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MBTI polls are regularly posted here. Every time the claim is made that MBTI is pseudoscience, comparable to astrology, meaningless, etc. Sometimes this claim

MBTI polls are regularly posted here. Every time the claim is made that MBTI is pseudoscience, comparable to astrology, meaningless, etc. Sometimes this claim is accompanied with mentions or links to other psychometric assays to use instead. And every time the same two very rare MBTI types end up being the majority of HN readers. Which are already known as being the two most common types among software developers, something that has been a consistent result for decades. (Side Note: the linked to humanmetrics web quiz correctly notes that it is not the same as the MBTI. No information is provided as to its validity or to how well it correlates with MBTI types that it uses the names of. Therefore, observations that the humanmetrics web quiz (or any other similar free web quiz/personality test/etc) does not provide consistent results over time for some people may not necessarily indicate that the same effect would be observed taking the MBTI assay.)

ds9 13y ago
I posted similar comments before seeing yours. Yes M-B is probably pseudo-science (and of course this poll is unscientific). However, I suspect that some moderate (better-than-chance) degree of validity has kept people using it all these years. The MMPI supposedly was validated by assessing personality types independently by other methods and then empirically finding corresponding patterns of answers. I don't think that's viable for the M-B, however, as it's shorter, has been more exposed to the public and probably easy to game.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Yes M-B is probably pseudo-science (and of course this poll is unscientific). However, I suspect that some moderate (better-than-chance) degree of validity has kept people using it all these years. People have kept using astrology for a lot more years than M-B has been around, too. Perceived utility and validity don't always go hand-in-hand.
gress 13y ago
The consistent result from this group doesn't make it any less pseudoscience. You could equally well poll something like 'do you enjoy solving intricate problems' and 'would you rather relax and watch tv than learn something new' and you'd get a strong consistent result when you polled this group.

ds9 13y ago

I posted similar comments before seeing yours. Yes M-B is probably pseudo-science (and of course this poll is unscientific). However, I suspect that some moderate (better-than-chance) degree of validity has kept people using it all these years. The MMPI supposedly was validated by assessing personality types independently by other methods and then empirically finding corresponding patterns of answers. I don't think that's viable for the M-B, however, as it's shorter, has been more exposed to the public and probably easy to game.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> Yes M-B is probably pseudo-science (and of course this poll is unscientific). However, I suspect that some moderate (better-than-chance) degree of validity has kept people using it all these years. People have kept using astrology for a lot more years than M-B has been around, too. Perceived utility and validity don't always go hand-in-hand.

gress 13y ago

The consistent result from this group doesn't make it any less pseudoscience. You could equally well poll something like 'do you enjoy solving intricate problems' and 'would you rather relax and watch tv than learn something new' and you'd get a strong consistent result when you polled this group.