5 ms·

Between the Forer Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect), confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

by mkn 18y ago

Between the Forer Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect), confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias), and the fact that people routinely retest into different categories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs#Study_of_scoring_consistency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs#Study_of_scoring_c...), I don't place much stock in Myers-Briggs. Add to that the dubious way in which the theory was developed, and I'm completely mystified by the appeal of this system to so-called hackers. It just seems like you could take any 4 either/or categories and have a test that's equally valid. Do you like apples or bananas? Wear corrective lenses or not? Like dogs or cats? Rent your home or own your home? (I'm ACDR, for the record. My type is particularly rare, yet makes up a majority of CEOs and start-up founders. Yay, me!) Can we please put a stop to this nonsense?

Alex3917 18y ago
"It just seems like you could take any 4 either/or categories and have a test that's equally valid." The categories used by the Big Five were actually created using empirical research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Consensus_on_the_Big_Five http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Con...
- nostrademons 18y ago
  Okay, then on that note, what's everyone's Big Five personality test score? There's an online inventory at: http://www.personalitytest.net/ipip/ipipneo120.htm http://www.personalitytest.net/ipip/ipipneo120.htm Mine is 10 (3-4-4-70-17-57) / 73 (70-61-33-80-74-63) / 43 (52-33-41-35-26-80) / 41 (12-20-53-89-48-28) / 67 (81-50-5-38-87-87) in test order (that's Extraversion/Agreeableness/Conscientiousness/Neuroticism/Openness). Interestingly, that seems like it's about the worst possible personality for an entrepreneur, with super low scores in all the extraversion categories, high cautiousness, high self-consciousness, low self-discipline and adventurousness.
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    I don't remember my scores offhand, but I remember getting weird results the last time I took an online version. I think it said I had low openness to experience, which is weird, because that factor should be pretty much off the charts for me. It's important to remember that while the categories themselves have empirical support, the specific test you took might not have high reliability for assigning scores within any given category.
bentoner 18y ago
You're missing the point. Myers-Brigg types are most useful for understanding other people, not for understanding yourself. Before I read about the other Myers-Brigg types, I just didn't understand why certain other people made decisions as they did, e.g., a member of a group insisting on a worse outcome for everyone to punish someone who'd offended them. I mean, it just wasn't logical! You see, I was trying to understand/predict others' behaviour by projecting my own personality onto them. Much better is to understand/predict someone's behaviour based on how someone of their Myers-Brigg type would behave. If understanding how others are different is what Myers-Brigg types are for, then the division into 16 types makes sense. It represents a trade-off between having too few types (and not having predictive power) and having too many (and having to learn too much information of less relevance).
- asdflkj 18y ago
  How are you supposed to know a person's Myers-Briggs type, when you're trying to understand that person's behavior? It's not exactly listed on the nametag. So the best you can do is infer it from what you already know of that person. But if you already know so much as to be able to infer it, you can understand/predict that person's behavior without resorting to any pigeon-holing.
  - bentoner 18y ago
    If you're a people-person and can instinctively understand the people you meet, then you're right. But not everyone is born with this skill -- certainly I wasn't. Learning about the other Myers-Briggs types helped me to develop it.
epi0Bauqu 18y ago
Despite the drawbacks in MB, the poll results show an interesting and compelling deviation from expected (i.e. average) results.
- timr 18y ago
  Well, the results are certainly skewed, but that's not necessarily an indication of anything interesting. For example, you can't rule out the possibility that the test is particularly appealing to people with a certain personality (i.e. "hackers"), and that the test happens to label these people identically (i.e. "NT"). The fact that the test was posted here, and that the results are heavily skewed toward a small number of types, could be one big example of selection bias.
  - llimllib 18y ago
    But even if it is an enormous case of selection bias (which I won't argue against, since it's a position I've held myself), it may still be interesting. And to hold that there's such a wide selection bias among the type of people who frequent this site is, I would argue, an interesting phenomenon.
    - timr 18y ago
      I don't disagree. "Interest" is a pretty ambiguous word. That said, if this site appeals to a certain type of person, and the test appeals to the same type of person, then the results aren't surprising. I guess that's what I'm getting at.
  - randallsquared 18y ago
    "the test is particularly appealing to people with a certain personality (i.e. "hackers"), and that the test happens to label these people identically (i.e. "NT")." Isn't this the only claim that proponents of the test make? It's the whole point: people with different personalities are supposed to show up differently on the test. It's not clear to me why you seem to think that the claims for the test are actually claims against it. :)
tokipin 18y ago
those issues have to do with testing, not the theory itself. it's not the theory's fault that humans are so... kaleidoscopic when they try to look at themselves as expected, people here are overwhelmingly INTJ/INTP. you'll find that's the case in most scientific disciplines it's not easy to see how the theory is good without having noticed how particularly similar people can be these type combinations are not just 'any four categories', their effect on a type is greater than the sum of the parts. a bit more descriptive is the underlying Jungian functions. for example, INTJ is syntactic sugar for Ni-Te, introverted intution primary (the part that makes them so confident) and extraverted thinking secondary (the part that makes them logical). INTP is sugar for Ti-Ne, introverted thinking primary (the part that makes them absent-minded), and extroverted intuition secondary (the part that makes them look at the world for answers) so by flipping the J to a P, the whole type is different. not all letter flips are that significant. I/E is the closest. for example, Feynman (ENTP) and Einstein (INTP) were Ne-Ti and Ti-Ne respectively. Feynman was driven by extroverted intuition, while it served Einstein. the nature of their discoveries is similarly 'playful' and creative also, these four categories are not poorly-chosen. the most significant category is the S-N axis. it's basically this simple: if you meet someone who shares this same letter (you are both S or both N,) you will click. otherwise you won't here's some forums where the type differences stand out http://infp.globalchatter.com/messageboard/ http://infp.globalchatter.com/messageboard/ -- fluffy http://www.intpcentral.com/ http://www.intpcentral.com/ -- levitous http://intjforum.com/ http://intjforum.com/ -- dry one thing to keep in mind is these aren't 16 "boxes." it's a bit complicated. for example, i suspect pg is INTP, but not standard-issue. he might be an Enneagram 3 INTP, for lack of a formal label. it's something he would share with Maddox ^_^
- hawk 18y ago
  you are an entp presumably?
  - tokipin 18y ago
    intp actually, though my Ne is strong, so you are correct in that sense. this is what i was getting at about how it can get complicated. my 'function composition' is Ti-Ne, but that's talking about the dominance (perhaps conscious/subconscious) of the functions, not their strengths Jung said everyone has all 8 of the functions in varying degrees of strength. i believe it's possible (and this is stepping out of my bounds) that you may be, say, Ni-Te (INTJ) but have very strong Fe
jrsims 18y ago
That's exactly what an INTJ would say. If you were an INTP, you wouldn't have posted that because you would've been second-guessing yourself. :)

