
The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless - todd8
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-myers-briggs-personality-test-is-pretty-much-meaningless-9359770/?no-ist
======
n-exploit
As an individual (INFJ) thoroughly interested in Myers-Briggs, I often see
this discussion brought up. As a short rebuttal, I feel as though many of
those who tout Myers-Briggs as a comprehensive personality test fail to
understand what the Myers-Briggs attempts to identify. While the "value-add"
is more subjective, I'm going to go ahead and say it's not as useless as this
article claims. While I don't think anyone (especially employers) should rely
heavily on Myers-Briggs, I think it can provide a decent framework (or
starting point) outlining basic facets of an individual's personality based on
their own perspective. Though I often distrust individual claims about
belonging a certain type, given my interest in understanding myself and facets
of my own personality, I enjoy discussing why a person may claim to be a part
of a certain type.

For me, Myers-Briggs tends to be little more than a starting point for
discussing the finer parts of my own personality, values, and perspectives. I
find that those who are equally interested in Myers-Briggs share similar
values in self-understanding, thus a starting point for some interesting
discussion.

~~~
Bartweiss
My primary concern with even cursory usage of Myers-Briggs is that retest
consistency isn't as high as I'd like. Plenty of people retest very solidly,
of course, but there's a large-percentage chunk of the population that walks
or more boundaries and doesn't put up consistent tests. That makes it hard to
say _anything_ about the results, at least in simple "my type" terms.

A nuanced discussion would probably accept that these are continuous axes, but
instead they get treated as clusters, distorting even casual analysis.

~~~
Retric
Which is the fundamental failure. Picking E v. I says little about relative
magnitude. 'E' might be slightly larger than 'I' but below the test's noise
floor so you show up 'I' slightly more frequently. Or 'E' might significantly
higher than 'I' so it's a consistent result.

Further, it says nothing about the fluctuations in magnitude over time, some
days 'E' might be more important than 'I' and it really can swap on other
days. Or even how accurately people self report.

~~~
johnmaguire2013
Actually, a type (e.g. INFP) does say a lot about the magnitude of different
cognitive processes. Take a look at this website (INFP linked as an example):
[http://www.cognitiveprocesses.com/16Types/INFP.cfm](http://www.cognitiveprocesses.com/16Types/INFP.cfm)

~~~
Retric
There are only 4 bits of information. E v I, S v N, T v F, J v P.

So, if you are 'strongly' I and weakly P that does not change the order to
show P is more dominate over J than I is over E. AKA, magnitude is literally
not part of the test.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
When I took the MBTI as part of a college psych course, our test results came
back with magnitude scores: moderately I, very N, barely T (ie, almost X), and
very P. (The actual scores were numeric, but I only remember the relative
strength years later.)

When discussing the results as a class, the strength of a type seemed to
correlate reasonably with behavior, and explain more than the clusters on
their own, eg, all the strong NPs had similar epistemological views and
styles, fading towards an SJ style as the scores people had changed.

What a lot of people seem to forget, though, is the MBTI doesn't account for
effects from disorders only healthy variation and it's about who you are right
now, not who you are permanently. People vary over time.

------
0xfffafaCrash
This is so poorly thought out. I really don't get why some people can't seem
to tell the difference between things like MBTIs and astrological
signs/zodiacs/horoscopes in terms of their potential to classify people in a
meaningful way...

One is an arbitrary mapping of a person's date of birth to an set of traits
and prophesies.

The other is a brief summary of a person's personality/behavioral inclinations
based on a survey of that person's stated behavior and inclinations. When you
say MBTI can be "just as arbitrary," what you're claiming is that it might be
true that there is zero correlation between how any individual person of a
given personality type answers any of the 93 MBTI questions. Sure, there is
variation in people's self-assessments (and personalities for that matter, but
let's ignore that for the moment) over time, but it wouldn't be "just as
arbitrary" unless it had no correlation at all with basically anything about
the person. I find that claim to be completely implausible.

The only way it could be true that it is meaningless is if upon repeated
testings, knowing a person's formerly reported MBTI provided no insight _at
all_ into what MBTIs are more likely than for the average person in subsequent
testings. That's certainly not the case that's been found in the research, so
at the very least, it provides insight into what a person thinks that they are
like.

Even if it were the case that all the MBTIs are only related to positive
traits (which isn't true), the idea that it is meaningless is just nonsense.

~~~
Analemma_
> I really don't get why some people can't seem to tell the difference between
> things like MBTIs and astrological signs/zodiacs/horoscopes

Then let me try to help clarify. MBTI has no predictive power ("I'm an INTP,
so... ?") and is not falsifiable. Those are the delineators between science
and pseudoscience, so that's why I bucket it with astrology.

~~~
amelius
.

~~~
AlexandrB
That's meaningless unless you confirm that their fitness for that task was
actually correlated to their MTBI, e.g. by mixing those "fit" and "unfit"
(based on MTBI) on the same task and comparing their performance. I'm pretty
sure most companies don't do this. They just assume MTBI has predictive power
and use it anyway since it gives them something to go on besides gut instinct.

~~~
amelius
Well, I know for sure that a person with an INTJ personality type is not
suited for marketing and sales (statistically speaking of course). Would you
claim otherwise?

~~~
foopityfop
Yes I would. Given the inconsistency of results that the Myers-Briggs test
outputs for individuals, the personality of that person who tested as an INTJ
could be far from it normally.

Furthermore, your willingness to buy into the narrative (and others'
willingness to also believe it) that by categorizing certain people into
stereotypes and assuming that most of these people tend to excel at a
particular set of tasks is most likely what limits them from excelling at
tasks that lie outside of their respective sets just as much as their true
predisposition to not excelling at them.

~~~
amelius
Then please point me to the research, because the article does a lousy job at
it.

Saying that any profiling technique has zero predictive value is a very bold
claim.

Even one's astrological sign has predictive value: [1]. And yes, this has been
scientifically proven.

[1] [http://www.medicaldaily.com/how-birth-month-influences-
perso...](http://www.medicaldaily.com/how-birth-month-influences-personality-
traits-ironic-science-astrological-signs-333274)

~~~
taco_emoji
Why is it the job of the skeptic to prove that a profiling technique _does
not_ have predictive power? Shouldn't _you_ have to prove that it _does_?

~~~
amelius
Because it is very hard for a test _not_ to have predictive power.

For example, companies fruitfully extract predictive power from whether a user
clicked a link or not. Facebook extracts predictive power from whether users
like videos, et cetera. So why shouldn't an elaborate test that was developed
to have meaning, not have any predictive power?

~~~
AstralStorm
Not having predictive power means it is not better than chance at predicting
any X.

There are results that show MBTI has no predictive power against job
performance. It has not been tested against any other measure.

That said, MBTI shows bad orthogonality in the factors in its response. This
suggests the factors are ill defined.

~~~
amelius
> There are results that show MBTI has no predictive power against job
> performance.

