7 ms·

Sure. Now can we do the same with the other fourteen types, or is the primary value here that there are two kinds of people: INTx and non-INTx? There's probabl

by Twisol 6y ago

Sure. Now can we do the same with the other fourteen types, or is the primary value here that there are two kinds of people: INTx and non-INTx? There's probably some bias here, but I've only ever heard INTx specifically singled out when talking about MBTI. That suggests that MBTI may make too many clear distinctions where reality draws a much softer line. A coarser-grained theory is likely to have more predictive power and be more applicable. Alternatively, a fine-grained theory with the boundaries drawn differently, such as the Big Five, may better account for these softer distinctions. I'm not saying this is definitively the case. I'm saying that a complex theory that makes a small set of predictions doesn't justify its weight. If MBTI does fall into that category, we should feel no qualms about finding something that works better for us. (Personally, I get a lot more out of the Bartle taxonomy. Only four broad classifications, and more focused on what value one seeks from certain kinds of games. Not without its flaws, either.) > INTPs are often going to face similar challenges and obstacles in life, there's similar things that will help them grow as a person that would not help other types. I really am going to need a citation for this. Here's my new horse: there cannot be 16 broad (even with overlap) classes of obstacles and growth opportunities in life that are specific to each personality type. Humans are simultaneously too subtle for a personality test to provide this level of insight, and too similar for tactics to be inapplicable to all but one type of person. It smells like horoscopes, and there are only twelve of those. We all have issues. Let's categorize those, not the personality types that we think correlate with them. It borders on claiming that the problems I have in life are because of something wrong with me, and not just the circumstances of life in general.

nicoburns 6y ago
Have you looked into the "Cognitive Functions" that MBTI theory uses? If not, I'd recommend reading through the 101, 201, and 301 articles here https://personalityjunkie.com/typology-101/ https://personalityjunkie.com/typology-101/ To me I see "INTx" and think that makes no sense because INTJ and INTP have completely different functional stacks. INTJ's are dominant "Introverted Intuition" (Ni) followed by "Extraverted Feeling" (Fe), whereas INTP's are dominant "Introverted Thinking" (Ti) followed by "Extravert Inuition" (Ne). So they're basically completely different. Once you have a functional stack, then the MBTI theory becomes a lot more subtle: not only does everyone have 4 our of the 8 functions in their stack covering both sides of each of the distinctions, but the relative strength of each of these functions can vary continuously. And that's before you even get to variations based on experience, which the MBTI doesn't even attempt to describe (you'd typically use someone's MBTI type in conjunction with their life experience to explain their personality as a whole).
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  I think they just meant INTJ or INTP. The functions are part of the controversial Jungian ideas the article mentioned. Most people ignore them entirely and treat the preferences as axes.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    > The functions are part of the controversial Jungian ideas the article mentioned. Most people ignore them entirely and treat the preferences as axes. They do. And IMO this is exactly why the results never reproduce. The functions actually make sense and anecdotally seem to correspond to something in the real world (they've rarely if ever been subject to scientific testing as far as I'm aware). The preferences by themselves are just a somewhat less reproducible variant of the Big 5 as criticisms claim. > I think they just meant INTJ or INTP. I'm sure they did. My point being that if you look at the functions (which most anyone who takes Myers-Briggs seriously does) then INTJ and INTP aren't similar at all. So talking about them together makes little sense. Although reading up the thread, it looks like they were just suggesting that they both have subreddits. Which I guess isn't really talking about their personalities at all.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      MBTI reproduces much better if you treat the preferences as axes. Most people who take MBTI seriously don't use the functions.
    - mewpmewp2 6y ago
      They are similar since they correlate similarly with lots of real world aspects. E.G. most simple is they are both very actively represented on Reddit and second one being top 2 highest average IQs. They also share very many similar interests.
- Twisol 6y ago
  What 'pseudalopex mentioned -- and also note that I was responding to someboody who grouped INTJ/INTP together. I don't have much of a vested interest in MBTI; I was just trying to work from the ancestor post's foundation to think critically about what we're getting from that interpretation. I know even less about "congnitive functions", but it definitely sounds more subtle than the axes most people interpret MBTI as. My specific criticisms don't immediately transfer.
