The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

 

"The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is an introspective self-report questionnaire with the purpose of indicating differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world around them and make decisions.^[1][2][3]

The MBTI was constructed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. It is based on the conceptual theory proposed by Carl Jung,^[4] who had speculated that humans experience the world using four principal psychological functions – sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking – and that one of these four functions is dominant for a person most of the time.^[5]

The MBTI was constructed for normal populations and emphasizes the value of naturally occurring differences.^[6] "The underlying assumption of the MBTI is that we all have specific preferences in the way we construe our experiences, and these preferences underlie our interests, needs, values, and motivation.""  wiki

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The MBTI personality classification test has many detractors but I am not among them.  I tend to classify people on this basis and from empirical observation this  classification is fruitful.  I use this test a lot as well as its descriptive terms so I have thought to provide this reference.  pl  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator

Comments

[Degringolade]

Well then: That made me smile.

I am a half/half INTJ/ENTJ. Never have figured out if I was introverted or not.

[shepherd]

We can now test things like MBTI using global data from social networks. What we've found, generally, is that most personality test systems hold up fairly well under data scrutiny. The detractors are simply wrong, at least at scale. The Big Five (OCEAN) typically fares better than MBTI, but both are good, rough and ready systems for understanding, predicting, and influencing mass behavior.

Cambridge Analytica, which has been dragged into the Trump thing, is a small firm that provides Facebook targeting based on OCEAN personality profiles. They've been imagined to have some exotic capability, but personality tests is what they really do, and they are hardly the only people doing it.

[Eric Newhill]

Sir,
I always kind of dismissed the test off hand. I don't know why, but I did. When it came up on the UFO thread - and I was having a slow week at work - I looked into the background of the test, validity, interpretations, etc. and have decided that it is meaningful and useful after all. Also, I was inspired to delve into it more because you appeared to put stock in it.

I have always come up INTJ. Now that I've explored what that means, I have gained some helpful insight into myself.

So, thank you.

[Clueless Joe]

I'm very wary of psy tests, and they usually display ridiculous results when I take them. MBTI is actually the only time I ever saw one that was remotely close to reality, and it was actually quite spot on.
Clueless INTJ reporting for duty

[Elrond]

Here is a good book that elaborates on Meyers-Briggs. There are others but I like this one the best for the detailed breakdown. It casts light on how the typology applies to inter-personal relationships.

*Please Understand Me*
https://www.amazon.com/Please-Understand-Me-Character-Temperament/dp/0960695400/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521218092&sr=1-2

[kao_hsien_chih]

Nothing really magical or mysterious about MBTI, I think.

The questionnaire simply asks about thinking/behavior patterns and the results merely add up the responses given by the subject in a neat summary form. The types are a good predictor of how people think/behave since they are based on what the respondents said about themselves. Since it is much harder for people to change how they think, rather than what they think, MBTI is probably a much better way of evaluating people than on the basis of what they know/believe.

[LeaNder]

the Statistician declares. ;)

Pleased you are around, kao. No need for double emphasis.: "engineer" ( plus further - p.c.? - relativization).

Nature or Nurture?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_engineering

Now the "engineers" you may have in mind, if you aren't feeling superior, are a much bigger debate. Why condemn them to be the single cogs in a larger not so well running wheel? I know many, many rather well paid cogs in the larger wheel. Times no doubt seemed more easy then, thus maybe the task was easier?

[Stefan]

Colonel, I know it's off topic, but what do you think of the recent op-ed by Rice in the nytimes regarding Afghanistan?

pretty honest for a member of the Borg no?

[A.Pols]

Of course you have to give authentic answers for it to work.
I found it pretty accurate, even if in ways that were unflattering, or should I say not conforming to my idealized and maybe aspirational view of myself.

[Covergirl]

You should read up on your Jung. Quite an interesting and thoughtful man.

[BLL]

When I was in highs school my mother arranged for me to take a test to see whT my interest in life was and to help select a college and career one question was would I rather be an usher in a movie theater or a cowboy herding cattle. Raised in Brooklyn and suburban NJ I had been too lots of movies and thought it would be fun to be a cowboy. So they told her I was not social oriented and should be an engineer. I went to Newark Colle of Engineering also known as N E C which we said reall stood for no college education. I was not require tto take a foreign language or English. I hated it and when I graduated just barely and to law school. Pat knows I’m a lawyer. I work with “people” all the time. So I am not fond of such tests.

[Mark Logan]

Most of the discrediting seems to stem from folks who confuse it with a complete psych work-up. I offered to foot the bill for any employee who wished to take it, but I let them keep the results to themselves if they chose too. Naturally, they did not. Naturally, the spent the boss's nickel too.

My goal was only to start conversation over how different people are hardwired to process things differently, seeking to stem some of the needless s-fighting from personality clashes.

I'm convinced it actually helped, here and there anyway.

