5 ms·
Results of yesterday's personality poll: we're strange.
On the hypothesis that this site selects for certain personality types that are different from the general population, I decided to run some simple statistics on the results of yesterday's MBTI poll (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722).
I compared the frequencies of each of the types to the population means on the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator#Type_dynamics_and_development). The results show that we are a very atypical group indeed:
Using a binomial test at a 99% confidence level.
ISTJ is significant: 1.82% ( 12/660) vs. 11.60% expected.
ISFJ is significant: 0.61% ( 4/660) vs. 13.80% expected.
INFJ is NOT significant: 2.12% ( 14/660) vs. 1.50% expected.
INTJ is significant: 31.21% (206/660) vs. 2.10% expected.
ISTP is significant: 2.42% ( 16/660) vs. 5.40% expected.
ISFP is significant: 0.15% ( 1/660) vs. 8.80% expected.
INFP is significant: 8.48% ( 56/660) vs. 4.30% expected.
INTP is significant: 28.94% (191/660) vs. 4.30% expected.
ESTP is significant: 0.45% ( 3/660) vs. 4.30% expected.
ESFP is significant: 0.15% ( 1/660) vs. 8.50% expected.
ENFP is significant: 3.33% ( 22/660) vs. 8.10% expected.
ENTP is significant: 8.48% ( 56/660) vs. 3.30% expected.
ESTJ is significant: 1.36% ( 9/660) vs. 8.70% expected.
ESFJ is significant: 0.76% ( 5/660) vs. 12.30% expected.
ENFJ is NOT significant: 2.27% ( 15/660) vs. 2.40% expected.
ENTJ is significant: 7.42% ( 49/660) vs. 1.80% expected.
The data are up-to-date as of about 20 minutes ago. Here's the script I used to generate these results: http://gist.github.com/236850
EDIT:
Here are the results broken down by pairs:
FP is significant: 12.12% ( 80/660) vs. 29.70% expected.
TP is significant: 40.30% (266/660) vs. 17.30% expected.
FJ is significant: 5.76% ( 38/660) vs. 30.00% expected.
NJ is significant: 43.03% (284/660) vs. 7.80% expected.
NF is NOT significant: 16.21% (107/660) vs. 16.30% expected.
TJ is significant: 41.82% (276/660) vs. 24.20% expected.
NP is significant: 49.24% (325/660) vs. 20.00% expected.
NT is significant: 76.06% (502/660) vs. 11.50% expected.
EN is significant: 21.52% (142/660) vs. 15.60% expected.
EJ is significant: 11.82% ( 78/660) vs. 25.20% expected.
IP is significant: 40.00% (264/660) vs. 22.80% expected.
IS is significant: 5.00% ( 33/660) vs. 39.60% expected.
EF is significant: 6.52% ( 43/660) vs. 31.30% expected.
IT is significant: 64.39% (425/660) vs. 23.40% expected.
IJ is significant: 35.76% (236/660) vs. 29.00% expected.
IN is significant: 70.76% (467/660) vs. 12.20% expected.
ET is NOT significant: 17.73% (117/660) vs. 18.10% expected.
EP is significant: 12.42% ( 82/660) vs. 24.20% expected.
ES is significant: 2.73% ( 18/660) vs. 33.80% expected.
IF is significant: 11.36% ( 75/660) vs. 28.40% expected.
SP is significant: 3.18% ( 21/660) vs. 27.00% expected.
ST is significant: 6.06% ( 40/660) vs. 30.00% expected.
SJ is significant: 4.55% ( 30/660) vs. 46.40% expected.
SF is significant: 1.67% ( 11/660) vs. 43.40% expected.
Apparently, 76% of Hacker News is an NT type of one type or another. I've updated the Gist link above with the code that computes this.
- hitonagashi 17y agoSurely, given the fact that one group is vastly over represented(in this case INTJ), it is hardly a surprise that the others have distributions that are skewed as a result?
- a-priori 17y agoCertainly true, and I'd definitely include INTP in that as well. I'm not sure how to adjust this analysis to reduce that influence. To be honest, statistics is not my forté. Any suggestions?
- seldo 17y agoOf course, this really only shows the personality types of people on HN who answer polls. Still, that INTJ/INTP domination is kind of amazing.
- a-priori 17y agoOh, yes. Caveat emptor and all that. This is self-selected, took significant effort to do (so possibly eliminated busy people), and the test itself is based on questionable science. This analysis assumes that none of that had any significant bias.
- nopassrecover 17y agoWell if anything you'd expect a bias towards sensing/feeling for these kind of tests wouldn't you?
- agbell 17y agoI didn't do the poll and am INTP so I assume it is representitive
- niyazpk 17y agoI should admit that for most of the questions, I could not come up with the correct answer (yes/no). I feel I answered many incorrectly. Did anyone else have difficulty in answering the questions objectively?