Myers-Briggs Type Indicator fairly accurate or or fairly spuedo?

[DrDeth]

@alterego

The Wikipedia article for the MBTI bears my bark. At this point in its editing history it was written almost entirely by me:

Myers–Briggs Type Indicator - Wikipedia

Since then it looks like its been substantially improved, though I don’t have time to read it.

I disagree with one line in that wiki:

It has also been argued that the terminology of the MBTI is so vague and complicated that it allows any kind of behavior to fit any personality type, resulting in the Forer effect, where an individual gives a high rating to a positive description that supposedly applies specifically to himself.

As noted, I had doubts, so my tester allowed me to test for the Forer effect, and I found that although two close personality types would get that sort of answer, complete opposites would not. Thus, it appears that within noted limitations, MB does not fail a “Forer test”.

[alterego]

@DrDeth

I disagree with one line in that wiki:

It has also been argued that the terminology of the MBTI is so vague and complicated that it allows any kind of behavior to fit any personality type, resulting in the Forer effect, where an individual gives a high rating to a positive description that supposedly applies specifically to himself.

As noted, I had doubts, so my tester allowed me to test for the Forer effect, and I found that although two close personality types would get that sort of answer, complete opposites would not. Thus, it appears that within noted limitations, MB does not fail a “Forer test”.

[IMHO] The descriptions in the MBTI manual are so good that you don’t really need to take the test - you could just read them all and pick the one that describes you best. This is in stark contrast to the descriptions found online which are much lower accuracy and quality.

[Chefguy]

This test is administered in the Foreign Service orientation class in order to allow the HR people to justify their salaries. An interesting demonstration of the “validity” was done after the test was scored and everyone received their letters. The administrator set up a flip chart at the front of the class and had all of the "I"s come up to the front and write down the characteristics of introverts. Then she had the "E"s do the same.

The writing exercise itself was bogus, of course. The purpose of doing it was to show the physical behaviors of the people in each group. If you’ve never seen 15 people try to hide behind a flip chart, you’ve missed quite a sight. The “I” group was mostly true to the idea of an introvert, standing behind others so as not to be noticed, standing behind the chart, looking everywhere but at the rest of the class, lots of nervous behaviors. The “E” group was just the opposite.

[jjimm]

I work for a business psychology company that uses the MBTI (amongst other psychometric instruments). Prior to joining, I thought the MBTI was total hooey, being based on a third party’s liberal interpretation of attributes that Jung pulled out of his ass. Which it is. With character and personality descriptions that could fit anyone, and as much validity as a horoscope.

However. I took the test and retook a different one, with the same outcome. I did the Step I analysis and the Step II, which also gave the same result. Then I participated in a team breakdown with my colleagues, where a psychologist who had never met us before, looked at our types, then stood up and explained specific things about potential pitfalls of interaction between group members with different types - before any of us had even contributed our opinion.

Things like one coworker is likely to get intimidated when required to think creatively without a decent preparation time (completely true and she almost cried with relief when this was exposed). Things like I (an extreme ENTP outlier) am ferociously creative, able to be extraordinarily productive on a tight deadline, and am immensely adaptable - but my boss is likely to be very disappointed if she ever asks me to come up with a detailed schedule, or to work to a predefined plan (also completely true).

And she told us much more about each other, all of which was absolutely spot-on. The entire process was really useful to help us understand each other: since that third-party revelation of our working preferences, we’ve all got along much better and a great deal of tension in our team has been dissipated.

So I conclude that it’s way more impressive than horoscopes, and much more perceptive than “cold reading” tricks could possibly achieve. It might only be partially correct, and it might be correct for the wrong reasons, but there’s definitely something in it.

I am also convinced that the Forer effect doesn’t apply here; furthermore, the tests are so designed that it is extremely difficult to fool them, even by people who know them inside out: they contain “checksum” loading throughout.

Examples of the tests being used unethically (prescribing careers and pedefining personality types for jobs) are merely companies’ misuse of the products, which are not designed for such applications.

[alterego]

@Chefguy

This test is administered in the Foreign Service orientation class in order to allow the HR people to justify their salaries.

Without knowing all the details I can’t make a definitive statement. However, if this statement is true - that salaries were determined on the basis of personality - it would be an unethical use of the MBTI and CPP would revoke the practitioners license. I don’t know if it’s also illegal.

[jjimm]

Another anecote: our company has the 4 x 4 MBTI character type posters (pdf) on the wall, per department, with people’s names written in the type box that they have received from the tests. The marketing department’s types are all clustered in the bottom-right, the accounts department in the top-left, and the IT department in the top-right. It’s really striking to see.

[WarmNPrickly]

My wife had to take this thing. It seems to be borderline between telling you what you already know and the free stress tests offered at the mall. It probably helps justify paying the HR department too.

