“It is a classic chicken-and-egg problem: No major journal has published on it, therefore no elite academic will support it, therefore no major journal will publish on it.”
"The research that most psychologists today hold up as the best attempt to derive personality types from empirical data is called the Five Factor theory, which emerged from several large-scale independent projects that, conducted over decades, pointed to the same broad set of conclusions. The studies found five core axes that underpin personality, versus the MBTI’s four. They are represented by the acronym OCEAN: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Of the five, only extroversion closely maps with Myers-Briggs.
Yet the Five Factor theory has a small commercial problem.
“There’s no individual or group who owns it,” Grant says. “It’s something that’s collectively owned by the academic community.” That means it’s harder to copyright and package."
““To raise questions about [Myers-Briggs’s] reliability and validity is like commenting on the tastiness of communion wine. Or how good a yarmulke is at protecting your head,” says Brian Little, a former psychology professor at Harvard University who is now at the University of Cambridge. “It’s simply the wrong question, from their perspective.””
Actually would have been interested in your take on why it is useless, Volchok, or what parts of the article seem most pointed. In any case. I have taken the test a number of times and even taken a course where we tested each other and took the thing apart and compared it to other tests that are used for similar purposes. In my experience, if you take the test, the description of your category will fit rather well. And will feel, generally much more spot on than other ones.
The thing is…of course it does. It asks you very direct questions about what you will do. If you analyze a lot, well, this will be one of your qualities. If you go by feelings in a lot of your answers, well, that will also position you.
Still, this first layer of the test, the general description of the person, seems pretty spot on to me and even to some degree useful. I mean, if your HR people cannot figure this out through interviews and reference - maybe you should get other ones - this is certainly a rapid way to get such an assessment.
That said, I am skeptical about the next layer, where your non-dominant modes are determined via Jung’s system. IOW I am with the test as far as getting the ISJT or whatever label. But after that with the auxiliary,tertiary and inferior functions, I feel like they are making a stretch and need more support to justify their domination of the market they dominate.
I think you are much better off seeing how people function in groups - what roles they take on, how they deal with stress, etc. Stuff you can partially get out of interviews and references, (or feedback from people who know you), or if it can be afforded through groups of candidates being given common tasks. (I am primarily thinking of the work world use of the test)
I agree, the only way it is useful at all is if someone actually disagrees with the narrow definition that is meant to say they are x. Then and only then can psychiatry or psychology work.
“Why do you disagree you are IXYT”.
There are possibly infinite combinations of the human personality, to place them down to 16, 2000, or 1 million is a very blunt way of saying you are copping out of addressing people as individuals
Actually we tested against that, by giving people descriptions for other categories. People recognized themselves in the correct Myer’s Briggs category way, way above random. This was also the result we found with using people who knew the test subject. But as I pointed out, this would pretty much have to be the case. Unless you are dealing with people with very little insight. If you answer a bunch of questions that show you are shy, not so likely to be comfortable speaking in public and other likely introversion markers, well, that you end up getting the category introversion is not a surprise. This is also true in the other personality facets they test for. What the test does is organize these self-evaluations into categories. The descriptions are fairly good, but my issue with that is you can see from the test questions how we are not really creating much new information. It is just a summing up of very obvious conclusions.
Where the MB tries for something deeper, with the non-dominant characteristics, there is little evidence and I haven’t seen much compelling there.
The description is not really dependant on Jung’s ideas. The way the non-dom characteristics are described and the prescriptive aspects of this are very dependent on Jung.
So to me the problem with Myers Briggs is the part that works is kinda, well, duh.
The part that is more than simply adding up and categorizing self-insights has no real support.
I find that the questions are too general… which then gives a ‘general’ analysis, so I don’t find the test that useful under that basis - perhaps the test is better suited to those that are not aware of who they are yet, and you will be surprised at how many there are out there who are not aware of their traits.
