Show HN: Predict a Reddit user's Myers-Briggs type from their profile
gimmeserendipity.com
gimmeserendipity.com
Which is actually rather accurate to how I test. My work profile is ESTP, my private life profile is ISFP. The weights are obviously off, and my Reddit account is completely tied to my personal interests around blood bowl.
Either way, I’m surprised to see astrology for people who don’t believe in astrology on HN. I never fully understood HRs reliance on these tools, once you’ve taken a few, you can score exactly as you want to, but I’m truly surprised to see them on HN.
You have them for work related purposes?
It’s given to anyone heading for a management related position. As I advice top management on tech decision I always end up taking them when getting hired or reorganised. I do tell the truth on them of course, but it’s a bunch of black magic as far as I’m concerned. I don’t even think it’s a nice tool for talking because it’s often either/or results when everyone is really a tad of everything.
But yes, they are very common.
Became curious one day and asked HR if I could view my scores and was told no. Furrowed my brow a bit at that one.
I furrow it even more knowing the company doesn't expect hiring managers to actually use these scores with any meaningful weight, nor does recruiting actually rely on them during the screening process-or so I was told when asked-they merely ship them direct to the decision maker, forcing me to wonder why we put candidates through them to begin with.
Certainly the common refrain is that giving candidates their results could open companies up to liability if they pass on a candidate, which causes a further reaction on my part "all the more reason to do away with them and find another means of assessing talent. Maybe this is a process that doesn't require the reduction of humans to a few data points and indicators n a scoreboard for the privilege of a friendly career conversation".
I’m on an ethics committee with my employer, while it tends to focus on how our product behaves ethically I’m going to be making a push to focus a few things inward, and I plan to start with this.
Frankly it’s of my opinion if you’re going to assess someone using this type of technology and use it in any means to make a determination of hiring, that candidate is owed their results.
Thanks for sharing your experiences here.
It was painted as a 'self-discovery' exercise but the exercise was organized by HR and it clearly felt like they were pre-screening for which graduates to put on a 'upper management' track.
Personality Probability
INTJ 0.194212
INTP 0.180541
INFP 0.138535
INFJ 0.129220
ENTP 0.089378
... etc
Controversiality: 0.51 % https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8506313/Ghislaine-M...One is my main that I use for most boring stuff, some niche stuff - it's one where if someone knew me well, they'd probably figure out it's mine - and I'm ok with that. The other is for discussion topics that I don't want tied to me in an obvious way (ie, politics, religion). I won't share the name of either account, but it's interesting that the "main" account, got 60% ESFP, and "discussion" account got 40% INTJ/INTP and 30% INFP/INFJ.
I don't feel like my writing style is incredibly different between each account, so I wonder if the specific subreddits that a user prefers contribute to the label. It's either that, or I really do self-censor more dramatically than I had imagined.
Edit: I've always got INTP or INTJ in past MBTI tests - though it's been near a decade since I took one last.
One thing you need to separate out the 16 MBTI archtypes with the test(s) used to determine which type you are. Not everyone fits into one of the 16 types perfectly and not every test reliably figures out which of the 16 types you are, not to mention that dividing the entire human population into 16 types is an overly simplistic way of categorizing personalities.
That doesn't mean MBTI is useless. You can take a test and hope that it reasonably finds what type you are or you can simply read the archtypes for all 16 types and figure out which type you are closest to.
I think the community element is the most underrated aspect of MBTI, esp if you're a rare type that's been misunderstood most of your life. I can certainly related as an INTP and have struggled most of my life when taking the advice of my parents, teachers, professors, mentors, even self-help gurus only to get limited results despite following their advice almost exactly. When I learned that I was an INTP and followed the advice from other INTPs, I finally felt understood and was able to follow a different set of advice that got me much further in life than following the conventional advice from the former parties.
Is it scientific? It's debatable. Is it useful? It depends but personally, it has been tremendously helpful.
What's interesting about it is that normally learning someone's MBTI type requires their active involvement. They either have to fill in some type of survey or tell you their type. This would be fine, were it not that there are plenty of people who attach WAY too much importance to MBTI types.
This tool highlighted my suspicions. It's very biased towards these results (I don't know if Myers-Briggs is also, which might be possible). For example, "lorem ipsum" scores INXX all above 0.13, with everything else below 0.08. Similar results for "youtube reddit" or "the quick brown fox".
I haven't taken a Myer Briggs in a while, so I can't remember what "I am".
I'm curious how my Reddit persona compares to an actual test. I know for a fact that I have a different personality on Reddit than I do in other conversations. Over the years, I've "figured out" a Reddit (and Hacker News) communication style that trends towards populist (i.e. tending to receive upvotes). I'll also jump straight to conclusions on Reddit - especially if I know they're "hivemind" opinions.