Could you provide a reference?

~~~
AstralStorm
Provided by another person in this thread already.

------
egl2016
I find the MBTI incredibly useful. When I meet someone I immediately figure
out what their MBTI type is. That saves me enormous amounts of time later on
---I don't have to pay close attention to what they say or do. I just rely on
their MBTI type. Sometimes I don't even bother listening to them or asking
their opinion, which lets me use the time to think about other things, like
HN. I used to use their astrological sign, but that required asking for their
birthday, which was awkward, especially when I didn't get them a present.

------
parasubvert
The point of these IMO, isn't to pigeonhole people, it's for many practical
reasons:

\- Engender some self awareness. It's astonishing how many people lack
critical self-awareness about how they approach problems , handle change,
communicate with others, or deal with their emotions. MBTI might be nonsense
or unverifiable but for many people it's their first exposure to any written
form of objective introspection. The belief that these are immutable traits
somehow isn't usually dwelled on.

\- Help team members recognize that there are different styles/preferences of
thinking and reasoning. You'd be amazed how many inter-office conflicts get
resolved just through spending time getting to know one another. MBTI or HBDI
workshops (not just the test) are helpful for this

On a final note, there is a fairly popular executive MBA program where I took
a one week survey course on leadership about a decade ago. In both this course
and the program, they were pretty stoked about the Hermann Brain Dominance
Instrument (HBDI):
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrmann_Brain_Dominance_Ins...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrmann_Brain_Dominance_Instrument)

With the hope it was a bit more rooted in science than MBTI. It focuses more
on cognitive preferences than on personality.

~~~
delgaudm
For me, I appreciated obtaining and knowing my MBTI result for exactly this
self-awareness. It allowed me to recognize in myself when certain behaviors
and patterns were occurring, and how others might perceive me in those
moments. Scientific or not, having a way to codify my personal introspection
helped me in many ways career-wise.

------
triplesec
It's basically horoscope for geeks

More articles

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/give-and-
take/201309/go...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/give-and-
take/201309/goodbye-mbti-the-fad-won-t-die)

Edit: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2014/09/29/the-
mysteri...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2014/09/29/the-mysterious-
popularity-of-the-meaningless-myers-briggs-mbti/#4f75ae8950ad)

And the Guardian article [https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-
flapping/2013/mar/...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-
flapping/2013/mar/19/myers-briggs-test-unscientific)

~~~
david927
I think your missing the point. Do you know what flavor of ice cream you like?
I think you do -- and why not know that about yourself?

Everyone is some range of introverted to extroverted, for example. It's their
preference, such as the flavor of ice cream they like. It can change often,
under circumstances, or even not be present, of course. It's not set in stone;
it's just a preference. It doesn't define you; you define it.

Myers-Briggs is unfortunate in that it assigns that preference as letter. You
like Chocolate. You're a C. There are some who have no problem with this sort
of designation. They love chocolate always and in every circumstance. Many,
however, are not one letter, and so it's a poor test.

The point is not the letter. The point is asking yourself the question: do you
feel more energized after a dinner party or after a quiet day alone? The point
is to know, not just what flavors your prefer usually, but what situations (in
this case) you prefer. And why not know that about yourself?

~~~
triplesec
I'd prefer a questionnaire which provides the benefits of self-questioning
towards better self knowledge and actualisation. This can be done without MBTI
which adds pseudo-science on top of any questioning it might provide, which
falsely formalises bull __ __and fossilises fake intellectual structures into
public consciousness.

The scales are unsound. They actively direct people away from curiosity in
discovering other structures which are less wrong.

------
gh1
This article is as unscientific as it claims the Myers-Briggs test to be. It
does not prove the Myers-Briggs test wrong, but instead claims that there is
no evidence to support it. Well, in science, if you want to claim that
something is wrong, you need two things: the theory must be falsifiable and
you need to falsify it. Just claiming something has no evidence is not enough.

Some more critique on the article.

1\. The Myers Briggs test result does not need to be binary. There are
variants of the tests that give you a score on each of its 4 axes
(Introvert/Extrovert, Sensing/Intuitive, Feeling/Thinking,
Judging/Perceptive). For example, see [https://www.16personalities.com/free-
personality-test](https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test)

2\. The test results do not always talk about positive qualities. For example,
here is a discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the ISFJ personality.
[https://www.16personalities.com/isfj-strengths-and-
weaknesse...](https://www.16personalities.com/isfj-strengths-and-weaknesse..).

Finally, on the point of falsification, I would like to suggest the following
test. Take a group of people and let them take the test. Now let the close
friends of the test taker read all the personality type descriptions and chose
one for the test taker. Find the correlation between the friends' choices and
the test results. If the correlation is significant, then the test is
meaningful. Otherwise not meaningful.

~~~
Bartweiss
For these points, I think it's crucial to distinguish "Myers-Briggs style
tests" from The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

The first thing, MB-style tests, are amorphous and have been improved in
various ways since the invention of the test.

That second thing is a formalized test with licensed practitioners. It's been
used to disqualify people from jobs, and has produced a huge amount of
secondary literature/analysis which requires the binary distribution to be
meaningful. This formalized test has been worth a small fortune for the people
who own it, and their training seminars and public literature aggressively go
against both points 1 and 2.

It's fair to criticize MBTI as, say, needing to be binary. 16personalities is
a secondary group which is doing a different thing than the still-popular,
rigorously-bounded original.

~~~
gh1
I guess you are referring to this.
[http://www.myersbriggs.org/](http://www.myersbriggs.org/)

This is a valid point. If the version that most companies are using needs a
binary classification, then this is a meaningful criticism of the test.

However, note that this is just be a criticism of the test. It says nothing
about whether the tests are effective or not, which is what the article tries
to prove.

------
JohnKacz
My opinion is that the real value of tools like this is to give people a
common vocabulary to talk about themselves and understand others. I think
StrengthsFinder[0] does a particularly good job at this. The danger is when
people assume they understand somone (or themselves) based on the
letters/scores/etc. sans dialogue/reflection.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now%2C_Discover_Your_Strengths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now%2C_Discover_Your_Strengths)

~~~
ivraatiems
That is valuable and true. The problem is that people take them to mean "this
is what I'm like" when it really means "this is how I responded to this test."

~~~
visarga
Sometimes, people strive to be different, perhaps to improve themselves. When
answering a MB question, the answer could be understood in two possible ways:
"I usually do that" and "My instinct is to do that". For example, she might
keep the room clean but when she was younger, she was sloppy - her instinct is
still to be sloppy by she is more disciplined now and keeps clean. How should
she answer? These kinds of confusions could change a type.

------
wutf
The covariance of the Big 5 and MBTI is high. This means that if you give both
inventories to the same population you can do a factor rotation of one onto
the other with much of the variance being preserved. This has been
demonstrated multiple times in the academic literature. I have never read an
article against the MBTI that mentioned this, and that's because the people
who write these articles do not understand statistics. The MBTI is
approximately as valid as the Big 5.

~~~
jessriedel
Yea, it's very frustrating that this sort of article gets written when the
author does not even address the arguments on the wikipedia page!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Big_Five)

That said, I don't think it's quite true that "The MBTI is approximately as
valid as the Big 5". It seems to me that the Big 5 is a strict improvement on
the MBTI. First, the discrete nature of the MBTI incorrectly suggests that the
distributions are bimodal, when I don't think anyone thinks that's true.
Second, I'm willing to bet that even if we just concentrate on the 4 factors
of the Big 5 that correlate with the (non-discrete version of the) MBTI
factors, we'd find significantly higher validity for the former, if only
because there have been many more serious scientists studying and refining it
over many years.

Read more: [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-myers-briggs-
pe...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-myers-briggs-personality-
test-is-pretty-much-meaningless-9359770/#hzApBS3IkVv6vvsa.99) Give the gift of
Smithsonian magazine for only $12!
[http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv](http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv) Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on
Twitter

~~~
wutf
They both have strengths and weaknesses. Strengths of the MBTI include the
text descriptions, which are very valuable, and that it focuses on positive
psychology. Of course, if you rotate the MBTI onto the Big 5, you see that it
does in fact measure neuroticism, although not that strongly.

~~~
jessriedel
> Strengths of the MBTI include the text descriptions, which are very
> valuable, and that it focuses on positive psychology

You're describing salesmanship and/or popularizing techniques, not scientific
validity.

