4 ms·

The perenially-popular Myers-Briggs personality inventory is utterly bogus. If Myers-Briggs classified body types, it would be something like this: "We're goi

by Pitarou 13y ago

The perenially-popular Myers-Briggs personality inventory is utterly bogus. If Myers-Briggs classified body types, it would be something like this: "We're going to classify you in four different ways: height, skin-color, adiposity, and luminance. So, for example, I'm a TPWR (tall, plump, white, rainbow), but my colleague here is a SLBC (short, lithe, black, starlight). We're going to classify you with this questionnaire, but if you're unhappy with the results you get at the end please tell us and we'll change it."

Pitarou 13y ago
Oh. I've actually looked at the Lipson-Shiu Test now. Looks like the joke was on me! :0)
oblique63 13y ago
Except that MBTI is only a superficial shorthand for the more complex Jungian cognitive function theory[1], which is more nuanced and has functions interacting in more complex ways than just the 4 dimensions represented by the MBTI system. More interestingly, is that these cognitive functions are actually starting to have some connections to neurological phenomena[2]. So while on the superficial level MBTI is kind of just a bunch of sugar coating, it actually is founded in more well-reasoned psychology. It could still be highly inaccurate, but it is unusually consistent (once you accept that the tests for it are generally terrible). [1] Here are some good resources on their basic definitions: http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/content.php/213-MBTI-Descriptions-of-cognitive-functions-from-various-sources http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/content.php/213-MBTI-De... http://personalityjunkie.com/functions-ni-ti-fi-si-ne-te-fe-se/ http://personalityjunkie.com/functions-ni-ti-fi-si-ne-te-fe-... [2] This talk goes into some detail about how specific brain patterns seem to correlate with the Jungian cognitive functions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA
- Pitarou 13y ago
  I was talking about the test, not Jungian psychology. Regardless of how accurate Jung's musings turned out to be, any test that insists on classifying people as either an introvert or an extrovert flies in the face of the best empirical evidence. What really bugs me is that there are recruiters who use this test as part of their hiring process. (Not in the US.) What a waste.
  - oblique63 13y ago
    You can't blame people for trying to harness the power of that psychology in a practical manner though. A simple 4-letter code is much more practical than asking a person for their ranked cognitive function preferences. Dismissing the entire MBTI system just because it's current testing implementations aren't perfect seems a bit shortsighted when the psychology behind it is actually pretty useful for predicting team dynamics to a certain degree. If you want to be annoyed with people that have no idea how to interpret MBTI results, then that's a different story, but there's no need to throw out a perfectly good baby with the bathwater...
    - Pitarou 13y ago
      > A simple 4-letter code is much more practical than asking a person for their ranked cognitive function preferences. Yes, the world would be much simpler if we dichotomised everything. My shoe size is (LARGE / small). My GPA was (HIGH / low). My political beliefs are (LEFT / right) wing. I live in the (NORTHERN / Southern) hemisphere. It certainly helps when you're designing a database schema. Sarcasm aside, can you think of a situation where it's actually helpful to measure and classify people according to a simple dichotomy like introvert / extravert?
      - oblique63 13y ago
