Is MBTI a valid instrument?

[Gabe]

Originally Posted by Victor

Well, I'm here and I know all qualified psychometricians know that MBTI is formally Invalid and Unreliable.

I also know that MBTI was invented by a mother and daughter who had no qualifications at all - and in particular they had no psychometric qualifications and so had no way of making a Valid and Reliable personality test.

Also their test is plaigerised from, "PersonalityTypes", by Carl Jung who was a collaborator in WW II and a guru of the New Age religion.

In fact qualified psychometricians regard MBTI as Invalid and Unreliable as astrology. And all qualified astronomers know that astrology has no truth value.

In fact MBTI is used here simply to reinforce narcissism.

talk about spin.

Yes, they had no 'qualifications.' The thing is, many psychometrics created by 'experts' are probably bullshit too: (Stanford-Binet, Rorschack). Qualified psychometricians can kiss my ass.

As already mentioned, it wasn't 'plagairized' (I can only assume you're going for shock value)

Jung wasn't a collaborator in WWII. He was probably antisemetic (history of some of his comments), but he protected jewish psychologists, and when he fled to america he worked for the government by psychoanalyzing top nazi officials.

[nightning]

Originally Posted by dissonance

what do you mean "should exist"? there's no objective reason we should break down wavelengths of light into colors. there's no objective reason we should categorize people by their age. there's no objective reason we should categorize animals by whether or not they can mate with one another...

how far do you want to take that line of reasoning?

i'm not saying the 8 parts are each arbitrary. i'm saying the number 8 is arbitrary.

I'm only taking it to what's reasonable. Take wavelength of light into colors... we do that because we can perceive different wavelengths as different colors. As to age... it's simply a special case for the measurement of the passage of time in living things. Why do we go by years? It's the time it takes for a complete revolution around the sun. We use years as a time measurement for everything else... so why not for people too?

It's not the same for cognitive functions though. There is no rational for their existence... you can't really see them... they're not based on anything else. So where's the proof?

first of all... "truly exist"...what does that mean? numbers don't "truly exist". sounds don't "truly exist". with that rationale, no concepts truly exist.

Back to semantics and definition games again? You know exactly what I meant. "Truly exists" reading by context from that sentence means we cannot tell whether the functions are artificially imposed or if they exist naturally. Numbers can be understood by logic... pure inductive reasoning show that they exist. Sound is trickier... but if more than one individual/animal can pick up the vibration of air molecules... pin point its direction... then something in that regards must exists. That is a mixture of inductive reasoning and empirical observation. With the existence of types and cognitive functions however... there's no way you can obtain that by inductive reasoning. There is also no empirical evidence to support their existence... Hence my question. Are they real or artificially produced?

let me break down my argument.
premise: human beings are limited.
therefore: human beings have a finite set of actions and cognitive processes possible. let's call that set x.

Error: Human beings are finite... human thinking and its associate processes has not be proven to be finite yet.

so, if we take set x and divide it into distinct subsets that added together, contain all of x, we can use the subsets to represent anything in x.
therefore: if we divide set x into 8 distinct subsets that add together to include all of x, we can use those subsets to represent anything in x.

You can divide a pie into 8ths... But you cannot say the 8 pieces are wedged shaped without knowing the initial shape of the pie. I don't care how you divide it... but to name the eight pieces specifically as Ni Ne Si Se Ti Te Fi Fe when you don't know what the whole looks like is foolishness to me.

"Actually, if we do field observations on people, we can see that they couldn't possibly be the only thing in human personality..."
please elaborate on this point. it seems quite unsubstantiated.

My pleasure.

What is personality? Certain properties within an individual that affects how they behave. Sounds fair?

So you have personality traits... (Big 5 or whatever else you want to use) But that's not the only thing that manners in determining how a person will feel or act.