by mkn 18y ago

Alex3917 18y ago

"It just seems like you could take any 4 either/or categories and have a test that's equally valid." The categories used by the Big Five were actually created using empirical research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Consensus_on_the_Big_Five http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Con...

nostrademons 18y ago
Okay, then on that note, what's everyone's Big Five personality test score? There's an online inventory at: http://www.personalitytest.net/ipip/ipipneo120.htm http://www.personalitytest.net/ipip/ipipneo120.htm Mine is 10 (3-4-4-70-17-57) / 73 (70-61-33-80-74-63) / 43 (52-33-41-35-26-80) / 41 (12-20-53-89-48-28) / 67 (81-50-5-38-87-87) in test order (that's Extraversion/Agreeableness/Conscientiousness/Neuroticism/Openness). Interestingly, that seems like it's about the worst possible personality for an entrepreneur, with super low scores in all the extraversion categories, high cautiousness, high self-consciousness, low self-discipline and adventurousness.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  I don't remember my scores offhand, but I remember getting weird results the last time I took an online version. I think it said I had low openness to experience, which is weird, because that factor should be pretty much off the charts for me. It's important to remember that while the categories themselves have empirical support, the specific test you took might not have high reliability for assigning scores within any given category.

bentoner 18y ago

You're missing the point. Myers-Brigg types are most useful for understanding other people, not for understanding yourself. Before I read about the other Myers-Brigg types, I just didn't understand why certain other people made decisions as they did, e.g., a member of a group insisting on a worse outcome for everyone to punish someone who'd offended them. I mean, it just wasn't logical! You see, I was trying to understand/predict others' behaviour by projecting my own personality onto them. Much better is to understand/predict someone's behaviour based on how someone of their Myers-Brigg type would behave. If understanding how others are different is what Myers-Brigg types are for, then the division into 16 types makes sense. It represents a trade-off between having too few types (and not having predictive power) and having too many (and having to learn too much information of less relevance).