        I don't know, can you think of a situation where it's easier to complicate things needlessly with millions of superfluous variables? There's a reason we no longer program in assembly languages -- abstraction is helpful, and many useful abstractions can be simplified to a few core concepts. Personality types are abstract frameworks that simplify the modeling of human behavior. The reason they seem like dichotomies is because that's just more practical; we don't go around saying we're only 75% right-handed for example, we just say we're either "right-handed" or "left-handed", and that conveys just about all the useful information we need. Abstractions don't have to follow a lossy compression algorithm, but compression is nonetheless helpful when dealing with overwhelming amounts of information. Just go ask any economist... I'm not exactly sure what idea/agenda you're trying to push by debating this, it's just another tool and another set of descriptions that can be added on to what is already there, not a replacement for what is there. Just because an app gives a user an ID number doesn't mean that the authors believe their users to be nothing but serial numbers. Simplification helps convey information efficiently. So assuming the larger data set still remains at you're disposal, I really don't understand what there is to disagree with.
patrickk 13y ago
There's a chapter in the book "Automate This"[1] (Chapter 7) that deals with research that will make you highly effective in communicating with other people. It focuses on the research of a man called Dr. Taibi Kahler[2], who broadly breaks people down into 6 categories: 1. Emotions driven people 2. Thoughts based people 3. Actions driven people 4. Reflections driven people 5. Opinions driven people 6. Reactions based people Everybody has a mix of some/all of the above, but one personality type dominates. Before you scream "bullshit!", bear in mind that this research has been used by NASA to ensure that personality types that don't mix well don't end up as astronauts together in extremely dangerous space missions, and it also helped Bill Clinton to unseat an incumbent president in the 1992 US Presidential race. Here's a simple article about it: http://www.bottomlinepublications.com/content/article/business/dr-taibi-kahlers-secret-to-making-a-great-first-impression http://www.bottomlinepublications.com/content/article/busine... [1] http://www.amazon.com/Automate-This-Algorithms-Markets-World/dp/1591846528/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381666183&sr=8-1&keywords=automate+this http://www.amazon.com/Automate-This-Algorithms-Markets-World... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taibi_Kahler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taibi_Kahler
- acomar 13y ago
  > Before you scream "bullshit!", bear in mind that this research has been used by NASA to ensure that personality types that don't mix well don't end up as astronauts together in extremely dangerous space missions, and it also helped Bill Clinton to unseat an incumbent president in the 1992 US Presidential race. In what way are either of those things evidence in support of your claims...? NASA might be interested in this research but this appeal to authority is fallacious -- NASA is an organization interested in physics and astronomy. If you told me NASA claimed someone found water on Pluto, I'd believe you. But personality tests are not that. And presidential races are just so full of BS to begin with. This last cycle was proof of that. It's basically impossible to say that anything in particular helped any given candidate in any given year, but every pundit loves to speculate anyway. So there's plenty of theorizing to go around. Nothing you posted (including in your citations) gives me any kind of predictive link between the theory you espouse and how people will actually behave. To make matters worse: > Everybody has a mix of some/all of the above, but one personality type dominates. Makes the whole thing sound vacuous.

