If the correlation is significant, then the test is meaningful. Otherwise not meaningful.
  • Bartweiss 10y ago
    For these points, I think it's crucial to distinguish "Myers-Briggs style tests" from The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The first thing, MB-style tests, are amorphous and have been improved in various ways since the invention of the test. That second thing is a formalized test with licensed practitioners. It's been used to disqualify people from jobs, and has produced a huge amount of secondary literature/analysis which requires the binary distribution to be meaningful. This formalized test has been worth a small fortune for the people who own it, and their training seminars and public literature aggressively go against both points 1 and 2. It's fair to criticize MBTI as, say, needing to be binary. 16personalities is a secondary group which is doing a different thing than the still-popular, rigorously-bounded original.
    • gh1 10y ago
      I guess you are referring to this. http://www.myersbriggs.org/ http://www.myersbriggs.org/ This is a valid point. If the version that most companies are using needs a binary classification, then this is a meaningful criticism of the test. However, note that this is just be a criticism of the test. It says nothing about whether the tests are effective or not, which is what the article tries to prove.
• kazinator 10y ago
  If such a test is administered in connection with some external consequences for someone which vary depending on the outcome, the subject can game the test to obtain results which are favorable or desirable to him or her. The four letters that pop out are purely a function of some responses given, and not of actual personality. Anyone who understands the mapping from answers to outcome can just give the answers to produce a desired outcome. Any test that a subject can game is inherently unscientific. The above would be true even if the model of personality were actually valid, and indicated something meaningful in the case of honest, accurately introspective answers. (That it isn't and doesn't is what is called into question by the article.) This section of the Wikipedia page on it suggests that some other personality tests have some built-in sophistication to detect dishonest answers, which is lacking in Myers-Briggs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Lack_of_objectivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...
• DrNuke 10y ago
  Sooo INTJ-ish all this! Disclosure: I am INTJ and see this as a tool among other tools to understand where I do stand socially within a few business-oriented group dynamics.
• Practicality 10y ago
  I always considered the problem with personality tests is that it tells you what the person thinks about themselves, which is always going to be an inaccurate picture, since everyone has a lot of blind spots about themselves. As a citation, pretty much all of these: https://youarenotsosmart.com/all-posts/ https://youarenotsosmart.com/all-posts/
• iamalexbirkett 10y ago
  I remember taking the test in high school and just feeling the bias creep into my answers. Like, I would answer in ways I wanted to be viewed, not how I actually act. Apart from that, I don't think there are necessarily problems in treating it as a fun personality test, like "astrology or tarot cards" as others have said. But in the digital marketing space, Buyer Modalities is a popular model used to segment site visitors. It's based on the Myers-Briggs so it's inherently useless, but makes you feel like you're doing rigorous work.
  • mi100hael 10y ago
    > I would answer in ways I wanted to be viewed, not how I actually act. Do you know if it was an official MBTI test or something else? In keeping with the "no wrong personality" mantra, I found the test questions to be fairly neutral. By that I mean neither option would be perceived as socially unacceptable, just different personal preferences.
• codingdave 10y ago
  The comments here so far seem to be jumping too far the other direction. It is an imperfect test, which does not give meaningful results for all people, and should not be a factor in business decisions. That does NOT mean that is has no meaning at all, or is a complete hoax, or is like unto astrology. Like almost all things, it is a tool that has a purpose, and understanding where it can or cannot be applied is a prerequisite to getting value from it.
• notacoward 10y ago
  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?
• iamnothere 10y ago
  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 Strengthsfinder system is much better suited to workplace environments. It's backed by solid research, and I really like its core philosophy: everyone has natural strengths, and building off those strengths will lead to better outcomes than trying to compensate for personal weaknesses. As long as companies understand that it isn't a litmus test for suitability -- teams should have a diversity of strengths or they will have blind spots -- it can actually be a great tool for understanding management and team dynamics. For personal development, I prefer the Enneagram system. I've found each type's "levels of development" to be incredibly helpful in pinpointing my own type, and overall I have a much better "fit" with my type than in MBTI. As opposed to Strengthsfinder, the Enneagram system is mainly useful for identifying patterns in behavior and understanding motivations. Not such a great business tool, except perhaps at the executive level.
  • aaimnr 10y ago
    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.
