Subject:
|
Re: Personality test vs. Religion
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.off-topic.debate
|
Date:
|
Wed, 3 Nov 2004 22:53:41 GMT
|
Viewed:
|
2833 times
|
| |
|
|
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton wrote:
>
> > > That would be true ONLY if the test did not allow for tweaking. Because it
> > > allows for post hoc manipulation, your objection does not apply to this
> > > shortcoming.
> >
> > But it only allows for manipulation by the testee,
>
> That's actually untrue, based upon the statement by the test's owners.
Now that's a suprise to me-- Let's say I adamantly insist I'm a P, not a J, so
when I test as a J, I manipulated it to be a P. But 58 psychologists rate me as
a J, so if you compare my results against EITHER P or J you're right either way?
Granted, if that were true, I'd agree with you. But I don't. I'd believe that in
that instance, the test incorrectly showed me as a P. Do that enough and it's
grounds to believe that the test is inaccurate.
I think the point holds:
1) 1000 people take the test. They tweak their individual results.
2) Throngs of psychologists independantly rate the people on the MBTI
dimensions.
3) Psychologists rating the same individuals match 100%, but only match people
who took the test's results at 50% accuracy.
Ex:
Bob gets rated by all the psychologists as INFP. Bob rates himself as ENFJ.
Tom gets rated by all the psychologists as ENTJ. Tom rates himself as ESFJ.
etc.
I would accept that as testimonial evidence indicating that the test is, in the
form presented, nerly useless. Unless perhaps people's self-rankings on
particular dimensions came out at higher accuracies, in which case I'd suggest
that the test has merit only in its ability to measure those dimensions.
> > Besides, if 1000 people take it and 1000 people change half or more of
> > their answers over a random distribution, doesn't that show that at LEAST
> > the test portion (if not the tweaking portion) is less useful?
>
> [snip] And did you really mean "less useful" there?
Essentially, that is to say that if 100% of people tested were given the option
to change their results and DID, I would think that says something about the
test portion's usefulness compared to if 100% of the people were given the
option to change their results and DIDN'T.
> > What DO you accept from psychology, and how does it differ? Is that which
> > you DO accept somehow not based on testimonial evidence, personal or
> > otherwise?
>
> I accept testimonial evidence that is falsifiable, reproducible, and
> consistent with precedent and physical/chemical evidence--preferably with the
> support of that evidence.
Like what? You said earlier you believe in such a thing as depression? Why? Is
depression falsifiable?
My guess is that your belief in "depression/non-depression",
"stubbornness/leniancy", "optimist/pessimist" or anything else that you might
believe in (assuming you believe in such things as the preceeding) is,
scientifically speaking, arbitrary. Science has nothing to say on such matters,
unless subjective testimony is admitted as evidence.
By accepting such principles as "depression" as existant, you're admitting a
belief (if only a mild one) in at least SOME subjective evidence. And by denying
a belief in (say) Sensing/iNtuition, or by claiming that the MBTI test doesn't
accurately measure such a dimension (even though many people, including,
apparently, psychologists do claim it measures accurately), you're ignoring or
disclaiming other subjective evidence.
Now, I fully accept your right to do that, and if you think it's incorrect or
inaccurate, you're welcome to believe that, and I'll leave it at that. But if
you're claiming somehow that you're disbelieving the test only because it
doesn't have objective or scientific merit, then I'll argue that there's other
things that you'll have to leave behind as well, such as other concepts in
psychology. Particularly personality types.
> This is also, frankly, equivalent to the red herring "did you love your
> now-dead mother/prove it" question that stealth-religionists enjoy so much.
Yep-- because it's unmeasurable phenomena. Some things like "feeling happy"
we've got a pretty good handle on chemically. But we only believe it because the
subjective evidence was (I assume) overwhelming. If instead we had found
endorphins in 1000 people, and only 548 reported they were happy, while 452
reported being miserable, we (hopefully) never would've associated endorphins
with happiness.
