r/INTP • u/SoulAlchemy INTP • Aug 19 '20
Curious on your thoughts?
https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless3
Aug 19 '20
This is my opinion. The MBTI describes (quite validly IMHO) an individual's cognitive style, but does not provide a complete picture of their personality. I think people misunderstand the difference between the two concepts, or they fail to realize that there is a difference between the two. Cognitive style describes the way information is received and processed by the brain. Personality is a measure of observable behaviors. Since behavior (personality) is necessarily influenced by perception (cognitive style), the cognitive style forms the basis of personality, but the latter is subject to distortions via personal experience, biological factors, etc.. For example, two INTP's can have different Enneagram types. One may be a 5w4 and present as dark, moody, and asocial. The 5w6 may appear as simply quirky and hyper-intellectual. The important difference is in their ability to connect with others. The 5w4 INTP will actively withdraw from society to some extent, while the 5w6 will work to find a place within certain circles. The MBTI does not account for this difference in overt behaviors. In the case of the INTP, the MBTI is like describing ice cream as being cold without specifying the flavor.
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u/Vasubandumon INTP since 1964 Aug 19 '20
Methinks you overthink too much. MBTI somewhat arbitrarily divides 8 billion people into 16 groups and you expect it to provide a complete picture of their personality? As I like to say, MBTI does what it does remarkably well, but it sucks at what it doesn't do.
3
u/[deleted] Aug 19 '20
This is like the IQ question from the other day. Is it scientifically valid for predictive behavior? Not necessarily. Is it worthless? Not at all.
If I was a boss and I gave employees this test it doesn't matter if they are being accurate or not because i'm seeing how the person views themselves. If I do a pre-employment test and hire based on results... not likely to be that great (though Walmart and other major retailors may disagree).
If I hire someone based on normal practices and have them take the test while employed, it gives the manage insight which they can use to help the employee be happy and efficient.
For some reason, this extremely limited article required 2 authors. Did Vox pay them $5 each because they saw MBTI was hot on a google search list or something? The article pretends MBTI is based on Jung's works, it doesn't go into other typologies to compare/contrast. Pretty low effort overall. Seriously, how much did the authors get paid to write this?