Does this shit hold any legitimacy whatsoever? I've always found human categorization interesting, and categorizing human behavior patterns seems feasible, but every fricking place I've ever seen talk about MBTI or Enneagram or whatever is full of people who seem to use it like a pattern for them to reflect to become a more 'pure' expression of that-type-that-they-think-they-are, instead of a reflection of the behavior they already exhibit.
Could a person place themselves in a category without it altering their behavior, or is the self-observation a self-fulfilling-prophecy? Is this really astrology-tier-ego-games, or is it just that it appeals to the people who are like that already?
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I used to be obsessed with MBTI as a teenager latching onto my ENTP type and reading buying books on this shit at 15.
I've been diagnosed with OCD, but could that singular obsession be a symptom of mild Aspergers? Or more likely OCD?
Do you still think you're an ENTP, or even believe in the system as a whole? No clue if I'm an autist but I sure fixate on stuff for random periods of time.
Any worthwhile conclusions from your research?
What system? I've tested ENTP every time since 15
The online tests full of vague questions, or like, tested by a shrink? None of the tests I've seen smell right to me. You can't add a mathematical weight to a variable that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Not that I'm gonna pay some quack to psych-eval my MBTI type, but still.
Similar experience. I always come up as INTJ
Same, except I kept changing my type every month. I've been tested as INFP, INTP, ENTP, INTJ, ISFJ, ISFP, and even ESTP and ESFP at a point or two. The questions tend to be things like: "Are you organized or is your room a mess?"
I think in terms of how I live my life, I come across as INXP (I'm lazy, unmotivated, autistic to a degree, live in self-isolation, waste a lot of time) but I related mostly to introverted feeling AND introverted intuition. I've dealt with Ne types and they drive me nuts; I hate the indecisiveness and the constant generation of ideas rather than narrowing options down to one thing.
With exception to the character Pink from the Wall movie (1982), I don't really relate to any INTJs. I don't have the drive or productivity associated with a strong extroverted thinking. In terms of ISFP, the only one I relate to is Eren Yaeger and the goth chick from Victorious. The rest seem too nice, which is weird because Fi users tend to be pricks in my experience.
In the end, I just gave up and decided I could categorize myself as any type since personality is a choice.
You are trying to type yourself; you are damaging your psyche and the reputation of MBTI in the process.
Even if you provide information to people online it's going to suffer the same biases depending on your mood. You are not an impartial observer. You are damaging your psyche in the process and the more attempts and conclusions you make are just going to make it worse and worse for you. You are like digging a hole straight down in Minecraft thinking of finding diamonds, when really you'll just hit untouchable, useless bedrock or lava at the end.
This is exactly why r/MBTI and all MBTI subreddits, IQfy threads, and tumblrs need to be shut down and all MBTI test administered only by a licensed MBTI professional.
I agree with this. The legitimacy of MBTI aside, personality self-tests require a considerable amount of self-awareness and introspection to be able to give any accurate answers. This immediately invalidates a significant amount of takers, thus poisoning any discussion online. And that is before other factors like life experience. I think the only valid tests, and therefore valid results, are those that are conducted by professionals.
>this desperate samegayging
if somebody can afford a latest version MBTI (from J?) test, they should probably be better off investing in a few sessions of Jungian therapy
daily reminder!
people who oppose psychology are the ones who oppose people who prefer streets without piles of stinking shits in the middle of them (including homosexuals and communists)
It's because you're reading paragraphs of horoscopes that tell you what that type is.
"__ are kind, sweet, caring" etc. Hilter, Ghandi, and Tolstoy were INFJs, not because of their traits, but because they had a vision of the future for their society and wanted unity among their people.
For example, every rapper would be Se dom or aux since they promote lavish lifestyles. Kanye is some sort of Ne user despite his interest in fashion. Kdot is ISFJ or INFJ. They have different goals and ways of looking at the world.
As yourself how you make decisions. If given a choice: Do you care more about your values regardless of who they bother, or would you rather unify the people around you even if it means putting others first? Do you prefer theories or cold hard facts? Do you see an object as something that has an underlying meaning, a series or possibilities, in comparison to other objects, or for what it is?
I spent the near entirety of my free time last summer researching it
>Does this shit hold any legitimacy whatsoever?
It is nonsense.
The Big Five Personality test is what psychologists use.
Big Five seems to cover a different mental niche though.
What do u mean?
Big 5 measures traits and gives you a score on each of those traits, like those meme test about dark triad or agreeableness; it's just saying "you are X percent TRAIT", which is neat and all, but it's a far less ambitious system than personality TYPES; categories a person would fall into. The Big 5 is not "5 types", it's "5 traits".
I'm interested in the idea of human categorization, that there could be a "type" of person in broad strokes. I wouldn't doubt that Big 5 is more accurate for diagnosing people, but that's like saying it's more accurate to diagnose someone's skin using RGB color percents as an alternative to categorizing distinct ethnicities.
Then you should check out Marco del Guidice, Avi Tuschman and Kevin Smith et al.
It's a well made diagram, but that's still just a bunch of traits on a sliding scale. It's not that it's a bad thing to just rate people's behaviors and give a trait-percentage-composition as output, but it's just not the same kind of interesting to me as types. I guess the question of the thread is just, "are types logically feasible?"
Agree. Part of me almost wonders if the system is missing an additional layer of complexity, like a pyramid gaining another tier, about how people choose to live logistically, and how that effects the application of functions. Say, any guy working construction; that job requires certain behaviors, and an INTJ and an ESTP will both need to fill the same role. Maybe one guy has his dom-function in full play, but the other guy is forced to use his tertiary-function, and the switch up there effects how their whole stack balances out. Dunno, haven't done as much reading as I should, but it's intriguing to me, and my gut instinct says types ARE feasible. I'm just lacking any external source to validate the instinct.