Now, in this case, we've seem to have a very large amount of people who
generally agree with the personality types as valid, and agree with how the test
rates people according to that system. And I'm not talking about "agree with" in
terms of "oh, I like that, cuz it says I'm awesome!", but agree with because
they feel it describes them better than the opposing extreme, as indicated (I
would say) by evaluating the evaluations of others.
Is the test perfect? I doubt it. Are the dimensions perfect? I also doubt it.
The critique you presented even suggested that there were really 6 general
groups instead of 16 that people tended to fall into, plus the fact that two of
the axes tended to follow each other indicating that the axes can probably be
better defined. But meanwhile, the test does appear (to me) to provide
consistant, accurate, falsifiable, useful results.
You're welcome to say that it's not consistant or accurate enough to appease
your judgement, and that as a result, you don't trust the MBTI at all. But I
still hold that scientifically, that's an arbitrary acceptance on your part.
> So the person's testimony is subordinate to the (admittedly, as yet
> hypothetical) examination of the neurochemistry. Ultimately, the person's
> testimony may be helpful in diagnosis but cannot be considered entirely
> reliable. For example, someone may be addicted to Prozac and may thereafter
> claim to be depressed when in fact he is not. By your logic, we seem to be
> forced to conclude that he *is* depressed because he says so; since we cannot
> "prove" that he isn't depressed, we must accept that he is.
Essentially, I'm saying I trust my instincts at judging subjective evidence, and
I'm suggesting that you do too (if you didn't, you wouldn't accept such concepts
as your co-worker's foot hurting); we just judge them differently in this
instance. Would I trust one guy saying he's still depressed? Probably not in the
case you describe. And not as much as I would I trust 1000/1000 saying the same
thing.
But realistically, we're not talking about someone who's addicted who's only
saying he's depressed in order to get more. We'd be talking about the test
phases:
Dr. DoubleBlind: "Here, drink some coffee" (secretly Prozacified)
(two hours later) "How you feeling?"
Bob the Patient: "Still miserable."
Do we trust the patient? I guess so. Do I trust that the Prozac didn't help?
Probably not until I've seen many other patients giving the same replies. Would
you suggest not to believe the patient? Would you believe the patient if a
million other patients reported the exact same thing? Or what if a million other
patients reported feeling *BETTER*?
> > > Certainly depression exists in many forms,
> >
> > Really? Can you prove that without using testimonial evidence? Otherwise,
> > should I not believe you?
>
> If one defines depression as the perceptual manifestation resulting from,
> say, an imbalance in the levels of seratonin (or whatever), then one can
> clearly demonstrate the existence of depression by demonstrating this
> imbalance. Again, the testimony of the patient is subordinate to actual
> evidence.
And if I defined "Judgemental"/"Perceptive" as the existance of neural pathways
which followed particular patterns, then, sure! they exist, provided I can find
someone who actually follows the example. But is there any reason for you to
believe that such a neural pattern actually relates to such a personality
metric? Is there any similar evidence for you to believe that seratonin relates
to feeling sad, aka depression?
Or is it instead based on your faith (based on past experiences with other drugs
you've learned about) that the medical industry has done many tests, each of
which is based on a large collection of subjective testimony?
Bob tells his doctor/psychiatrist that he's feeling sad. Should the doctor
perscribe Prozac without checking (say) seratonin levels in Bob? Why should the
doctor believe that these other test subjects who all claimed to be sad before,
and happy after Prozac? Why should he relate Bob to this same condition? And why
is this subjective testimony be more valuable than the MBTI testimonies?
Dang. And I even had that nice little short reply to start with.
DaveE
|
|
Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Personality test vs. Religion
|
| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton wrote: **snip all of that, yours and mine** Let's start afresh, because we've veered into abstract neuro-epistemology that I don't think either of is qualified to address. However, I've been thinking about the (...) (20 years ago, 4-Nov-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
|
Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Personality test vs. Religion
|
| (...) That's actually untrue, based upon the statement by the test's owners. (...) Before I answer, I have to ask what's the point of this hypothetical? We're back to the Infinite MPG car; it doesn't exist in reality, so comparisons between the car (...) (20 years ago, 3-Nov-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
|
53 Messages in This Thread:
 
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
This Message and its Replies on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