I’m not trying to suggest in any way, shape or form that “psychology” doesn’t work. This specific psychological test is rubbish. I’m against the use of this test, not against the scientific field. Full disclosure: I’m a psychology undergraduate.
The purpose of all such tests is merely to pigeonhole the masses. “The people we (those paying for these tests) like, support, and want to protect are types A,M, and Q, the rest can eat cake.”
To keep our little secret, we shall give each type an appealing name or description; Type A: strong, wise, and never tells lies
Type B: witty, clever, socializes too much
Type C: watches too much science fiction, but is harmless
Type D: terrorist
…
The names and descriptions are meaningless and often deceptive.
The issue is merely who is responding the same as “the people we like”.
… and who is responding those other ways.
I spent well over 10 years now studying Myers-Briggs, as well as over a dozen other systems. Big 5 blows ass, but you can still even achieve a decent success rate, as well as in Ennegram (which is perhaps the oldest system in the west, outside of the typology in Astrology and Hermetic conceptions, dating back to the Roman Chistian era).
Myers-Briggs in and of itself is highly accurate- a INTJ is indeed a obvious INTJ, as well as a ESFP is a ESFP. Just certain categories, such as INTJ and INTP have a remarkably wide avenue of variation within them. You gotta realize, this system is almost a century old from it’s earliest roots. It wasn’t seriously attempted to align with the anatomy of the human brain, just behavior- a behavior determined by concepts, concepts cued to definitions. A introvert could be a wall flower, or a person in a coma, or a owl on a branch in the woods all alone. a ISTP could be a security camera. The concepts just float.
The system finds valaity in it’s secondary and tritary levels of functions… when a Introverted Sensing person switches modes to Extroverted Intuition. You end up with much more than 4 varaitions then… you’ve just completed a feedback loop of bahavior that should be tracable to the anatomy of the brain. The thing with MBTI is… the vast majority of it is traceable back to the structure of the brain. Most personality theory research now focuses on the brain regions and functions that govern behavior, and MBTI has done remarkably well, and held it’s own. It’s because it has evolved over the last few generations. Jung’s theory is almost identicle, so most people just use his typology in place of MBTI’S copyright.
The belief that mbti is mostly voodoo is indicative that the people perpetuating the voodoo idea are drastically out of date with the research material, and one needs to guard against their psychological understandings, accpeting it with great caution. Besides, MBTI is decent enough to determine why they hold such views in the first place, there are a few quirky yet boringly predictably types that refuse to accept it, while others are just too lazy to do the research itself.
However, if all you do is the research into MBTI, it’s not really useful in and of itself beyond parlor tricks of picking dates online. Fuck… honestly, what’s the point of it if your not going to learn why it works as it does, and it’s nuances.
(MBTI does account for neurosis by the way. They are a byproduct of several factors, such as non-linear feedback loops where sections don’t complete themselves. There are dozens of shoot off versions of MBTI tested in top universities currently, as in RIGHT NOW, across the planet. Shit is simple, predictible, and fits the brain rather well. Just each research puts their own bias in over others with different personalities. Right now, the trend is for INTPs to try to type INTJs as INTPs… when I find this, I write the testers asking what’s up. They usually fuck up in thinking we come off the same given one letter of seperation, and want to be in that higher IQ bracket by migrating us down to them.
Oh btw that’s one underrated and hard degree. mixing an art with science in a youthful field means that even the best are not going to sure of anything. All I can say is good luck. You are going to need it.
I have been tested (it is not actually a test) once with a Behavioral Science group and secondly during studies of Psychology. Students were asked to take it. The lecturer said if seven years had elapsed and the person had experienced major life changes (which I had) it would be necessary to retake it. The real MBTI must be administered by a trained and qualified practitioner that includes a follow up of the results. I was surprised to find one change in my results. More recently, I took it once again and it had reverted back to my original result.
First result was INFJ
Second result INTJ
Recent result INFJ