>Part of me almost wonders if the system is missing an additional layer of complexity
It is because it simplifies introverted and extroverted into a single binary. In reality everyone has to process both their internal and external worlds, and they will have different priorities over different aspects in complex ways. How you think about or "feel into" external objects or internal representations demands much more nuance. However the purpose of MBTI is to present something accessible and not be a giant exploration into psychoanalytic theory which frankly even the average person isn't smart enough to deal with and wouldn't have time for anyway.
Well, the binary isn't isolated, it's just delineating preference towards one or the other. I do get that it's simplified, but I feel like it's just BARELY shy of the level of complexity that would greatly help clarify it's utilization for people. It works well on a superficial level, then it gets muddy in the intermediate area, and once you reach advanced concepts, it's lacking clarity. I just wish it had more time to bake in the oven.
>I'm interested in the idea of human categorization
That's the problem with it.
You start from the assumption that categorization is possible. You asspull a matrix vaguely based on 4 different binary assessments and declare all humans ARE one of those 16 personalities.
>that's like saying it's more accurate to diagnose someone's skin using RGB color percents as an alternative to categorizing distinct ethnicities.
No, this isn't the same at all. Categories for human races come from a very thorough vetting of real-world data. For hundreds of years people have observed physical differences between populations of people and defined categories based on those observations. Genetics research as mostly confirmed that intuitive divisions align with hard reality.
There are two big technical differences.
1. Subdivision. We can subdivide races into smaller distinct groups, both within each category and as combinations. There are hundreds of possible combinations. MBTI is 4x4 = 16 and that's it. MBTI cannot subdivide or combine. Race can. You can be Mediterranean or Slavic.
You can be half African and half European. And so on.
2. Expansion. Hypothetically, if there was some hidden island where humans had been living for 50,000 years, they would not fit into any of the existing categories (African, European, Asian, etc), so a new category would need to be created. MBTI cannot expand if new personality types emerge (eg via mutation).
These are the two major clues that tell you MBTI is a gimmick.
These "differences" seem kind of arbitrary and pointless to me
So you can subdivide races. You could subdivide just about anything if you tried. You could subdivide MBTI just come up with the subdivisions and there you are. If it's a made up system just make up more if that's all it takes to please you. But more importantly the conclusion of your argument seems to be that everything must be subdivided as much as humanly possible or it can't possibly be valid or useful. Seems impractical and pointless to think this way.
And lets say hypothetically there was a hidden group of humans. In what way is that an expansion? It prompts an "expansion" of the manmade system not an expansion of what actually exists in the real world. Those humans already existed you just didn't know about them. Nothing really expanded in reality. The purely conceptual system was just altered in light of new information. But exactly what suggests that a system like MBTI can't do the same? It seems like you're just assuming that MBTI can't "expand" for no reason at all even though it's a manmade system like any other. But more prudently how often does something like this hypothetical actually happen? If racial categories aren't being constantly reconfigured and "expanded" every day then doesn't it seem unrealistic to expect that of any other system? And more to the point I feel that it's not hard to discern when looking at the vast library of human writing and general expression throughout history that if people today can effortlessly relate to someone born thousands of years ago well maybe there isn't much need for our conception of human personality to "expand".
In general I feel like this comes down to a circular argument
>Categorization is not possible
>Why
>Because there is not adequate real world data
>Why
>Because categorization is not possible
>You could subdivide MBTI just come up with the subdivisions and there you are.
No, you can't. If you do that, it's not MBTI anymore. MBTI is all based on the magic of the sorting hat putting you into one of the 16 categories based on the 4x4 matrix of binary criteria.
>In what way is that an expansion?
The taxonomy starts out with X number of categories. New data is found that does not fit into any known category, and existing categories cannot be refined to accommodate the new data. So a new category is established.
With MBTI, it's impossible for there to ever be new data. There's no possibility, whatsoever, for a person to take an MBTI test and have it fail to sort you into a category. A drunken monkey could whack keys on the keyboard and MBTI will assign a personality type and generate a nice feel-good description of what he's like as a person (even though he's not even a person).
>In general I feel like this comes down to a circular argument
No. There is no argument. These are fundamental scientific principles.
For someone so concerned with the endless modularity of a system regardless of whether or not it's practical or necessary your own thinking sure is confined.
So for taxonomy new data can be found and you can just make a new category and it's still the same old taxonomy. And taxonomy is great because there's a lot of categories and bigger number = good and science.
But for MBTI if you added new data it wouldn't be MBTI anymore just because. Not that it matters because apparently it's impossible for there to ever be new data anyway. 16 categories isn't enough because that's not a big enough number. The system is bad because it's not modular enough but there's also no reason why it should be more modular.
Your argument just isn't convincing in the slightest anon.
Not him but big 5 is quite different and simply covers more of what clinicians would like to know for diagnostic purposes. For instance, your Jungian or Meyers-Briggs evaluation is expressing your cognitive stack and ways that you probably like or don't like to process reality. Whether you're primarily thinking or feeling or whatever, that won't translate into how likely you are to need one therapeutic intervention or another. Being high in Big 5 neuroticism is more useful in that regard, but it would also cut across all Jungian types.