What affects behavior?
1. External factors (situation)
2. Internal factors (person)

Under internal factors, you have
2a. personality traits
2b. experience

I don't see how you can argue against this... experience makes a huge difference in behavior. So please tell me, how can the 8 functions alone be all there is to looking at human behavior?

i don't see why people are so inclined to think that human action is somehow uncategorizable. if you think about it, we're all just specific groupings of subatomic particles. those subatomic particles respond to their surroundings according to natural laws. it's not like this rule doesn't apply to humans for some reason. no atom can just say, "hey, i'm not gonna follow the laws of physics right now!". we're really not that complicated at a basic level.

There are rules... and within the rules there are exceptions... It's good to know that the rules only hold true under specific circumstances... Those circumstances has to be predetermined in order for you to use the rules. Otherwise they don't apply.

Take your physical laws... gravity... It differs slightly based on where you are on earth... It dramatically reduces as you go into space away from the earth. So you can say gravitational attraction between objects must exist... so what about antimatter? Or dark matter? Does gravity work on them? I wonder...

It's always a good idea to remember that "rules" are imposed by people as a means of understanding the world around us. To properly use theories and "laws" means understanding its constrains and limitations. MBTI and cognitive functions theories have never been formally defined nor empirically tested. Sure we can still attempt to use it as a framework for our understanding of human behavior... but we have no prove that it is naturally found in people.

[Evan]

Originally Posted by nightning

I'm only taking it to what's reasonable. Take wavelength of light into colors... we do that because we can perceive different wavelengths as different colors. As to age... it's simply a special case for the measurement of the passage of time in living things. Why do we go by years? It's the time it takes for a complete revolution around the sun. We use years as a time measurement for everything else... so why not for people too?

It's not the same for cognitive functions though. There is no rational for their existence... you can't really see them... they're not based on anything else. So where's the proof?

i guess the rationale for me is that i've been observing them for a long time now. i can tell between different ones. and i can translate behavior and attitude into functions.

it seems quite obvious that there are people that prefer conscious thinking over feeling and vice versa. it's also obvious that some focus on the abstract, while other focus on concrete.

i mean, if you're not willing to give me that, i may as well give up.

Back to semantics and definition games again? You know exactly what I meant. "Truly exists" reading by context from that sentence means we cannot tell whether the functions are artificially imposed or if they exist naturally. Numbers can be understood by logic... pure inductive reasoning show that they exist. Sound is trickier... but if more than one individual/animal can pick up the vibration of air molecules... pin point its direction... then something in that regards must exists. That is a mixture of inductive reasoning and empirical observation. With the existence of types and cognitive functions however... there's no way you can obtain that by inductive reasoning. There is also no empirical evidence to support their existence... Hence my question. Are they real or artificially produced?

the thing is, all concepts are human created. either they all exist or none of them do. the concept of the functions certainly exists. you're talking about the reliability.

honestly, they're just shortcuts of explanation, no more. instead of saying, he made a conscious impersonal judgment based on his internal standards, we can say, he used Ti. i don't see the problem, as long as we define them rigidly.

Error: Human beings are finite... human thinking and its associate processes has not be proven to be finite yet.

well we have a finite amount of brain cells, a finite amount of ions floating around in the cerebrospinal fluid. there are a finite amount of dendrites and axons. there are a finite amount of neurotransmitters.

finite things cannot produce infinite results. plus, i'm not trying to label every one. i'm generalizing. that's what the functions do. just like when you say, "person x feels bad right now", you're generalizing. should you not be allowed to say that? should i ask you, well, "does being sad really exist?"

i want to hear an example that cannot be thought of in terms of sensing, intuiting, thinking, and feeling.

You can divide a pie into 8ths... But you cannot say the 8 pieces are wedged shaped without knowing the initial shape of the pie. I don't care how you divide it... but to name the eight pieces specifically as Ni Ne Si Se Ti Te Fi Fe when you don't know what the whole looks like is foolishness to me.

true. but i think we generally do know what the pie looks like. how often do you see a behavior and say, "holy crap, i didn't think a human being was theoretically capable of that!"