• stared 10y ago
  MBTI highly correlates with OCEAN (aka Big Five), a psychological test (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Big_Five https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...). Sure, some parts make no sense (like insisting in binary values, or some of its interpretation). Still, it is not a horoscope. I use it a lot when it comes to introducing people to nerdy friends (especially in the context of dating, like: "She's INFP!" or "Yeah, she looks nice, but is a total ESFJ...".) A link (nice pictures, especially the carnivorous plant for INTP) and some descritpions that actually may be helpful how to deal with other people (especially with different personalities): https://www.16personalities.com/ https://www.16personalities.com/. If you really want to "be scientific" (as if it was a binary criterion), you can use OCEAN. For me it would be: O+ C- E= A- N+
• wcp 10y ago
  The MBTI asks you what your preferences are, and then tells you what you said. That's not "meaningless," but it's certainly not a tool for doing science. For me, it's been meaningful in that it emphasizes that my preferences can be different from those around me, and that that is just fine. It's helpful to consider that some prefer to think for a while before speaking, even if that's not my preference because silence makes me uncomfortable. It's helpful to acknowledge that some people like to make detailed plans whereas I prefer to be more flexible and open to possibilities. The attitude of the MBTI is that neither approach is wrong but that it helps to recognize which approach you prefer. Does each person fit comfortably into one of 16 categories? No, of course not. But it might be a useful framework for introspection and thinking about your relationships.
• zodPod 10y ago
  As someone who can control what I get on the test pretty successfully (never tested for exact numbers but it changes every time I take it) I have thought this for a while.
• maverick_iceman 10y ago
  One big problem I have with these personality classifications (MBTI, Type-A/Type-B) is it assumes that personality traits are bimodal instead of normally distributed. MBTI would have made sense if the population was split 50-50 into E/I etc. but in reality most people fall somewhere in the middle.
• bigbadgoose 10y ago
  it's almost self confirming right? so if you believe you are an INTJ, you might start taking on INTJ traits or become biased in self evaluating those in yourself. i get the business and HR "value" (yes, in quotes :), but i largely view this as "astrology for top 50 university people", ie people who want to believe in some collective unconsciousness affinities, peppered with scientific plausibility. especially with regard to application in personal life
• good_gnu 10y ago
  I would like to raise the issue of nature vs. nurture in this context: Does Myers-Briggs really identify stable characteristics of someone's current personality or merely the way in which it currently expresses itself. E.g. consider someone who has previously worked in a dysfunctional corporate environment but was unable to quit that job for financial reasons. They were very well rewarded for superficial qualities like punctuality and tidyness and thus learned that it was necessary to prioritize these values. Does that mean that this person now has a personality which prioritizes these values? What if their ``natural'' personality in another environment would have been to only emphasize utility to their company even at e.g. the cost of tidyness. What if their natural personality will quickly adapt once they are put in an environment that emphasizes these qualities? These issues seem to be given oddly little weight by advocates of Myers-Briggs classification for the purpose of hiring decisions.
  • visarga 10y ago
    Fully agree, and I think this makes results ambiguous. Testers might take any of the two perspectives: "what I usually do in this situation", vs. "what I would instinctively do". For example, a religious person would respect her religious moral principles even against her instinct - what should she answer - isn't her will also a part of her personality? Should she ignore her will and answer with her instinctive impulse instead?
• heisenbit 10y ago
  "SMARTNEWS" "The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless" promises explosive insights such as: "[...] and statistical analysis reveals even data produced by the test shows a normal distribution rather than bimodal, refuting the either/or claims of the MBTI." It is really surprising that aggregation of a number of binary questions results produces a normal distribution. In all my experiments with a randomly selected coin from my purse I got something close to bimodal - not. MBTI may be flawed, overused and too simplistic. However simplifying statistical arguments down to that level is not the way to advance science.
• torbjorn 10y ago
  I am always amazed by how many discussions of MBTI go on without any consideration of the Jungian cognitive functions that the 16 MBTI types are based on. Without seeking to understand the function stack associated with a MBTI personality type it's hard to use MBTI usefully/as it was intended to be used.
