6 ms·

Why are people suckers for the Myers-Briggs, Zodiac signs?

25 points by Anon84 5y ago

meowster 5y ago
The article is just a bunch of fluff, this is the extent of its answer: > We often crave self-definition and are attracted to group memberships that balance a sense of differentiation from the many with a sense of connection to people just like us. My answer: Most people don't have the wherewithall to give their own lives meaning. They need someone else to give them purpose. Being given a label and expectations, fills that hole in their psyche that they can't fill themselves.
- madflame991 5y ago
  Yes - for whatever reason we really like to get our own label and wear it with pride. I would be very curious to find out if we actually try to fit into this newfound label if we knew about it from an early age. When I was young members of my family told me what sun/zodiac sign I am and kept explaining my behavior from that perspective - I actually enjoyed it and believed in it and (annoyingly enough) I now fit the description; wish I knew if this is pure coincidence or something I managed to embed within myself - there must be some studies out there on this issue
seph-reed 5y ago
These things give us a "free from judgement" way of talking about our prides and failures. If you say: "I do x thing great and x thing bad, because I'm a Taurus," the conversation can move on. If you say: "I do x thing great and x thing bad because I'm just that way," you'll be simultaneously bragging and then having a conversation about how to fix "x thing bad." MB and Zodiac signs are a very pragmatic way of talking about personality.
- TenToedTony 5y ago
  Oh you're such an ISFJ for saying that.
oconnore 5y ago
I think the distinctions built into Myers-Briggs are a useful substrate for understanding your own tendencies better. As an example: some situations call for being very detail oriented (J), where some situations call for being big picture (P). If you know you are prone to one or the other, you can either let others handle those situations, or realize that you are outside your comfort zone and be extra intentional.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  > If you know you are prone to one or the other The issue is you might do the test today without a morning coffe and 5 years from now after a good night sleep and get a large results disparity. So either we accept that we as people keep changing the personality, that this tests for, thus making the test meaningless. Or we accept that inter test reliability is not great, which also makes the test meaningless.
  - asymptosis 5y ago
    If you are only interested in testing, then yes, I agree it's bullshit. But there is more going on with MBTI than just testing. There is a broad family of personality models based on Myers-Briggs and Jung, and they all loosely get called MBTI despite not being formally affiliated. Most of the people using these models in practice aren't claiming that you can find your type after just taking a test. Most who are being honest about it (instead of trying to make a quick buck) will warn you that it can take years of introspection to figure out what are the biases that consistently lead you to shoot yourself in the foot in life. Eg, have a look at some of the early stuff by Objective Personality (not the last year or two when they started getting more commercial.) Constant warnings about people mistyping themselves and the need to consider feedback from a wide variety of people and situations before making any conclusions about yourself.
    - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
      The issue is that irrespective of the scientific research aspect of all of this. Myers-Brigg is being used by real corporations to make real decisions. I remember taking this test many moons ago as an intern, it was never said explicitly but it was clear later on that the test was used by HR and multiple engineering teams to advise who would be put on a management track of that batch of new employees.
satisfice 5y ago
If you stop thinking about Myers-Briggs as an indicator and start thinking about it as a preference label, it stops being pseudoscience and starts being just a way to talk about yourself.
- TenToedTony 5y ago
  A very limited and borderline useless labelling system.
  - rlili 5y ago
    What are the alternatives?
    - errantmind 5y ago
      There isn't a better alternative because the premise you can understand and predict behavior by assigning a few labels based on a few specific questions is bunk science
    - TenToedTony 5y ago
      Depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you're looking for insights on yourself: then being asked a question, to have the answer you gave fed back to you with a pretense of insightfulness will easily be outcompeted by staring at a mirror for 10 minutes. If you're trying to generate complementary group dynamics: sort people by interests and spread them out. If you're trying to generate efficient groups: sort people by interests and don't spread them out. Literally the worst kind of systematising will go toe-to-toe with MB.
  - satisfice 5y ago