My pleasure.

What is personality? Certain properties within an individual that affects how they behave. Sounds fair?

So you have personality traits... (Big 5 or whatever else you want to use) But that's not the only thing that manners in determining how a person will feel or act.

What affects behavior?
1. External factors (situation)
2. Internal factors (person)

Under internal factors, you have
2a. personality traits
2b. experience

I don't see how you can argue against this... experience makes a huge difference in behavior. So please tell me, how can the 8 functions alone be all there is to looking at human behavior?

experience is stored in the perceiving functions.

It's always a good idea to remember that "rules" are imposed by people as a means of understanding the world around us. To properly use theories and "laws" means understanding its constrains and limitations. MBTI and cognitive functions theories have never been formally defined nor empirically tested. Sure we can still attempt to use it as a framework for our understanding of human behavior... but we have no prove that it is naturally found in people.

again, your claim "we have no prove that it is naturally found in people" seems odd to me. we also have no proof that other people exist. i mean, you can take that argument as far as you want. to me, it seems like you're taking the argument far enough to throw out MBTI and stopping it before you throw out stuff like "happiness" or "excitement" or anything.

what does "naturally found" mean? i think it's obvious that people use deductive reasoning, either regarding good/bad (F) or true/false (T). i also think it's obvious that people take in sensory data (S) and paint pictures with it automatically (N).

[Edahn]

Originally Posted by nightning

Let's not be too nit picky about definitions. If you want to use "theory" in the strict scientific sense of the word, then no part of MBTI is acceptable since none of it can be falsify. And with that, there's no point to this discussion. MBTI is merely pop-culture garbage.

You know that he means "theory" as the layperson's term for a system of ideas...

Well, in a thread questioning the scientific validity of a theory, I don't think my objection was that preposterous.

[Mort Belfry]

MBTI is a very valid instrument.

The other day I dropped a twenty behind my fridge and I had to use a copy of Please Understand Me II to get it out.

Saying that it isn't valid just insults me, the forum, Jung, all the angels in heaven and all the drugs that I bought with that money.

[Xander]

Originally Posted by Victor

My dear Xander, yes I do realise I am a voice crying in the wilderness and I will be lucky not to be shot as a wolf.

But for two hundred thousand years we believed the sun went round the Earth. It was a belief that worked - we saw that every morning.

But when we tested our belief against the evidence we found it had no truth value.

And so when qualified psychometricians tested MBTI against the evidence they found, using their formal language, that it was Invalid and Unreliable.

And the fact that it is believed by hundreds of millions of people doesn't make it true any more than it make it true that the sun goes round the earth.

And for heaven's sake, MBTI is part of the New Age religion and to be concerned with its nuances is like being concerned about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

Look, I am not totally unreasonable. If you are prepared to concede that MBTI is a religious belief rather than a scientific psychometric measure, I will start to look for the good side of MBTI.

This has the advantage of ridding you of cognitive dissonance and of putting me on the side of the angels.

Surely this is a tempting offer?

Victor.

"As long as you admit you're wrong I think we can be friends"
Very INTJ

Oh and puhlease no one ban this guy. I think he's awesome. And that makes two of us (nudge nudge)

Victor,
I think where you err is where most do in considering the MBTI to be a set of rules (with rules being defined in the common form as absolutes). Now I know that this is kind of statement brings swells of eye rolling to "scientific" types but the MBTI is about preferences. It's not about defining what is and what is not, which is what science aims to do, but rather to attempt to guide people predictions. In such usage it is extremely difficult to prove or disprove as a rule but as a set of guidelines it does appear to be of use.

Now as to admitting it's a religion, that depends upon how you define religion. If saying that guidelines about working practice or notation are a religion then yes I will accept that you term MBTI as a religion with gusto and enthusiasm

As a counter point I have yet to find a rule in psychology which I've found applies to all equally without taking certain liberties in it's application and interpretation but I would also concede that I am not that knowledgeable about the field of psychology.