So basically because Big 5 can be better instrumentalized it will be preferred when it comes to extracting results for scientific purposes--which itself is about putting statistically significant numbers into tables with explanations attached so other people can reference it and do something similar themselves.
now check how well MBTI types correlate with Big 5 dimensions, smartass. there's a few papers about it.
the only thing more annoying than the personality-types homosexuals is the anti-personality-types homosexuals.
I don't see why Big 5 being a low-sodium-derivative of MBTI is a bad thing, it has it's purposes. Most people don't know the origins of these thangs.
Does typology piss you off, or do you just find the usual crowd around it annoying?
Jung's ideas are just as valid as the big five, both can legitimately determine aspects of your personality quite accurate, the big five ist just the result of modern empirical data collection&anaylsis autism while Jung's one is the result of decades of psychotherapeutic practice. The big five was also developed for the purpose of capitalistic categorization of people especially useful for big corporations, while Jung develeoped his ideas as to create an as much as possible holicstic categorization of human personality.
>Jung's ideas are just as valid as the big fiv
MBTI is a facile take on Jung's ideas, though, made by grifters and popularized by people who specifically want a test that doesn't actually tell you anything but makes people feels good.
yes
big 5 is better suited to evaluating the value of an employee. mbti has too many contradictions to be a real psych metric. there are better metrics than mbti or big 5.
I prefer horoscopes tph
I think there are some pretty stark dichotomies when the cognitive functions are used in a vacuum, but I don't think life actually allows for much of that. This becomes especially tricky when you consider that all the functions are used at one time or another, to one degree or another, regardless of type, based on the situation at hand and our personal histories. I think it's reasonable to assume then that people have a natural tendency to use a particular set of functions perhaps out of habit or whatever. Thus we get type based on what we use and neglect.
Tests are notoriously unreliable because it seems like many people have a desire to display socially desirable traits, thereby using them incorrectly, or because people are not very self aware.
I don't know much about the topic, maybe more than the average bear, but I suspect that I'm on the intuitive side. Perhaps an INFP or something? I think I use the Fi-Te and Ne-Si axes, but I'm not sure.
I forgot to mention that 16personalites is utter garbage by the way. Almost everyone gets INFJ, INTJ, and INFP on that fricking thing.
No they don't anon. You are apparently encountering for the first time what is known as a selection bias.
>Could a person place themselves in a category without it altering their behavior
Quite simply no. But you realize a person chooses what they want to be based on what they already are? Just as they do everything based on what they already are. And what they already are was likely chosen in the past.
You seem to be stuck in the argument between being and becoming. Eventually you will understand all things are both being and becoming.
>Does this shit hold any legitimacy whatsoever
No. It's horoscopes for midwidts who don't believe in astrology.
> Is this really astrology-tier-ego-games,
Yes.
There are 16 boxes with just the right balance of specifics and ambiguity that most people can easily fit themselves in at least half of them. The MBTI tests will in fact, accurately sort you into categories with people who answered test questions the same way as you. Whatever that actually means is not the same as what the category results and descriptions pretend it means.
Sure, that's the same way I've been seeing the system for quite a while, but are rigid categorizations of the human mind POSSIBLE in this way, and MBTI just mishandles it, or is it misguided to seek that out to begin with? That's my question.
I have never know what FWIW means. I have always read it was "fwiggy wiggy iffy wiffy." I couldn't tell you why.
From what I know, the Enneagram is based on fears and childhood traumas, right? I find it palatable as a system, as those things are deep-rooted parts of the human psyche, but I want to explore the raw nature of a mind more than I want to indulge in the nurtured responses to experiences growing up, which is what Enneagram covers in spades.
I have no idea why there's so much animosity between Big 5 and MBTI. They seem fairly analogous, just with the selected spread of traits gerrymandered for different applications and environments.
While you think this is an anti-mbti argument, this is primarily an anti-test-based-categorization argument, which I agree with. There's nothing preventing a new psychologist from writing a paper about additional hypothetical categorizations of MBTI types, expanding the grid, a fifth axis like Big 5, or wing types like Enneagram. It's just that... we haven't.
Because personality types are not the sum total of a person. Additionally, none of your experiences are wholly unique, while nearly all are partially unique. That's like mate.
>They seem fairly analogous
They aren't, though.
My feeling is that big-5 is a flawed model but at least it's an attempt at a real model and not a mere gimmick. It doesn't presume to be a classification system and doesn't editorialize the descriptions attached to each category. It takes an open, observational approach that attempts to identify individual traits. These traits have been further broken down into subfactors and the model remains open to adjustment, fleshing-out and updating as we learn more about the human mind. The specific categories are more discrete and well-defined. Traits like openness and neuroticism align more closely with observable differences in real people than the more obscure Jungian concepts like Judging/Perceiving and Thinking/Feeling dichotomies. Then there's sensing/intuition which isn't even reasonably a dichotomy at all.
>are rigid categorizations of the human mind POSSIBLE in this way,
Probably not in the way that you are thinking. Human behavior is just too complex, adaptable and malleable.
>But for MBTI if you added new data it wouldn't be MBTI anymore just because.
It literally can't. There are 4 binary assessments, that's it. It's all based on Meyers and Briggs inspirations from reading Jung and doesn't serve as any kind of basis for expansion or development.
FWIW = for what it's worth
Big Five and the Enneagram were both insightful. My girlfriend and I figured out our enneagram types and watched videos about them and it was pretty incredible how spot on they were. When I listened to *other* enneagram types on the other end, I found myself not relating to their life experience or perception of the world... But when I heard mine, I heard people articulate things that I've never heard another soul touch upon. I felt less alone. 5w4 btw.
FWIW, I don't give a shit about horoscopes and have never considered myself a woo-woo crystal-clutcher.
