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MBTI - science or bullshit?

dbw

New member
Joined
Aug 30, 2009
Messages
17
MBTI Type
INtP
Is the MBTI science, or is it bullshit? (I'm already pretty sure that the enneagram is bullshit.)
 

Moiety

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Aug 3, 2008
Messages
5,996
MBTI Type
ISFJ
More bullshit than science but still not 100% bullshit.
 

Fluffywolf

Nips away your dignity
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
9,581
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
If you name your dog Spike, then Spike is his name. Not because science tells us its name is Spike, but because we named it so.

Same for MBTI. Common behavioural patterns have been named into 16 categories, not because it's science. But because we named them so.

Through MBTI a clearer picture can be made as to how certain people react in certain situations and in which category a person fits best. What qualities they seem to have, and what weaknesses they may have. Which ultimatly proves useful. Even though it is not science.

Science? No. Bullshit? No.
 

Moiety

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Aug 3, 2008
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5,996
MBTI Type
ISFJ
If you name your dog Spike, then Spike is his name. Not because science tells us its name is Spike, but because we named it so.

Same for MBTI. Common behavioural patterns have been named into 16 categories, not because it's science. But because we named them so.

Through MBTI a clearer picture can be made as to how certain people react in certain situations and in which category a person fits best. What qualities they seem to have, and what weaknesses they may have. Which ultimatly proves useful. Even though it is not science.

Science? No. Bullshit? No.

Agreed. Just to clarify, I grouped MBTI with.... whatever "wisdom" is passed on in boards such as this one every day.

MBTI isn't bullshit. It's what is inferred based on what Ti and Ne are, and what that says about an INTP (for example) , that can be bullshit.
 

nightning

ish red no longer *sad*
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
3,741
MBTI Type
INfj
MBTI is not science...

Cognitive functions are just like Freudian theories... not science because it cannot be falsified.

Think of MBTI as quick categorical labels defined arbitrary by people.
Like colors of a rainbow... Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, purple do not exist.
 

dbw

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Aug 30, 2009
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17
MBTI Type
INtP
I understand what you mean by sorting into categories. We have 4 dichotomies so we have 16 categories, that's all good.

But who decided that the secondary function needs to have the opposite E/I as the primary function? That sounds totally made up to me... much like "follow this line on the enneagram to see which type you turn into when Mars aligns with Jupiter"...
 

dbw

New member
Joined
Aug 30, 2009
Messages
17
MBTI Type
INtP
MBTI is not science...

Cognitive functions are just like Freudian theories... not science because it cannot be falsified.

Think of MBTI as quick categorical labels defined arbitrary by people.
Like colors of a rainbow... Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, purple do not exist.

Sure they do; for instance, "red" is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 650nm.

wavelength_figure.jpg
 
G

garbage

Guest
Sure they do; for instance, "red" is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of 650nm.

Only exactly 650nm? Would one not classify a wavelength of 651nm as red? Where does red begin, and where does orange begin? By whose definition? At best, colors are fuzzy categorizations. And that's the point of the analogy.


I will say that MBTI is taken way too far into the scientific realm than it ought to be.
 

Nonsensical

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Aug 2, 2008
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4,006
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ENFP
Enneagram
7
If you name your dog Spike, then Spike is his name. Not because science tells us its name is Spike, but because we named it so.

Same for MBTI. Common behavioural patterns have been named into 16 categories, not because it's science. But because we named them so.

Through MBTI a clearer picture can be made as to how certain people react in certain situations and in which category a person fits best. What qualities they seem to have, and what weaknesses they may have. Which ultimatly proves useful. Even though it is not science.

Science? No. Bullshit? No.

+1
 

Fluffywolf

Nips away your dignity
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Messages
9,581
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INTP
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9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I understand what you mean by sorting into categories. We have 4 dichotomies so we have 16 categories, that's all good.

But who decided that the secondary function needs to have the opposite E/I as the primary function? That sounds totally made up to me... much like "follow this line on the enneagram to see which type you turn into when Mars aligns with Jupiter"...

Personally, I can't make heads or tails out of the enneagram system. But MBTI seems acceptable to me. Both in theory as well in practice. At least on a recognizable level with which I feel comfortable 'working' with.
 

Laurie

Was E.laur
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
6,072
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
7w6
I've heard it explained as a "model" for behavior. Like any (even scientific) model it will not be exact but it is a good (and evolving) approximation.

No one can model water coming out of a faucet perfectly, does that make the models we have useless?
 

tinkerbell

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Aug 31, 2008
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3,487
MBTI Type
ENTP
it hasn't been validated as such, according to wiki, therfore it can't be called a science, but then there are plenty of scientists that say psycology isn't a science either....

