4 ms·

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 evi

by 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.
static_noise 10y ago
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, correct. Some theory that has not been tested, however, is equally pointless. Unfortunately we're opertating in a space here where it's more an economy of attention than hard scientific discourse which is very hard to attain in that field. You seem on the right track, though.

by gh1 10y ago

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.

static_noise 10y ago

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, correct. Some theory that has not been tested, however, is equally pointless. Unfortunately we're opertating in a space here where it's more an economy of attention than hard scientific discourse which is very hard to attain in that field. You seem on the right track, though.