If personality types are real, then why is my experience unique?
5w4 summaries read more about the author than the subject. When I read such things they make it too specific such that there is not full coverage of the entire range.
What makes you think your experience is unique?
Never felt more unalive in the thrum of human living IN MY LIFE
Everything you're feeling is common, even though you've never felt so alone.
I concur with both, but the question remains; is MBTI a half-decent categorization system? The horsocope is also a categorization system, it has structure and some measure of internal consistency, but it's relation to human behavior is arguably nonexistent; ergo, bad system.
Finding out I was an INTJ and what that implies was my first step to accepting that I will never have sex. MBTI also gives you a sense of "distance", ie how far other peoples' minds are from yours.
Pfft. You can fake your personality all you want. Being an INTJ should make you pretty good at playing people too. The distance is a good point as well; even if you're not sure what your type is, the broader strokes help us understand our inclinations. Even just the T/F binary can bring much clarity.
Seems like you approve of Big 5 for the same reasons it bores me. As I said, I can see it's purpose, but it's just not... interesting. Possibly-petty-entertainment-based-motivations-of-mine aside, I think there's potential for rigid categorization of starting points; proclivities. Not anything that could account for myriad acts of random will, but enough to understand the starting points of any given person. I approve of MBTI's structure immensely, but it's components, the bricks it builds with, they rub me the wrong way. I feel there's something in between the hyper-conceptual Jungian Functions and hyper-practical Big 5 that could be exquisite, it just hasn't been hacked out yet.
>I think there's potential for rigid categorization of starting points; proclivities.
Most of the starting points are going to appear universal. What proclivities separate humans from chimps, for example? In fact it's an interesting question as to why Neanderthals went extinct in favor of homosexual Sapiens, despite not finding any obvious physical differences that would explain it. It was possibly something about homosexual sapiens practice of long-distance trade. Unfortunately we don't have any living Neanderthals to observe (merely traces of their DNA in some races of modern human).
And most likely, when you do find a reliable, distinguishing trait that forms a distinct category, it's going to be something simple and fundamental that doesn't tell you anything exciting, because everything meaningful builds off that trait in different ways. Hippos are classified with goats and whales (Artiodactyl) but not rhinos or horses (Perissodactyla). It just has to do with the way their toes evolved.
Are INTJs far distant? The stereotypes seem to include them in a symbiotic way. As one myself I feel very distant from others but mostly in architectural differences not expressed in mbti. Distance from others could be a parameter in of itself since it implicates much so heavily. I long for a twin or some other relative of my understanding, but it could also be its own mirage in the desert.
INTJ's dominant function, Ni, is the least common function. The most common function, Si, is the furthest thing from it and basically defines the normie worldview. Being an INTJ is a constant struggle with being misunderstood. This is made doubly hard because we have Fe as our blind function, meaning we're bad at reading how other people feel and so accidentally step on toes a lot.
>The most common function, Si
I'm fairly certain Se is the most common function.
Nope, according to the MBTI Foundation the most common type is ISTJ. ISTP is second most, followed by ESTJ and ISFJ. So it's not totally one sided. Sensors are by far more common than intuitives, and the four xNxJ types are the rarest of all. Source: https://www.psychologyjunkie.com/how-rare-is-your-myers-briggs-personality-type/
>IN types are rare
>Everyone on the internet claims to be one
Why is it these types are seem as "the best"?
>INxx types are more likely to be into personality theory
>Online tests bias towards INxx typings
>INxx types hang out online all the time.
Outside of the internet most INxxs are outcasts.
Because online discourse and test bias make extroverts look like party animals with no sense of introspection and sensors look like morons who can't conceptualize shit.
David Foster Wallace was an ENTP
Maynard James Keenan is ISFP.
Magnus Carlsen is ISTP
Numerous writers from Dickens to Twain were ENFP
Christopher Langan is ESTP
Etc.
DFW was an INFP who presented as an ENTP
You cannot convince me otherwise
they are more interested in themselves than in the outside world... which is a bit of a paradox, yet they wouldn't classify the internet as "outside world", validating said paradox
at the beginning of quantitative stuff (psychology / psychiatry) introversion was even considered a disease
the truth of the matter is that extraverts would be bored without introverts existing
Older data has Si as even more common
>Finding out I was an INTJ and what that implies was my first step to accepting that I will never have sex.
Care to elaborate on that? I tested as an INTJ recently, but I haven't really delved into what it implies beyond the walls of text on the website. I also haven't had sex.
INTJ is lizardbrain. If you're smart enough in an EQ sense you can pretend not to be a lizard, but you and I are fricked.
INTJ/A checking in, reptilian mind is superior. Embrace what you are.
INTJ is ranked as the second most attractive type after ENFP. If you're successful then you can learn to leverage INTJ qualities. Remember that Pride and Prejudice's Mr Darcy is an INTJ character and every woman on earth has creamed herself to the thought of him.
>after ENFP.
ENFPs aren't attractive. Se doms are.
In your (shit) opinion perhaps. I'm speaking to averages.
You're speaking of your own bullshit preference. Ne doms act like they're on crack. They're annoying.