In real life, I have a much different approach to most communication - which I'd expect to reflect differently in a personality test.
Further, on an anonymous discussion board, the risks of things like "jumping to conclusions" [not what I would call "less contrarian"] are much lower than in real life, where your reputation as a human is on the line.
Anonymous message boards have points, gotta post what people want to hear for upvotes that give that self-validating dopamine hit when you check your score and it's higher than ever.
There are 4 different ones I use. One I use professionally, one to mod an extremely large subreddit, one I use that’s semi-anonymous, and one I’ve had for like 8 years.
Different audiences for each account but apparently all indicating the same type. I guess that validates the consistency of the tool.
ENFPs can be "fake extroverts", but I don't think anyone my entire life has accused me of being introverted.
Personality Probability INFJ 0.230443 INTJ 0.163436 INFP 0.149911 INTP 0.134871 ENTP 0.066254 ENFP 0.056532
ENFP and INFJ are actually very similar - if you believe in the personality test.
Despite the difference in letters, they share all the same cognitive functions, just in a different order.
Typically MBTI personality tests measure you based on four indicators: Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/iNtuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perceiving
Each combination of indicators is given a "type." There are 16 possible types.
The MBTI personality test also defines 8 cognitive functions, believing that everyone must absorb information (perceiving) and turn it into actions/decisions (judging). It states that there are four ways of perceiving, and four ways of judging... extraverted/introverted sensing/intuition and extraverted/introverted thinking/feeling.
Each personality type has four cognitive functions associated with it: primary, auxiliary, tertiary, and inferior. You will have both an extraverted and introverted perceiving function as well as an extraverted and introverted judging function. Your primary cognitive function will match your introversion/extraversion trait, and then will flip back and forth between introversion/extraversion for the rest of your functions.
Since there are only 8 cognitive functions, and each personality type has 4, it's not surprising that they will often share cognitive functions - it also means that types can behave more similarly than one would expect based on their indicators.
Personality Probability INTP 0.319997 INTJ 0.210713
I've always pretty much scored as an INTP with the P/J fairly evenly matched.
As far as MB being scientific or not- they are measuring something persistent, so in that sense it is measuring something durable/real. Whether it is useful or not... shrug.
Personality Probability
ISFJ 0.505107
ISFP 0.441592
INFJ 0.015237
INTJ 0.011497
INTP 0.009005
INFP 0.006540
ENTP 0.003931
ENFP 0.001573
ESTJ 0.001450
ISTP 0.001228
ENTJ 0.000833
ISTJ 0.000782
ENFJ 0.000712
ESTP 0.000294
ESFP 0.000131
ESFJ 0.000087Her account has "Controversiality" well below that of either of my accounts. What is the meaning of that term? I couldn't find it explained anywhere.
I found that both of my accounts gave nearly identical results. Interestingly enough my wife's account also is nearly identical to mine through the first half of the results and the last 6 entries are in identical order and similar percentages. Did I accidentally find my match all those years ago?
Maybe something in the way this algorithm is designed pigeonholes everyone into similar groups. It's pretty hard to trust something when so many people from such different backgrounds get similar results.
I was INTP the last time I checked and got ISFP 0.320051 ENFP 0.170778 INFP 0.121951 INTP 0.111226 INTJ 0.101262 ...
So no doubt with a bit of marketing this nonsense can be sold into HR departments. The Karen's and Kyle's of this world will no doubt think it's brilliant, buy it and feed their own biased decision making process.
MBTI's are astrology for people who think they're too smart for astrology. Both are total nonsense and dangerous in the hands of the wanna-be psychologist Karen's usually in charge of HR. [0][1][3]
It's all fun and games until people lose their jobs. Unlikely you will lose your job because you got the wrong MBTI, but when a company is downsizing and wants to pretend they're using scIeNtiFfic measures to make that decision in the name of performance it's likely they use garbage software like this to dress up their "cultural fit" bias.
I urge OP to put a big fat warning label on their product and market it as a way to educate people why MBTI's are dangerous garbage and guide those that use it onto a path that helps them understand why it's dangerous. Make it educational by showing the users where the problems are instead of claiming that this is in any way safe.
Also my MBTI is GTFO.
[0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/spc3.12441
[1] https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personali...
Holy Lord that is unfair. MBTI is egregious mumbo jumbo.
Reddit profile:
INFP 0.253485
INTP 0.191204
INTJ 0.165780
INFJ 0.107387
ENTP 0.051260
...
