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What do you believe is the intended purpose of the actual MBTI? It is my understanding that it has its roots in Jungian psychoanalysis, which is thoroughly debu

What do you believe is the intended purpose of the actual MBTI? It is my understanding that it has its roots in Jungian psychoanalysis, which is thoroughly debunked pseudoscience at this point. The only utility of Jungian psychoanalysis today is in media and literature, particularly in Hollywood movies (and even then it is a bit outdated). I am aware that the MBTI has outlived Jungian psychoanalysis so we should assess it on its own merits (and not by its intended context) and as such it is at best useless fun (like the horoscope, online autism test, etc[1]) but at worst an industry based around provably false benefits. On its own merits MBTI is no different from modern personality tests in its lack of utility. It only set is self apart by being exceptionally poor at it, and explicitly basing it self on non-sensical statistical methods. Modern personality tests use cromulent statistics but fail to demonstrate any merit outside of which personality they’ve “discovered”. In other words, they’ve “discovered” epicycle and use that to describe planetary motions, all the while cognitive psychologists, behavior psychologists, neuro-pshychologists, sociologists, etc. have discovered general relativity and are using that to describe the same phenomena. 1: Although online autism tests often serve as a first step for autistic adults to go and get an actual diagnostic, or even just self-diagnose, and become a part of the autistic or neuro-diversity community which often has quite positive effects on their lives (if only by educating and being around other people in the community). I fail to see how MBTI has even this tiny foot-in-the-door benefit.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
The intended purpose is to serve as a discussion point for how to best interact with you. Same with the other big 5 tests. It turns out people are not good at articulating that absent a weird context like a personality testing process. The typical use of big 5 and MBTI is to help teams work together and understand each others' working styles. That's it. The Jungean crap is just crap. Like literally everything else in psychology, it's a discussion point that gets the conversation started. So is Big 5. So is CBT (arguably the most "evidence-based" form of psychology, which still turns out to be scientifically debatable). It turns out that psychology is just about having structured conversations about your feelings. Personality tests are a framework for that, and they work for that purpose (and basically that purpose alone).
- runarberg 4y ago
  I think you might confusing psychiatry/clinical psychology and behavioral psychology, which is understandable. Psychiatry and clinical psychology (including cognitive behavioral therapy) is indeed the most evidence based part of psychology, understandably so since it deals with our health care system, and the correct treatment does save lives. Personality psychology however doesn’t deal with psychological disorders focusing instead on the science of explaining behavior. The quality of the science in question is about finding a good model is, and evidence in question is not how effective a certain treatment is, but how well it justifies and backs up the model. I see this sentiment a lot here on HN that psychology is poor science, I disagree with that. Yes if you include psychoanalysis you will see a lot of bad science, however psychoanalysis has been on the fringe for almost a century at this point, and is not at all representative of the field as it is currently practiced. As an example take the subfield neuroscience, which looks at brain trauma from various patients and is able to predict with some accuracy what kind of behavioral change the patient will experience (a good model), and then uses that to focus on best paths for rehabilitation (a good justification for that model). Personality psychology has not been as successful in creating a good model, nor in finding ways to justify their model. Personality psychology is at best a poor and limited predictor of behavior, with very limited justification for said models. Nothing about feelings here really, just evidence for models of behavior.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    I hate to break it to you, but psychology, and most of medicine for that matter, is based on very suspect science. Including the clinical practice and the more wishy-washy parts. Almost every study in medicine as a whole and psychology in specific doesn't replicate. A lot of study has gone into realizing that the familiarity between the therapist and patient is the main determining factor in the effectiveness of psychotherapy. From that perspective, even the most suspect, crappy, Jungean or Freudian junk can work if the therapist-patient partnership makes it work. Similarly, the current "scientific" hotness (CBT, DBT) can fail based on that relationship alone.
    - runarberg 4y ago

pclmulqdq 4y ago

The intended purpose is to serve as a discussion point for how to best interact with you. Same with the other big 5 tests. It turns out people are not good at articulating that absent a weird context like a personality testing process. The typical use of big 5 and MBTI is to help teams work together and understand each others' working styles. That's it. The Jungean crap is just crap. Like literally everything else in psychology, it's a discussion point that gets the conversation started. So is Big 5. So is CBT (arguably the most "evidence-based" form of psychology, which still turns out to be scientifically debatable). It turns out that psychology is just about having structured conversations about your feelings. Personality tests are a framework for that, and they work for that purpose (and basically that purpose alone).

runarberg 4y ago
I think you might confusing psychiatry/clinical psychology and behavioral psychology, which is understandable. Psychiatry and clinical psychology (including cognitive behavioral therapy) is indeed the most evidence based part of psychology, understandably so since it deals with our health care system, and the correct treatment does save lives. Personality psychology however doesn’t deal with psychological disorders focusing instead on the science of explaining behavior. The quality of the science in question is about finding a good model is, and evidence in question is not how effective a certain treatment is, but how well it justifies and backs up the model. I see this sentiment a lot here on HN that psychology is poor science, I disagree with that. Yes if you include psychoanalysis you will see a lot of bad science, however psychoanalysis has been on the fringe for almost a century at this point, and is not at all representative of the field as it is currently practiced. As an example take the subfield neuroscience, which looks at brain trauma from various patients and is able to predict with some accuracy what kind of behavioral change the patient will experience (a good model), and then uses that to focus on best paths for rehabilitation (a good justification for that model). Personality psychology has not been as successful in creating a good model, nor in finding ways to justify their model. Personality psychology is at best a poor and limited predictor of behavior, with very limited justification for said models. Nothing about feelings here really, just evidence for models of behavior.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but psychology, and most of medicine for that matter, is based on very suspect science. Including the clinical practice and the more wishy-washy parts. Almost every study in medicine as a whole and psychology in specific doesn't replicate. A lot of study has gone into realizing that the familiarity between the therapist and patient is the main determining factor in the effectiveness of psychotherapy. From that perspective, even the most suspect, crappy, Jungean or Freudian junk can work if the therapist-patient partnership makes it work. Similarly, the current "scientific" hotness (CBT, DBT) can fail based on that relationship alone.
  - runarberg 4y ago