    Objectively speaking, that is not so. I am part of an engineering community that has used it productively for many years. Thus apparently it is possible for some of your fellow humans to find it more than borderline useless. I suspect you haven’t really given it a good try. When I took the test, it classified me as an introvert. Since I prefer to be thought of as an extrovert, I changed my type accordingly. Because the test is not very helpful. Additionally, I reliably find that when I am in the company of other declared NF’s we understand each other easily. Perhaps you think there is a better preference indication heuristic. I have seen several, but MBTI is my favorite so far. Anyway my point is: criticizing it as being a poor instrument to categorize people is thinking about it all wrong. We categorize ourselves.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
Myers-Briggs isn't pseudoscience. It correlates highly with OCEAN [1]. Perhaps the scandal isn't the adoption of MBTI but the reluctance of psychologists to use it in more studies. [1] Jones, C. S., & Hartley, N. T. (2013). Comparing correlations between four-quadrant and five-factor personality assessments. American Journal of Business Education, 6(4), 459-470.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
I never liked Astrology because I have "Cancer". But then I found out that in the Netherlands, the word used for the sign ("kreeft") means "Lobster". That's like, WAY, better.
asymptosis 5y ago
I feel pretty torn about Myers-Briggs, because while I recognise its shortcomings as a "scientific hot mess", it still provides a useful heuristic model for personality types. At its core, it is a model about binary preferences, and people can often be understood by their sharpest preferences, the places where they are most imbalanced. I don't think it's fair to compare this to astrology, which as far as I know isn't accompanied by any kind of reasonable or observable mechanism. An example which comes to mind from recent media is John McAfee. Anyone who has put much thought into MBTI will no doubt all agree that he was an ENTP, who exemplified the charming chaos of extraverted intuition, while becoming paranoid about the parts of life that he repressed: the down-to-earth organisation of introverted sensing. Knowing his Big Five percentages wouldn't give you the same quick insight into how exactly he was always his own worst enemy.
- TenToedTony 5y ago
  What's useful about "knowing" McAfee was an ENTP?
  - asymptosis 5y ago
    It gives you more insight into why he acted the way he did.
    - TenToedTony 5y ago
      Oh, what reason is that? Would anyone have done the same if they shared his MB personality type? Since the answer to the above probably is no, how does MB help you identify when an ENTP is going to be a John McAfee and when they're not?
    - errantmind 5y ago
      Insight? What insight would that be, aside from the circular "he acted this way because he is ENTP because he acted this way". Personality tests are bunk science.
iroh2727 5y ago
Myers-Briggs is the single most useful mental model for personality types in existence, or that I know of at least (especially the modern versions like 16personalities.com). I've heard a common complaint that "traits are a spectrum, not discrete categories." But often in biology, this is not exactly true, just like there are light brown leopards and black leopards but no dark brown leopards. Don't "listen to the scientists" who say otherwise, those hopeless reductionists who obsess over what is true but useless rather than what is faulty but useful. Pareto said it right: "Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself." Of course it doesn't cover everyone well or every aspect; it's just one model of many, but it's useful and predictive. As for zodiac signs...I can see some correlations popping out based on whether you're young for your grade or old for your grade (like Malcolm Gladwell talks about in Outliers), or perhaps when your parents decided to "mate" says something about them which says something about you, but yeah idk how deep it goes.
- TenToedTony 5y ago
  What can it predict?
  - meowster 5y ago
    Nothing. Just like Astrological signs cannot predict anything. It can give a vague discription to some obvious traits, and many people need validation or direction, so that's why it "works".
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Myers-Briggs is the single most useful mental model for personality types in existence No, its not. Its not the worst pseudoscience because parts of it map tolerably well to a some of the axes of the Big-5 model which has some apparent empirical validity, but it in is still pseudoscience with a huge marketing push behind it. > I've heard a common complaint that "traits are a spectrum, not discrete categories." But often in biology, this is not exactly true, just like there are light brown leopards and black leopards but no dark brown leopards. Yeah, sure there are traits that, within a properly selected domain, really are binary, but in terms of personality traits of the type M-B addresses, as well as knowing that M-B doesn't quite have the axes right, we known that position on those axes where M-B has the axis right still aren’t binary or even bimodal, because we have extensive personality research that isn’t a just-so story with a marketing push to sell proprietary BS products and consulting services.
smitty1e 5y ago
The MBTI has some value as a coversation starter. At USNA we joked, when asked, that our MBTI was IHTFP.
reportgunner 5y ago
I thought this was already explained by the Barnum effect.
emerged 5y ago
You can pick any N dimensions of personal preferences and tendencies and form a type system off of it. That isn’t useless, you’ll find interesting patterns which tie together those in the same category. It’s clearly limited but it’s not the same as the literally meaningless Zodiac sign.

