Personality

[gregr]

Does the description of the traits of ISJFs not reflect you? Mine, with a few exceptions, fits me uncannily. I find the most value in it when I can show people a description of my type to help them understand where I'm coming from. INTPs can tend to offend people without intending to.

If it ISJF does reflect you and you don't like the person it reveals, there are some things you can do about that.

What you said just hit me right between the eyes...

 

[ATM]

What you said just hit me right between the eyes...

Don't be sad if you've accurately identified your natural strengths and weaknesses, let it guide you to becoming more effective.

None of that is your character, just simple traits of your natural preferences.

 

[PaulF]

Another INTJ here...(62/34/50/44).

I have to admit I'm a bit surprised how many ingoer's have a similar personality type.

 

[jamil]

What you said just hit me right between the eyes...

Which part? That it doesn't really reflect you, or that it does and you don't like it?

I read the ISFJ description and I really don't see anything wrong with it. What, do you WANT to be more of an *******, like me? I read ISFJ and those are admirable qualities.

 

[ATM]

Another INTJ here...(62/34/50/44).

I have to admit I'm a bit surprised how many ingoer's have a similar personality type.

There are others with your same preferences in those categories, but none quite like you, Paul.

 

[OakRiver]

We get to do these tests in work and mine is always ISTJ-A

The Air Force was using Classic DiSC several years ago. It is similar, has 4 areas and identifies personalities by the top 2. D = Directive, I = Influential, S = Steady, C= Conscientious (detail oriented). I was an ID (if I can't make you want to do it my way I switch to, "CAUSE I SAID SO!!")

My Steady score was a negative number. Did I spend so many years in the USAF because I like change, or did being in the Air Force make me this way?

All the Aircraft Maintenance guys were CD or DC. Is that why they were in Aircraft Maintenance, or were they that way from being in Aircraft Maintenance? HHhhmmmm..

I did the DISC recently too and in my workplace I am a high C/D

 

[IndianaSoloMcfly]

I took the exact same test at the beginning of the school year, I just took the test again for fun and sure enough i scored an ENTP again. I like that my scoring is consistent

 

[BugI02]

*.*

The MBTI was developed during World War 2 by Myers and Briggs (obviously), two housewives who developed a keen interest in the works of Carl Jung. They developed the MBTI based on Jung's theories, with the intention of producing a useful test that would allow women entering the workforce to be assigned jobs that would be best suited to their personalities.


This is already enough to make some people wary. Myers and Briggs weren't trained scientists, but you don't need to be scientifically qualified to make a very valid contribution to science. Look at Galaxy Zoo. Also, deriving all your information from a single source is always questionable in science, even if it weren't the work of Jung, whose theories were/are very influential and far reaching but largely scientifically untestable and subject to numerous criticisms. But the debate around the validity of Jung's theories certainly isn't something I could settle in a blogpost.


The trouble is, the more you look into the specifics of the MBTI, the more questionable the way it's widespread use appears to be. There are numerous comprehensive critiques about it online, but the most obvious flaw is that the MBTI seems to rely exclusively on binary choices.

 

[ATM]

*.*

The source I offered is a bit beyond Jung and MBTI, if you find some real issue with it, bring it up.

Are you just searching for naysayers to quote at this point to justify your hasty presuppositions?

 

[Hop]

INTP-a

Pretty spot on.

 

[gregkl]

It was most likely started by Hippocrates which would have been about 500 BC. A little earlier than Carl Jung and the MB couple. He used four bodily fluids as monikers for the 4 temperament traits that all humans line up with.

Choleric-Yellow Bile
Melancholy-Black Bile
Sanguine-Blood
Phlegmatic-Phlegm

This is known as Humorism. And to date has been copied, adjusted, researched and re-configured in many ways to appeal to different segments of society.

But it still holds true over 2500 years later.

 

[Bigtanker]

ISTP

Introvert(19%) Sensing(25%) Thinking(28%) Perceiving(12%)
You have slight preference of Introversion over Extraversion (19%)
You have moderate preference of Sensing over Intuition (25%)
You have moderate preference of Thinking over Feeling (28%)
You have slight preference of Perceiving over Judging (12%)

Have no idea what it means but there it is.

 

[ATM]

It was most likely started by Hippocrates which would have been about 500 BC. A little earlier than Carl Jung and the MB couple. He used four bodily fluids as monikers for the 4 temperament traits that all humans line up with.

Choleric-Yellow Bile
Melancholy-Black Bile
Sanguine-Blood
Phlegmatic-Phlegm

This is known as Humorism. And to date has been copied, adjusted, researched and re-configured in many ways to appeal to different segments of society.