[alterego]

@WarmNPrickly

My wife had to take this thing. It seems to be borderline between telling you what you already know and the free stress tests offered at the mall. It probably helps justify paying the HR department too.

That’s a wonderful response for GQ.

[The_Tao_s_Revenge]

@WarmNPrickly

My wife had to take this thing. It seems to be borderline between telling you what you already know and the free stress tests offered at the mall. It probably helps justify paying the HR department too.

Well honestly actually it did teach me something new. Generally if I make someone unhappy I’ll think it’s cause I did something wrong. Sometimes people are just jerks though, but I won’t see that right away and think “oh crap”. Reading the description where it pointed that made me consider how much I do that and aware I need to get better at not taking it so personally. Continue teaching myself to do a mentl check when that happens to see if I really screwed up or they’re just being asshats.
Also Chefguy. As a hardcore introvert; yea standing in front of a bunch of people looking at you… Oh my goodness D:, but even introverts can learn to use extrovert social skills, well maybe not as efficiently, but they can. I’ve observed and modeled extroverts and can fake it pretty good.

[Madgolf]

If you ever meet a MBTI-tested Inspector type, you will giggle with delight at the genius of that one particular category of the 16. (Unless you are an Inspector, in which case giggling is quite rare except in perhaps instances of mating, etc)

The other 15 types flit in and out of their pigeonholes as they go through the normal stations of life. Before I had kids I was a solid INTP and after the kids I was a solid INTJ. Now that I am burnt-out and jaded, I may very well be an INFJ.

Inspector types remain Inspector types and usually solidify further as time goes on.

MBTI is accurate at the moment only.

[Reply]

Another INFP here; I’ve taken the test multiple times in my life from multiple sources, including at least one “professional” one, and always got the same result. It’s useful as a way to stereotype people into one of 16 categories based on what you know about them or what they think about themselves… that’s gotta be a heckuvalot more useful than stereotyping them based on mostly random birth dates. “Hi, I’m introverted and tend to be emotional, and while I tend to trust my gut feeling most of the time, I also like to take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to people or events” says a hell lot more than “Hi, I was born in mid-June”.

No personality test completely encapsulates someone’s individuality – hell, even 20 years of marriage won’t necessarily reveal that – but it’s certainly a step up from shallow smalltalk and feigned socially-appropriate behaviors.

If employers or others want to use tests like that as qualifications, well, that’s their choice. The good part is it lets them weed out potential undesirables much more easily, but they lose out on the odd introvert who might have an uncanny knack at gauging customer needs, etc. Best Buy, if I remember correctly, used a similar test that, frankly, only rewarded cheaters. They ended up with ruthless people who’d distort the truth or outright lie to get what they want, but maybe that’s what they wanted in salesmen anyway.

On the other hand, as a way of getting to know people “at a glance”, it can be very helpful. For example, if I’m not mistaken, the eHarmony dating service is based on very similar principles – match people according to their self-identified personalities and the personalities they claim to be attracted to.

That’s my completely non-scientific but very interested opinion. The GQ-esque answers have already been given, anyway

[Chefguy]

@alterego

Without knowing all the details I can’t make a definitive statement. However, if this statement is true - that salaries were determined on the basis of personality - it would be an unethical use of the MBTI and CPP would revoke the practitioners license. I don’t know if it’s also illegal.

Ouch. I don’t think anybody has ever so completely misread something I’ve written. It was a joke: the HR people have to do something to justify their own salaries.

[gallows_fodder]

@Nametag

The MB isn’t a job screening method. Using it as one will occasionally work, as a stopped clock is right twice a day.

The categories in the MB seem real enough; they may or may not be as basic as the authors think. The real question is whether the questions are capable of sorting people into those categories. I find them clumsy and obtuse, requiring people to understand themselves about as well before taking the test as one might expect to afterward.

I took a psychometrics class in college and we discussed the MBTI (though this was way back in 1999, so my memory of our discussion isn’t the greatest) . One of the problems with it is precisely the way it sorts people into the categories – it goes by simple majority. That is, if there are 20 questions relating to Introversion/Extroversion, and you answer 11 questions in favor of Extroversion, you are labelled an E. This implies that there is a clear cut-off between E and I, and that there’s a significant difference (I don’t mean that in terms of statistics) between someone who scored a 10 on that scale and gets labeled as an I and someone who scores an 11 and gets labeled as an E. Because the labels are so insensitive, it doesn’t acknowledge that the difference between someone who scored a 10 and someone who scored and 11 on that scale is going to be much smaller than someone who scored a 1 and someone who scored a 20.

I had to take this test at work in the early 2000s and I was labelled an INXP because I fell right in the middle of the T-F scale. They put me with the Fs (maybe because I’m a woman?), and I found that I related with the Ts more often than with the Fs because we were looking at ourselves in the context of the work environment. Well, at work, where I was a sales assistant who worked with numbers and statistics all day, my emotional responses were irrelevant and so I became more of a T. At the same time, I wasn’t as much of a T as the people sitting at the T table, who were Ts at work and at home.