by Pitarou 13y ago

Pitarou 13y ago

Oh. I've actually looked at the Lipson-Shiu Test now. Looks like the joke was on me! :0)

oblique63 13y ago

Except that MBTI is only a superficial shorthand for the more complex Jungian cognitive function theory[1], which is more nuanced and has functions interacting in more complex ways than just the 4 dimensions represented by the MBTI system. More interestingly, is that these cognitive functions are actually starting to have some connections to neurological phenomena[2]. So while on the superficial level MBTI is kind of just a bunch of sugar coating, it actually is founded in more well-reasoned psychology. It could still be highly inaccurate, but it is unusually consistent (once you accept that the tests for it are generally terrible). [1] Here are some good resources on their basic definitions: http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/content.php/213-MBTI-Descriptions-of-cognitive-functions-from-various-sources http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/content.php/213-MBTI-De... http://personalityjunkie.com/functions-ni-ti-fi-si-ne-te-fe-se/ http://personalityjunkie.com/functions-ni-ti-fi-si-ne-te-fe-... [2] This talk goes into some detail about how specific brain patterns seem to correlate with the Jungian cognitive functions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA

Pitarou 13y ago
I was talking about the test, not Jungian psychology. Regardless of how accurate Jung's musings turned out to be, any test that insists on classifying people as either an introvert or an extrovert flies in the face of the best empirical evidence. What really bugs me is that there are recruiters who use this test as part of their hiring process. (Not in the US.) What a waste.
- oblique63 13y ago
  You can't blame people for trying to harness the power of that psychology in a practical manner though. A simple 4-letter code is much more practical than asking a person for their ranked cognitive function preferences. Dismissing the entire MBTI system just because it's current testing implementations aren't perfect seems a bit shortsighted when the psychology behind it is actually pretty useful for predicting team dynamics to a certain degree. If you want to be annoyed with people that have no idea how to interpret MBTI results, then that's a different story, but there's no need to throw out a perfectly good baby with the bathwater...
  - Pitarou 13y ago
    > A simple 4-letter code is much more practical than asking a person for their ranked cognitive function preferences. Yes, the world would be much simpler if we dichotomised everything. My shoe size is (LARGE / small). My GPA was (HIGH / low). My political beliefs are (LEFT / right) wing. I live in the (NORTHERN / Southern) hemisphere. It certainly helps when you're designing a database schema. Sarcasm aside, can you think of a situation where it's actually helpful to measure and classify people according to a simple dichotomy like introvert / extravert?
    - oblique63 13y ago
      I don't know, can you think of a situation where it's easier to complicate things needlessly with millions of superfluous variables? There's a reason we no longer program in assembly languages -- abstraction is helpful, and many useful abstractions can be simplified to a few core concepts. Personality types are abstract frameworks that simplify the modeling of human behavior. The reason they seem like dichotomies is because that's just more practical; we don't go around saying we're only 75% right-handed for example, we just say we're either "right-handed" or "left-handed", and that conveys just about all the useful information we need. Abstractions don't have to follow a lossy compression algorithm, but compression is nonetheless helpful when dealing with overwhelming amounts of information. Just go ask any economist... I'm not exactly sure what idea/agenda you're trying to push by debating this, it's just another tool and another set of descriptions that can be added on to what is already there, not a replacement for what is there. Just because an app gives a user an ID number doesn't mean that the authors believe their users to be nothing but serial numbers. Simplification helps convey information efficiently. So assuming the larger data set still remains at you're disposal, I really don't understand what there is to disagree with.

patrickk 13y ago

There's a chapter in the book "Automate This"[1] (Chapter 7) that deals with research that will make you highly effective in communicating with other people. It focuses on the research of a man called Dr. Taibi Kahler[2], who broadly breaks people down into 6 categories: 1. Emotions driven people 2. Thoughts based people 3. Actions driven people 4. Reflections driven people 5. Opinions driven people 6. Reactions based people Everybody has a mix of some/all of the above, but one personality type dominates. Before you scream "bullshit!", bear in mind that this research has been used by NASA to ensure that personality types that don't mix well don't end up as astronauts together in extremely dangerous space missions, and it also helped Bill Clinton to unseat an incumbent president in the 1992 US Presidential race. Here's a simple article about it: http://www.bottomlinepublications.com/content/article/business/dr-taibi-kahlers-secret-to-making-a-great-first-impression http://www.bottomlinepublications.com/content/article/busine... [1] http://www.amazon.com/Automate-This-Algorithms-Markets-World/dp/1591846528/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381666183&sr=8-1&keywords=automate+this http://www.amazon.com/Automate-This-Algorithms-Markets-World... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taibi_Kahler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taibi_Kahler

acomar 13y ago
> Before you scream "bullshit!", bear in mind that this research has been used by NASA to ensure that personality types that don't mix well don't end up as astronauts together in extremely dangerous space missions, and it also helped Bill Clinton to unseat an incumbent president in the 1992 US Presidential race. In what way are either of those things evidence in support of your claims...? NASA might be interested in this research but this appeal to authority is fallacious -- NASA is an organization interested in physics and astronomy. If you told me NASA claimed someone found water on Pluto, I'd believe you. But personality tests are not that. And presidential races are just so full of BS to begin with. This last cycle was proof of that. It's basically impossible to say that anything in particular helped any given candidate in any given year, but every pundit loves to speculate anyway. So there's plenty of theorizing to go around. Nothing you posted (including in your citations) gives me any kind of predictive link between the theory you espouse and how people will actually behave. To make matters worse: > Everybody has a mix of some/all of the above, but one personality type dominates. Makes the whole thing sound vacuous.