But it still holds true over 2500 years later.

The DISC profiles mentioned are a modern extension based on those classic temperaments.

 

[jamil]

INTP-a

Pretty spot on.

 

[BugI02]

The source I offered is a bit beyond Jung and MBTI, if you find some real issue with it, bring it up.

Are you just searching for naysayers to quote at this point to justify your hasty presuppositions?

You mean other than that the 'source' you provided is the same people pushing the test and selling the 'premium profiles'?

 

[Kaneda13]

 

[gregkl]

The DISC profiles mentioned are a modern extension based on those classic temperaments.

Yup.

Choleric-D
Sanguine-I
Phlegmatic-S
Melancholy-C

 

[ATM]

You mean other than that the 'source' you provided is the same people pushing the test and selling the 'premium profiles'?

I meant precisely what I wrote. I don't recommend that you purchase anything, but I do think you should answer the question and then bring up any real issues you may have.

 

[BugI02]

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1p2cki/how_scientifically_valid_is_the_myers_briggs/

[–]Mockingbird42Psychometric Methods | Statistics and Measurement 1769 points 3 years ago*
I am the lead psychometrician at a personality test publisher, so I will attempt to answer your question.
To begin, it is important to note that no test is "scientifically valid". Validity is not an element of a test, but specifically has to do with test score interpretation. (see the Standards for Educational and Psychological testing 1999, or Messick, 1989). That being said, the Myers Briggs is not a scientifically valid personality assessment. However, personality assessments can be validated for specific purposes.
Moving onto the bigger issue with the Myers-Briggs: Decision consistency. The Myers-Briggs proclaims a reliability (calculated using coefficient alpha) of between .75-.85 on all of its scales (see Myers-Briggs testing manual). These are general, industry standard reliability coefficients(indicating that if you were to retest, you would get a similar score, but not exact). However, the Myers-Briggs makes additional claims about bucketing individuals into 1 of 16 possible personality types. That you can shift up or down a few points if you were to retake the test on any of the four distinct scales means that you may be higher on one scale than another simply through retaking the test due to measurement error. In fact, literature shows that your personality type will change for 50% of individuals simply through retesting. (Cautionary Comments Regarding the Myers-Brigg Type inventory, Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and research, summer, 2005). This result indicates very low decision consistency. The low decision consistency is also a mathematical inevitability given 16 personality profiles using 4 scales and scale reliability around .8.
Given the low decision consistency, and given that claims the Myers-Briggs makes about about your personality(validity information) depends on the decisions made by the test to be consistent and not subject to change simply based on retesting, it is highly unlikely that there can be a solid validity argument supporting the Myers-Briggs as a personality indicator. Maybe there are studies showing that it can be used in a very specific context, but sweeping generalizations about the tests use are not going carry much weight.
Now, as a working professional in the field, the Myers-Briggs does NOT have a good reputation as being a decent assessment. It has marketed well to school systems and has good name recognizability, but it is not a well developed exam. There are much better personality assessments available, such as SHL's OPQ32 or The Hogan personality inventory. Now, I don't want to say any of these are good. The best correlations between job performance and personality assessments is about .3 (indicating about 9% of the variance in a persons job performance can be accounted for by a personality assessment). That is the BEST personality assessments can do in terms of job performance... and a correlation of .3 is not worth very much (considering that tests like ACT or the SAT can correlate upwards of .7 with first year college GPA under ideal circumstances).

http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/Articles/develop/mbti.pdf

The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Pretty Much Meaningless | Smart News | Smithsonian

Have we all been duped by the Myers-Briggs test? | Fortune.com


Aside from the scientific evidence of the MBTI reliably predicting anything being almost non-existent, I suppose my major objection is this thing would make the Soviet Union proud. It purports, and is being used, to determine what jobs people are suitable for but has no scientifically tested and sound underpinnings. Briggs developed her initial test in 1917 as a vocational test to categorize children "...as a key to a child's future happiness and well being" for God's sake

Perhaps you should google "myers briggs validity and reliability"

And before you hit me with "89 of Fortune 100 companies use the MBTI" allow me to remind you that probably 99.9 professionals out of 100 conclude that heavy, fuel-laden aircraft deliberately crashed into Tower1 and Tower2 is what brought them down but you did not find statistics suasive in that case

 

[gregr]

Which part? That it doesn't really reflect you, or that it does and you don't like it?

I read the ISFJ description and I really don't see anything wrong with it. What, do you WANT to be more of an *******, like me? I read ISFJ and those are admirable qualities.

It`s accurate, and I don`t really care for that...