My take: Myers-Briggs is a useful tool with evidence behind it | Hacker News Reader

My take: Myers-Briggs is a useful tool with evidence behind it

5 pointscm201213 comments

Its kind of a common thing to say Myers-Briggs typing is useless because its pseudo-science.

This is not supported by the data.

For one, many studies of identical twins raised in separate households show they have the same personality type at a much higher rate than chance.

Two, there are incredibly strong correlations in the data. In different surveys of 100k+ people, the highest earning type has twice the salary of the lowest type. This is basically impossible by chance.

The letters (like ENTJ) correlate highly to the variables of Big 5, the personality system used by scientists. Its just that it's bucketed into 16 categories vs being 5 sliding scales.

Scientific studies are looking for variables that can be tracked over time reliably, so Big 5 is a better measure for that.

But for personal or organizational use, the category approach is a feature, not a bug. It is much more help as a mental toolkit than just getting a personality score on each of the 5 categories.

Every budding intellectual goes through this phase of iNtrospection.

HA! Couldn’t resist the pun.

Here’s what I derived from my compulsory decade.

* one metric is a sliding scale

* two are “input output”

* and one a psycho-emotional dynamic

These combined artfully describe cognitive strategies and why natural dynamics (attraction and repulsion) naturally forms among their “default” considerations.

Consciousness is a holographic image of self if anything and that may be shaped and compensated for over time and maturity so yes, over a long enough consideration we may all “x” out.

I’m an introvert who is a powerful public speaker. In a crowd I feel over nine feet tall, however exhausting that may be.

My favorite thing to talk about would be the “input output” measures introspective/extrospective describes seeing the world in abstract principles (an internal map filter) or empirical instances (observed correlations.) Both are valuable and both sides do both once mature by life experiences.

J/P the only real cockup in the names refers to “output” enactment upon the world. Like the input, there are those who affect the abstract principle (J) and those who have a literal (intended) effect (P).

We can see how some would get along and some wouldn’t (in casual conversation) based on our the input or output of their other relatable qualities. And how everyone’s specialties have a place in the complex dynamics of variable reality.

N/J’s just look like such studs after a life of polished experience. Deal once and for instance and that’s all fine, deal with it in principle you deal with it a thousand times!

Funnily enough you can see how much N types prefer abstract categorization systems like Myers-Briggs very clearly on reddit. The N subreddits (like /r/entp) have 10x the subs of their s counterparts (like "estp"), even though they are a smaller part of the population.

My first encounter with MBTI was at work, eight years ago. I resisted categorization because I dismissed it as being too geometric (like the four elements, or the four humors), and I tried to skew my results so that I'd be the type (ENTJ) that I thought would be promoted. (I've always scored ENTP on tests, no matter how I tried to skew my answers.)

Over the years, I learned more about Jung, what cognitive functions are and how to identify them, the research of Dr. Dario Nardi, etc. When I think about MBTI types these days, I have a lot of experiences to draw on that make them more real to me.

It took me a long time to understand that the MBTI tests out there are of limited value. I only treat them as a starting point when establishing someone else's type in my mind. To really figure someone out, you have to be able to take into account a ton of other things, including childhood traumas, neurodivergence, etc.

For sure. I was super skeptical at first and the more I dug in the more compelled I became. I actually made my own conversational version of the test and ask people if they want to be typed - its fascinating, I have helped type 50+ people.

Asking/testing someone "are you introverted" or "are you extroverted" clearly has at least some categorization value. The criticism is that the categories and testing methods we're not arrived at through any sort of rigorous scientific method.

So what you were left with is sort of an arbitrary way to divide people up, resulting in 16 fuzzy final categories.

Anecdotally I found it extremely accurate. The first time I visited "my" forum, all of forum avatars were bizarrely from shows and characters that I was close to, the topics were all exactly in line with how I perceive the world, etc. but I'm someone who maxes out all four of the categories in a specific direction. I also have some friends who are blended and have x in parts of their description, so at the end of the day it's sort of an arbitrary classification system, but better than nothing and extremely descriptive for, of course, the people who happen to fit these descriptions.

Though they were developed via theory, they strongly correlate to Big 5. Big 5 (or OCEAN) was produced by a data driven process. So I dont think that argument against it is credible, if anything it lends credence to the theory.

> Though they were developed via theory, they strongly correlate to Big 5.

Two MBTI axes might loosely qualify as strongly correlated with Big-5 axes, the other two are weakly correlated (<0.5) with Big-5.

For “Organizational Use”: the people who designed and own Myers-Briggs say this is a bad idea -

> The MBTI® assessment is not intended for use in selection of job candidates, nor for making internal decisions regarding job placement, selection for teams or task forces, or other similar activities. […] Given that it is not appropriate for selection, there have been no meaningful studies evaluating the MBTI’s ability to predict job performance. Established researchers in the field of predicting job performance would not use the MBTI assessment for this purpose.

[1] https://www.themyersbriggs.com/en-US/Support/MBTI-Facts

This is accurate for three reasons:

1) MBTI cannot be used adversarially - if people know certain types are preferred, they will answer to the test.

2) MBTI is strictly worse than Big 5 in study design since it doesnt have continuous variables and they correlate anyway.

3) There are huge liability issues if you say your product will help you hire or promote in the united states. Like q tips saying you can't ever use them in your ears.

All models are wrong. Some models are useful. [1]

Geocentrism, a flat earth, and your thumb is an inch among those.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong

Absolutely agreed, I find MBTI as a mental model much more predictive than my prior mental models. But its not magic.

Idk if its my own confirmation bias but basically everyone in tech is shades of INTJ

N types are over represented in every profession that requires a college degree. Thinkers are more likely to be into programming than Feelers. So that makes sense, along with INTP and ENTP being over represented.

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