25 points by Anon84 5y ago

The article is just a bunch of fluff, this is the extent of its answer: > We often crave self-definition and are attracted to group memberships that balance a sense of differentiation from the many with a sense of connection to people just like us. My answer: Most people don't have the wherewithall to give their own lives meaning. They need someone else to give them purpose. Being given a label and expectations, fills that hole in their psyche that they can't fill themselves.

madflame991 5y ago
Yes - for whatever reason we really like to get our own label and wear it with pride. I would be very curious to find out if we actually try to fit into this newfound label if we knew about it from an early age. When I was young members of my family told me what sun/zodiac sign I am and kept explaining my behavior from that perspective - I actually enjoyed it and believed in it and (annoyingly enough) I now fit the description; wish I knew if this is pure coincidence or something I managed to embed within myself - there must be some studies out there on this issue

seph-reed 5y ago

These things give us a "free from judgement" way of talking about our prides and failures. If you say: "I do x thing great and x thing bad, because I'm a Taurus," the conversation can move on. If you say: "I do x thing great and x thing bad because I'm just that way," you'll be simultaneously bragging and then having a conversation about how to fix "x thing bad." MB and Zodiac signs are a very pragmatic way of talking about personality.

TenToedTony 5y ago
Oh you're such an ISFJ for saying that.

oconnore 5y ago

I think the distinctions built into Myers-Briggs are a useful substrate for understanding your own tendencies better. As an example: some situations call for being very detail oriented (J), where some situations call for being big picture (P). If you know you are prone to one or the other, you can either let others handle those situations, or realize that you are outside your comfort zone and be extra intentional.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
> If you know you are prone to one or the other The issue is you might do the test today without a morning coffe and 5 years from now after a good night sleep and get a large results disparity. So either we accept that we as people keep changing the personality, that this tests for, thus making the test meaningless. Or we accept that inter test reliability is not great, which also makes the test meaningless.
- asymptosis 5y ago
  If you are only interested in testing, then yes, I agree it's bullshit. But there is more going on with MBTI than just testing. There is a broad family of personality models based on Myers-Briggs and Jung, and they all loosely get called MBTI despite not being formally affiliated. Most of the people using these models in practice aren't claiming that you can find your type after just taking a test. Most who are being honest about it (instead of trying to make a quick buck) will warn you that it can take years of introspection to figure out what are the biases that consistently lead you to shoot yourself in the foot in life. Eg, have a look at some of the early stuff by Objective Personality (not the last year or two when they started getting more commercial.) Constant warnings about people mistyping themselves and the need to consider feedback from a wide variety of people and situations before making any conclusions about yourself.
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    The issue is that irrespective of the scientific research aspect of all of this. Myers-Brigg is being used by real corporations to make real decisions. I remember taking this test many moons ago as an intern, it was never said explicitly but it was clear later on that the test was used by HR and multiple engineering teams to advise who would be put on a management track of that batch of new employees.

satisfice 5y ago

If you stop thinking about Myers-Briggs as an indicator and start thinking about it as a preference label, it stops being pseudoscience and starts being just a way to talk about yourself.

TenToedTony 5y ago
A very limited and borderline useless labelling system.
- rlili 5y ago
  What are the alternatives?
  - errantmind 5y ago
    There isn't a better alternative because the premise you can understand and predict behavior by assigning a few labels based on a few specific questions is bunk science
  - TenToedTony 5y ago
    Depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you're looking for insights on yourself: then being asked a question, to have the answer you gave fed back to you with a pretense of insightfulness will easily be outcompeted by staring at a mirror for 10 minutes. If you're trying to generate complementary group dynamics: sort people by interests and spread them out. If you're trying to generate efficient groups: sort people by interests and don't spread them out. Literally the worst kind of systematising will go toe-to-toe with MB.
- satisfice 5y ago
  Objectively speaking, that is not so. I am part of an engineering community that has used it productively for many years. Thus apparently it is possible for some of your fellow humans to find it more than borderline useless. I suspect you haven’t really given it a good try. When I took the test, it classified me as an introvert. Since I prefer to be thought of as an extrovert, I changed my type accordingly. Because the test is not very helpful. Additionally, I reliably find that when I am in the company of other declared NF’s we understand each other easily. Perhaps you think there is a better preference indication heuristic. I have seen several, but MBTI is my favorite so far. Anyway my point is: criticizing it as being a poor instrument to categorize people is thinking about it all wrong. We categorize ourselves.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