Controversiality: 0.0 %
What I find interesting about these kinds of personality systems is how they can provide you with additional concepts for thinking about people you don't really understand, or people who aren't on your wavelength. They may not be accurate, but they give you a starting point for engagement.With 45%, Shittymorph (the 1991 undertaker threw mankind... ) account is very strongly ESTP. When using my own account, it was only 20% for the first entry (which did not match any test result I've ever had). I guess this sort of makes sense. My posts are kinda all over the place but Shittymorph is very... consistent
Edit: Sorry I had to. The point being that after reading through multiple types of these results, mine was 100% spot on compared to 2nd-5th place.
I consistently score INTP. Another account which I have about 8 years of sometimes voluminous comment history with for non-technical topics produces the same results in the same order. Hmm, maybe I'm turning into an INTJ with age... Kind of makes sense.
Like others, I'm wondering what the "controversiality" value indicates.
I'm pleasantly surprised and slightly uneasy.
Of course, I may simply repurpose this same model for Twitter once the current excitement dies down (to minimize 502 errors since I'm on a cheap hosting plan.)
ISFJ 0.911772
INTP 0.014028
INTJ 0.013168
ENTP 0.012464
ENFP 0.010893
...
Controversiality: 2.51 %
Interesting, looks like I'm more of a protector in the iternet than in real life... the last time I did the test I got ENFP
Which is ... correct.
I'd like to know more about the algorithm behind this.
But at the same time, the science says these categories are BS. So I don’t really know what to do with these types.
/shrug
Though the MBTI resembles some psychological theories, it is generally classified as pseudoscience, especially as pertains to its supposed predictive abilities. The indicator exhibits significant scientific (psychometric) deficiencies, notably including poor validity (i.e. not measuring what it purports to measure, not having predictive power or not having items that can be generalized), poor reliability (giving different results for the same person on different occasions), measuring categories that are not independent (some dichotomous traits have been noted to correlate with each other), and not being comprehensive (due to missing neuroticism). The four scales used in the MBTI have some correlation with four of the Big Five personality traits, which are a more commonly accepted framework
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...
EDIT: My theory is that Myers-Briggs is more popular among laypeople than Big5 precisely because it's less scientific. People feel like their Myers-Briggs type tells them something non-obvious about themselves. Big5 is so straightforward that it doesn't tell them anything they didn't know before.
My theory is that it is more popular not directly because it is less scientific, though for a closely related reason--because its so heavily marketed by the private firm behind it and their army of certified consultants, which has created lot of visibility (much of which is at least one step removed from the marketing, so that people are often not directly aware of the marketing.)
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
Meyers Briggs screams nonsense to my intuition.
Introversion/Extraversion is well known and accepted as part of the Big5 and other more mainstream models (the MBTI definition is actually slightly more general, defining extraversion as a preference for external stimulation in general rather than specifically socialisation, but I think the evidence is still relevant).
The Judgement/Perception dichotomy (called Rational/Irrational by Jung) corresponds to System 1 and System 2 thinking in Dual-process theory for which there is a large body of evidence, including the work of Kahneman and Tversky which is well respected enough to have won a nobel prize (in economics). Interestingly from an HN perspective this also seems strongly analogous to CPU (serial) vs GPU (parallel) processing.
The Thinking vs Feeling and Sensing vs. Intuition distinctions have less evidence at this point.
I'm also not sure how to interpret your System 1 vs System 2 comment, as thats also not binary. Everyone uses both. Is it supposed to be a preference? Do you have a link describing that? It doesn't make sense to the way the two are described to me either.
The MBTI also doesn't look at thing like E and I as binary when it comes to the "type of a person". A single preference is binary under the MBTI, but everyone has multiple preferences. For example, if someone's primary function is "Extroverted Thinking" then their secondary function may be "Introverted Intuition". As the relative strength (degree of preference) may vary continuously, that leads to a continuous grading of "extraversion" when describing a person
As far as I can see, the Big 5 doesn't even attempt to explain what's going on at a sub-person level, which probably does mean that there is little evidence for those parts of the MBTI theory, but it also means there is little evidence against it. In any case, I've seen a lot of people arguing that the MBTI is rubbish because there are degrees of extraversion (and other described properties) in people, and that's a poor reason to dismiss the theory because it predicts exactly that.
> I'm also not sure how to interpret your System 1 vs System 2 comment, as thats also not binary
I suspect there are differences of opinion over this within the academic community, but IIRC https://www.jstor.org/stable/3132137 describes the response to "Wason Selection Tasks" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task) as being remarkably strongly bimodal indicating binary preferences.
But don't worry, it's pseudoscience. I took a quiz to determine my astrological sign once, too.
It would be nice to see a breakdown of each of the dimensions on the model. I personally find those more insightful than just the archetype and – in my case – explain the low accuracy by showing on which dimensions I rate near the middle of the scale.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/8xp58c/a_joke_abou...