~~~
wutf
What you have to understand is that statistically the models are very similar
(you can compress them both into one unified model that does what both of them
do quite well). However, the ways the models are constructed makes them useful
for different things. The Big 5 is primarily useful for academics, and the
MBTI is primarily useful for the rest of us.

If you are a logical positivist and scientific realist you'll never be able to
grok this. As a utilitarian I understand that science is the process of making
something that does something you want done.

~~~
jessriedel
I think I grok that some simplifications are more useful and teachable than
others, and that it's possible to accomplish useful things by simplifying (and
also by misleading). But I don't think you have to be a hardcore logical
positivist to think these are distinct notions from "validity". My impression
is that you have psychological or statistical training, so when you used the
word in your original comment I assume you know what it meant.

------
grandalf
I've found that Meyers Briggs feels accurate to people whose classifications
_don 't_ fall right on the margin. If two of the letters fall close to the
margin, parts of the description will feel a bit inaccurate.

In my opinion, the Meyers Briggs is useful mainly because it can help people
become more self-aware and more empathetic toward others.

I've observed that in a group of 15 people who just got their Meyers Briggs
results, several usually think it was uncannily accurate, and a few are
immediately defensive because the result does not jive with their self-
perception (usually because the personality type is described as similar to
some unsavory characters from history). When I read articles criticizing
Meyers Briggs, I always assume it was written by one of these people.

If you are in a relationship, one interesting game to play with your
significant other is to take the Meyers Briggs test and then read some of the
stuff that has been written about relationship compatibility through the
Meyers Briggs lens. I've found it to be quite accurate for many couples I
know. There is also a very amusing book called _Please Understand me II_ which
has detailed write-ups about the characteristics of each type. It's great for
parties to read out loud everyone's results over a glass of wine.

IMHO Personality tests are useful mainly to encourage self-awareness,
introspection and empathy. As a Meyers Briggs ENTP I find the descriptions of
an ENTP personality flattering and desirable. I suspect nearly any type would
find their own type description equally flattering and desirable.

~~~
Bartweiss
> I've found that Meyers Briggs feels accurate to people whose classifications
> don't fall right on the margin. If two of the letters fall close to the
> margin, parts of the description will feel a bit inaccurate.

Unfortunately, the traits investigated by the MBTI seem to be normally
distributed. So as true as this is, it still means that people who are
decisively placed on all four axes are the exception rather than the rule.

~~~
grandalf
True, in my case I'm close to the P/J line and the E/I line, so there are
aspects of the ENTJ, INTJ, and INTP that ring true to me, but in spite of that
the ENTP description tends to feel more accurate.

Nonetheless, one meets a lot of ENTJs and INTPs and understanding some of the
subtle differences between those and ENTP has helped me understand my
differences and similarities with those people better.

------
bognition
I get highly skeptical whenever I encounter things like this.

I've been subjected to "DiSC" profiling at a previous employer. After taking
the test we were subjected to a 3 hour session where we slowly discovered and
learned about our unique profile. The best part was I compared my strengths
and weaknesses with someone who had an "opposite" personality and they were
pretty close to identical.

Granted there is a lot to be gained by getting a group of people in a room to
talk about the different ways they interact with the world and how they go
about solving problems. However, as soon as you start providing formulas for
how to interact with people my bull shit detector goes off.

~~~
programmarchy
And when your employer totally buys in to the bullshit, there's a strong
incentive to game the system -- make sure you're classified as a DI
(Dominance/Inducement) if you want to move up the management ranks.

~~~
analog31
This is good to know. It would probably be useful for someone to catalog the
"desirable" categories for the various personality tests. We know the tests
are used for screening, and it's a pretty safe bet that the screening is based
on stereotypes.

I don't think it's necessary to precisely nail a specific set of quanta, but
simply to avoid the symbols that are associated with negative stereotypes such
as introverted, obstinate, or lazy. When I had to take one of these kinds of
tests, I just put myself into a mind set of being outgoing, cheerful,
agreeable, diligent, etc.

------
liquidise
> _the most obvious flaw is that the MBTI seems to rely exclusively on binary
> choices….For example, in the category of extrovert v introvert, you’re
> either one or the other; there is no middle ground_

This is categorically false. Myers Briggs results are quite literally reported
on a spectrum of 100 I - 0 - E 100, with your position on the spectrum shown.
The 4 letter rollup is exactly that: a summary rollup of your test results.

~~~
jplahn
Then why do we use the summary rollup when it completely loses any of the
granular insights? It makes no sense for me to say I'm an E when it was 51E,
49I. For me personally, shouldn't I instead say something like 51E64N60F65J?
Likewise, the "insights" you get into your 4 letters is based on whatever the
majority letter was, even when your percentages are nowhere near 100% for
each.

~~~
mordocai
Eh, I'm right on the E/I border and pretty strongly test one way in the other
categories so I just say i'm barely an I and then NTJ.

~~~
personlurking
I believe this is classified as an "x" within the MBTI community, where x
means on the border.

~~~
mordocai
So xNTJ? Cool

------
stared
MBTI highly correlates with OCEAN (aka Big Five), a psychological test (see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Big_Five)).
Sure, some parts make no sense (like insisting in binary values, or some of
its interpretation). Still, it is not a horoscope.

I use it a lot when it comes to introducing people to nerdy friends
(especially in the context of dating, like: "She's INFP!" or "Yeah, she looks
nice, but is a total ESFJ...".)

A link (nice pictures, especially the carnivorous plant for INTP) and some
descritpions that actually may be helpful how to deal with other people
(especially with different personalities):
[https://www.16personalities.com/](https://www.16personalities.com/).

If you really want to "be scientific" (as if it was a binary criterion), you
can use OCEAN. For me it would be:

O+ C- E= A- N+

------
J-dawg
It is well worth watching Derren Brown's demonstration of the Barnum / Forer
effect [0].

If you've never heard of it, I recommend watching the video before you Google
anything. It's only a short video (less than 4 minutes) and is a brilliant
demonstration.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bCjzLij54k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bCjzLij54k)

------
rayiner
As a society, we believe in a lot of pseudo-scientific garbage, from
management principles, to nutrition theories, to psychological tests.
Ironically it's an outgrowth of our glorification of science and education:
kids are taught from an early age to defer to those who clothe themselves in
the trappings of the academic, and so as adults people voluntarily entertain
very stupid ideas so long as they sound sufficiently "science-y."