Myers-Briggs isn't pseudoscience. It correlates highly with OCEAN [1]. Perhaps the scandal isn't the adoption of MBTI but the reluctance of psychologists to use it in more studies. [1] Jones, C. S., & Hartley, N. T. (2013). Comparing correlations between four-quadrant and five-factor personality assessments. American Journal of Business Education, 6(4), 459-470.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

I never liked Astrology because I have "Cancer". But then I found out that in the Netherlands, the word used for the sign ("kreeft") means "Lobster". That's like, WAY, better.

asymptosis 5y ago

I feel pretty torn about Myers-Briggs, because while I recognise its shortcomings as a "scientific hot mess", it still provides a useful heuristic model for personality types. At its core, it is a model about binary preferences, and people can often be understood by their sharpest preferences, the places where they are most imbalanced. I don't think it's fair to compare this to astrology, which as far as I know isn't accompanied by any kind of reasonable or observable mechanism. An example which comes to mind from recent media is John McAfee. Anyone who has put much thought into MBTI will no doubt all agree that he was an ENTP, who exemplified the charming chaos of extraverted intuition, while becoming paranoid about the parts of life that he repressed: the down-to-earth organisation of introverted sensing. Knowing his Big Five percentages wouldn't give you the same quick insight into how exactly he was always his own worst enemy.

TenToedTony 5y ago
What's useful about "knowing" McAfee was an ENTP?
- asymptosis 5y ago
  It gives you more insight into why he acted the way he did.
  - TenToedTony 5y ago
    Oh, what reason is that? Would anyone have done the same if they shared his MB personality type? Since the answer to the above probably is no, how does MB help you identify when an ENTP is going to be a John McAfee and when they're not?
  - errantmind 5y ago
    Insight? What insight would that be, aside from the circular "he acted this way because he is ENTP because he acted this way". Personality tests are bunk science.

iroh2727 5y ago

Myers-Briggs is the single most useful mental model for personality types in existence, or that I know of at least (especially the modern versions like 16personalities.com). I've heard a common complaint that "traits are a spectrum, not discrete categories." But often in biology, this is not exactly true, just like there are light brown leopards and black leopards but no dark brown leopards. Don't "listen to the scientists" who say otherwise, those hopeless reductionists who obsess over what is true but useless rather than what is faulty but useful. Pareto said it right: "Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself." Of course it doesn't cover everyone well or every aspect; it's just one model of many, but it's useful and predictive. As for zodiac signs...I can see some correlations popping out based on whether you're young for your grade or old for your grade (like Malcolm Gladwell talks about in Outliers), or perhaps when your parents decided to "mate" says something about them which says something about you, but yeah idk how deep it goes.

TenToedTony 5y ago
What can it predict?
- meowster 5y ago
  Nothing. Just like Astrological signs cannot predict anything. It can give a vague discription to some obvious traits, and many people need validation or direction, so that's why it "works".
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Myers-Briggs is the single most useful mental model for personality types in existence No, its not. Its not the worst pseudoscience because parts of it map tolerably well to a some of the axes of the Big-5 model which has some apparent empirical validity, but it in is still pseudoscience with a huge marketing push behind it. > I've heard a common complaint that "traits are a spectrum, not discrete categories." But often in biology, this is not exactly true, just like there are light brown leopards and black leopards but no dark brown leopards. Yeah, sure there are traits that, within a properly selected domain, really are binary, but in terms of personality traits of the type M-B addresses, as well as knowing that M-B doesn't quite have the axes right, we known that position on those axes where M-B has the axis right still aren’t binary or even bimodal, because we have extensive personality research that isn’t a just-so story with a marketing push to sell proprietary BS products and consulting services.

smitty1e 5y ago

The MBTI has some value as a coversation starter. At USNA we joked, when asked, that our MBTI was IHTFP.

reportgunner 5y ago

I thought this was already explained by the Barnum effect.

emerged 5y ago

You can pick any N dimensions of personal preferences and tendencies and form a type system off of it. That isn’t useless, you’ll find interesting patterns which tie together those in the same category. It’s clearly limited but it’s not the same as the literally meaningless Zodiac sign.