pseudalopex 6y ago
Talking about personality models seems to appeal to INTJs and INTPs more than anyone else. Never hearing about other types probably says something about your social circles too.
- cb321 6y ago
  Are all psychometricians INTx's, then? This sounds like exactly the kind of over-conclusion that bothers people about personality testing and its applications. ;-)
  - mewpmewp2 6y ago
    Of course not. It's all probabilistic. I feel like the people who think MBTI and personality tests don't make sense are themselves the ones making those over conclusions and they can only think in binary, black and white way, when it really could be something like INTx is likely to be overrepresented in psychometricians fields by 4x, ESFJ might be underrepresented by 5x, etc. So for instance maybe there's 6% INTXs in the world, but in psychometry field there happens to be 30% INTX representation. Nobody is making the claim that ALL psy
    - cb321 6y ago
      A simpler way to think about it might be "How would I assign a p-value to the personality type?" Once you have that answer, all your "over-representation" stats should, naturally, trim out (or otherwise down-weight) the poor p-value personality assignments (any such over-representation stats that you have heard very likely do no such filtering).
    - cb321 6y ago
      Or it could be these tests literally do not even discriminate 99% of the population if the measurement error is near the size of the mode width. See my other comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26292915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26292915
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
mewpmewp2 6y ago
> Sure. Now can we do the same with the other fourteen types, or is the primary value here that there are two kinds of people: INTx and non-INTx? I started with INTx to have at least one detailed, specific argument that there is correlation and MBTI is at least not completely meaningless. There's also a correlation between INTx and IQ, to go as scientific as we can here. Just search for IQ by personality type. Now you could say we are putting two completely meaningless metrics together. If they truly were, how could they have correlation? Big Five is not the topic here. The argument is whether MBTI can have meaning and whether it can be useful. Let's say Big Five was better, it doesn't mean that MBTI is completely useless. And I'm not going to argue about Big Five vs MBTI. > there cannot be 16 broad (even with overlap) classes of obstacles and growth opportunities in life that are specific to each personality type. No one has made this claim. There are various obstacles and challenges in life, and the only claim is that some personality types are more LIKELY to face some obstacles and challenges than other personality types. E.g. INTX will LIKELY have to put in more conscious effort to improve social skills in order to better communicate with people. This already is useful information. It also gives insights into how a person thinks and perceives the world, if you go into how functions work and which personality types are more likely to use which functions to understand what is going on. If there are 16 categories you can get a quick understanding of what a person might be like if you know the MBTI type, which otherwise you would have to read tons of paper on that person to understand what he/she LIKELY is. It's all a game of probabilities and spectrum. You could do statements like, this person is 65% I, 70% N, 75% T, 66% P, therefore there's likelihood of this person facing challenges with social situations being 80-90%. The way this person is likely to make decisions is to use internal thinking to make conclusions based on logical analysis. All of this can say a lot about the person just with 4 letters.
- Twisol 6y ago
  > E.g. INTX will LIKELY have to put in more conscious effort to improve social skills in order to better communicate with people I knew I needed to work on my social skills long before I tested as an INTP. My criticism is not that the correlations don't exist. My criticism is that they don't seem helpful. > It also gives insights into how a person thinks and perceives the world [...] which otherwise you would have to read tons of paper on that person Can't you just talk with them? Somebody once asked me for my MBTI class as a shortcut to trying to understand how to interact with me. It didn't work very well for them, and I didn't much appreciate being binned that way. I've always been binned as a logical person in particular, but my internal landscape has been, subjectively, dominated by creative thought and expression. Logic is just a tool I use to impose some structure on that experience. People who stop at the surface -- and worse, who label me under MBTI -- manifestly do not understand me, my motivations, my goals, or my challenges. (If you go point to some MBTI page on Logicians and say "it mentions creativity right here!" I will be very cross with you.) To say this is a sore spot may be an understatement.

