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 18:05:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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2309 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
> 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.
"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 think; and further might be able to allow us to
cater to individual tastes more.
And of course, as I've been saying, and (as it sounded to me) Lenny's wife was
saying, the ability for the test to give a subject a 100% perfect type analysis
100% of the time is of course, not expected. But I'm not sure you're arguing
against this point, since you're objecting to the ability to HAVE a 100% perfect
analysis of ANYONE based on the 4 dimensions provided.
> 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.
"any reasonable psychiatrist (which, parenthetically, neither Myers nor Briggs
was) would recognize that the testing parameters of Myers-Briggs are inherently
non-scientific and non-falsifiable, and the psychiatrist would reject the test
as folly."
So... the majority of psychiatrists/psychologists are unreasonable? :)
> 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:
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> http://skepdic.com/myersb.html
> http://bpo.indiana.edu/bpo-cgi/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/mbti.pdf
Hopefully you're also welcoming uninformed rebuttals :)
The 1st article seemed rather informative, but not overly critical of M/B. The
2nd one certainly brought up some good points; some of which I agree with
(obviously) and some of which I don't:
"The primary feature of the theory behind the MBTI is that each person's
personality fits into only one of 16 types."
Eh, like I've been saying, I too find fault with the structure of the test for
ONLY having 16 types and not (say) the 625 I arbitrarily proposed earlier. But
personally, I think that just makes the test LESS accurate, not INaccurate.
"These categories are based on four features of personality, each consisting of
two opposite preferences. According to the theory, all people have an innate
preference that determines how they will behave in all situations."
Change "all" to "most". Let's say for the sake of argument that both us Dave's
are stubborn. I wouldn't assume for us to be stubborn in ALL situations, just
most, if that assertion were true.
"If you randomly selected 500 people between the ages 18 and 25, measured their
heights, and then drew a graph of the results, you would probably have a normal
or bell-shaped distribution. Most people would have a height close to the mean,
say 5'8". ... The same thing should happen for the MBTI."
Not sure if I'd intuitively expect that to be true or not... People of ONE
particular stat may also follow a 2nd stat (or, I would intuitively expect so),
and people in the same family and culture may show tendancies to some particular
types (or I would intuitively expect), but I'm not sure I'd expect a normalized
distribution over one of the 16 types in the general population. Maybe over some
of the dimensions, perhaps.
But regardless, note that later in the report it says that ESTJ's are about 12%
of the population. If it were a smooth, random distribution, it'd be about half
that (6.25%). FURTHER, he's asking for something that M/B doesn't give-- a bell
curve on height allows for graded measurements. And you can't get a smooth curve
between two points (yes/no). Hence, if M/B used the 625 type distribution, maybe
you'd see a bell curve.
Plus, later he says:
"In one study, based on the results of l,29l college aged students, six
different factors were found."
"In other studies, researchers found that the JP and the SN scales are
correlated with one another."
Which would seem to AGREE with the data normalization idea.
"In other words, once an INTJ, always an INTJ."
Disagree. As a child I was HIGHLY introverted. I've become much less so over the
years. The brain is a developmental thing. A psychotic killer will always be a
psychotic killer? A manic depressive will always be a manic depressive?
"Several studies, however, show that even when the test-retest interval is short
(e.g., 5 weeks), as many as 50 percent of the people will be classified into a
different type."
Now, this was the only interesting bit to me in disproving the theory; however
as it's worded, it worries me. "Different type" might mean a 1 letter
difference, which they were close on before anyway. Again, with the 625 result
test, you could judge more easily, but I'd be curious to see HOW different those
types were from their initial testing. In fact, if 50% were the 100% the same,
that's probably actually a good indicator (assuming I'm correct that only a
letter, MAYBE two might have changed for most other people) that the test IS
pretty repeatable.
> 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.
No? I knew about introversion/extroversion before the test and rated myself an
introvert. Test matched my assessment. Granted I didn't create a test for others
to take, but suppose I did? Do you expect it would produce highly different
results?
Let's take another example. Stubbornness again. Is this a personality trait that
exists? Are there such things as stubborn people? Suppose I invented a test that
yielded 80% "accurate" results as compared to a team of 100 psychologists,
friends, family, and co-workers who rated each subject independantly? Are the
psychologists, friends, family, and co-workers unable to make the distinction of
stubbornness? Is the test?
> 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."
Yep. Like I've said, the test, especially because it's yes/no instead of
gradular, will probably make mistakes, and is hence unreliable in the individual
case. But in the general case, I'd still guess it's mostly accurate.
> Regarding a method of testing, I will accept the testimony of experts if such
> testimony is based in logic and empirical analysis.
I might modify that to say that for you, you'll accept testimony of experts if
(1) the source appears to be a respected source and (2) the theory presented
appears to be something empirically verifiable. Hence, if some new star were
discovered by the Hubble, you'd probably believe it, because the source is
trusted, and the method is based on empirical evidence. However, if NASA
announced after "a study" that in general, women were more in touch with their
emotions than men, you would utterly dismiss that theory as 100% useless because
it's totally unempirical and unprovable.
If you had a lonely, pessimistic friend (alright, I admit those are unempirical
attributes) who got evaluated independantly by 4 psychiatrists, who all
diagnosed him with depression, would you believe it to be true?
DaveE
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Personality test vs. Religion
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton wrote: <snip> the (...) <snip> (...) Hate to intrude... From my experience with NB from back in college, I recall that there are usually an equal number of questions to help define each personality (...) (20 years ago, 1-Nov-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Personality test vs. Religion
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| (...) Well, it was designed, was it not? And presumably the designers made deliberate choices to include some results and not others, right? QED. (...) Sure, they *may* do that, just as tea leaves *may* tell you who you're going to marry. Let me (...) (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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| (...) 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 (...) (20 years ago, 1-Nov-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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