So many people I know through the workplace have done the Myers Briggs nonsense and hold onto their persona like a badge of pride. They’re well meaning, intelligent people who don’t know the background of MB and how it’s as scientifically rigorous as those paper chatterboxes we made in school to help you find out which boy you were going to marry by picking a colour.
I don’t say anything when people bring it up. I also have a few star sign friends. Sigh.
I remember when this nonsense was new and all the rage… I took a full online test, like 200 questions, about 6 different times over about 3 months.
Turns out, the test results changed a lot depending on my current mood, recent experiences and stress level.
It baffles me that still to this day even many professionals and business people think this has any merit.
People who unironically believe in astrology are worse though. Which is a shame, because seemingly nearly everyone on a dating app of any kind is basically either a religious conservative, or a weed addicted astrology believing ‘leftist’.
I take them for shits and gigles when I’m bored. I always got the same result.
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Lol same, I feel attacked as an INTJ for the last 15 years.
So did you end up marrying the purple boy?
Sure, but a lot of people have also ‘heard’ that mbti is not scientifically valid and go around parroting that without any knowledge of what specifically science says about it.
It is entirely possible that outside of a scientific discipline, mbti works well enough for people to use.
Kind of like how we use the term “meme” and understand what it means but the concept of memes are not used in science because other models of cultural evolution have better explanatory power.
Totally agree - just because MBTI is all made up, doesn’t mean it can’t be helpful for people! I think it still holds value since it helps people recognize their strengths and their differences from others. Anecdotally, I have definitely been on work teams where it has led to greater collaboration and mutual respect!
Lot of people in this comment section are neglecting that it can just be fun for some people, and there’s no need to stake your entire identity on a personality test
It gutted me. I was so into the typology for about six months.
From what I can tell, it wasn’t until around the turn of the century that it was widely regarded as total bunk. I know it was used in professional psychological and occupational contexts in the '90s.
I always pay attention to how people feel about either the astrology or MBTI, that does give you some helpful information about them. And if they don’t agree, that also gives some information. They’re just tools to help us understand each other or ourselves, I don’t think we have to be negative about that.
Astrology can be fine as long as you don’t take it too seriously. It’s not much different than a favorite color or lucky numbers.
Favorite color is a faaaar cry from astrology and “lucky numbers”.
feng shui would disagree.
also my computer should face the east in the spring time in order to get the most of my blessings.
Okay so say feng shui or whatever, not “favorite color”.
Feng shui has colors and elements and numbers and orientations and all of that. Shapes. They do have that too.
It’s a rabbit hole. Believe me.
Again, okay, whatever. What I was saying “having a favourite color” and “feng shui” is a totally different thing.
Clearly you are ignorant of what you say. It shows.
Clearly you are ignorant of what you say. It shows.
Feng shui is a complicated mystical framework placed over “arranging my stuff in certain ways makes me feel good.” It’s an art that gets treated like a science. There is some actual value there if it would drop the scientific pretense and mysticism.
Might be worth waiting for a couple decades without a major replication crisis in your field of study before holding academic rigor over the heads of others but go off king
Glass house level: Psych PhD
After a couple of Myers-Briggs tests I wound up on a web forum for self-identified INTJs. It was the smuggest, most insufferable place I’d ever seen, to the point that I gave different answers next time to nudge me into another category.
As one who both tested as and very much sees the description of the INTJ in themselves, can confirm as being an obnoxiously over-analytical fool.
In some ways if you take them in a certain light the M/B, astrology, and even tarot cards play a similar role. They provide a thought prompt to explore from.
I’d actually say tarot is the best for that as it’s supposed to change every time
I’m the fool every time.
I always wondered how this scale matches up with nerodivergent communities and even brain injuries etc. It’s obviously a bit like a horoscope, but still fun to see.
At the very minimum, at least it’s based on something tangible about you as a person over horoscopes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still dumb and effectively useless but it could be worse
INTJ is the “Libertarian Left” of quack psychology; the test is set up to put people in that category so they feel special, and annoying people with no personality fall for it every single time because it’s the closest thing they will ever have to an identity outside “video games” and “weed”
Same thing happened too me lol. Other than the retaking it part. It was kind of useful in the sense that it made me think about if I was acting that way and to make an effort not to do so.
Corporate Astrology
I think to a lot of people things like astrology, Myers Briggs types and rock magic are mostly an aid that helps them to more easily process what they’re thinking and feeling, and also feel as though they have an outlet for those thoughts and feelings.
9 out of 10 times, they know its not “real”, you’re not really achieving much by yucking their yum. I say this as someone who doesn’t believe in or engage with any of those things.
(I also fully acknowledge that the tweet is a double whammy joke that puts the author in on it as well)
These intentions are all well and good until an employer requires you to take a Myers Briggs test and you’re turned down from a job because of it. I don’t have any issue with someone reading their horoscope to try and understand their own feelings and emotions, I have a pretty massive issue with anyone trying to use pseudoscience nonsense to make serious decisions.
Oh, sure. But I reckon a potential partner bringing up their mb type in a casual conversation gets a pass (the context of the tweet). Bringing up pseudoscience as a hiring criterion is obviously ridiculous.