~~~
triplesec
Caution and scepticism are important. However, you imply that teaching and
science are bad. That way lies creationism and magical thinking via truthy
plausibilist hokum to end up teaching them to be conspiracy theorists

~~~
rayiner
A lot of the science-y crap that is popular today is no better than
creationism and magical thinking. The problem isn't science, it's "science for
everyone" and scientists' failure to jealously guard their turf.

~~~
triplesec
That's clearer and more reasonable. But what do you think should be done to
achieve this?

------
ivraatiems
This is not a new finding. MBTI has never really been a serious psychological
tool. In fact, a lot of the personality assessments used in business are
really just woo - MBTI isn't even the worst. It at least is internally
consistent.

For a real personality exam with actual use in psych research, check out the
Five Factor metric.

~~~
Xcelerate
Five Factor is not much better than MBTI. See
[http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ajp.161.10.1...](http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ajp.161.10.1743)
for better (and more recent) research on the subject.

~~~
AstralStorm
Dead salmon study is nowhere near comparable to a psych survey with a lot of
data behind it like Big Five.

------
brightball
At the company I work for, everybody took the test and then we all sat down
with a coach to go over the scope of Meyers Briggs and exactly what each part
meant. As we were going through this with our team we each had a card in front
of us with our type on them.

Explaining the profile parts while seeing your team members profiles was a
great exercise for us because it effectively taught us how to communicate
better with each other. I'm an ENFJ on a team of highly technical introverts
INTJ.

We learned how to work better together, how to communicate better and they
also learned how/when to better utilize me for interactions with the rest of
the company.

Until we did this exercise it was just some interesting test results.

------
Lambdanaut
> For example, in the category of extrovert vs introvert, you’re either one or
> the other; there is no middle ground.

That's not entirely true. The final answer that people wear as a badge is
binary, but the result is calculated as a percentage, and usually presented to
the test-taker as a percentage.

------
pc2g4d
The difficulty I see with MBTI is that the categories were decided in advance,
whereas they should be determined based on the data. In other words, MBTI
treats human personality as a classification problem (which of these
categories do you belong to?) where it should be treated as a clustering
problem (which categories even exist?)

I'd love to do some data mining on a large MBTI test database. Better yet, a
large database of people's responses to various personality-oriented
questions, MBTI or not.

------
iamnothere
Lots of comments here mention the use of MBTI in the workplace. This is such a
bad idea! As someone who has taken the test many times over the years, I have
a lot of problems with the system in general, especially when applied to the
workplace. That's not to say that the idea of personality types is invalid,
but I have often seen them misapplied (and overapplied) in practice.

In my experience, Gallup's Strengthsfinder system is much better suited to
workplace environments. It's backed by solid research, and I really like its
core philosophy: everyone has natural strengths, and building off those
strengths will lead to better outcomes than trying to compensate for personal
weaknesses. As long as companies understand that it isn't a litmus test for
suitability -- teams should have a diversity of strengths or they will have
blind spots -- it can actually be a great tool for understanding management
and team dynamics.

For personal development, I prefer the Enneagram system. I've found each
type's "levels of development" to be incredibly helpful in pinpointing my own
type, and overall I have a much better "fit" with my type than in MBTI. As
opposed to Strengthsfinder, the Enneagram system is mainly useful for
identifying patterns in behavior and understanding motivations. Not such a
great business tool, except perhaps at the executive level.

~~~
aaimnr
I also had incredible "fit" with Enneagram. I'm not sure I agree about it not
being a good business tool, though. I've met a great Quality Manager who
almost certainly was a type 6 (which is naturally focused on finding risks and
things that might go wrong). The level to which his position matched his
personality was striking - he was extremely good at what he was doing and he
loved it. I know a type 6 girl who dropped her job as editor and became a
software tester as well. She just liked doing it.

Similarly you could reason about type 7 and their ideal job position: they see
more opportunieties and options than others (Steve Jobs was said to be 7w8),
but they often dismiss any risks involved. They also hate repetitive day to
day work. Hence they would make better Architect, Analyst, UX Designer or
Salesperson than a Project Manager (unless they are eg. balanced by a 6 in
their team).

I'm not saying that we should choose job solely on the type, it just offers
lot of opportunities to understand what is it specifically in given activity
that we like and what goes naturally against our habits. Whether we change the
job or just work on the weaknesses is up to us.

~~~
iamnothere
Good point. I should have been more specific. I agree that the Enneagram is
useful _personally_ in business, but I'd caution against HR departments
attempting to categorize their employees based on type and draw judgments from
the results. (Again, this could be different at the executive level, where
companies may be seeking a certain type or "flavor" of leadership.)

------
Symmetry
If you want a scientific measure of personality you can use the Big Five.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits)

~~~
lmm
Which notably do correlate closely with Myers-Briggs traits, so if you believe
the one is meaningful then so is the other.

~~~
chx
The primary problem with Myers-Briggs, besides the four traits not at all
correlating with the big five is the test itself because it's binary.

Correlations:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Big_Five)
0.44 / -0.49 is not correlation.

~~~
lmm
The test measures a scale. Reporting the result as binary is indeed extremely
misleading.

------
m0llusk
This is making light of a difficult problem. Personality is an interesting and
relevant aspect of individual behavior and socialization that remains
incompletely characterized by science. One of the most popular modern
alternatives to Meyers-Briggs is the Five Factors model which also has
limitations. Utility for corporate applications may not be the best metric for
these early attempts to characterize personality.

------
elorant
I don’t feel that it’s meaningless. I’ve taken it multiple times in a span of
a decade and most of the times I get the same result (INTJ) - I guess P’s and
J’s must be pretty dominant in here. As any test, it gives me a rough
estimate. It’s not meant to define you, it’s meant to give you a guideline to
understand yourself better. In that aspect it works just fine for me.

------
jackcosgrove
As an INTJ, I am part of 1% of the population and 25% of people who know their
MBTI. Systematizers FTW!

The MBTI is more useful than an astrological sign, and less useful than a 15
minute conversation with someone, if you want to understand their personality.
That said I think it's a mostly harmless way of classifying people, unlike
race, class, nationality, profession, etc.

------
good_gnu
I would like to raise the issue of nature vs. nurture in this context: Does
Myers-Briggs really identify stable characteristics of someone's current
personality or merely the way in which it currently expresses itself.

E.g. consider someone who has previously worked in a dysfunctional corporate
environment but was unable to quit that job for financial reasons. They were
very well rewarded for superficial qualities like punctuality and tidyness and
thus learned that it was necessary to prioritize these values.

Does that mean that this person now has a personality which prioritizes these
values? What if their ``natural'' personality in another environment would
have been to only emphasize utility to their company even at e.g. the cost of
tidyness. What if their natural personality will quickly adapt once they are
put in an environment that emphasizes these qualities?

These issues seem to be given oddly little weight by advocates of Myers-Briggs
classification for the purpose of hiring decisions.

~~~
visarga
Fully agree, and I think this makes results ambiguous. Testers might take any
of the two perspectives: "what I usually do in this situation", vs. "what I
would instinctively do". For example, a religious person would respect her
religious moral principles even against her instinct - what should she answer
- isn't her will also a part of her personality? Should she ignore her will
and answer with her instinctive impulse instead?