Maybe the chart can be added when the results are displayed.
What does "Controversiality" mean?
I'm not sure what my personality is anymore. Since I moved to a new city my personality has been shifting, I'm more extraverted and judgemental now but before I was more thinking and introverted.
INTP 0.235691
INTJ 0.198247
INFJ 0.114691
INFP 0.111443
ENTP 0.074658
ENFP 0.057476
ISTP 0.040370
ISFP 0.030426
ENTJ 0.027369
ESTJ 0.026705
ISTJ 0.025700
ENFJ 0.023411
ISFJ 0.016983
ESTP 0.009655
ESFP 0.004322
ESFJ 0.002852 INTJ 0.170579
INTP 0.158083
ENTP 0.140082
INFJ 0.121986
INFP 0.115873
ENFP 0.070730INTJ 0.299023
INTP 0.155863
INFJ 0.113193
INFP 0.104380
ENTP 0.072341
Personality Probability INTJ 0.198738 INTP 0.163618 INFJ 0.135469 INFP 0.111934 ENTP 0.102679 ENFP 0.058846 ISTP 0.051312 ISFP 0.032267 ENTJ 0.030964 ISTJ 0.027256 ESTJ 0.026231 ENFJ 0.024828 ISFJ 0.018011 ESTP 0.010239 ESFP 0.004584 ESFJ 0.003024
INTP 0.164725
INFJ 0.111596
INFP 0.108814
... then results drop to .06 and continue down.
INTJ is correct.
Personality Probability INTJ 0.191244 INTP 0.163233 INFP 0.117823 ENTP 0.116617 INFJ 0.116165 ENFP 0.061458 ISTP 0.053393 ESTJ 0.034183 ISFP 0.031543 ENTJ 0.028374 ISTJ 0.026644 ENFJ 0.024270 ISFJ 0.017606 ESTP 0.010009 ESFP 0.004481 ESFJ 0.002956
Personality Probability INTP 0.215613 INTJ 0.198558 INFP 0.133773
What would we hope for from a personality indicator? We'd hope that it would be useful for making predictions.
At an absolute minimum, MBTI could be used to predict the answers people give on an MBTI questionnaire. And what about beyond that? On the basis of someone testing as an I (introvert) vs E (extrovert), we might be able to predict whether someone would feel drained or invigorated after a busy social event. Has there really been work done to show that MBTIs have zero useful predictive value?
I will readily believe that there might be more useful models of personality, and that MBTI is no longer in vogue in psychological literature, and that MBTI was originally motivated on pseudoscientific principles, and that there more principled alternatives — but it doesn't necessarily follow that MBTI cannot be used to make useful predictions.
Consistency, to begin with. (among other things) MBTI is not consistent, The thing Adam Grant did [1] I tried myself: Take the SAME test twice(or more) with about 3 weeks in-between. Hilariously enough, on one test I got that I were "entrepreneurial" and "social" while the second time I got "introverted" and "analytic/cautious". Not by itself contradictory but inconsistent nevertheless.
>but it doesn't necessarily follow that MBTI cannot be used to make useful predictions.
The problem is that it does follow that! Especially when it is used in HR practice! I have seen HR people construct "project groups" based on the members MBTI score!
When you take in to account these "personality tests" you have to consider the false classification too; If you base your judgement on false classification the test have now done damage to whatever process you used it for.
Would you be willing to follow & trust a medical diagnosis test that have NO scientific backing, not consistency, have a lot of false diagnostics, and based on that test, conduct life-endangering surgery?
It's fun for personal recreation, but MBTI is used in more than that, and have lasting effects to the individual and organizations when practiced. And that's why the fad has to die.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/give-and-take/201309...
So given that, along with the anecdotal alignment of the personality descriptions with my experience, I personally believe MTBI may have more value than its given credit for. Its remarked by others it does already have similarity with Big 5. My thinking is that people want more from it than it is and they are somehow thinking it claims to be more than it is. In the most simple form the personality types seem to be more about describing particular (potentially somewhat arbitrarily categorized) archetypes as opposed to specific behavior types. Or put another way, it seems more about describing internal personality experience than external behavior. So it may call me introverted, but I may not be introverted by behavior according to others, but I may view myself as introverted, so that is the correct result. Am I just grasping at a belief here, or is there really absolutely "NO scientific backing"
https://jfdeschamps.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/correl-ocean...
That's not entirely true, since two of the Meyers-Briggs axis are strongly correlated with Big Five axes; so something that maps well to Big Five will likely bear a resemblance to about half of MBTI.
So maybe machine learning can turn astrology into a real science after all!
Definitely a self-fulfilling prophecy effect.