by Twisol 6y ago

nicoburns 6y ago

Have you looked into the "Cognitive Functions" that MBTI theory uses? If not, I'd recommend reading through the 101, 201, and 301 articles here https://personalityjunkie.com/typology-101/ https://personalityjunkie.com/typology-101/ To me I see "INTx" and think that makes no sense because INTJ and INTP have completely different functional stacks. INTJ's are dominant "Introverted Intuition" (Ni) followed by "Extraverted Feeling" (Fe), whereas INTP's are dominant "Introverted Thinking" (Ti) followed by "Extravert Inuition" (Ne). So they're basically completely different. Once you have a functional stack, then the MBTI theory becomes a lot more subtle: not only does everyone have 4 our of the 8 functions in their stack covering both sides of each of the distinctions, but the relative strength of each of these functions can vary continuously. And that's before you even get to variations based on experience, which the MBTI doesn't even attempt to describe (you'd typically use someone's MBTI type in conjunction with their life experience to explain their personality as a whole).

pseudalopex 6y ago
I think they just meant INTJ or INTP. The functions are part of the controversial Jungian ideas the article mentioned. Most people ignore them entirely and treat the preferences as axes.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  > The functions are part of the controversial Jungian ideas the article mentioned. Most people ignore them entirely and treat the preferences as axes. They do. And IMO this is exactly why the results never reproduce. The functions actually make sense and anecdotally seem to correspond to something in the real world (they've rarely if ever been subject to scientific testing as far as I'm aware). The preferences by themselves are just a somewhat less reproducible variant of the Big 5 as criticisms claim. > I think they just meant INTJ or INTP. I'm sure they did. My point being that if you look at the functions (which most anyone who takes Myers-Briggs seriously does) then INTJ and INTP aren't similar at all. So talking about them together makes little sense. Although reading up the thread, it looks like they were just suggesting that they both have subreddits. Which I guess isn't really talking about their personalities at all.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    MBTI reproduces much better if you treat the preferences as axes. Most people who take MBTI seriously don't use the functions.
  - mewpmewp2 6y ago
    They are similar since they correlate similarly with lots of real world aspects. E.G. most simple is they are both very actively represented on Reddit and second one being top 2 highest average IQs. They also share very many similar interests.
Twisol 6y ago
What 'pseudalopex mentioned -- and also note that I was responding to someboody who grouped INTJ/INTP together. I don't have much of a vested interest in MBTI; I was just trying to work from the ancestor post's foundation to think critically about what we're getting from that interpretation. I know even less about "congnitive functions", but it definitely sounds more subtle than the axes most people interpret MBTI as. My specific criticisms don't immediately transfer.

pseudalopex 6y ago

Talking about personality models seems to appeal to INTJs and INTPs more than anyone else. Never hearing about other types probably says something about your social circles too.

cb321 6y ago
Are all psychometricians INTx's, then? This sounds like exactly the kind of over-conclusion that bothers people about personality testing and its applications. ;-)
- mewpmewp2 6y ago
  Of course not. It's all probabilistic. I feel like the people who think MBTI and personality tests don't make sense are themselves the ones making those over conclusions and they can only think in binary, black and white way, when it really could be something like INTx is likely to be overrepresented in psychometricians fields by 4x, ESFJ might be underrepresented by 5x, etc. So for instance maybe there's 6% INTXs in the world, but in psychometry field there happens to be 30% INTX representation. Nobody is making the claim that ALL psy
  - cb321 6y ago
    A simpler way to think about it might be "How would I assign a p-value to the personality type?" Once you have that answer, all your "over-representation" stats should, naturally, trim out (or otherwise down-weight) the poor p-value personality assignments (any such over-representation stats that you have heard very likely do no such filtering).
  - cb321 6y ago
    Or it could be these tests literally do not even discriminate 99% of the population if the measurement error is near the size of the mode width. See my other comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26292915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26292915
- pseudalopex 6y ago

mewpmewp2 6y ago

> Sure. Now can we do the same with the other fourteen types, or is the primary value here that there are two kinds of people: INTx and non-INTx? I started with INTx to have at least one detailed, specific argument that there is correlation and MBTI is at least not completely meaningless. There's also a correlation between INTx and IQ, to go as scientific as we can here. Just search for IQ by personality type. Now you could say we are putting two completely meaningless metrics together. If they truly were, how could they have correlation? Big Five is not the topic here. The argument is whether MBTI can have meaning and whether it can be useful. Let's say Big Five was better, it doesn't mean that MBTI is completely useless. And I'm not going to argue about Big Five vs MBTI. > there cannot be 16 broad (even with overlap) classes of obstacles and growth opportunities in life that are specific to each personality type. No one has made this claim. There are various obstacles and challenges in life, and the only claim is that some personality types are more LIKELY to face some obstacles and challenges than other personality types. E.g. INTX will LIKELY have to put in more conscious effort to improve social skills in order to better communicate with people. This already is useful information. It also gives insights into how a person thinks and perceives the world, if you go into how functions work and which personality types are more likely to use which functions to understand what is going on. If there are 16 categories you can get a quick understanding of what a person might be like if you know the MBTI type, which otherwise you would have to read tons of paper on that person to understand what he/she LIKELY is. It's all a game of probabilities and spectrum. You could do statements like, this person is 65% I, 70% N, 75% T, 66% P, therefore there's likelihood of this person facing challenges with social situations being 80-90%. The way this person is likely to make decisions is to use internal thinking to make conclusions based on logical analysis. All of this can say a lot about the person just with 4 letters.

Twisol 6y ago
> E.g. INTX will LIKELY have to put in more conscious effort to improve social skills in order to better communicate with people I knew I needed to work on my social skills long before I tested as an INTP. My criticism is not that the correlations don't exist. My criticism is that they don't seem helpful. > It also gives insights into how a person thinks and perceives the world [...] which otherwise you would have to read tons of paper on that person Can't you just talk with them? Somebody once asked me for my MBTI class as a shortcut to trying to understand how to interact with me. It didn't work very well for them, and I didn't much appreciate being binned that way. I've always been binned as a logical person in particular, but my internal landscape has been, subjectively, dominated by creative thought and expression. Logic is just a tool I use to impose some structure on that experience. People who stop at the surface -- and worse, who label me under MBTI -- manifestly do not understand me, my motivations, my goals, or my challenges. (If you go point to some MBTI page on Logicians and say "it mentions creativity right here!" I will be very cross with you.) To say this is a sore spot may be an understatement.