[kao_hsien_chih]

LeaNder,

I don't think I'm being hostile to "engineers," per se. But I do have a bit of stereotype of the "ultimate" engineer, in the form of a US Navy nuclear engineer that I met some time ago(much more than other people with engineering degrees I know). The focus of how Navy trained engineers was to develop people who knew what to do when a given problem arises in a methodical and "formulaic" way very efficiently and very fast. They were not there to make new "discoveries" about nuclear power on a submarine. They were there so that, if a known problem arises (and there aren't that many problems that could arise under practical circumstances that we don't know yet, as he emphasized), they would know how to apply a known and established practical solution fast and effectively. Absolutely no time to waste on trying to go out of box and meander about things not in the manual, so to speak, and indeed, people who didn't go by the books and formulas tended not to make it through the Navy training--he pointed to another applicant who was a very good engineering student who couldn't make it because he just couldn't put up with the super practical and regimented way the Navy ran the program. BUT, after hearing the way the Navy guy describe the program, I could not disagree that, given the needs of the Navy, this was exactly the kind of solution they needed for the challenge on hand. The problem that I could see is that this approach to the solution did not necessarily translate to other problems, e.g. policymaking and electioneering, where imagination, curiosity, and willingness to go off the beaten path could be more valuable.

[turcopolier]

BLL

How would I know that you are a lawyer? In my experience some types dislike and denigrate the MBTI. generally the SJ and SP dislike it because ot is something outside their sensory experience and they sense it may be used to think them limited. pl

[turcopolier]

covergirl

Jung? Jung? I may have heard of him. pl

[turcopolier]

A.Pols

Yes, if you lie about your preferences on the test the result will be distorted. Research shows that few people do. pl

[turcopolier]

Stefan
After having caused so much trouble with projected mushroom clouds, she at last tells the truth. pl

[Walrus]

The uses of the MBTI are many and varied. Coupled with a knowledge of communication styles, if you are skilled, you can tailor your communication to either deliberately antagonize your chosen victim or get them to resonate with you.

For example, just ask a "J" how they feel about the solution to some problem or tell a "P" that the answer is black or white. Then ask a visual thinker what they would say about an event instead of asking them how they see it..... You get the drift.

[turcopolier]

walrus

I confess to having done just that for decades. I developed the technique of assessing MBTI types from behavior if I could not get them to take the test. This manipulation is an easy thing to do, but you have to be smarter than the dog. A/B classification is also useful. I am Type B, a predatory Type B. I can wait in ambush forever. In talking to As in a situation in which I didn't need them to like me, I would do things like ask a question and then wait silently until they were compelled by their natures to give an answer, any answer ... Maigret was obviously a predatory Type B. pl

[DianaLC]

Your comment made me giggle. A person cant get to be my age without having taken the MBTI several times. Just recently, someone sent me a new one that was something like "The 16 personalities" test.

But, I've also gone through the astrology testing and studies.

Having been given these tests several times each and having had a really good astrologer do my chart and the charts for some kids I raised, I find them all credible guides for reaffirming what I already know about myself and what I already knew about those kids. THey were good tests for assuring me that I was not misjudging myself and them.

The astrology reading of one of the girls I raised--a daughter of a schizophrenic woman (not my daughter) made me laugh. The astrologer gave some very specific information. Then he stopped and asked if she had really fat calves. I was amazed because her fat calves had been a problem for us. The fashion was to wear skinny jeans, and her calves would not allow for theat. Then he said to me: "I swear this girl is the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. And, by golly, that did indeed fit her personality.

The thing is, as far as I am concerned, I have always been introspective and have always known who exactly I am. When who I was and am was not who my mother wanted me to be, she had to learn just to deal with it.

The only psychological tests I give no credence to are those stupid Rorschach tests. It's just too easy to mess with the minds of the people administering the tests.

[kao_hsien_chih]

I'm a bit taken aback by people drawing analogies between survey based "personality" tests and astrology. While the former may not be infallible, there's a lot more substance to them than not.

There really is nothing more or less "real" about MBTI types than any other "products" of survey research--say, the types "liberal" and "conservative." We run all sorts of surveys to place people into liberal or conservative categories, for example. We do so because we think, knowing where people fall in with regards to these categories, provides useful clues about how they will vote, what kind of messages they'll respond to, etc. We are often, or even, usually right, enough to make it a useful exercise, but not so reliably as to believe it to be ironclad. Much the same thing with personality "types": useful clues about how people behave/think/believe, nothing so ironclad to be infallible, but, I suspect, at least as reliable as whether someone is "liberal" or "conservative."

[BLL]

You were an expert for me in one of my cases. Albeit awhile ago. I thought you would recognize the initials. I forgot that I have my personal email on this.

[JJackson]

I could not possible do that it would drive me mad.
Did you ask what the procedure was if a problem occurred which was not covered in the Training. He said it was very unlikely but on something that complex, and dangerous, it seems a tad arrogant to assume you have thought of every possible thing that might go wrong and already have the solution. Did the flow chart end with "Panic" once you had exhausted the procedures.

[Fred]

KHC,

Doesn't the MBTI essentially give a probability of behavior in a certain circumstance rather than an absolute indicator?

[turcopolier]

fred

In my experience the probability is very high. pl