• aaimnr 10y ago
  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 to understand them. There is another personality typing method called Enneagram, that takes a more interesting approach than static M-B. Rather than attributing some essential properties to each person, it assumes that personality is formed by a set of cognitive habits. These habits condition our attention to pick specific aspects of experience and giving it interpretation in line with this bias. Most people use all of these 9 identified patterns, but one is dominant, and hence it defines what we perceive as personality. These habits are mostly crystalised in childhood and depend on the environment and upbringing. Eg. when a child is punished at random without any consequence there's a chance it will become type 8, on the other hand if there's great deal of regularity and rules at home, it may and up as type 1 etc. Seems like a gross oversimplification, but it's just an example of this type of conditioning. The general approach seems legit (based on what we know about cognitive science), but what's more important, learning about these 9 habits/types usually leads to incredible insights into one's behaviour. There's lot of regularities that we suddenly find in our actions that fit specifically to one of these 9 types. Unlike what article states about M-B, Ennegram mostly focuses on the dark, habitual and unconscious aspects of each personality, so it's much less susceptible to the "horoscope effect" (where we're more likely to attribute anything positive to ourselves). I try to challenge it as much as possible, because as anything related to personality it may become a self fulfilling prophecy, but still I found it very hard to falsify, there's just a lot of positive evidence. Since there's strong overrepresentation of rational thinkers on HN I'd love to hear some comments from anyone here who took Enneagram test or heard about it (there's a lot of free tests on the internet).
  • marcosdumay 10y ago
    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.
• throw7 10y ago
  OK, i'll bite: so what do psychologists believe is a good way to learn about people?
• tallanvor 10y ago
  In one of my courses we took Myers-Briggs, which the professor scored and then handed us a summary of our results and asked people how they felt the results actually matched up with them. Virtually everyone agreed that the results were fairly accurate, at which point our professor provided us with our real results and we went through the various possible results to understand how they're designed in such a way that you can generally find ways to agree with the results no matter what you got. Needless to say I've ignored any MBTI results since.
• pfarnsworth 10y ago
  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.
• programminggeek 10y ago
  All models are flawed, but sometimes they are useful.
• Xcelerate 10y ago
  This is a subject I spend a lot of time reading about. It's interesting because I think the field of psychology is going to have a bit of a (computational) overhaul soon as we acquire more data about people and develop new models of behavior. I wouldn't be surprised if machine learning ends up revolutionizing psychology twenty years form now. A few points: - Science is concerned with making accurate predictions about the future - Predictions range in quality: QFT can predict the gyromagnetic moment of the electron to 12 decimal places, but psychiatrists still have trouble figuring out which medications serve as effective antidepressants (nothing against them — it's a complex subject) Also, good science is able to find correlations between things, and these correlations allow you to improve your predictions. How much of the variance in a dataset is explained by a given model? In this sense: - Astrology has almost zero predictivity (I say "almost" because there are extremely weak, but non-zero correlations with the month that someone was born in) - Myers-Briggs has weak, but non-zero predictivity that is still much higher than that of astrology - Big Five has weak, but non-zero predictivity that is slightly higher than Myers-Briggs - The field of psychology has weak, but non-zero predictivity (http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248 http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-f...) - The field of biology has adequate predictivity - The field of particle physics has extremely high predictivity See where I'm going with this? The math may be hard, but quantum mechanics is actually pretty easy as far as accurately predicting the future goes. Understanding the human brain is a far more difficult task than making sense of C* algebras. There's been quite a few studies on Myers-Briggs, and I think it has more value than the Smithsonian article gives it credit for. That said, I think Big Five has much less value than most psychologists give it credit for. In terms of determining the eigenfactors of personality, something recent like this goes much further than Big Five: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ajp.161.10.1743 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ajp.161.10.1...
• neves 10y ago
  The sad thing about these tests is that it puts people in closed boxes. I've used to be an introvert, now I'm an extrovert. Depending on my mood, tiredness, hour of the day, I'd answer differently a test. People are more complex and have richer personalities than 2^4.
• homulilly 10y ago
  We used a system called Facet5 at work once. I'm still not convinced these types of things are actually worth the money in terms of productivity gains but it did seem to do a decent job addressing the biggest flaws with the MBTI (Rates things on a scale and uses a 5th scale that determines the expression of the other 4). Again, not sure if it actually made any difference in interactions with coworkers but it was kinda interesting.
• matchagaucho 10y ago
  If anything, Myers-Briggs forces introspection and reflection. But it really shouldn't be used as an employee classifier... just personal growth only.
• a3n 10y ago
  I've never been interested in Myers-Briggs. I have no idea what the designations are or what they mean. I have no idea what my score (?) is, and I'm profoundly uninterested. My uninterest only increased when I was in an environment where this was a frequent point of reference among co-workers, as I watched people with no education and training in psychology or other relevant fields make pronouncements and direct people's work lives based on four letters. As far as I can see (and obviously, I don't know a lot about MB), it's words pulled out of legitimate fields of study and used ignorantly and out of context, sometimes with real consequences.
