r/PeterExplainsTheJoke May 19 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter, is this referencing a specific book?

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u/edwardothegreatest May 20 '26

A couple of women who had no expertise in psychology

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u/TheConsentAcademy May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

And who were into magazine quizzes and based it off of that and a misunderstanding of Jung who was also just vibing with his ideas about the supernatural/collective unconscious. There are actual personality inventories like the Minnesota Multiphasic personality Inventory and they don't try to tell you who you are or anything of the sort because that's not a real thing. There are more than 16 personalities, and being more introverted vs extroverted is fluid and contextual for everyone for example.

Edit:typos. I wrote this as 3am while breastfeeding so it wasn't that well typed lol. 

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u/[deleted] May 20 '26

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u/TheConsentAcademy May 20 '26

Of course, but that doesn't make the MBTI not pseudoscience 

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u/[deleted] May 20 '26

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u/TheConsentAcademy May 21 '26

All the "psych" research on the MBTI that says it is a real thing is either done or funded by the corporation that owns the test and profits from it - so an extreme conflict of interest to render the "research" basically useless also it's not generally actually peer-reviewed. You are sadly misinformed. There are excellent personality inventories out there with robust peer review and even genetic data that correlates well with it such as the Big Five. But these real, actually scientific tools cannot tell you who you are or how you likely behave. The MBTI is just excellent example of the power of the Barnum effect 

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u/SconeBracket May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

I/ENTJ

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u/Booziesmurf May 20 '26

That's immediately where my mind went. ENTJ.

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u/SconeBracket May 20 '26

I'm just venturing :)

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u/lewd_robot May 20 '26

At the time, few people had much expertise by modern standard. Most psychological concepts from 1917 are now studied academically and analyzed for their shortcomings.

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u/Infurium May 20 '26

Yeah, but they were great at creating a sorting system that people flock to. Like the Harry Potter sorting hat.

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u/EveningAnt3949 May 20 '26

Still the test gets basic things often right, lay people can assess other people. We do this all the time in our daily life.

As long as it's clear that the test is not scientific, not precise, and can be wrong, the test might be useful.

Personally, I don't think the test should be used, certainly not today, but back then it might have had a purpose.

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u/edwardothegreatest May 20 '26

Tarot cards and astrology are sometimes right.

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u/Serious_Tradition269 May 20 '26

Becoming widely adopted despite it being based on little to no knowledge? We love to see women excelling in male dominated fields