asdflkj 18y ago
How are you supposed to know a person's Myers-Briggs type, when you're trying to understand that person's behavior? It's not exactly listed on the nametag. So the best you can do is infer it from what you already know of that person. But if you already know so much as to be able to infer it, you can understand/predict that person's behavior without resorting to any pigeon-holing.
- bentoner 18y ago
  If you're a people-person and can instinctively understand the people you meet, then you're right. But not everyone is born with this skill -- certainly I wasn't. Learning about the other Myers-Briggs types helped me to develop it.

epi0Bauqu 18y ago

Despite the drawbacks in MB, the poll results show an interesting and compelling deviation from expected (i.e. average) results.

timr 18y ago
Well, the results are certainly skewed, but that's not necessarily an indication of anything interesting. For example, you can't rule out the possibility that the test is particularly appealing to people with a certain personality (i.e. "hackers"), and that the test happens to label these people identically (i.e. "NT"). The fact that the test was posted here, and that the results are heavily skewed toward a small number of types, could be one big example of selection bias.
- llimllib 18y ago
  But even if it is an enormous case of selection bias (which I won't argue against, since it's a position I've held myself), it may still be interesting. And to hold that there's such a wide selection bias among the type of people who frequent this site is, I would argue, an interesting phenomenon.
  - timr 18y ago
    I don't disagree. "Interest" is a pretty ambiguous word. That said, if this site appeals to a certain type of person, and the test appeals to the same type of person, then the results aren't surprising. I guess that's what I'm getting at.
- randallsquared 18y ago
  "the test is particularly appealing to people with a certain personality (i.e. "hackers"), and that the test happens to label these people identically (i.e. "NT")." Isn't this the only claim that proponents of the test make? It's the whole point: people with different personalities are supposed to show up differently on the test. It's not clear to me why you seem to think that the claims for the test are actually claims against it. :)

tokipin 18y ago

those issues have to do with testing, not the theory itself. it's not the theory's fault that humans are so... kaleidoscopic when they try to look at themselves as expected, people here are overwhelmingly INTJ/INTP. you'll find that's the case in most scientific disciplines it's not easy to see how the theory is good without having noticed how particularly similar people can be these type combinations are not just 'any four categories', their effect on a type is greater than the sum of the parts. a bit more descriptive is the underlying Jungian functions. for example, INTJ is syntactic sugar for Ni-Te, introverted intution primary (the part that makes them so confident) and extraverted thinking secondary (the part that makes them logical). INTP is sugar for Ti-Ne, introverted thinking primary (the part that makes them absent-minded), and extroverted intuition secondary (the part that makes them look at the world for answers) so by flipping the J to a P, the whole type is different. not all letter flips are that significant. I/E is the closest. for example, Feynman (ENTP) and Einstein (INTP) were Ne-Ti and Ti-Ne respectively. Feynman was driven by extroverted intuition, while it served Einstein. the nature of their discoveries is similarly 'playful' and creative also, these four categories are not poorly-chosen. the most significant category is the S-N axis. it's basically this simple: if you meet someone who shares this same letter (you are both S or both N,) you will click. otherwise you won't here's some forums where the type differences stand out http://infp.globalchatter.com/messageboard/ http://infp.globalchatter.com/messageboard/ -- fluffy http://www.intpcentral.com/ http://www.intpcentral.com/ -- levitous http://intjforum.com/ http://intjforum.com/ -- dry one thing to keep in mind is these aren't 16 "boxes." it's a bit complicated. for example, i suspect pg is INTP, but not standard-issue. he might be an Enneagram 3 INTP, for lack of a formal label. it's something he would share with Maddox ^_^

hawk 18y ago
you are an entp presumably?
- tokipin 18y ago
  intp actually, though my Ne is strong, so you are correct in that sense. this is what i was getting at about how it can get complicated. my 'function composition' is Ti-Ne, but that's talking about the dominance (perhaps conscious/subconscious) of the functions, not their strengths Jung said everyone has all 8 of the functions in varying degrees of strength. i believe it's possible (and this is stepping out of my bounds) that you may be, say, Ni-Te (INTJ) but have very strong Fe

jrsims 18y ago

That's exactly what an INTJ would say. If you were an INTP, you wouldn't have posted that because you would've been second-guessing yourself. :)