Yeah and that's interesting because it synergises with my dom Ni. Se is boring as frick, Se doms are like a less lovable dog.
in a world where every single attempt that comes from our brain to establish categories to sort out the input of experience is, at best, a very narrow and limited attempt to grasp a enourmus amount of data into computable pieces, then yea sure, mbti is one of those attempts. if your question is "how does it compare to other models", then the other anon tyring to explain the psychometrical approach of models such as big 5 can give you the clue that such comparisons are difficult, if not entirely unaproachable, becase different models conceptualize and work through the "data" part of the equation differently. mbti for example is neither a psychometric instrument nor a hierarchycal based model, therefor to try and compare it against a model that IS those things is somewhat pointless.
i think you make a mistake when you narrow down the preference of researches today in using big-5 models rather than type-based models. it is cheap to apply, and somewhat cheap to get the scores (which is the data that will feed the research) but research does not "interpret" the results in the way you might be thinking about. data is read in a statiscal way, it is not interpreted as a singular therapist might "interpret" some test (such as mbti or rorschach), interpretation that has to take into consideration all the possible nuances and specifics of your personal and individual life. as far as i am aware, mbti does not even do that, it gives you a simple score and a standard prompt of what such score means (but not specificaly to you)
research is about describing general trends of behaviour in population under certain circumsntances, with the hope of gathering enough data to be able to make generalizable statements about human behaviour, its about tracking down the particularities and similarities between groups.when big 5 talks about neuroticism, is not talking about your particular instantiation of such trait in the complexity of your life. is only talking about a general descriptor of conduct that only makes sense when you also take into consideration the other.
the other 4 traits*
>preference of researches today in using big-5 models rather than type-based models
i do not believe in the trait vs type dichotomy... after all "type" is just a trait preference linked to a task... change the task, change the type lol
that being said, MBTI captures relevant aspects about human existence: general information processing style and sexual reproduction preference; those "trickle" down in all tasks, so unless you want to purposefully abuse your employees, it should be a good measure
It can have some legitimacy, while the criticisms you make of people treating it like astrological horoscopes are also valid.
MBTI is simply based off of:
Extraversion-introversion scale (are you more extroverted, gaining pleasure and energy from being around people, or introverted, favoring solitude or becoming exhausted more easily when around many people?)
Intuition vs. sensing as dominant functions (sensing = more practical, immediate, concluding things based on what you can sense or measure about it without intuition)
Thinking vs. feeling as dominant functions (more emotional, or more thinking?)
Perceiving vs. judging as dominant functions (to have P as dominant suggests an open-mindedness of just perceiving and taking in things as they are, J as dominant obviously suggests you judge things more, not just observing things without commentary or even criticism)
Simple as that. Now, you can argue up and down till you’re blue, “What if it’s on a sliding scale? What if one is close to the middle? What if this changes based on one mood or life experiences?” Etc. Doesn’t change the fact it’s a useful heuristic for determining what people are like, and also most people who take the tests stay surprisingly consistent across it, even when taking it years apart and not having any intention to try to get the same “type”. It also allows for nuance/a sliding-scale type gradation. I don’t get why it’s so lambasted compared to the Big Five (OCEAN) personality typology, which simply chooses a different (but overlapping in some areas) five personality traits to judge people on a sliding scale on.
Is virulent anti-Jungianism? Are they so mad he poked at the sacred cows of materialism and secularism, that they have to virulently dismiss something even based off his works and thoughts as “pseudoscience”? It’s interesting how staunchly critical the establishment is of something so relatively innocuous and harmless, while mainstream psychology & psychiatry in the West still has us giving amphetamines, antidepressants, benzos, antipsychotics and the like to select mental patients, including children, but there’s nowhere near as much mainstream furore about that being “pseudoscientific”.
>Doesn’t change the fact it’s a useful heuristic for determining what people are like
It's not, though.
It usually gives you a good idea of extraversion and introversion, so long as people accurately assess their own behavior for the test. That's about it. The rest is basically total bullshit.
RULE 1: No system of categorization is perfect
RULE 2: Categories are still good and necessary
If you don't accept both rules you may be moronic
It has as much validity as online quizzes which tell you which Harry Potter house you belong in. You answer a bunch of questions like "do you like taking it up the butthole?" You give a 5 on a scale 1 - 5. "Do you like giving it up the butthole?" You give a 1 on scale 1 -5. For some reason, you think it's providing mysterious insight when it tells you you like to take it up the ass. moron.
The issues with online tests pretending to give you accurate type-results are not the same as the issues with typological systems as a whole. Tests aren't worth a damn. The system itself may be legitimate despite that, I believe it is.
Not THAT far back to the start. Feeling dominance vs Thinking dominance is a solid example; not all feelers will act the same, but the starting proclivity to rely on emotional reasoning over logical reasoning is present.
What's different? The "typological system" asks people whether they prefer ideas or sensations, then it sorts them into idea-types and sense-types. You could create a similar system from any series of dichotomies. The kind of legitimacy you're suggesting it possesses, then, is the suggestion is that these dichotomies specifically reflect the most fundamental dichotomies underlying how human beings perceive and judge the world. Proof for that?
Tests are shit for a specific reason: In order for something as complex as typology to be explored, the questions must be complex. In order for mathematical values to be placed on a yes/no answer, the questions need to be simple. Catch22. Say someone disagrees with both possible answers; say someone agrees with both possible answers; these two people would still select the middle option, despite feeling opposite to each other. That's a failure to capture the nuance of individuals answering questions like this. That on top of how sloppy phrasing usually is makes tests objectively failures. A psychologist could diagnose a patient after a long conversation exploring those nuances, and no information would be lost in the mix, comparatively.
>The kind of legitimacy you are suggesting is possesses demands that these selected dichotomies are the most fundamental dichotomies
They have no need to be the most fundamental at all; they only need to be dichotomies which exist in the human mind. Typology can only cover limited scope; the more specialized a system, the more accurate the results. Inversely, the more general the system, the more likely it is that every person living will fall under it, which is it's own kind of accuracy. Middleground typological systems which categorize in specificity, but not granularity, are the weakest systems, but also the most common.