------
mjmasn
The Birkman Method is a far better tool that doesn't 'put you in a box' so to
speak. We use it exclusively at Elaura and with our hoozyu and expresso apps.

[https://hoozyu.com](https://hoozyu.com)
[https://expresso.elaura.com](https://expresso.elaura.com)

~~~
arenaninja
I found this blog post interesting along the same lines: The Tests Who Think
They Know Me
[http://exilelifestyle.com/tests/](http://exilelifestyle.com/tests/)

Disclaimer: I work for Birkman

------
nostrademons
Here's the correlations between MBTI dimensions and the "big five" personality
traits that are commonly used in social-sciences research:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Big_Five)

When I look at those, I think "Not everything, but not nothing either". A
correlation of 0.7+ is pretty high for _anything_ in the social sciences - by
comparison, the correlation between intelligence and genetics is about 0.4.
It's certainly a lot higher than astrology, which has a correlation of roughly
0.0 with anything other than birthdate.

A lot of the criticism of MBTI is that it breaks people down into 16 arbitrary
categories, and there's no way a single category can reflect everything about
a person. This is true; there _is_ no way a single category will reflect
everything about a person. But we break people down into arbitrary categories
all the time - race, social class, profession, job title, political party,
ethnicity, place of residence, generation, etc. Categorization by MBTI brings
all of the pitfalls of these - you're stereotyping, and you're going to miss
important details about the person themself - as well as all the benefits, in
the form of a quick mental shorthand to draw inferences about their future
behavior on little data.

You can think of it in "Thinking fast and slow" terms: MBTIs and other social
categories are in the "thinking fast" category, where you make quick but
error-prone judgments on limited information, while actually getting to know
someone is the "thinking slow" side, where you get a much more accurate
picture of who they are at the cost of significantly higher effort. Indeed,
the MBTI has a dimension for this (iNtuitive vs. Sensing), and I've found that
online MBTI tests tend to overrepresent the number of Ns in the population
compared to offline, professionally-given tests, because Ns tend to be more
attracted to the MBTI as a way of thinking about the world.

~~~
AstralStorm
Correlation of 0.4 means generally "it could be" in proper statistics. As in
"it is also probable for a normal variate that you're seeing a spurious one".
You probably wanted effect size instead and a good statistical test.

------
pfarnsworth
It's not foolproof, much like a lie detector test. But I do think it has
value. I'm an INTJ, and understanding that other people are wired differently
in very demonstrative ways, helped me understand how to relate to people. When
I thought people were "phony" it was just that they were more extroverted than
me. I've been told I'm too black-and-white, whereas I hated the wishywashiness
in people that couldn't be decisive. This is also reflected in the Myers-
Briggs test.

So it might not be completely accurate, but it did help me understand how I
relate and differ with others due to these 4 major personality
characteristics.

------
a3n
I've never been interested in Myers-Briggs. I have no idea what the
designations are or what they mean. I have no idea what my score (?) is, and
I'm profoundly uninterested.

My uninterest only increased when I was in an environment where this was a
frequent point of reference among co-workers, as I watched people with no
education and training in psychology or other relevant fields make
pronouncements and direct people's work lives based on four letters.

As far as I can see (and obviously, I don't know a lot about MB), it's words
pulled out of legitimate fields of study and used ignorantly and out of
context, sometimes with real consequences.

------
CoffeeDregs
I greatly appreciate the Myers-Briggs test, but I've only seen it applied as a
tool for self-understanding: I think I've been given the test a couple of
times by schools and universities. Taking it has helped me understand a little
bit more about myself and there are very few tools in the world that help you
learn _anything_ about yourself.

AFAICT, the only reasons for a company to administer it are: employee
development (same as universities); to attempt to fix a deficient interview
process (which is BS).

------
DrNuke
Sooo INTJ-ish all this! Disclosure: I am INTJ and see this as a tool among
other tools to understand where I do stand socially within a few business-
oriented group dynamics.

------
codingdave
The comments here so far seem to be jumping too far the other direction. It is
an imperfect test, which does not give meaningful results for all people, and
should not be a factor in business decisions. That does NOT mean that is has
no meaning at all, or is a complete hoax, or is like unto astrology. Like
almost all things, it is a tool that has a purpose, and understanding where it
can or cannot be applied is a prerequisite to getting value from it.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
It's funny but I have a relative who was into the works of Carlos Castaneda
and I've read quite a few of them (they're a bit magical realism, remind me a
bit of J. L. Borges). In one of the books, Don Juan (his guru) describes a
personality system based on the cardinal directions which ends up classifying
every member of the human species in one of sixteen distinct personality
types. As is typical for Castaneda's stories, Carlos immediately challenges
the idea that there are only sixteen types of people in the whole world -
which is really just a plot device to keep Don Juan talking and move the
description of the whole system along.

Anyway, this personality system is what I thought when I first heard of the
Myers-Briggs test and I thought it has exactly the same merit as any other
system that arbitrarily groups people into 16 types based on whatever
perceived characteristic of theirs, which is to say: none at all. In
Castaneda's case you need to have special seer powers to _see_ peoples' type.
In Myers Briggs all you need is an MBTI test.

There is progress even in magic, it seems.

------
kazinator
If such a test is administered in connection with some external consequences
for someone which vary depending on the outcome, the subject can game the test
to obtain results which are favorable or desirable to him or her.

The four letters that pop out are purely a function of some responses given,
and not of actual personality. Anyone who understands the mapping from answers
to outcome can just give the answers to produce a desired outcome.

Any test that a subject can game is inherently unscientific.

The above would be true even if the model of personality were actually valid,
and indicated something meaningful in the case of honest, accurately
introspective answers. (That it isn't and doesn't is what is called into
question by the article.)

This section of the Wikipedia page on it suggests that some other personality
tests have some built-in sophistication to detect dishonest answers, which is
lacking in Myers-Briggs:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Lack_of_objectivity)

------
Practicality
I always considered the problem with personality tests is that it tells you
what the person thinks about _themselves_ , which is always going to be an
inaccurate picture, since everyone has a lot of blind spots about themselves.

As a citation, pretty much all of these: [https://youarenotsosmart.com/all-
posts/](https://youarenotsosmart.com/all-posts/)

------
JoeAltmaier
Really? I used to have to take these tests in the '80s but nobody has made me
do one for decades. I thought we were all past this hoax years ago.

------
amelius
What is wrong with recording personality traits of people, and determining
correlations between them? Because that is essentially what the test does.

~~~
Renaud
No statistical measurement or actual attempt at a scientific investigation was
done.

The classification was purely validated by Isabel Briggs Myers' own free
interpretation of what a particular trait should be.

That's self-deception, not science.

There's nothing wrong in trying to build an understanding of personalities but
making things up just because you think your intuition is all you need to
build theories, well, that doesn't inspire much confidence.

The Myers-Briggs Test smells like science -it has codes and categories!- but
like most pseudo-sciences, no-one has really been interested in validating the
assumptions with actual data.

Pseudo-Psychology is rife with these wishful-thinking theories that sound kind
of right but have no solid data to support them.

Not bashing Psychology, I think it's a hugely interesting field, but the
science behind a lot of it still remains fishy.

