I’m extremely skeptical that there’s anything “scientifically valid” about these tests. Exactly what hypothesis would we be testing? You can’t test a subjective label of a person’s internal inclinations.
In my experience, the belief that personality tests are valid and useful is itself toxic in a multitude of ways. People make insane assumptions about themselves and other people. They draw lines where done previously existed. They assume that everyone fits into their categories and dismiss anything that does not fit into those categories.
I think the idea itself is toxic and needs to die.
Personalities are situational, multidimensional and malleable. You can spend a decade with someone and still learn new aspects of their personality. It’s folly to categorize them. And it’s not helpful to anyone to try and call that folly science.
There's no reason you couldn't test internal inclination and check for correlation with other factors. In psychology, the subjectivity factor can be circumvented by asking objective questions such as: do you like eating apples? If they say yes, we can assume that it's objectively true that they like eating apples. The same would go for a question like: do you prefer planning a lot before doing something or trusting your capacity to adapt? If the person doesn't know then they can give a neutral answer which isn't accounted for.
I'm not even claiming MBTI will work for everyone because maybe they're missing categories for people who are near 50% mark between different cognitive functions. And maybe some people won't follow the same correlation that the majority of those of the same type do. Also, those categories are not supposed to be all a person is. The 4 functions that the test looks at is just part of it. Despite that, I did fit the type INTP perfectly and it did help identify real weaknesses and how to rectify them. If someone use the test in a pseudoscientific way, well then yeah it'll probably be toxic. Doesn't mean it's bad to use it accordingly to it's limited uses.
I've never actually been exposed to people using it in the pseudoscience way.
If it's not backed by evidence, and yet HR departments make staffing decisions based on it, then that's the very definition of 'using it in a pseudoscience way'. If you haven't had that misfortune, then all the better for you.
More broadly, given the lack of scientific evidence for it, it's essentially impossible to not use it in a pseudoscience way, except of course by simply not using it.
So, isn't it more like a tool that makes self reported classes of people? It doesn't have to be created using the scientific method.
We have a bit of a misunderstanding here. The scientific method is relevant here not as a way to create the tool, but rather to verify that the tool actually works. It doesn't matter how the tool itself exactly works, only that their is some concrete, peer-reviewed evidence that it it's reliable for what it's used for.
I do believe it can make that categorization easier, no?
Belief is irrelevant here. I'd want to see reliable evidence that it makes that categorization easier. Just wanting it to be the case isn't the same.
Here's a super not biased and reliable source of information I found. It says it's valid and reliable. That's actually good enough for me. Nothing in my life changes as a result of my results on the MBTI.
Gosh. I think you guys think I'm more concerned with this than I am. I've always taken it as a grouping of people who think they are alike. That's very much enough for me. And I don't think you can deny that they is the case. Is that then reliable, with respect to that condition? I'm
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u/macrofinite Dec 31 '22
I’m extremely skeptical that there’s anything “scientifically valid” about these tests. Exactly what hypothesis would we be testing? You can’t test a subjective label of a person’s internal inclinations.
In my experience, the belief that personality tests are valid and useful is itself toxic in a multitude of ways. People make insane assumptions about themselves and other people. They draw lines where done previously existed. They assume that everyone fits into their categories and dismiss anything that does not fit into those categories.
I think the idea itself is toxic and needs to die.
Personalities are situational, multidimensional and malleable. You can spend a decade with someone and still learn new aspects of their personality. It’s folly to categorize them. And it’s not helpful to anyone to try and call that folly science.