Subject:
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Re: Personality test vs. Religion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 1 Nov 2004 15:31:18 GMT
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Viewed:
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2354 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Leonard Hoffman wrote:
> I asked my wife (who has a BA in Psychology) about M/B and she told me that
> amongst the Psychological community, it is a respected tool. She cast a bit of
> doubt about how predictive it can be, because it is only a tool.
So is it respected, or not? The test is indeed used as a predictive tool, so if
it does not function in this capacity, then it should be abandoned.
But your wife is correct--the tool has no predictive power because its
predictions are so deliberately general and open-ended as to be useless. If you
asked me, as a disinterested non-sports-fan, to describe the recent World
Series, I might say:
"In the course of the series at least four runs were scored."
My description of the Series is at least as accurate and specific as an M/B
description of a personality.
> if my wife is correct (1) and M/B has been accepted as a useful tool
> within the Psychological community, it is therefore your burden to disprove its
> usefullness.(2)
I don't think that's necessarily correct. If I can demonstrate that the test is
fundamentally flawed in its methodology, then whether or not it is perceived by
its proponents as "useful" is irrelevant.
With due respect to your wife, the fact that the test is respected among the
psych crowd is also irrelevant to the test's validity. Psychoanalysis,
phrenology, and dream interpretation were both respected for decades, yet they
have been shown to be deeply flawed tools and no longer enjoy the "respect" that
they once did.
I have read several apparently sound debunkings of the test, though I welcome an
informed rebuttal if such is available. Here are the two most conveniently
linkable sites:
http://skepdic.com/myersb.html
http://bpo.indiana.edu/bpo-cgi/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/mbti.pdf
> By "tool" - think about questioning the validity of a ruler. My ruler says A
> line is 4 inches long. If we treat this as a hypothesis to prove or disprove,
> then we need to find a way to independently verify that A line is 4 inches long.
> However, by "independently" - it means we must use a device other than a ruler,
> because it is the very concept of 'ruler' that we have in question here.
I know you're just giving an analogy, but it has a central flaw that should be
addressed. Obviously "4 inches" is an aribtrary measurement, but it's been
agreed upon, and we have other, non-ruler methods of measuring it. The ruler
didn't invent the concept of "4 inches" any more than a laser range-finder did;
each tool measures an agreed-upon 4-inch length, and we can assess the accuracy
of these tools and others relative to the agreed-upon length. This is not the
case with the Myers-Briggs instrument.
The makers of that test created the personality "types" while creating the
instrument that purports to measure them. Because the personality types are
essentially proprietary to the M/B test, no other test can reasonably be
expected to return corroborating results. This is a fatal flaw, scientifically
speaking; the M/B test does not yield reproducible results.
In contrast, "4 inches" is defined as "the distance light travels in 3.38901E-10
seconds." This is the existing standard derived from the definition of meter,
and as an agreed-upon standard it can be tested. No such standard exists for
ESFP or ISTJ.
see http://www.sizes.com/units/meter.htm
The M/B test is also non-falsifiable (i.e., no condition exists under which the
test could be wrong). Dave Eaton has argued that the test could indeed be shown
to be wrong if it seriously misidentified a subject's personality type.
However, the owners of the M/B test eliminate this possiblity and thereby
destroy the validity of the test:
From page 2 of http://www.cpp-db.com/images/reports/11.pdf
"Do these descriptions seem to fit you? Many people find that their MBTI
results describe them quite well. But for others, changing a letter or two may
help them discover an MBTI type that more accurately captures their personality.
If you feel that the above characteristics do not fit you, the person who
administered the MBTI can help you identify a better-fitting type."
In essence, they're saying "the test gives correct results, but if it doesn't
give correct results, then tweak it until it gives correct results."
Consider my description of the World Series again. You might observe that the
description is scientifically valid because it is falsifiable: if the Series had
somehow entailed only three runs, then my description would be invalidated.
However, the clever owners of M/B retain the right to alter the prediction post
hoc; when presented with the falsifying condition of three runs, they would
simply tweak their initial statement to be "In the course of the Series, at
least three runs were scored." This escape clause is anathema to serious
scientific investigation.
Both of these fatal flaws trump any amount of "respect" that the test holds
among the Psych crowd.
> (2)= As a skeptic, we question a hypothesis until it has reached the point of
> general acceptance by experts.
Regarding a method of testing, I will accept the testimony of experts if such
testimony is based in logic and empirical analysis. But if the test is shown to
be inherently flawed, as MBTI is inherently flawed, then the experts' testimony
is rendered irrelevant.
> Quantum Mechanics, for
> example, makes some pretty out-there claims, but because it is now accepted by
> the scientific community, it is not my place to actively call for proof of it
> (we can assume it is true for the time being).
But is Quantum Mechanics accepted because Roger Penrose and Erwin Schroedinger
"respect" it? Certainly not. It is accepted because it provides the most
consistently fruitful explanatory model of the universe as we now understand it.
Quantum Mechanics does not provide every answer, but it provides more answers
correctly than any other explanatory tool currently available to us. To suggest
that any branch of science is "accepted" simply on the basis of its proponents
is to transform science into pseudoscience.
Dave!
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Personality test vs. Religion
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| Some of my thoughts on Meyers-Briggs: I have taken this evaluation twice (though I'm not sure if either time was the real evaluation and not just a quick evaluation). The first time I came out INTJ (though very close to the middle). The second time (...) (20 years ago, 1-Nov-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Personality test vs. Religion
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| (...) "Deliberately" general? Got any empirical proof? :) I wouldn't say it's useless at all, except insofar as it IS error prone. If its category divisions are indeed correct (I'd say they seem to be), they may indeed help us understand how people (...) (20 years ago, 1-Nov-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Personality test vs. Religion
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| -snippity- (...) -snipity- I've been following the debate for a bit here, but I'd say this is the core of the problem. Psychology is not a pure science like physics, chemistry, etc - and therefore does not operate on the same basis of scientific (...) (20 years ago, 31-Oct-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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