The only requirement for a categorical system to be sound is internal consistency; the only requirement for a categorical system to be accurate is that the traits it measures and the source it derives them from have correlation. (Astrology fails here; nothing suggests date of birth correlates to personality. Everything suggests the human brain defines personality.)
I am not claiming MBTI is a series of dichotomies which encapsulate the basest essence of humanity, only that those dichotomies do exist in humanity, in general.
It sounds like you're a feeling type, mate. Some people are legitimately stone cold stoics who weigh things logically, weighing how they feel against it as a contrast, at best. Does it have biological correlation? Obviously, but so does every single thing that happens in this biological body of ours. That doesn't delegitimize the idea of people more prone to logical reasoning over emotional reasoning.
>It sounds like you're a feeling type, mate.
Most people wouldn't consider me one. I've actually been called a vulcan IRL.
>Some people are legitimately stone cold stoics who weigh things logically
No, they aren't. They may think they are. They may in fact be more rational than their peers. Although in many cases, people who think they are highly rational are just very good at rationalizing what their impulses suggest they do.
But people are always driven first by emotions and instinct. If we weren't, we wouldn't be able to function. We'd be absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of "logical" thinking we'd have to do just to get through the day. Instead what happens is that emotions and subconscious reactions guide us constantly in various different ways. Just entering a cluttered room vs a clean room can change how you feel and how you process subsequent stimuli.
But people can then apply executive function to override the impulses. You can even apply willpower and logic to change your own impulses and condition yourself to respond differently. But, the emotional, feelings-based impulses are the primary guides. There's no personality-level difference that changes whether or not someone is guided by emotions and feelings or not. Everyone is.
For any given decision, a person may act based on reason or emotion. So that is usually a binary question (although again, people sometimes think they are making a rational decision that is in fact rationalized). But there is no fundamental personality trait that makes someone "logical-first" vs "emotion-first." Everyone is emotion-first by default but some people are better at overriding emotions with logic (or feel impulses less powerfully in the first place and so have an easier time overriding them)
>Feeling dominance vs Thinking dominance is a solid example; not all feelers will act the same, but the starting proclivity to rely on emotional reasoning over logical reasoning is present.
Everyone is primarily emotion-driven. If you're not it means you have a severe psychiatric condition.
There's no fundamental dichotomy here. There's just people with lower neuroticism or stronger/more active executive function.
astrology for men
>Does this shit hold any legitimacy whatsoever?
yea
>I've always found human categorization interesting, and categorizing human behavior patterns seems feasible, but every fricking place I've ever seen talk about MBTI or Enneagram or whatever is full of people who seem to use it like a pattern for them to reflect to become a more 'pure' expression of that-type-that-they-think-they-are, instead of a reflection of the behavior they already exhibit.
nobody gives a shit about you, homosexual
>Could a person place themselves in a category without it altering their behavior, or is the self-observation a self-fulfilling-prophecy?
depends on the person
>Is this really astrology-tier-ego-games, or is it just that it appeals to the people who are like that already?
depends on how you define "astrology-tier-ego-games" but by the use of the word "ego" I can already say that you appreciate people who lay huge steaming piles of shit in the middle of the street...
Not OP but ego is exactly how MBTI appeals to people. It doesn't tell you something like "you're pushy and selfish," it extrapolates positive qualities from mumbo jumbo about judging and perceiving and sensing and so on.
there is no such thing as "ego"
that's some street shitter concept
>It doesn't tell you something like "you're pushy and selfish," it extrapolates positive qualities from mumbo jumbo about judging and perceiving and sensing and so on.
do you think a person behaving like a sterotypical gypsy ("pushy and selfish") would gain anything if you said that to him or her? yeah that person would probably gain pride
meanwhile if you find a true and positive aspect, after some time that person may consider it a valid alternative to the behavior exhibited
>they only like Big 5 because it's measurable
the issue is not that it's measurable but that it's cheap to apply and cheap to interpret... if you had infinite money and infinite time surely you would apply MBTI to all your employees and/or candidates... but then again the best would be too meet each one in person and decide for yourself, using your brain, heart, and gut instincts
it's fairly evident that MBTI (and similar approaches) lies between these two extremes
>there is no such thing as "ego"
Yes there is and either way you can fully derive relevant meaning from context whether you like the term or not. Nitpicking irrelevant semantics is moron tier.
this "ego" is an ugly nit, and talking about it is probably as bad as sterotypical gypsies shouting swearwords all day long and literally shitting in the middle of the street
so it's a nit well worth picking -- stop before you fully turn into a stereotypical gypsy 😉
You're trying really hard to avoid comprehension for some reason.
Another black hole of a shitpost. Great job so far.
Corporations use MBTI specifically because the results have no predictive value. It's a political issue, they don't want real results and recommendations getting in the way of what they've already decided they want to do.
if it has to have predictive value or not is stated in the brief that lead to the selection of the psychometric test
second, corporations do whatever they like, even if that makes little b***hes like you turn into a salt crystal
I'm not salty about anything, but you seem awfully upset that I don't agree with your inane blabbing.
so you were just pretending to be a moron? ugh
there is nothing wrong if people type themselves as long as they keep at it for enough time to develop context and come out on the other side
a better advice than your "my head is stuck up my ass but I am proud of it!" argument is for them to read Jung's work on type (practically his last serious work of psychology before a long hiatus) and enjoy the work of professionals in the field
it's all about knowing oneself
>Does this shit hold any legitimacy whatsoever?
to a certain degree probably. I can understand the view that it's pseudoscience, "male horoscope" bullshit but whenever I've taken a mbti test I've always, I want to stress always here, always gotten INTJ. with that much consistency over idk 6-7 years of even knowing about this shit it would be dumb for me to just write it off as nothing.
