
Myers-Briggs: The personality test that conned the world - lamby
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/09/the-personality-test-that-conned-the-world/
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chillacy
It's a bit of a shame that the article goes about the history instead of the
science. Personality is something that psychologists study, but they use the
five-factor model:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits)

One big problem preventing the five factor model from catching on is that the
five factor model seems to have value judgements built in (agreeableness
friendly/compassionate vs. challenging/detached seems to imply that it is a
good thing, so a lack of it would be bad), whereas MBTI makes both ends of the
spectrum sound positive (in Thinking vs Feeling, Thinking sounds equally good,
vs challenging/detached).

Another facet is that MBTI assumes bimodal distributions, but as a result they
can come up with catchy characters like "The Debater" and "The Entertainer"
which five-factor doesn't do.

As a result, people tend to talk MBTI, even among folks who know about the
five factor model, just because it's easier. It has some amount of predictive
power, much better than a horoscope or tarot cards or blood type or astrology,
and the reality is that people talk about that stuff all the time.

~~~
phoschore
Yeah, the big five personality traits fall apart just as easily if you start
factoring in evil, yet productive activities.

How does moral relativism play into being agreeable, organized, curious,
confident and outgoing? An enterprising individual interested in hooking as
many people as possible on heroin? A strong individual that leads Germany out
of the economic peril of crushing war debt?

Being superficially agreeable, and conscientious, yet knowingly sabotaging the
people you agree with, to their face? Or maybe agreeing with some people, but
not with you? Outgoing, but only when met by individuals that meet certain
criteria? Curious and inventive, when torturing animals? Organized, while
incarcerating inmates in a private prison?

Sounds like a great recipe for being productive at work, just so long as you
don't think to deeply about the work being done.

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411mrc
This article is laughable. Knocking the developers by saying Myers and Briggs
had no training is akin to knocking the first powered flight by saying Orville
and Wilbur Wright had no training.

It's not difficult to imagine evolution has discovered a way to segregate us
into different personalities for the advantage to form cohesive social groups
with specializations for survival. Who hasn't observed the difference between
introvert and extravert in their own interactions? Is it a stretch to envision
a couple more dichotomies exist?

Ask people to answer questions that will sort them into 16 bins and isn't it
logical to assume those bins might have traits in common?

There are plenty of problems with MBTI and by all means, develop a better
science. I tend to characterize people into their MBTI type in order to better
interact with them. I find it useful and understandable, even predictive.
Parlor trick? Perhaps, but on a couple of occasions now, I've accurately
predicted a new friend's MBTI type simply by observing them and then having
them take the test to confirm. You then have a useful basic mental model of
them.

Unfortunately, while I can fly in a 777 nearly halfway around the world now
due in part to the Wrights, there is no personality tool 777 equivalent.

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sunstone
The "Straight Dope" took a stab at characterizing the Myers-Briggs test [1].
They found the test lacked validity except it has a slight correlation (by
accident) with one of the big five dimensions.

[1][https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2922/does-the-
myer...](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2922/does-the-myers-briggs-
personality-assessment-really-tell-you-anything/)