~~~
amelius
> The classification was purely validated by Isabel Briggs Myers' own free
> interpretation of what a particular trait should be.

This is like saying that somebody who claimed that 1+1=2 is wrong because they
came up with the left hand side of the equation themselves.

Yes, the MBTI is arbitrary to a large extent, but that does not make it
meaningless.

------
wcp
The MBTI asks you what your preferences are, and then tells you what you said.
That's not "meaningless," but it's certainly not a tool for doing science.

For me, it's been meaningful in that it emphasizes that my preferences can be
different from those around me, and that that is just fine. It's helpful to
consider that some prefer to think for a while before speaking, even if that's
not my preference because silence makes me uncomfortable. It's helpful to
acknowledge that some people like to make detailed plans whereas I prefer to
be more flexible and open to possibilities. The attitude of the MBTI is that
neither approach is wrong but that it helps to recognize which approach you
prefer.

Does each person fit comfortably into one of 16 categories? No, of course not.
But it might be a useful framework for introspection and thinking about your
relationships.

------
Zikes
The Myers-Briggs was developed in a time where lobotomies were still
considered to be a valid psychological treatment.

------
torbjorn
I am always amazed by how many discussions of MBTI go on without any
consideration of the Jungian cognitive functions that the 16 MBTI types are
based on. Without seeking to understand the function stack associated with a
MBTI personality type it's hard to use MBTI usefully/as it was intended to be
used.

------
joeclark77
The weirdest job interview I ever went to was for a sales position at a
software development company. These guys had me do a Myers-Briggs test online
a few days before the interview. After taking a day off and making a long
drive to see these guys, the manager introduced himself by saying "We don't
want you for this job. With your personality type you can't be a salesman. I
let you come here anyway, though, because our web developer is really
overwhelmed. Would you be willing to meet him and talk about working for him?"

It was so bizarre it took me a while to decide if they were insane or just
incredibly rude. Upon reflection, they were both.

------
heisenbit
"SMARTNEWS"

"The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless"

promises explosive insights such as:

"[...] and statistical analysis reveals even data produced by the test shows a
normal distribution rather than bimodal, refuting the either/or claims of the
MBTI."

It is really surprising that aggregation of a number of binary questions
results produces a normal distribution. In all my experiments with a randomly
selected coin from my purse I got something close to bimodal - not.

MBTI may be flawed, overused and too simplistic. However simplifying
statistical arguments down to that level is not the way to advance science.

------
iamalexbirkett
I remember taking the test in high school and just feeling the bias creep into
my answers. Like, I would answer in ways I wanted to be viewed, not how I
actually act.

Apart from that, I don't think there are necessarily problems in treating it
as a fun personality test, like "astrology or tarot cards" as others have
said. But in the digital marketing space, Buyer Modalities is a popular model
used to segment site visitors. It's based on the Myers-Briggs so it's
inherently useless, but makes you feel like you're doing rigorous work.

~~~
mi100hael
> I would answer in ways I wanted to be viewed, not how I actually act.

Do you know if it was an official MBTI test or something else? In keeping with
the "no wrong personality" mantra, I found the test questions to be fairly
neutral. By that I mean neither option would be perceived as socially
unacceptable, just different personal preferences.

------
tallanvor
In one of my courses we took Myers-Briggs, which the professor scored and then
handed us a summary of our results and asked people how they felt the results
actually matched up with them. Virtually everyone agreed that the results were
fairly accurate, at which point our professor provided us with our real
results and we went through the various possible results to understand how
they're designed in such a way that you can generally find ways to agree with
the results no matter what you got.

Needless to say I've ignored any MBTI results since.

------
delecti
I wonder how MBTI would be perceived if instead of simply a binary
EI/NS/FT/PJ, anyone within a standard deviation of the mean got an X, so you
could be INXX if you were solidly introverted and intuitive, but not
particularly strongly aligned on the later two axes.

Naturally most people would have at least an X or two, but it would be much
more useful if people didn't have to advertise an F or T if it didn't really
matter for describing them.

Though it probably wouldn't have caught on. Who wants to be the XXXX in a
situation.

~~~
ivraatiems
It might be perceived differently, but the underlying system would still not
be a solid one.

------
acaciapalm
I get a different score nearly every time I take it. Am I alone in this?

~~~
Practicality
No, I get a different one nearly every time too. I figured it was part of
learning: I adapt my personality as I learn.

Of course, my theory is that personality tests just tell you what you think of
yourself, and I change my opinion about that often.

------
Xcelerate
This is a subject I spend a lot of time reading about. It's interesting
because I think the field of psychology is going to have a bit of a
(computational) overhaul soon as we acquire more data about people and develop
new models of behavior. I wouldn't be surprised if machine learning ends up
revolutionizing psychology twenty years form now.

A few points:

\- Science is concerned with making accurate predictions about the future

\- Predictions range in quality: QFT can predict the gyromagnetic moment of
the electron to 12 decimal places, but psychiatrists still have trouble
figuring out which medications serve as effective antidepressants (nothing
against them — it's a complex subject)

Also, good science is able to find correlations between things, and these
correlations allow you to improve your predictions. How much of the variance
in a dataset is explained by a given model? In this sense:

\- Astrology has almost zero predictivity (I say "almost" because there are
extremely weak, but non-zero correlations with the month that someone was born
in)

\- Myers-Briggs has weak, but non-zero predictivity that is still much higher
than that of astrology

\- Big Five has weak, but non-zero predictivity that is _slightly_ higher than
Myers-Briggs

\- The field of psychology has weak, but non-zero predictivity
([http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-
studies-f...](http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-
reproducibility-test-1.18248))

\- The field of biology has adequate predictivity

\- The field of particle physics has extremely high predictivity

See where I'm going with this? The math may be hard, but quantum mechanics is
actually pretty easy as far as accurately predicting the future goes.
Understanding the human brain is a far more difficult task than making sense
of C* algebras.

There's been quite a few studies on Myers-Briggs, and I think it has more
value than the Smithsonian article gives it credit for. That said, I think Big
Five has _much less_ value than most psychologists give it credit for.

In terms of determining the eigenfactors of personality, something recent like
this goes much further than Big Five:

[http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ajp.161.10.1...](http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ajp.161.10.1743)

------
aaimnr
Personality typing is obviously incredibly shaky ground because of the huge
potential for the suggestion bias, but we shouldn't throw out the baby with
the bathwater. It's almost obvious that there are patterns of human behaviour
that are often distinctive and repetitive across society. It's hard to
identify these regularities and we should be sceptical about any blatant
simplifications, but we shouldn't stop trying to understand them.

There is another personality typing method called Enneagram, that takes a more
interesting approach than static M-B. Rather than attributing some essential
properties to each person, it assumes that personality is formed by a set of
cognitive habits. These habits condition our attention to pick specific
aspects of experience and giving it interpretation in line with this bias.
Most people use all of these 9 identified patterns, but one is dominant, and
hence it defines what we perceive as personality.

These habits are mostly crystalised in childhood and depend on the environment
and upbringing. Eg. when a child is punished at random without any consequence
there's a chance it will become type 8, on the other hand if there's great
deal of regularity and rules at home, it may and up as type 1 etc. Seems like
a gross oversimplification, but it's just an example of this type of
conditioning.

The general approach seems legit (based on what we know about cognitive
science), but what's more important, learning about these 9 habits/types
usually leads to incredible insights into one's behaviour. There's lot of
regularities that we suddenly find in our actions that fit specifically to one
of these 9 types.

Unlike what article states about M-B, Ennegram mostly focuses on the dark,
habitual and unconscious aspects of each personality, so it's much less
susceptible to the "horoscope effect" (where we're more likely to attribute
anything positive to ourselves).

I try to challenge it as much as possible, because as anything related to
personality it may become a self fulfilling prophecy, but still I found it
very hard to falsify, there's just a lot of positive evidence.

Since there's strong overrepresentation of rational thinkers on HN I'd love to
hear some comments from anyone here who took Enneagram test or heard about it
(there's a lot of free tests on the internet).