They key is that what this tells you is that you are classified as a person who always gets INTJ. That's all it tells you. You answer these test questions the same way every time, or at least pretty close to it.
Where MBTI goes off the rails is pretending to be able to predict various details of your true, innate personality based on your answers to the test.
>You answer these test questions the same way every time, or at least pretty close to it.
>Unfortunately, irritatingly, testing consistency just means you answer the questions consistently in the same manner.
did the test again. picrel. idk, my feelings are still mixed about this.
Unfortunately, irritatingly, testing consistency just means you answer the questions consistently in the same manner. Some peeps don't; neither guarantees sincerity, or like I keep saying, that the test is mathematically weighing your answers in the way you intended.
Instinct and impulse are not equivalent to emotions, though. Its like you're saying "no walls are ever glossy or matte, deep down, they're all covered in primer." Well, yeah man, but we're talking about binary choices beyond singular baselines. Of course we all function on instinct at first, but that isn't what being a feeling type is about. Also, reason and emotion aren't opposites; that's logic and emotion. Logical reasoning and emotional reasoning are both rational.
That's how it's been modernized and more importantly commercialized, yeah, but it wasn't so poisonously optimistic in the original texts. Jung is pretty negative on some types.
Good posts. Largely concur, though in reference to 'place themselves in a category', I moreso was asking if a person can think "I fit in the Square Hole" without instinctively acting more Squarely than prior? Observation bias, and all that.
Oh, in that case yes, ego can push people towards outwardly acting the way they think they 'should' act, but this will cause a psychic tension within them against their unconscious. This goes for any label - it risks fake identity because too many people don't make their nature and feeling primary.
Right, that was the possibility I was considering; but could a person identify as a type and NOT experience that psychic tension? If it's impossible to avoid, would that not make typology as a whole only useful in an observer's capacity; a third party tool, useless to an individual?
16 Personalities is very nearly just Big 5 wearing a MBTI skinsuit, but regardless, it just means you test consistently. There's even entire blogs discussing what each type most commonly mistypes themselves as; the best way to determine your type is to research type descriptions and reflect on your own behavior.
I agree, but I'd also say that some modernization is needed for it to be relatively accessible to people who aren't scholar-tier. Naturally there's not much to be done for midwits, but there's quite a lot of vagary, things blurred in translation and aging of the original text, and most importantly, based on misunderstandings of biological truths. The idea that another mind should carry forward that work, adapt it and improve upon it, that is sound; it's just that MBTI is a poor answer to that call.
Sure, agreed on most counts, but do you think a real and accurate categorization system exists that has yet to be discovered or ideated, possibly to never be fully grasped by the human mind, that has enough simplicity to memorize but enough complexity to broadly categorize human nature? Is the idea of a True Category possible, with MBTI being a-not-so-shining-attempt at discovering it?
>Change the task, change the type
Nah, nah. It'd be "change the task, change the system." Once we move beyond MBTI's relevance, we need a new typological framework.
Get rekt, avatar gay. YWNBAW.
Not a troon, just a gay. How am I supposed to be getting rekt?
>Nah, nah. It'd be "change the task, change the system." Once we move beyond MBTI's
i didn't talk about MBTI in that paragraph
go slap yourself for being inattentive
Well, any system works for this. Once we move beyond (SYSTEM A)'s scope, we need a new system. I assumed MBTI because you mentioned it in the next line.
No, i dont belive such model could exist because there is enough variance in any given population that the ideal system you are suggesting wpuld essentially be a 1:1 map of an individual, that could not be neither generalized nor extrapolated towards anything else but that individual. That sort of ideal, a model that could account for all the variance that composes any given phenomena, would have a severely problem in defining its cut off point. For you to define real and accurate, where do you draw the line? How much data would you gather, and of what kind? On the other hand, if you yourself are proposing to think about a model that is beyond human comprehension, you just as well call the god card and call it a day.
Again, imo mbti, just like any other attempt to present a model that describes human behaviour is by default an observation based on narrow set of parameters, and therefor always and inevitably incomplete. How incomplete, depends on your own standards pf what is acceptable or not. As a research tool (as in a scientifically verifyable tool) its a subpar tool, and big 5 is by far more useful for the tasks researchers aim towards too
Well, that unnecessarily assumes that such a system must be entirely capable of describing every living being in perfect accuracy. That is not the point. The binary category system of biological sex works perfectly, despite the existence of intersex people (outliers). The categorization of ethnicity works rather well, despite mixed ethnicities being possible. They are also true; ethnicity exists, sexual dimorphism exists, and surely people must have common traits in enough consistency that we could create broad categories of the human mind.
I agree that any system will be incomplete, but can it be thorough-to-the-point-of-clarity, where full 'completion' does nothing further to enhance it's usefulness?
Then pick a line and draw your sand castle upon it. You want to claim mbti is good enough, go ahead. Others will have different claims, and that will be ok too.
I'm more interested in discussing it than deciding it. It's not like this will be a thread that decides the truth for all people, for all time. Just a means to discuss it's strengths and weaknesses.
