6 ms·

Myers-Briggs is essentially horoscopes for people who spend too much time on LinkedIn.

slothtrop 4y ago
The analysis is, but "types" are just preferences/tendencies that everyone has, reflected back from the test. It says "I tend towards introversion or not, being detail-oriented or not" etc. That's it. Mind you, that's of no use to your employer who wants you to do your damn job whatever it happens to be. If you want the job, it's for you.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  The types themselves are also nonsense. There's sixteen of them, and all sixteen have significant tendencies in all four axes. It seems extremely unlikely that someone would always have a tendency in every axis all the time, so the types themselves are set up wrong. They're not even acknowledging the possibility of an inconclusive result. It's also easy to see the financial incentive of removing the possibility for someone to get an "unremarkable" result. Telling people that they're mostly average, even if for a lot of people it's the truth, doesn't convince them they're getting their money's worth.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    A couple of points: - The types do not indicate the degree of tendency in each axis. That can vary within a type and isn't captured by the type code at all. The types just indicate the direction. There is some evidence that children tend to have more extreme preferences which balance out people mature. - Have you seen Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow? The "fast" and "slow" thinking described there is very similar to what the MBTI calls "perception" (fast) and "judgement" (slow). And notably those categories do have strong evidence of an innate tendency which remains consistent over time (but only if you don't bias the participant by asking them to approach the task in certain way indicating that this tendency can be overridden by the appropriateness of certain thinking mode to the task at hand)
    - BalinKing 4y ago
      I don’t know how relevant it is to your particular point, but IIRC Kahneman realized a few years ago that some of /Thinking Fast and Slow/'s conclusions (specifically on priming) relied on underpowered studies: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-1454 https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-....
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    > It seems extremely unlikely that someone would always have a tendency in every axis all the time It's a preference. You're making it out to be more than it is. It doesn't preclude that someone can have little preference for one tendency over another. Most times test results give you percentages. > Telling people that they're mostly average, even if for a lot of people it's the truth, doesn't convince them they're getting their money's worth. What money? Who pays for this shit? There's like a million free MBTI tests online.
    - tschwimmer 4y ago
      I think "you're making it out to be more than it is" sort of surrenders the whole purpose of the test. If the test isn't consistent and doesn't have the power to predict outcomes, then it is effectively the same as the "which Harry Potter Character are you" Buzzfeed quizzes - e.g. amusing but meaningless. As for who pays for this stuff: At least two of the FAANGs pay consultants thousands of dollars to run these tests as team building exercises. There's a thriving market for this stuff.
      - slothtrop 4y ago
        The purpose is reflecting back to the test-taker what they like and want. Whether it's incongruous with their actual behavior is irrelevant, but people don't tend to be dishonest to themselves about things like "introversion", not entirely. Self-therapy/exploration is one use-case alongside entertainment as you said. I don't think companies should bother with it, unless they plan to give employees what they want. On the other hand, the testing itself could be regarded as something that keeps the drones amused. It's hard to imagine another purpose.
  - heliodor 4y ago
    To put it more mathematically, personality traits lie on a normal distribution. Most people are in the middle. Myers-Briggs turns traits into binary options, which does not match reality.
    - enasterosophes 4y ago
      So you would have trouble telling whether a given person is taller or shorter than average?
      - hcks 4y ago
        Thanks for illustrating what parent comment said: it would be ridiculous to categorise only between “tall” and “short” when most people would fall into “kinda average”
      - runarberg 4y ago
        A friendly reminder that height is not normally distributed either. Within a population it has a bimodal distribution. Also a friendly reminder that a quarter standard deviations above the mean vs. the same distance below the mean is quite often a trivial difference in population statistics. And it should be nonsense (pseudoscience if you will) to make the distinction. A much more interesting statistic are the outliers. And grouping an outlier with a person who is 0.05 SD from the mean is just confusing at best.
        HWR_14 4y ago
        Does it have a bimodal distribution because you're combining male and female normal distributions?
        runarberg 4y ago
        Partially yes. But a distinguished homogeneous population of a single gender probably has a normal distribution. Luckily humans usually don’t live in a distinguished homogeneous population of a single gender, so comparing your self to the average is at best fun. (unless you are an outlier, then it can be interesting or medically useful).