~~~
ScottBurson
I have studied the Enneagram deeply. It is a far more profound system than the
MBTI, and far more useful for understanding oneself and others.

The MBTI has some correlation to the Enneagram, and it is from that
correlation that it takes most or all of its validity. But the correlation is
only partial. If you look in Jung's _Psychological Types_ , you will see that
he correctly characterized eight of the nine Enneagram types (which one he
missed I leave as an exercise for the reader). Missing one type, he was unable
to see the whole structure with its deeper properties, such as
integration/distintegration, that reflect the way the types relate to one
another. Nor did he pick up on how the types develop as childhood survival
strategies (which is not as simple as you're suggesting).

The MBTI starts with Jung's already incomplete system and just messes it up
further.

Someone will probably ask me whether the Enneagram has been objectively
validated. It has not been, and can never be, because it contains an inherent
element of subjectivity. The way you know your Enneagram type is not by taking
tests. Tests can provide useful hints, but if all you have is a test result --
even if it's correct! -- you do not know your type. The way you know is by
studying the types until one of them clicks for you, and you see yourself in a
new way: _then_ you know.

The Enneagram does talk about our dark sides, and that's important; but it
isn't only about that by any means. It can also show us positive aspects of
ourselves that we have not accepted, and it's very much about how to develop
those aspects further.

ETA: if you would like help figuring out your type, I would be delighted to
assist. My email address is in my profile.

~~~
aaimnr
What you mention about Jung/enneagram correlation is interesting. You'd think
that since he's based on different partitioning scheme (2 * 2 * 2) he should
end up without any types matching exactly, but you seem to suggest that it's
the case and he's just missing one. I guess it could make sense provided he
based his type descriptions on empirical evidence (clustering his patients)
that he later artificially pushed into 8 categories. I don't know M-B well,
but since it's a M-B thread and it may be useful to other readers, I tried to
pursue your exercise and based on type descriptions tried to match it. Here's
what I managed to do, based on vague Jung type descriptions I've found on the
internet: ET - 1,IT - 5, EF - 3, IF - 9?, ES - 8, IS - ?, EI - 7, II - 4

Does it make some sense? Where are the gaps?

Are there any Eneagram specific resources that you'd recommend? I've found
A.H. Almaas and Eli Jaxon-Bear books the most insightful. I'd love to
read/hear something original on the topic that doesn't come from the echo
chamber of people who are in these circles, make money from it etc.

As to the type, just as you said one of them "clicked" with me strongly and
I'm almost 100% sure which one is mine.

~~~
ScottBurson
Here are my pairings. (I'm at work and don't have my copy of _Psychological
Types_ handy, so this is going off someone else's interpretations [0]. But I
think this is probably right.)

    
    
      ES - 7
      IS - 9
      EI - 8
      II - 4
      ET - 1
      IT - 5
      EF - 2 (but see below)
      IF - 6
    

The EF description does have some Three-sounding qualities to it; it's a fair
guess that Jung lumped many Threes in with the Twos, since, after all, a lot
of Threes (a majority, in my experience) lean toward Two, and after all he had
to put them somewhere. (Some of them probably wound up in EI and ES as well.)
Still, based on the descriptions in his book, I concluded that he overlooked
the Three.

[0]
[http://www.watchwordtest.com/types.aspx](http://www.watchwordtest.com/types.aspx)

------
homulilly
We used a system called Facet5 at work once. I'm still not convinced these
types of things are actually worth the money in terms of productivity gains
but it did seem to do a decent job addressing the biggest flaws with the MBTI
(Rates things on a scale and uses a 5th scale that determines the expression
of the other 4).

Again, not sure if it actually made any difference in interactions with
coworkers but it was kinda interesting.

------
lucisferre
Is any personality test really meaningful? I mean the entire field of
psychology apparently doesn't care much about correctness or falsifiability?
Why bother to hold MBTI to a higher standard? [1]

[1]: [http://www.nature.com/news/smart-software-spots-
statistical-...](http://www.nature.com/news/smart-software-spots-statistical-
errors-in-psychology-papers-1.18657)

~~~
dragonwriter
Yes, there are models of personality that, unlike MBTI, have a scientific
basis for the selection of their dimensions.

That there are widespread problems with psychological research does not mean
that there is no reason to apply standards when evaluating proposed models in
the field (in fact, it's a good reason to be particularly careful in doing
so.)

~~~
lucisferre
I was merely being fatous, I don't seriously think it isn't, I'm just saying
MBTI seems like pretty par-for-the-course psychology as far as things go.
Sadly.

------
kingkawn
Except for what you put into it. The conceptualization of meaning as being
located only in quantifiable scientific measurement is a denigration to the
immense benefits and resilience a person can derived from the places they
choose to locate meaning, rather than only the places that any formalized
worldview insists are the acceptable ones.

------
josh_carterPDX
We recently took the Kolbe Index test and I found it WAY more useful than the
Myers-Briggs. It's much more intuitive and the results, at least to me, seemed
to be much easier to relate to. It's a great process to put higher level execs
and team members to learn how best to draw from their strengths and
weaknesses.

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cel1ne
Emotional styles by Richard Davidson are a much better and neuro-
scientifically / experimentally validated way of mapping personalities:

[http://www.beinghuman.org/article/six-emotional-
styles](http://www.beinghuman.org/article/six-emotional-styles)

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neves
The sad thing about these tests is that it puts people in closed boxes. I've
used to be an introvert, now I'm an extrovert. Depending on my mood,
tiredness, hour of the day, I'd answer differently a test. People are more
complex and have richer personalities than 2^4.

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projektir
Last time I read about Myers-Briggs, I got the impression that it was to be
used strictly for self-assessment and not externally, and I recall the article
I was reading specifically saying that the test only makes sense for personal
use because it was too easy to game otherwise...

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gpsx
I had a hard time understanding how people were comparing meyers briggs to
astrology and I think the problem is that they don't know the full idea behind
the meyers briggs classification. I thought I should give a brief description
of what it is, or at least what I think it is.

What meyers briggs is NOT is a group of 16 types each with a description of
what the person is like. This looks like astrology. This 16 groups is just a
summary of what people might be like based on the test results.