Sure, i understand the sentiment, the subject itself is pretty interesting to me as well. And it is somewhat dissapointing that current individual differences research has somewhat altogether shelved models that are not language based (again, essentially because language based models go hand in hand with current statistical models); even though for generations our most basic intuitions and approaches towards the question of human behaviour has been more in line with “type” models, essentially because they are heuristical in nature. Them again, i do believe this is the case because of the limitations inherent to the scientific approach in itself, we can only reliably account for a very small number of variables in order to accurately compute and (linearly or multilibearly) predict outcomes under statistical models. Heuristic models usually have the balls (and the gall) to set variables that are very difficult to define, let alone measure (like the influence of the position of the stars upon out birth date, or undefinable -or perhaps very loosely and vaguely definable -forces within our psyche), which is something that most scientificaly driven people tend to avoid.
You can also think about both or any model as a massive oversimplification of the stupidly large complexity of any given phenomena, in which human behaviour is but a small subset of the whole. And as such, its imo reasonable to see that even those simplifications will be affected by biases that are psychological in nature. Jung himself noted this when he wrote psychological types: any given type can be thought as a psychological meta-structure that is aprioristicaly (archetypicaly) biased in one eay or another, he just happened to call one such direction of bias “intraversion” and “extraversion” the other, and he also speculated in regards to the limits of such bias, as in how far and how deep the conflicts between those worldviews go. He thought that the divide was so deep that the only “true” solution was a transformation process within the individual towards integration, but his position was (and is) so abstract and detached from actual behaviour, that he could only talk about this through metaphors and images, within the language of dream and almost divine abstraction.
Some damn good points made. Most specifically, how most successful models are built on these vaguely defined ideas; the imprecise nature of things like intuition allows for, weirdly, a much firmer idea of type and category. Maybe the issue isn't the messiness of categorizing people, but the messiness of knowing what people are to begin with, how to understand them wholesale. If we had a less-nebulous way of describing human behavior, the idea of categorizing them would be easier. We need blurry defining lines for a blurry subject matter, so we can ensure we misunderstand the lines the same way we misunderstand the subjects.
Maybe crystal clear lines do exist, but can't be inferred until we somehow understand ourselves fully. Which would be impossible. I don't think a consciousness can totally comprehend itself in any situation.
>Right, that was the possibility I was considering; but could a person identify as a type and NOT experience that psychic tension? If it's impossible to avoid, would that not make typology as a whole only useful in an observer's capacity; a third party tool, useless to an individual?
If its the wrong type no, because you cannot choose your unconscious makeup. Typology is still plenty useful to individuals, it tells you your strengths and weaknesses, makes you more aware of your approaches and potential alternative approaches.
MBTI is highly accurate and useful and is the ultimate midwit filter. Once you learn the cognitive functions even the barest bit of introspection shows that they're seriously onto something. But NPCs and midwits are incapable of introspection, so they'll call it astrology or something.
It gives you a model and language that is immensely helpful for understanding yourself and others. I've found it hugely helpful having friends into MBTI, because then we can make sense of each other's quirks, struggles etc.
>but actual psychologists use Big 5
Mainstream psychologists use psychometrics, they only like Big 5 because it's measurable. But Big 5 is hot dog shit that tells you absolutely nothing profound.
There are non-mainstream psychologists, neuroscientists etc who use MBTI.
>its ambiguity and cold reading
Bullshit. If you can't see a clear difference between a Te and Ti description or an Ni and Se description you're a fricking moron.
As to your question OP, people don't place themselves into the category. The category is a description of the person, which will have some degree of accuracy. Your question is like asking if a fish can place itself into the bird category of animal taxonomy.
The problem is that P.T. has been taken over by the tumblr community, who has turned the system into astrology.
Let me be clear: Myers-Briggs is bullshit; Psychological types, as written by Jung, is not.
'Gifts Differing' is a book so useless the pages are worth being used as bathroom tissue.
>"This guy daydreams and writes poems? Such an INFP lmfao"
>"This guy listens to other people and cares about his community? Total ISFJ."
It is difficult to type oneself, but impossible to type another because we aren't 100% certain how they perceive and judge information.
You know Jung created the typing system based on observations of other people right? It's not that hard to type others.
I wasn't clear.
Jung spent many intimate sessions with people -- hearing things they probably never told anyone else. His research was based on countless hours of observation and interaction with numerous people.
This is different than watching an actor on Jimmy Fallon or reading a Vanity Fair interview and concluding this person is their persona concocted by a PR team.
Ok yeah that sort of thing is bollocks. Still when you have deeper material like books it's fascinating to see people's personality types shine through. A large part of Thomas Hobbes' philosophy is just describing Si.
>Let me be clear: Myers-Briggs is bullshit; Psychological types, as written by Jung, is not.
It is, though, sort of.
Jung himself wasn't engaged in bullshitting. He was legitimate for the time. His approach to study and way of thinking is historically important but many of his specific ideas and assessments are flawed and misleading, based on mistaken assumptions about how the underlying biological systems work in practice.
>RULE 2: Categories are still good and necessary
Not true, definitely not a rule. Bad, misleading categories are usually worse than no categories at all.
I don't find the 16personalities test to be accurate, so there are some two good ones I take which I found good:
keys2cognition.com/explore.htm
jupiter-34.appspot.com
Let me tell you that anhedonia is a bad move unless you're a trained professional. It sounds very obvious laying it out, but it makes your lifestyle quite dull. And probably it would make sense even if you are not anhedonic to regularly taste for your interests.
What is Cillian Murphy's type? I thought he was INFP?
This is the bug telling you you're not an Fi user because you doubt yourself.
That's right, the turtle homie from Sly Cooper
Meyers-Briggs tests are absolute nonsense. It has nothing to do with Jung's psychological types.