I want people to stop using the Myers-Briggs test, because it is not a useful decision-making tool ("bogus" for short). It generates spuriously precise results that garner false confidence, and probably crowds out other, more valid instruments.
Your left- / right-handed analogy is not appropriate. The population is strongly clustered in terms of hand-dominance: most people clearly favour one hand over another. For the kinds of personality traits the MTBI measures, the distribution is roughly bell-shaped: most people cluster towards the middle.
This bell-shape means that a simple binary classification is just about the worst way to do things. Take the I/E axis. Most psychologists will tell you that there is an intro- / extraversion continuum, and only a few people are found at the extremes. A statistician will add that, because of the wide error bands (which we can measure by checking the correlation of the results from, say, the even-numbered with the odd-numbered questions) the MTBI can only reliably identify the extreme types. For the majority of people who are close to the I/E borderline, the results of the test are basically random.
So if my MTBI tells me that I'm an "I", all I really know is that I'm not an extreme "E". That isn't very helpful.
You mentioned having the larger dataset at our disposal. With the larger dataset, we don't need the MTBI. Without it, the MTBI tells us very little. So what good is it?
Dude, you're arguing against a strawman... These 4-letter MBTI type codes do not exist. They're just a helpful lookup table for the cognitive functions which do show a strong preference dichotomy like my handedness analogy and it is covered in that neurology talk I linked to originally.
I'm literally talking about the psychology of the subject, and you're talking about red herrings and road signs for what it's worth. If you want to construct a meaningful argument against Jungian cognitive psychology, then that's cool, but you're not arguing anything new/interesting here. Of course there is no I/E line! It's much more nuanced than that, or even a 'spectrum'. That would've been painfully obvious if you even glanced at the cognitive function references I linked. Introversion/Extroversion isn't a broad/clean dichotomy, but the concepts of it can be applied to much narrower areas, like the individual cognitive functions themselves.
It's been clear for ages that people can't be broadly categorized by the dimensions you're referring to, MBTI just uses them colloquially because it's a quick/easy shorthand to more insightful analysis. But again, you're barking up a strawman that's been refuted and barked up millions of times already. If you want to refute it's usefulness, you'll be better off studying up on cognitive psychology and addressing it's real underlying faults instead of all this easy low-hanging fruit that's already been picked. Jungian psychology isn't perfect, but what you're addressing here is old and widely acknowledged.
Again, if you have a problem with people misinterpreting MBTI results (which it seems like you do, as do I), that's a whole different matter that has nothing to do with the real underlying psychology behind it. I'm actually pretty sure we agree at some level, except that I've already taken the time to study the subject matter before jumping to conclusions.
I reiterate: I am not arguing against Jungian psychology. I am arguing against the well-known MBTI instrument that is promoted, and sold by the Myers-Brigg Foundation (http://www.myersbriggs.org/) as a tool to support therapists, employers, teachers, parents, and so on in their decision making.
Yes, I'm bayonetting a strawman. But that's because the Myers-Brigg Foundation set this strawman on an altar and made themselves high-priests, and they promise miracles to those who pay the entrance fee.
You're quite right that I know very little about Jungian psychology. That's why I focus on intro- / extraversion; because that's something I do know about and is well recognised in other schools of psychology. I also explained that the non-dichotomous nature of intro- / extraversion makes the MTBI I/E distinction almost useless.
But you tell me that the other psychologists have got it wrong. That the I/E distinction really is dichotomous, like left- / right-handedness. In that case, the MTBI test is even more useless, because it can't reliably distinguish them!
I want people to stop using the Myers-Briggs test, because it is not a useful decision-making tool ("bogus" for short). It generates spuriously precise results that garner false confidence, and probably crowds out other, more valid instruments.
Your left- / right-handed analogy is not appropriate. The population is strongly clustered in terms of hand-dominance: most people clearly favour one hand over another. For the kinds of personality traits the MTBI measures, the distribution is roughly bell-shaped: most people cluster towards the middle.
This bell-shape means that a simple binary classification is just about the worst way to do things. Take the I/E axis. Most psychologists will tell you that there is an intro- / extraversion continuum, and only a few people are found at the extremes. A statistician will add that, because of the wide error bands (which we can measure by checking the correlation of the results from, say, the even-numbered with the odd-numbered questions) the MTBI can only reliably identify the extreme types. For the majority of people who are close to the I/E borderline, the results of the test are basically random.
So if my MTBI tells me that I'm an "I", all I really know is that I'm not an extreme "E". That isn't very helpful.
You mentioned having the larger dataset at our disposal. With the larger dataset, we don't need the MTBI. Without it, the MTBI tells us very little. So what good is it?