MBTI are pseudoscience (just like astrology); there is no such thing as an INTP no matter how much you may feel to be described by the type.
The MBTI is just a projection of the personality space like the more accepted Big 5. From my experience data-mining behavioral data at scale it’s a pretty good mapping and the relative value questions are adequate and the 4 dimensions do explain a lot of behavior to the point that it is very useful - a fact probability contributing to its success. My main gripe with it is the extrovert - introvert axis is a bit weak with many people being close to the middle. I’m more extroverted around intelligent people which doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, a trait held by far more commonly by ENTJ/INTJ than random chance.
I think that's partly because people don't understand what extraverted vs. introverted mean in the MBTI sense. It's not about sociability. It's actually about how much external stimuli someone likes more generally. This might be social stimuli (Fe), but it could also be physical stimuli (Se) (for example, liking being physically active or out in nature) or more conceptual stimuli / external ideas (Ne), etc. Or a computing analogy: what's your ratio of IO to CPU time.
Also, at least in the cognitive function interpretation (which IMO is the only sensible theory in the jungian/mbti family), introversion and extraversion do not apply directly to persons. They apply to thinking processes. An extraverted person is then just a person who uses an extraverted thinking mode more often than not (everyone is theorised to use both extraverted and introverted thinking modes). As you note this bias can be more or less extreme.
Indeed, it's been observed that it can both be influenced by external factors (e.g. social expectations), and that it tends to become less extreme over time. As such, a persons "type" is generally considered to be determined by what their preference was in childhood, and (the type) is taken to define their baseline personality (cf. genotype) from which their actually observable personality (cf phenotype) develops.
It would make sense that the E/I axis would be clearer if early childhood experiences were used. That would make me a clear extrovert. I think the questions should be updated for that context or at least have some additional framing around the test.
This idea was surprising to me too, but when I thought about it I realised it shouldn't be:
- We know that different people frequently react differently to the same stimuli (and that this is true even of very young children).
- Basically everything else in the human body shows genetic variation. It would be weird if the brain didn't.
- There is a strong evolutionary rationale for a population having a variety of complimentary congnitive styles.
I think the MBTI is most interesting is it taken to be only the genetic component of personality (providing us with AFAIK the only theory of the structure of that aspect of personality), while simultaneously leaning into the idea that personality is modified by nurture and environment (but that these changes are not described by one's MBTI type).
Could you possibly expand on the details of "generated an personality embedding from data"?
I've been able to observe the difference between what the MBTI calls "Judgement" (slow thinking) and what the MBTI calls "Perception" (fast thinking) in real life. The example I always give is my high school "Further Maths" class. There were 4 people in my class and it happened that we always ended up working in pairs. However the way in which each pair worked was entirely different:
- Pair 1 (me and my partner) worked independently, rushing through the questions by intuiting answers to each step. We'd then compare answers as a kind of checksum. If our answers differed, often one of us would immediately notice a mistake. And if not then we'd fall back to slowly working through the problem together step-by-step.
- Pair 2 (the other two students) defaulted to this approach of slowly working through each problem step-by-step together. This took longer up front, but produced more accurate answers.
Interesting, both approaches actually ended up taking a similar amount of time overall and yielding a similar accuracy of answer. But there is a huge qualitative difference in the kind of thinking that took place in each approach, and each person in the class also demonstrated a clear and stable preferrence for a specific approach.
There is also a vast body of literature on "Dual-process theories" like this one, popularised by Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow.
That's not how science works. If you have a hypothesis with no experimental evidence, discussing it as a fact is akin to doing astrology.
I'm sure you're aware that most people recognize themselves in horoscopes descriptions of their personality. This is quite similar to that.
Sure, but you can discuss it as theory without implying that it's proven fact. Most (if not all?) theories that are now considered scientific fact initially went through a period where they were lacking in conclusive experimental evidence.
> I'm sure you're aware that most people recognize themselves in horoscopes descriptions of their personality. This is quite similar to that.
I am. And that's why I think the plausibility of the theory is important. There's a difference between saying "people think in way A and way B" and "whether people think in way A or way B is determined by the position of the planets at the time they were born".
I guess I would say that it's not quite true that there's no experimental evidence. It's more the case that the academic discipline "experimental psychology" has failed to find evidence. Other disciplines like cognitive science and behavioural economics tend not to have studied the MBTI specifically, but have found experimental evidence for theories that are substantially similar enough to the MBTI's hypotheses that IMO they do count as some evidence.
Specifically there is experimental evidence that:
- There are qualitatively different ways in which people can think and process information.
- People can have a stable preference for a given thinking process. And that such preferences follow a bimodal distribution.
- People can have a preference towards either introversion or extraversion (MBTI's I vs. E distinction)
- People can think either in a "Fast" way (fast, intuitive, perceptually inaccesible) or a "Slow" way (slow, reasoned, perceptually accesible) (MBTI's J vs. P distinction)
That's evidence for ~50% of the MBTI already, and would leave "Feeling" vs. "Thinking" (value judgement vs. descriptive judgement) and "Sensing" vs. "Intiuton" (concrete vs. abstract thinking) as interesting research questions.
I think this is a very good indicator that the whole thing is bogus.
But I think this confirms your claim in my case. For nearly every single answer on the test, my response is "it depends." I really could go either way on nearly every single question because I need more context.
