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More than meaningless I think MBTI is dangerous. It creates a false dichotomy between introvert and extrovert and then assigns you to one camp or the other. Peo

by a13o 4y ago

More than meaningless I think MBTI is dangerous. It creates a false dichotomy between introvert and extrovert and then assigns you to one camp or the other. People then, especially those assigned introvert, limit themselves. Introversion is not a diagnosis. You can be extroverted during meetings and introverted at your desk. If you 'lean introvert', it means you could work on exercising your extrovert muscle. It goes the same for the other way. Learning how to be introverted at the right time is a benefit to all extroverts. The danger with MBTI is in making you think these are medical diagnoses and you're trapped being one thing or the other. I've worked with people who think they are extroverts and read books like "How To Work With Introverts." These people are dangerous. So are employers that want to know your type. They will limit your career growth depending on their prejudices. This is no different than you career suffering because you aren't a Pisces.

HPsquared 4y ago
As far as personality tests go it's less dangerous/"offensive" than a lot of others. E.g what if an employee was classified as low agreeableness, high neuroticism, low conscientiousness, etc etc? Liability issues abound if that was used for hiring/promotion purposes. That's not even getting into IQ...
tohuteohoetuhoe 4y ago
Although it is true that personalities are not dichotomies, the best (reproducible and meaningful) personality inventory to date is the big 5. Extraversion is one of the inventories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits Research has suggested that the brains of people identified with higher or lesser degrees of extraversion do function differently. You are correct that behavior does not derive deterministically from personality. Anecdotally, I agree that MTBI has been used as an excuse to refrain from developing beneficial social skills and behaviors.
- runarberg 4y ago
  > Research has suggested that the brains of people identified with higher or lesser degrees of extraversion do function differently. This is an extremely weak statement. You can find any difference in the brain if you look hard enough. The brain is an extremely dynamic system and our measurements are full of noise. And even you are able to fully account for the noise in measurements you can easily be measuring something different than you think you are. > You are correct that behavior does not derive deterministically from personality. This should be a failing grade of personality psychology. What is the point of measuring personality if you cant find any behavior associated with it? At this point personality psychology is nothing more than metaphysics and has no place in modern science.
jbverschoor 4y ago
Most of these visual / abbreviations “theories” are utter bs, packages as truth. And they’re very hard to get rid of. Not 100% bs, but exactly the same as a lot of “best practices” in tech. They’re there for the IP holders of the brand they create with it. Sell a catchy concept/name, license out the name, verification which experts every 2 years, or certified training courses, charge more for that. Etc
- fagnerbrack 4y ago
  Big 5 names are made up, call them whatever you want, but the categories those names are put in are not made up. They're result of Factor Analysis in all personality questions to date which comes in different levels of resolution. They only put names in the top 5 resolution to make sense out of it, but you can have 1000, 1000000 categories at which point there's one category per question and the whole exercise stops being useful, so we have to reach a certain level of grouping that becomes applicable in real-life. The widely agreed is 5 factors and 10 aspects per factor.
fagnerbrack 4y ago
Introvert = Negative emotions. Extrovert = Positive emotions. Negative & Positive as in batteries, not if it's good or bad.

by a13o 4y ago

HPsquared 4y ago

As far as personality tests go it's less dangerous/"offensive" than a lot of others. E.g what if an employee was classified as low agreeableness, high neuroticism, low conscientiousness, etc etc? Liability issues abound if that was used for hiring/promotion purposes. That's not even getting into IQ...

tohuteohoetuhoe 4y ago

Although it is true that personalities are not dichotomies, the best (reproducible and meaningful) personality inventory to date is the big 5. Extraversion is one of the inventories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits Research has suggested that the brains of people identified with higher or lesser degrees of extraversion do function differently. You are correct that behavior does not derive deterministically from personality. Anecdotally, I agree that MTBI has been used as an excuse to refrain from developing beneficial social skills and behaviors.

runarberg 4y ago
> Research has suggested that the brains of people identified with higher or lesser degrees of extraversion do function differently. This is an extremely weak statement. You can find any difference in the brain if you look hard enough. The brain is an extremely dynamic system and our measurements are full of noise. And even you are able to fully account for the noise in measurements you can easily be measuring something different than you think you are. > You are correct that behavior does not derive deterministically from personality. This should be a failing grade of personality psychology. What is the point of measuring personality if you cant find any behavior associated with it? At this point personality psychology is nothing more than metaphysics and has no place in modern science.

jbverschoor 4y ago

Most of these visual / abbreviations “theories” are utter bs, packages as truth. And they’re very hard to get rid of. Not 100% bs, but exactly the same as a lot of “best practices” in tech. They’re there for the IP holders of the brand they create with it. Sell a catchy concept/name, license out the name, verification which experts every 2 years, or certified training courses, charge more for that. Etc

fagnerbrack 4y ago
Big 5 names are made up, call them whatever you want, but the categories those names are put in are not made up. They're result of Factor Analysis in all personality questions to date which comes in different levels of resolution. They only put names in the top 5 resolution to make sense out of it, but you can have 1000, 1000000 categories at which point there's one category per question and the whole exercise stops being useful, so we have to reach a certain level of grouping that becomes applicable in real-life. The widely agreed is 5 factors and 10 aspects per factor.

fagnerbrack 4y ago

Introvert = Negative emotions. Extrovert = Positive emotions. Negative & Positive as in batteries, not if it's good or bad.