3 ms·

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

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.
      - Pitarou 13y ago
        My agenda is this: I want people to stop using the Myers-Briggs test, because it is not a useful decision-making tool ("bogus" for short). It generates spuriously precise results that garner false confidence, and probably crowds out other, more valid instruments. Your left- / right-handed analogy is not appropriate. The population is strongly clustered in terms of hand-dominance: most people clearly favour one hand over another. For the kinds of personality traits the MTBI measures, the distribution is roughly bell-shaped: most people cluster towards the middle. This bell-shape means that a simple binary classification is just about the worst way to do things. Take the I/E axis. Most psychologists will tell you that there is an intro- / extraversion continuum, and only a few people are found at the extremes. A statistician will add that, because of the wide error bands (which we can measure by checking the correlation of the results from, say, the even-numbered with the odd-numbered questions) the MTBI can only reliably identify the extreme types. For the majority of people who are close to the I/E borderline, the results of the test are basically random. So if my MTBI tells me that I'm an "I", all I really know is that I'm not an extreme "E". That isn't very helpful. You mentioned having the larger dataset at our disposal. With the larger dataset, we don't need the MTBI. Without it, the MTBI tells us very little. So what good is it?

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.
    - Pitarou 13y ago
      My agenda is this: I want people to stop using the Myers-Briggs test, because it is not a useful decision-making tool ("bogus" for short). It generates spuriously precise results that garner false confidence, and probably crowds out other, more valid instruments. Your left- / right-handed analogy is not appropriate. The population is strongly clustered in terms of hand-dominance: most people clearly favour one hand over another. For the kinds of personality traits the MTBI measures, the distribution is roughly bell-shaped: most people cluster towards the middle. This bell-shape means that a simple binary classification is just about the worst way to do things. Take the I/E axis. Most psychologists will tell you that there is an intro- / extraversion continuum, and only a few people are found at the extremes. A statistician will add that, because of the wide error bands (which we can measure by checking the correlation of the results from, say, the even-numbered with the odd-numbered questions) the MTBI can only reliably identify the extreme types. For the majority of people who are close to the I/E borderline, the results of the test are basically random. So if my MTBI tells me that I'm an "I", all I really know is that I'm not an extreme "E". That isn't very helpful. You mentioned having the larger dataset at our disposal. With the larger dataset, we don't need the MTBI. Without it, the MTBI tells us very little. So what good is it?