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While I'm thinking of it
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urbeatle posted earlier that he took one of those online Myers-Briggs tests, which reminded me that a few years back my employer paid for me to take an 'official' personality test from the Frank Whyte Education Services people and later to take a training class where we learned about the different kinds of personalities and what-not.I'm deeply suspicious of the whole thing because, first, it's not really clear to me how falsefiable it is (I believe the instructor said at one point that the test was incredibly accurate and at another that your results might vary depending on what was going on the day you took the test, etc.) and also how meaningful it is (the choice of the four dualities seems pretty arbitrary; I bet there are others that could have been chosen that would be as measurable or more so). But, you know, the whole thing was sort of interesting.
Anyway, while I was cleaning my room the other day I happened to find the report they sent me, so let it be recorded that I am an INFP! Now if someone asks me while I'm online I might actually be able to find this information.
They also gave me a little bar graph showing that my test results showed that my preferences had the following level of 'clarity':
Introversion: Moderate [opposed to Extraversion]
iNtuition: Clear [opposed to Sensing]
Feeling: Clear [opposed to Thinking]
Perceiving Moderate [opposed to Judging]
These are along a scale that goes: [no label], Slight, Moderate, Clear, and Very Clear. [Insert Scientology joke here if desired.]
My recollection is that the majority of people are I, N, F, and P as opposed to their opposites, making me a super-freak! Phear me!
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For what it's worth, though, I'm 'slight' on all of them. Which really means, I think, that I'm TOTALLY WISHY WASHY, any way you look at it.
"Supervisor Guardians [ESTJs] are squarely on the side of rules and procedures, and they can be quite serious about seeing to it that others toe the mark—or else face the consequences. They do not hesitate to give their stamp of approval, nor do they withhold their directions or suggestions for improvement. Like seasoned, stalwart umpires, Supervisors will set their jaw and make the call on anyone who steps up to bat. They even feel obligated to do so, and they’re sometimes surprised when others don’t seem grateful for being set straight."
John D. Rockefeller is an ESTJ! But, uh, so is George W. Bush. Wow, this was a fun way to start the day. NOT! ;-)
More sensible, or ideational?
One hilariously bad part of the tests comes when they give results for various famous historical figures. "Thomas Edison died before Jung codified his four axes of temperment, and before the test was developed, but we picked a result for him anyway!"
Here's an article that's critical of the MBTI, which makes the sixteen types sound little better than the twelve astrological signs:
http://bpo.indiana.edu/bpo-cgi/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/mbti.pdf
My favorite part of the article is the mention of the "Barnum effect". Or to explain it in a little scene:
A: "Joe, you're acting like a total asshole. We need you to stop constantly insulting your subordinates."
B: "Oh yeah? Well screw you! And my name's not Joe, it's B!"
A: "Joe, your test results came back. They say you're intelligent, witty and roguishly good-looking, but that you have problems with insulting your subordinates."
B: "Wow, they totally described me to a T! I'd better be nicer to my subordinates."
P.S.
Your test results indicate that you are a Super-Freak.
Super-freaks [INFP] are very kinky, the kind you don't take home to mother. But they will never let your spirits down once you get them off the street. The kind you want to know from the head down to the toenails. And when you get there they've got incense, wine and candles. It's a super-freaky scene.
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I think the four axis are more or less ok. Introvert and Extrovert are pretty obvious and definitely important -- and, I think, completely ignored in social interactions, to everyone's detriment. iNtuitive and Sensing are second in line in accuracy and importance, but they could probably think about this a little bit more and make it a little more rigorous in definition.
same goes for Perceiving/Judging, only more so; I think they "got something" there, but the definitions are pretty flakey and tainted by our assumptions about what the words mean; for a long time, I thought Js would be more judgemental than Ps, but apparently the only thing this is supposed to mean is whether you make decisions based more on immediate circumstances (J) or on long-term plans and memories (P). it's kind of a "temporal focus" scale; extreme Js will maintain a tight focus on what they are doing right now and will have strict schedules, while extreme Ps will daydream a lot and keep vague plans on what to do next. but on the other hand, this definition is so fuzzy that there's a competitor to the official MBTI test (socionics) that swaps J and P if you are an I -- so I would come out an INTJ on their test, and you would be an INFJ. (at least, this does provide a bit of falsifiability; there may be some Barnum Effect in the personality descriptions, but if you take the MBTI and then read the Socionics personality description without taking their test, it sounds completely wrong.)
T/F would probably be a more rigorous scale if they called it Objects/People, since that's what it's really supposed to mean; do you focus more on things/ideas when making decisions, or on people's feelings? it's really supposed to be an objective vs. subjective scale, but by calling it Thinking/Feeling, it confused people, because it suggests that Feeling people can't be logical or rational, or can't apply logic to their decisions about people. and, on the flip side, I don't think all Ts are necessarily logical in their T-ness.
add to all of this the rather weird wording on a number of the questions. some of them seem very ambiguous to me, or could be true in specific narrow circumstances but false in others. I think that's the main reason why how you feel at the time you take the test affects how you score; you interpret the more ambiguous questions one way when you're in one mood, a different way when you're in another.
so, to summarize: I think they're measuring something that's really there, but they probably have no idea what it really is. like the blindmen and the elephant.
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1. Introvert/Extrovert
2. Optimist/Pessimist
3. Type A/Type B (that is, driven-and-organized/laid-back-hippie)
4. Democrat/Republican
5. Boxers/Briefs
6. Tastes Great/Less Filling
.
.
.
In this way all people will be describable with a small bit-string that can be best used for LUV-typing with those devices that teenagers in Japan carried around a few years ago.
What we really need is a more elaborate system of pigeonholes to put people in
(Anonymous) 2013-09-20 01:07 am (UTC)(link)Obviously such a scheme would be hugely useful to the recruitment industry and prospective employers, as instead of giving pathetic excuses for denying people employment like "you don't have quite the right kind of degree" or "we're really looking for someone with 16 years' experience of programming in Befunge", or saying something of questionable legality like "you're too old and we don't like bald men with beards", they can refuse to employ you because they were looking for someone less introverted, or more Sagittarian, or with a slightly faster-moving shamanic power animal.