That’s why I like the I Ching. Instead of wrapping its abstract advice in hokey mysticism or pop-psychology quackery it comes right out and admits what it’s doing. It say, “Generate a random number between 1 and 64, then read the abstract advice that goes with your number. It may help you see a problem in a new light.”
Sounds neat! It presumably works just as well, too, since placebos have been shown to work even when you know they’re a placebo.
I agree, but I think it is important to clearly communicate what is and what isn’t scientific consensus and what is only pseudoscience. Because there will always be people who think that stuff like Myers Briggs tests or homeopathy are really reliable/effective. They might be a good placebo but there are also people dying because some quacks tell them that they shouldn’t take their cancer medication and homeopathy instead. Myers Briggs and astrology are obviously not that dangerous as they aren’t medical treatments. But I fear the atmosphere in society shifting towards pseudoscience and distrusting in actual scientific approaches.
I agree with you. In my experience at the very least its quite easy to tell the difference between a person who uses it like a magic 8 ball and a person who truly believes in the pseudoscience, and the latter is fairly uncommon (again, in my experience)
Well, maybe context is important. I’m from Germany and pseudoscience is really common here. There is even some homeopathy that is paid by public insurance nowadays. And there are many esoteric and pseudoscientific movements that have a lot of financial power. That is, the biggest drug store chains in Germany are esoteric lead and there are kindergarden/schools as well as various companies that are anthroposophic. They also formed these huge protests against covid regulations and many people fell prey to the esoteric mindset at this time. So it is actually not that uncommon in Germany for people to truly believe in pseudoscience unfortunately…
ETA: does your username mean that you like to glorify something/someone? Or that you tend to be glorified?
Mm, I suppose I only have my experience to go off, it might be much worse as you say elsewhere.
Re: username, one of my favourite songs from one of my favourite games is called “Apotheosis” and it was my first time encountering that word. I riffed on it and settled on my username - so, I guess neither? Lol
What is up with that handle?
What? ‘Bill’? Yeah that’s really insensitive to ducks.
as a philosophy and sociology nerd myself (i.e. not at all qualified) i will simply say that there are many better alternatives.
The big five is a pretty good one, a lot of people like it, i really like the enneagram. It’s really broad but incredibly specific at the same time, does a pretty good job at concatenating behaviors down into traits.
Other than that, stop taking personality tests. Start quantifying your own behaviorism’s, it’s fun, just don’t take it seriously.
The idea of taking a complicated system and boiling it down to an essential value (or set of values) that describe everything is high-key fascism. It’s fine to simplify a system to better understand it, but the moment you start saying these abstractions have any kind of predictive capability outside their original contexts, that’s when you start getting into the eugenics shit.
That escalated fast.
Not as fast as you think.
You support ultra capitalist dictatorships while claiming to be a tankie.
Go away nazi.
When I was working on my associates, I took 3 psych classes as electives thinking I would minor/double major with math. I took all 3 of them with the same professor, and she took every opportunity she could to roast the OCEAN as a knock-off of the MBTI. She was particularly critical of people who dismissed the MBTI as pseudoscience while using the OCEAN.
the OCEAN
yeah that checks out. I’m not surprised people don’t like it. It’s hard to boil things down into a handful of traits. Specifically shorter ones.
I presume it’s a lot less predatory than the MBTI though. Colleges are even starting to use the MBTI and it’s a huge cash cow for whoever owns that shit now.
Big five will probably go that way given a long enough period if it isn’t already. I only mentioned it because it seems to be out there about as much as the MBTI lol.
a lot less predatory than the MBTI though
You mean the practices surrounding it? I don’t see how a personality index can be predatory in-and-of-itself.
yeah the practices around it. Technically the test itself can be predatory in the sense that it’s wrong, and people believe that it isn’t.
Similar things in society have caused far worse outcomes. Notably, antisemitism. Though this isn’t nearly the same thing. People have a propensity to ascribe themselves to labels, or vice versa. And people like existing in groups. Labels are an incredibly easy way to define and arrange people into groups.
Just being wrong in it of itself isn’t technically predatory though, but once you add in aspects like the MBTI pretending to be credible, suddenly now it becomes a lot more predatory on a personable level.
you ever taken an online personality test of any kind? Ever notice how it says that it’s just for entertainment and shows no real data/labels? Similar thing there.
This made me try that test again, and I got INTP-A. Got something different half a year ago, so yeah.
You have changed then, assuming it was the same test. I tested the same for decades. Eventually I recognized that my personality has changed and took the test again and yup, different result.
Yeah, but the point of all the criticism is that the test also reflects mood changes and recent experiences in ways that a proper tool to measure a person’s personality shouldn’t. I am not saying that people can’t change, just that the result of the test is rather superficial.
…… proceeds to his office to deliver $300/hr Jungian analysis
loving that @ lol
I really don’t like calling people four letter words.
People who do are dumb fucks.
Ha!! I actually laughed at that
I remembered doing that when I did my first foray into dating and I remembered putting it on the same level of “what kind of dere are you” Obviously I took all of that shit down because it was turning everyone the fuck off and I didn’t even like it in the first place.
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The struggle is not calling them out for their duplicitous hypocricy
wow he really showed her /s
and this is why he’s forever alone
You really missed the joke on this one, huh
apparently so.
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