MBTI's validity, imo, depends on how you interpret its significance. If you realize that the test is one way, of many, to describe people along certain exclusive dimensions, you're still okay. Once you move beyond that to think that a configuration at one point in time (when you take the test) is constant, you get into trouble. No one is always N, always T, etc. Second, I think the definitions behind each function are pretty nebulous. So, in the end, MBTI is kind of like a grid you superimpose on someone's personality. But it's just one grid of many. Personality psychology and clinical psychology is filled with alternative classification systems (more grids). They're not exclusive of one another and some have better application in certain situations than others.
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Originally Posted by Athenian200
So my question is... if MBTI is invalid, what do we do? Just leave? Give up? What's left here for us? You seriously make me contemplate whether I have any business staying here because of my own doubts about it...
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This place is a community brought together by interest in personality. There's no rule that says you have to believe every little bit to stay here. As I tried to say above, the instrument isn't completely worthless, but it can be abused. At time I think the test is complete crap, but that doesn't mean the friendships aren't real, ya?
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Anyway, do you have any ideas about what might be superior to MBTI?
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I'm a psych-junkie. I get lots of insight from studying primate behavior (
Desmond Morris: The Naked Ape) from Buddhist psychology (
Alan Watts: The Wisdom of Insecurity, Chapter 1-5 or so) and from modern psychology (currently reading
Masterson: The Search for the Real Self, I think you'd dig it).