• michaelborromeo 10y ago
  MBTI is a very misunderstood system. People tend to take it too far and in directions it shouldn't go. It's not surprising when it's labeled as meaningless. Here's one example: I'm an ISTP which is only one letter away from ISFP. That's pretty similar right? No, they're actually pretty different. The letters ISTP are just a shorthand for a system developed by Carl Jung. ISTP actually means that I have a stack of behaviors that I tend towards and that I've developed as I've aged. The stack goes as follows: Introverted Thinking which I have (supposedly) developed since I was young. http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-thinking/ http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-thinking/ Extraverted Sensing which, again supposedly, I started developing since I was in my teens and through my 20s. http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-sensing-se/ http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-sensing-se/ Introverted Intuition which I've been developing more recently (30s). http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-intuition/ http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-intuition/ And finally Extraverted Feeling which is still moderately awkward for me (like trying to write with my off hand). It's getting less awkward as I get older. http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-feeling-fe/ http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-feeling-fe/ An ISFP, on the other hand, has the following stack: Introverted Feeling, Extraverted Sensing, Introverted Intuition, and Extraverted Thinking. And other types have their own function stack that they've developed as they've aged. Some faster, some slower. This is one potential reason why people test differently as they age. I first took the test I was in my 20s when I was at a different point in my maturation process. Nowadays I'm much more focused on long term goals as opposed to short term satisfaction. Maybe I'm just developing my Introverted Intuition which is typically associated more with long term thinking. Maybe it's just part of the maturation process everyone goes through. I will say, though, some people I've observed have gone through the process in reverse -- being interested in long term goals when they're young and then realizing they should also pay attention to short term gratification a little as they age. Maybe they're a type that leads with Introverted Intuition. Who knows.
• deleted 10y ago
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• gpsx 10y ago
  I had a hard time understanding how people were comparing meyers briggs to astrology and I think the problem is that they don't know the full idea behind the meyers briggs classification. I thought I should give a brief description of what it is, or at least what I think it is. What meyers briggs is NOT is a group of 16 types each with a description of what the person is like. This looks like astrology. This 16 groups is just a summary of what people might be like based on the test results. Meyers briggs IS a group of four classifications. A person falls on a continuum related to each classification. For each classification there is a letter associated with each end of the spectrum. For a given classification you can label yourself as one of the two letters based on which side of the continuum you fall, though this is just a simplifying representation. The true representation is a place on the continuum between each of the two letters. The four categories are give below, in my matchbox description: E vs I - extroversion/introversion. An I is a person who recharges by being alone. An E recharges by being with other people. An I type person will typically be tired after spending a lot of time in a group of people and will want to spend some time by themselves. An E will be drained if they are by themselves for a while. Keep in mind, there is no such thing as a pure E or a pure I. We are all a combination of the two. N vs S - intuitive/sensing - An N person relies on subconscious thinking, whereas a S person relies on conscious thinking, or reasoning. We can thinking much faster subconsciously but the problem with it is that it is when are brain produces a result, such as "That person doesn't like me", it is difficult to know if it is right if it is based on subconscious reasoning. T vs F - thinking/feeling - An F is more sensitive to another's feelings where as a T is less concerned with a persons interpretation of what they say than with how true it is. A T is more the brutally honest type. P vs J - perceiving/judging - a J is a planner and doesn't like when the plan changes. A P likes to take things as they come and doesn't like to be tied down. I see this as a very scientific classification. Of course, what people do with the classification may be a different story, such as how it is used in the hiring process. I find it very useful in understanding how people react to situations differently than I do, and that I should not judge them negatively for this.
• egl2016 10y ago
  I find the MBTI incredibly useful. When I meet someone I immediately figure out what their MBTI type is. That saves me enormous amounts of time later on---I don't have to pay close attention to what they say or do. I just rely on their MBTI type. Sometimes I don't even bother listening to them or asking their opinion, which lets me use the time to think about other things, like HN. I used to use their astrological sign, but that required asking for their birthday, which was awkward, especially when I didn't get them a present.