It makes me think the whole test is essentially BS, kind of like a horoscope where you can read whatever you want into it.
There are better tests (like this one https://sakinorva.net/functions) which will give you a confidence percentage for each cognitive function rather than just a best guess overall type. But none of them are that great, and currently the gold standard for determining type is to only use the test results as starting to point and to familiarise yourself with the theory to fine tune that, potentially with the guidance of an type expert.
unlike astrology which suggests that differences in
personality are due to astral bodies
Clearly astrological bodies have no actual influence on us. I'm not that crazy.
However, mightn't the time of year of birth have a big influence? The amount of sunlight received, activities undertaken, and foods eaten by the expectant mother and newborn baby will vary based on time of year. The differences may be minor today, but would have been pretty profound in antiquity.
Imagine being born two thousand years ago in the northern latitudes during the deep winter. Mother and child experience six months of darkness, eating preserved and salted foods. Now imagine the opposite. You are born during summer. Mother and child get lots of sunlight and fresh food. Surely there are effects! I think it would be surprising if there were none.
Regarding birth date, I would speculate that one of the most significant effects it has on modern children is how far through the school year they are born (and thus whether they are one of the older children or one of the younger children in their cohort). As you say, it's likely that there's some effect. I personally somewhat doubt it's causes differences in personality anywhere near as drastic the kind that astrology claims.
Some time ago I also thought MBTI was bullshit, now I think it’s quite useful. And at least for me, anecdotally, has predictive power.
Not really; we know for a fact it is not accurate (and thus irrelevant). You can debate it if you wish but the facts of the matter have been long settled.
If you understand the cognitive function, your prediction is a magnitude more accurate than any test.
> we know
Who knows? Who is "we?"
> it is not accurate
Accuracy is not either "PERFECTLY TRUE" or "PERFECTLY FALSE." It is a range.
> (and thus irrelevant)
Even false statements or frameworks can provide interesting insights into how we think about a domain.
> the facts of the matter
Which facts would that be?
> have been long settled
By whom? In what study or paper? Were they properly tested?
Replace MBTI w/ astrology in this sentence.
And just like astrology, you want MBTI to be true so it influences your answers on the questionnaire. Kinda like a Ouija board.
The same can be said of astrology even though it’s not science.
Trying to make business decisions on the basis of MBTI metrics, which is what it is often criticised for, is of course misguided.
But saying "MBTI is pseudoscience you cannot be INTP" makes as much sense as "Hair colour names are unscientific, so you can't identify as blond".
Sure you can. It's a description. I wouldn't go ascribing intelligence on the basis of hair colour, but I wouldn't doubt you have a hair colour either.
And if you've found commonalities / common experiences and like being with other blond people, that's fine too.
> That's a typical INTP / type 5 enneagram brain wiring.
So here I ask you: given that Psychology is a social SCIENCE, also a part of STEM. And psychologists definitely use those tests, I was personally introduced to them by a psychologist that helped me with career coaching, recognized on his field with a bunch of papers.
Now, please explain yourself: why is it a pseudoscience? I want proofs.
I'm personally quite open to the idea that it's an accurate categorisation, but I do also think that it's an extroadinary claim that requires extroadinary justification. IMO saying "oh, it's just a description" because that evidence hasn't (yet) been found is a bit of a cop out.
You can measure people on many dimensions, and all dimensions that are not truly random will correlate with some aspect of the persons life.
Interestingly, some of the dimensions of the MTBI correlate with dimensions of the "Big 5".
Introversion - Extroversion => Almost the same dimension as in Big 5.
Intuitive - Sensation => Correlate strongly to Big 5 Openness
The longer textual descriptions of the MTBI categories that one can find online are "made up" so they could indeed be said to be a type of pseudoscience.
<edit> Big Five Personality traits and the HEXACO model exist, and they seem to have more a more positive scientific review history. “Your boss is probably someone more likely to have qualities from the dark triad” is still bad news when looking at the real world versus an ideal world, but this seems to be a checked fact. </edit>
There is some evidence to suggest that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) may not be as reliable and valid as its proponents suggest. In fact, some studies have found that the MBTI does not consistently yield the same results for individuals who take it multiple times, which raises questions about its reproducibility and the reliability of the results.
For example, a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that only about half of individuals who took the MBTI twice received the same result both times. This suggests that the MBTI may not be a reliable measure of personality traits.
In addition, other studies have found that the MBTI does not reliably predict job performance or other real-world outcomes, further questioning its validity as a psychological assessment tool.
It's terms (like "thinking") are technical jargon that don't correspond to their usual meanings though. For example "thinking" is really "descriptive judegement" (cognition focussed on whether things are true/false/possible/impossible), to be contrasted with "feeling" (which is actually also a rational cognitive process!) just focussed on "value judgement" (cognition focussed on whether things are good/bad/should happen/shouldn't happen).
It is also not supposed to measure personality traits in the same sense that other models do. It is two steps removed:
1. It attempts to measure interal cognitive processes rather than external behavoural traits (how you think, not what you think)
2. It attempts to measure people's natural personality baseline (cf genotype) from which their actual personality (cf phenotype) develops as modified by their life experiences and the context in which they live.
Both of which make it even more difficult to measure with a questionaire that tends to only ask about current behaviours. But IMO also make it a much more interesting and much more plausible theory.