At university I spent the vast majority of my time getting drunk, doing drugs and chasing girls. I then took the show on the road and did more or less the same thing in Japan for s few years. There was absolutely nothing introverted about those five years. I made a ton of friends, got into lots of excellent adventures and generally had a good time.
Fast forward a few years and I'm a mid to senior level developer. I'm surrounded by socially, how can I put this this, 'challenging' people. I realized however that after enough time doing this, it's rubbed off on me. I have difficulty making small-talk, making new friends and being sociable.
In my case at least, my 'introversion/extroversion' factor is variable. When I'm jobhunting or marketing or looking for my next project, I'm in 'extrovert' mode. If I'm heads-down programming then I find it much more difficult to deal with human beings.
As an aside, I have serious misgivings about MBTI, not least because I took the test once every month for three months and got different results! It appears to be 'horrorscopes for smart people', or a convoluted wizard for selecting your character class in the big RPG of life.
I have no idea about how valid or invalid the MBTI tests are, but I think that your type can change over time. You describe yourself as somewhat of a chameleon, the tests seem to be reflecting that.
Regarding MBTI, in my experience the majority of people tend to have strong dispositions and repeatedly test into the same type. I've talked with a few coaches from the Center for Creative Leadership (who do MTBIs across hundreds of people), and their experience is the same.
MTBI is about natural inclinations. For example, testing as an introvert doesn't mean one cannot be an extrovert in certain situations. Many successful introverts learn to be extroverted when they need to. Same for the other attributes.
MBTI is about how you answer the questions posed by the sorting test. Sure, many people are always going to test the same way. And some people will have personalities that would seem to fit the descriptions, but that's largely coincidence. Consider these questions [1]
"You are almost never late for your appointments. YES/NO"
People don't actually measure their promptness or tardiness before answering that question. They just think "yeah I tend to be on time" or "no I'm late a lot."
"It is in your nature to assume responsibility. YES/NO"
Even if you did have a good way to objectively measure assumption of responsibility, no one will actually do it on themselves before answering the question on the test.
Even questions like this:
"After prolonged socializing you feel you need
to get away and be alone. YES/NO"
Not everyone is going to use the same definition of "socializing." I tend to read "socializing" and imagine a party with lots of people I don't know, where there's pressure to perform and impress and get drunk and let loose. On the other hand, some might consider socializing to sit around the house with close friends and family on Sunday afternoon with football on in the background.
On MBTI: you have misgivings about the test, not the type system itself. I did a bunch of different tests over my lifetime, yielding various results. However, in a group session where all the different factors were explained and 'tested' with examples, I clearly figured out that I'm ENTP.
Don't do a test. Just read up on it and figure it out.
(note that MBTI itself is frowned upon by most psychologists - nevertheless, I find it a useful tool in explaining the basic attitudes and actions of myself and others)
Can you describe the examples used in the group session?
The primary flaw with MBTI types is that they cannot be tested for. The common descriptions are too vague and inclusive to devise real tests. The tests that are given sort you into categories of other people who have answered the tests in a similar way, not necessarily with people who demonstrate scientifically observable traits exclusive to one type or another.
Contrast MBTI types with zoological taxonomy. Classification of animals into categories starts out with basic, concrete observations like "has a spine vs. doesn't have a spine" and over time has grown to include hundreds and hundreds of categories and subcategories-- all based on the increasing volume and quality of empirical observation. MBTI types, in contrast, aren't based on empirical observation. They're based on ideas and subjective interpretation of human behavior.
> not least because I took the test once every month for three months and got different results!
That's interesting, I had the opposite experience. I must have taken the test 5 times over the years, and I got ENTP every time. I didn't expect it to be the case, but I was surprised by its precision.
Just because you took the same test five times and got the same results doesn't mean the methodology isn't pseudo-scientific.
Actual psychologists have studied Myers Briggs and found that the likelihood of getting a different result on the exam after taking it more than once is about fifty-fifty, which is pretty much the definition of pseudo-science.
> doesn't mean the methodology isn't pseudo-scientific.
I didn't claim otherwise. I simply provided one data point that was different from the one expressed by the person I was replying to. I didn't claim the test was scientific or accurate. (Note: Precise != Accurate. And it was only precise in my case, not in general.)
Surely the answer there is that it depends on your exact scores?
Each factor won't be a clear binary but a continuum between the two. Your answers will depend on mood, sure, but will also give a result on that continuum and with a margin for error.
You might've got ENTP consistently. I've had both INTP and ESTJ in fairly quick succession without any intention to mislead. The idea that the test is anywhere near perfect, foolproof and likely to produce absolutely consistent results for all appears unsupported by anecdotal evidence here.
Fast forward a few years and I'm a mid to senior level developer. I'm surrounded by socially, how can I put this this, 'challenging' people. I realized however that after enough time doing this, it's rubbed off on me. I have difficulty making small-talk, making new friends and being sociable.
In my case at least, my 'introversion/extroversion' factor is variable. When I'm jobhunting or marketing or looking for my next project, I'm in 'extrovert' mode. If I'm heads-down programming then I find it much more difficult to deal with human beings.
As an aside, I have serious misgivings about MBTI, not least because I took the test once every month for three months and got different results! It appears to be 'horrorscopes for smart people', or a convoluted wizard for selecting your character class in the big RPG of life.