• pc2g4d 10y ago
  The difficulty I see with MBTI is that the categories were decided in advance, whereas they should be determined based on the data. In other words, MBTI treats human personality as a classification problem (which of these categories do you belong to?) where it should be treated as a clustering problem (which categories even exist?) I'd love to do some data mining on a large MBTI test database. Better yet, a large database of people's responses to various personality-oriented questions, MBTI or not.
• kjbflsudfb 10y ago
  You know what kind of responses you are asking for without adding: /s ? :)
  • dang 10y ago
    We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687196 and marked it off-topic.
• INTPenis 10y ago
  I thought the MBTI was fun because it made me feel better about myself. It didn't actually solve anything though.
• sunstone 10y ago
  Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
• projektir 10y ago
  Last time I read about Myers-Briggs, I got the impression that it was to be used strictly for self-assessment and not externally, and I recall the article I was reading specifically saying that the test only makes sense for personal use because it was too easy to game otherwise...
• nostrademons 10y ago
  Here's the correlations between MBTI dimensions and the "big five" personality traits that are commonly used in social-sciences research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Big_Five https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi... When I look at those, I think "Not everything, but not nothing either". A correlation of 0.7+ is pretty high for anything in the social sciences - by comparison, the correlation between intelligence and genetics is about 0.4. It's certainly a lot higher than astrology, which has a correlation of roughly 0.0 with anything other than birthdate. A lot of the criticism of MBTI is that it breaks people down into 16 arbitrary categories, and there's no way a single category can reflect everything about a person. This is true; there is no way a single category will reflect everything about a person. But we break people down into arbitrary categories all the time - race, social class, profession, job title, political party, ethnicity, place of residence, generation, etc. Categorization by MBTI brings all of the pitfalls of these - you're stereotyping, and you're going to miss important details about the person themself - as well as all the benefits, in the form of a quick mental shorthand to draw inferences about their future behavior on little data. You can think of it in "Thinking fast and slow" terms: MBTIs and other social categories are in the "thinking fast" category, where you make quick but error-prone judgments on limited information, while actually getting to know someone is the "thinking slow" side, where you get a much more accurate picture of who they are at the cost of significantly higher effort. Indeed, the MBTI has a dimension for this (iNtuitive vs. Sensing), and I've found that online MBTI tests tend to overrepresent the number of Ns in the population compared to offline, professionally-given tests, because Ns tend to be more attracted to the MBTI as a way of thinking about the world.
  • AstralStorm 10y ago
    Correlation of 0.4 means generally "it could be" in proper statistics. As in "it is also probable for a normal variate that you're seeing a spurious one". You probably wanted effect size instead and a good statistical test.
• YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
  It's funny but I have a relative who was into the works of Carlos Castaneda and I've read quite a few of them (they're a bit magical realism, remind me a bit of J. L. Borges). In one of the books, Don Juan (his guru) describes a personality system based on the cardinal directions which ends up classifying every member of the human species in one of sixteen distinct personality types. As is typical for Castaneda's stories, Carlos immediately challenges the idea that there are only sixteen types of people in the whole world - which is really just a plot device to keep Don Juan talking and move the description of the whole system along. Anyway, this personality system is what I thought when I first heard of the Myers-Briggs test and I thought it has exactly the same merit as any other system that arbitrarily groups people into 16 types based on whatever perceived characteristic of theirs, which is to say: none at all. In Castaneda's case you need to have special seer powers to see peoples' type. In Myers Briggs all you need is an MBTI test. There is progress even in magic, it seems.
• emodendroket 10y ago
  I thought this was old news but any reputable publication helping to slay this dinosaur is welcome.
• lucisferre 10y ago
  Is any personality test really meaningful? I mean the entire field of psychology apparently doesn't care much about correctness or falsifiability? Why bother to hold MBTI to a higher standard? [1] [1]: http://www.nature.com/news/smart-software-spots-statistical-errors-in-psychology-papers-1.18657 http://www.nature.com/news/smart-software-spots-statistical-...
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    Yes, there are models of personality that, unlike MBTI, have a scientific basis for the selection of their dimensions. That there are widespread problems with psychological research does not mean that there is no reason to apply standards when evaluating proposed models in the field (in fact, it's a good reason to be particularly careful in doing so.)
    • lucisferre 10y ago
      I was merely being fatous, I don't seriously think it isn't, I'm just saying MBTI seems like pretty par-for-the-course psychology as far as things go. Sadly.
• AlphaWeaver 10y ago
  This article simply quotes verbatim other sources without providing much insight of its own. That's not very good.