My boss recently announced that she will be requiring all the employees to engage in “Personality Profiling” or “Type Testing”. Specifically the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Her hope is that we will learn to understand each other better as well as understanding our selves.
What I don’t get is how this actually works. I’ve taken this kind of test before and never got anything out of it. Every test gives me different results. Also, there are so many personality tests to choose from. I can’t find any information that shows that personality profiles have ever accurately measured someone’s personality. All I’ve seen are vague generalizations of personality types.
I guess what bothers me most is that there is this notion that the process is scientific. Where is the empirical data that shows this? If the concept is to pick the parts of the profile that suit you best and discard any that don’t, then how is that different from reading only the Horoscopes that you feel are most accurate?
It all sounds like “shoehorning” to me. Any opinions out there?
Myers-Briggs is pseudo-scientific clap trap. I’d refuse to take it if at all possible. I realize that that might not be practical in your case.
Here is the Skeptic Dictionary’s take on M-B. The danger in these tests, as you seem to suspect, is that you will be pidgeon holed into something that may not be to your liking. Maybe, just maybe, you can show the above cite to your boss and it will sway her.
I have taken a couple of these tests before, and when i took my time to answer honestly, i found them quite accurate and very interesting. I can see how they could be useful in a work setting that depends on intensive employee communication. They can give you an idea about the way an individual tends to view things, and when you can understand someone better, its easier to get along with them and work productively. They are generalizations of coarse but nonetheless useful.
If something is written generically enough, it will seem accurate. Just like James Randi’s famous experiments with Astrological forcasts. Twently people give Randi their birth dates and all get profiles back and are told to rate the accuracy. Almost all of the people rate theirs as accurate or very accurate. The punch line is that everyone got the same exact profile.
Maybe you should pose the following experiment. Five people fill take the test. Five profiles are returned without names and each person has to say which one is theirs. I’d expect to see at least four correct answers if these things have any value. It won’t happen though.
I’d say it does get some simple aspects of one’s personality correct. But look at how it does this: it takes a bunch of very generalized behaviors and then states that you’re the type pof person who… does those behaviors.
Its about like saying that since chocolate comes from chocolate beans, the person who made the chocolate had some chocolate beans.