Also, IIRC, many of the questions presented false dichotomies. I remember feeling frustrated during test taking because both answers to a question would apply equally to me.

[Elret]

I have found it incredibly useful in relationships. Over the years I (a very solid N) have frequently had difficulty communicating with most S types. being able to identify that this is where the communication breakdowns occur has helped me immensely in establishing strategies to deal with that.
It also helped me a lot growing up. As an F in a family of Ts I was often misunderstood. After my family became familiar with MBTI, they realized that I wasn’t broken, as they had sort of thought I was, and we learned better ways to work together.
As a career selector, I don’t know, but for relationships I really believe it has its strengths.

[Chronos]

Quoth Chefguy:

The writing exercise itself was bogus, of course. The purpose of doing it was to show the physical behaviors of the people in each group. If you’ve never seen 15 people try to hide behind a flip chart, you’ve missed quite a sight. The “I” group was mostly true to the idea of an introvert, standing behind others so as not to be noticed, standing behind the chart, looking everywhere but at the rest of the class, lots of nervous behaviors. The “E” group was just the opposite.

Interesting… I’m very introverted in one-on-one interactions, and every time I’ve taken the MBTI, it’s shown me well on the I end of the scale, but I’m quite comfortable and competent at speaking to a group. So I guess I would have ended up being the guy all the other Is were hiding behind.

Quoth Reply:

On the other hand, as a way of getting to know people “at a glance”, it can be very helpful. For example, if I’m not mistaken, the eHarmony dating service is based on very similar principles – match people according to their self-identified personalities and the personalities they claim to be attracted to.

So they claim, but when I took the eHarmony personality evaluation, the results were both more vague and less accurate than the typical horoscope. The only things they got right were that I don’t drink or smoke.

[Reply]

@Chronos

Quoth Reply:So they claim, but when I took the eHarmony personality evaluation, the results were both more vague and less accurate than the typical horoscope. The only things they got right were that I don’t drink or smoke.

eHarmony wasn’t great for me either. I had slightly better luck with okcupid once I answered about 500 questions. After that they just started getting trivial/stupid. Neither one, unfortunately, was as spot-on as the MBTI. You figure they’d just use a readily-established, time-tested system, but nooo… they just had to invent their own. Makes me wonder… are there dating services based on the MBTI system?

[jjimm]

gallows fodder, two explanations to your valid complaints.

First, the MBTI questionnaire you’re talking about is the Step I, which is something of a blunt instrument and bears all the issues you mention. However, the Step II is much more nuanced, and gets round most of your very valid criticisms. (Whether the Step II is totally valid, or is instead a hand-waving attempt to explain away the very discrepancies you mention in the overly simplistic model is open to debate.)

Secondly, the false dichotomies are indeed that, by design: firstly, in additon to the answer you give, they measure which of the false dichotomies (e.g. “I am sensitive / I am intelligent”) you deem more important to you; secondly, the questionnaire actually asks questions on the same subjects multiple times in different ways. This validates the results internally, and is to avoid test manipulation by people ‘in the know’.

[alterego]

@Chefguy

Ouch. I don’t think anybody has ever so completely misread something I’ve written. It was a joke: the HR people have to do something to justify their own salaries.

Okay I admit it went over my head. However, there are a lot of companies in foreign countries that only hire employees with a particular MBTI type.

[alterego]

@gallows_fodder

I took a psychometrics class in college and we discussed the MBTI (though this was way back in 1999, so my memory of our discussion isn’t the greatest) . One of the problems with it is precisely the way it sorts people into the categories – it goes by simple majority. That is, if there are 20 questions relating to Introversion/Extroversion, and you answer 11 questions in favor of Extroversion, you are labelled an E. This implies that there is a clear cut-off between E and I, and that there’s a significant difference (I don’t mean that in terms of statistics) between someone who scored a 10 on that scale and gets labeled as an I and someone who scores an 11 and gets labeled as an E. Because the labels are so insensitive, it doesn’t acknowledge that the difference between someone who scored a 10 and someone who scored and 11 on that scale is going to be much smaller than someone who scored a 1 and someone who scored a 20.

This isn’t true. The questions are designed and tested to ONLY provide information about that cutoff line. Questions that are shown to provide information about other regions of the scale are thrown out. Although the report puts you on what appears to be a scale it is completely invalid to interpret that scale as meaning more or less extroverted. All of the statistical information is compressed into determining which side of the cutoff the person is on. Thus, there is a truly significant difference beween that one point for I/E. The test is designed around that point. This is the big difference between the MBTI and the Big 5.

[Chefguy]

@alterego

Okay I admit it went over my head. However, there are a lot of companies in foreign countries that only hire employees with a particular MBTI type.

Wow. That does seem unethical.