Meyers briggs IS a group of four classifications. A person falls on a
continuum related to each classification. For each classification there is a
letter associated with each end of the spectrum. For a given classification
you can label yourself as one of the two letters based on which side of the
continuum you fall, though this is just a simplifying representation. The true
representation is a place on the continuum between each of the two letters.

The four categories are give below, in my matchbox description:

E vs I - extroversion/introversion. An I is a person who recharges by being
alone. An E recharges by being with other people. An I type person will
typically be tired after spending a lot of time in a group of people and will
want to spend some time by themselves. An E will be drained if they are by
themselves for a while. Keep in mind, there is no such thing as a pure E or a
pure I. We are all a combination of the two.

N vs S - intuitive/sensing - An N person relies on subconscious thinking,
whereas a S person relies on conscious thinking, or reasoning. We can thinking
much faster subconsciously but the problem with it is that it is when are
brain produces a result, such as "That person doesn't like me", it is
difficult to know if it is right if it is based on subconscious reasoning.

T vs F - thinking/feeling - An F is more sensitive to another's feelings where
as a T is less concerned with a persons interpretation of what they say than
with how true it is. A T is more the brutally honest type.

P vs J - perceiving/judging - a J is a planner and doesn't like when the plan
changes. A P likes to take things as they come and doesn't like to be tied
down.

I see this as a very scientific classification. Of course, what people do with
the classification may be a different story, such as how it is used in the
hiring process. I find it very useful in understanding how people react to
situations differently than I do, and that I should not judge them negatively
for this.

------
notacoward
The main value of any "personality type" inventory is to help people with
different personalities interact in mutually agreeable and beneficial ways.
The very fact that people cling to their MBTI type designators indicates that
the see some value in that, even if the value they see is not there. With that
in mind, I have a simple question:

    
    
      ** If not MBTI, then what else instead? **
    

Rose Eveleth doesn't seem to have an answer. What she has is just sneering
condescension for the only such inventory that has gained any popular traction
(which is necessary for it to be effective). The comparison to astrology is
particularly unhelpful. Does anyone else know of something that could succeed
where MBTI has supposedly failed?

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bigbadgoose
it's almost self confirming right? so if you believe you are an INTJ, you
might start taking on INTJ traits or become biased in self evaluating those in
yourself.

i get the business and HR "value" (yes, in quotes :), but i largely view this
as "astrology for top 50 university people", ie people who want to believe in
some collective unconsciousness affinities, peppered with scientific
plausibility. especially with regard to application in personal life

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zodPod
As someone who can control what I get on the test pretty successfully (never
tested for exact numbers but it changes every time I take it) I have thought
this for a while.

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matchagaucho
If anything, Myers-Briggs forces introspection and reflection.

But it really shouldn't be used as an employee classifier... just personal
growth only.

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AlphaWeaver
This article simply quotes verbatim other sources without providing much
insight of its own. That's not very good.

------
INTPenis
I thought the MBTI was fun because it made me feel better about myself.

It didn't actually solve anything though.

------
emodendroket
I thought this was old news but any reputable publication helping to slay this
dinosaur is welcome.

------
throw7
OK, i'll bite: so what do psychologists believe is a good way to learn about
people?

------
lexman0
Oh no! Now where will I get my smug sense of satisfaction from?

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michaelborromeo
MBTI is a very misunderstood system. People tend to take it too far and in
directions it shouldn't go. It's not surprising when it's labeled as
meaningless.

Here's one example: I'm an ISTP which is only one letter away from ISFP.
That's pretty similar right?

No, they're actually pretty different.

The letters ISTP are just a shorthand for a system developed by Carl Jung.
ISTP actually means that I have a stack of behaviors that I tend towards and
that I've developed as I've aged.

The stack goes as follows: Introverted Thinking which I have (supposedly)
developed since I was young. [http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-
thinking/](http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-thinking/)

Extraverted Sensing which, again supposedly, I started developing since I was
in my teens and through my 20s. [http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-
sensing-se/](http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-sensing-se/)

Introverted Intuition which I've been developing more recently (30s).
[http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-
intuition/](http://personalitygrowth.com/introverted-intuition/)

And finally Extraverted Feeling which is still moderately awkward for me (like
trying to write with my off hand). It's getting less awkward as I get older.
[http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-feeling-
fe/](http://personalitygrowth.com/extraverted-feeling-fe/)

An ISFP, on the other hand, has the following stack: Introverted Feeling,
Extraverted Sensing, Introverted Intuition, and Extraverted Thinking.

And other types have their own function stack that they've developed as
they've aged. Some faster, some slower. This is one potential reason why
people test differently as they age. I first took the test I was in my 20s
when I was at a different point in my maturation process. Nowadays I'm much
more focused on long term goals as opposed to short term satisfaction. Maybe
I'm just developing my Introverted Intuition which is typically associated
more with long term thinking. Maybe it's just part of the maturation process
everyone goes through.

I will say, though, some people I've observed have gone through the process in
reverse -- being interested in long term goals when they're young and then
realizing they should also pay attention to short term gratification a little
as they age. Maybe they're a type that leads with Introverted Intuition. Who
knows.

------
sunstone
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.

------
programminggeek
All models are flawed, but sometimes they are useful.

------
adekok
Similar comments have been raised about the MMPI. On a quick look again, I
found:

[https://www.minnpost.com/second-
opinion/2009/08/fascinating-...](https://www.minnpost.com/second-
opinion/2009/08/fascinating-tale-about-us-mmpi-controversy)

 _he original developers of the MMPI questionnaire went about choosing their
"normal" control group. They compared test answers from patients in hospitals
for the mentally ill with answers from people working in and visiting those
hospitals.

Who’s to say those workers and visitors were mentally healthy?_

It's well known that certain kinds of mentally ill people are drawn to working
in the mental health industry. I know a psychiatrist who's a narcissist, and a
psychiatric nurse who's probably BPD or NPD.

Bootstrapping a test from a hand-picked set of people is just bad methodology.

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maverick_iceman
One big problem I have with these personality classifications (MBTI,
Type-A/Type-B) is it assumes that personality traits are bimodal instead of
normally distributed. MBTI would have made sense if the population was split
50-50 into E/I etc. but in reality most people fall somewhere in the middle.

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andrewclunn
The more I learn, then more all of the social sciences appear to be less solid
regarding the demarcation problem.

------
kjbflsudfb
You know what kind of responses you are asking for without adding: /s ? :)

~~~
dang
We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12687196)
and marked it off-topic.

------
jwmoz
I hear this and I'm a huge man of Science, but I can't ignore the similarities
I have with my designated type ISTP and the lack of with the other types. Very
interesting either way.

------
cylinder
And it can be harmful. People use their categorization as an excuse (I know I
have). "I'm an INTP, I can't have a normal career, I always lose interest and
move on to the next thing!"

Yeah... this is called being undisciplined. Experts and Masters aren't born
with the discipline to master their craft. They struggle like anyone else, but
they break through those barriers and continue their mastery.

Don't use your personality as an excuse to get around the discipline and
practice components of success. Don't let the introvert label be an excuse for
you being a standoffish asshole or a hermit.

Go on the subreddits for these ... such as /r/INTP and browse a bit ... they
are sad.

~~~
emodendroket
I believe it, but I don't find it hard to believe that, to some extent,
differences in diligence are ingrained.