The analysis is, but "types" are just preferences/tendencies that everyone has, reflected back from the test. It says "I tend towards introversion or not, being detail-oriented or not" etc. That's it. Mind you, that's of no use to your employer who wants you to do your damn job whatever it happens to be. If you want the job, it's for you.

YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
The types themselves are also nonsense. There's sixteen of them, and all sixteen have significant tendencies in all four axes. It seems extremely unlikely that someone would always have a tendency in every axis all the time, so the types themselves are set up wrong. They're not even acknowledging the possibility of an inconclusive result. It's also easy to see the financial incentive of removing the possibility for someone to get an "unremarkable" result. Telling people that they're mostly average, even if for a lot of people it's the truth, doesn't convince them they're getting their money's worth.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  A couple of points: - The types do not indicate the degree of tendency in each axis. That can vary within a type and isn't captured by the type code at all. The types just indicate the direction. There is some evidence that children tend to have more extreme preferences which balance out people mature. - Have you seen Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow? The "fast" and "slow" thinking described there is very similar to what the MBTI calls "perception" (fast) and "judgement" (slow). And notably those categories do have strong evidence of an innate tendency which remains consistent over time (but only if you don't bias the participant by asking them to approach the task in certain way indicating that this tendency can be overridden by the appropriateness of certain thinking mode to the task at hand)
  - BalinKing 4y ago
    I don’t know how relevant it is to your particular point, but IIRC Kahneman realized a few years ago that some of /Thinking Fast and Slow/'s conclusions (specifically on priming) relied on underpowered studies: https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-1454 https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-....
- slothtrop 4y ago
  > It seems extremely unlikely that someone would always have a tendency in every axis all the time It's a preference. You're making it out to be more than it is. It doesn't preclude that someone can have little preference for one tendency over another. Most times test results give you percentages. > Telling people that they're mostly average, even if for a lot of people it's the truth, doesn't convince them they're getting their money's worth. What money? Who pays for this shit? There's like a million free MBTI tests online.
  - tschwimmer 4y ago
    I think "you're making it out to be more than it is" sort of surrenders the whole purpose of the test. If the test isn't consistent and doesn't have the power to predict outcomes, then it is effectively the same as the "which Harry Potter Character are you" Buzzfeed quizzes - e.g. amusing but meaningless. As for who pays for this stuff: At least two of the FAANGs pay consultants thousands of dollars to run these tests as team building exercises. There's a thriving market for this stuff.
    - slothtrop 4y ago
      The purpose is reflecting back to the test-taker what they like and want. Whether it's incongruous with their actual behavior is irrelevant, but people don't tend to be dishonest to themselves about things like "introversion", not entirely. Self-therapy/exploration is one use-case alongside entertainment as you said. I don't think companies should bother with it, unless they plan to give employees what they want. On the other hand, the testing itself could be regarded as something that keeps the drones amused. It's hard to imagine another purpose.
- heliodor 4y ago
  To put it more mathematically, personality traits lie on a normal distribution. Most people are in the middle. Myers-Briggs turns traits into binary options, which does not match reality.
  - enasterosophes 4y ago
    So you would have trouble telling whether a given person is taller or shorter than average?
    - hcks 4y ago
      Thanks for illustrating what parent comment said: it would be ridiculous to categorise only between “tall” and “short” when most people would fall into “kinda average”
    - runarberg 4y ago
      A friendly reminder that height is not normally distributed either. Within a population it has a bimodal distribution. Also a friendly reminder that a quarter standard deviations above the mean vs. the same distance below the mean is quite often a trivial difference in population statistics. And it should be nonsense (pseudoscience if you will) to make the distinction. A much more interesting statistic are the outliers. And grouping an outlier with a person who is 0.05 SD from the mean is just confusing at best.
      - HWR_14 4y ago
        Does it have a bimodal distribution because you're combining male and female normal distributions?
        runarberg 4y ago
        Partially yes. But a distinguished homogeneous population of a single gender probably has a normal distribution. Luckily humans usually don’t live in a distinguished homogeneous population of a single gender, so comparing your self to the average is at best fun. (unless you are an outlier, then it can be interesting or medically useful).