That said I'm not a huge beleiver in science... which is massively limited to things that can be measured.

If we exsisted within sciences strcutural approach there would be no progression... Great advancements are mainly made through someone choosing to look at something differently, oten it can't be measured....

Thoughts can not be measured it doens't mean they don't exsist....

MBTI - is a central tendancy - and usful, but it's not science. That said, it's not bullshit.... it can be helpful to assist people to understand likely reponces and to nail down that people are different and likely to behave in a specific way - therfore you need to adapt to them
 

dbw

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Aug 30, 2009
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INtP
Are you implying there's a gray area between science and bullshit? *struggling to wrap mind around new concept*
 

Fluffywolf

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but then there are plenty of scientists that say psycology isn't a science either....

Personally I don't understand the arguement why psychology has to be science in order for it to 'work'.

Psychology in essence is based on scientific principles. However, practical application of psychology is not science. Why? Brains aren't a metric length someone can put a ruler against and measure. There are too many uncertainties to call any therapy science. Still, due to categorization, recognition of common patterns and ofcourse also scientific facts such as blood pressure and such. Are all considered in one heap and out of it comes therapies, medication and courses of action that most likely prove effective. Where there was no treatment before. Is psychology science? Parts of it, sure, and psychology aims to be as close to science as possible which is ofcourse good. But in general, it is not pure science. That doesn't mean it isn't useful however.

If someone is crying and you don't know why or what caused it. Should you just ignore it because you don't know the science behind it? (= Psychology is bogus, it's not science!)
Or should you act on what you do know, that crying is most often a result from something painful happening and inquire why the person cries, how you may assist, if there's hurt where it hurts and thus narrow down the cause and help find a solution and aid in the persons distress or pain? (= Psychology may not be science, but it sure is helpful.)


Are you implying there's a gray area between science and bullshit? *struggling to wrap mind around new concept*

Yes, shortly put.

One end of the spectrum there is science that we aquired. On the other end of the spectrum is bullshit. Inbetween is tons and tons of potential science as well as bullshit that is beyond our comprehension, awaiting our discovery.
 

redacted

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Nov 28, 2007
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4,223
I don't think MBTI does a good job at explaining anything. It's only descriptive. It just gives a set of traits a single name.
 

tinkerbell

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Hey Fluffy

I'm not big fan of science's dismissiveness, I agree there are many things that can't be proven scientifically, but are still useful/valid.

Many psycology experiments are conducted with piss poor sample sizes which pretend to be scientific but are SO not... but lets not get too geek

I agree useful the subject is, it doens't need to be scientifically measurable to be useful... hauman brain/behaviour is complex and difficult to measure...
 

entropie

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Apr 24, 2008
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entp
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MBTI gives "what someone does and another one doesnt understand" a more friendly face and graspable nature. The ideas about Fi and Fe, I find highly helpful with some people, aswell as the ideas about S and N.

Wouldnt it be for the descriptions mbti gave in that category, I'ld still have no real clue what is it exactly that is different between humans, besides hunches and an introverted world of experience resulting from dealing with humans.

If I think mbti to be the final wisdom ? No. But it gave direction to me
 

BlueSky

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Jun 14, 2009
Messages
52
MBTI Type
ISTJ
MBTI gives us "handles" on people. Where before we couldn't particularly describe people we now have a new vocabulary that not only allows us to describe people better but to understand people better. MBTI is a paradigm. I wouldn't even attempt to compare it to science really. It's much more like a language; somebody just made up stuff and other people adopted the made up stuff out of practicality. As there is no scientific nature to words, no explanation as to why the word "cat" describes the idea of a "cat", there is no scientific nature to the MBTI. (My thoughts are sort of loose here, but I think my point is made.)
 

onemoretime

Dreaming the life
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Jun 29, 2009
Messages
4,455
MBTI Type
3h50
Personally I don't understand the arguement why psychology has to be science in order for it to 'work'.

Psychology in essence is based on scientific principles. However, practical application of psychology is not science. Why? Brains aren't a metric length someone can put a ruler against and measure. There are too many uncertainties to call any therapy science. Still, due to categorization, recognition of common patterns and ofcourse also scientific facts such as blood pressure and such. Are all considered in one heap and out of it comes therapies, medication and courses of action that most likely prove effective. Where there was no treatment before. Is psychology science? Parts of it, sure, and psychology aims to be as close to science as possible which is ofcourse good. But in general, it is not pure science. That doesn't mean it isn't useful however.

Empirical science demands predictive, reproducible theories. Psychology is much more of a descriptive science, which seeks to describe things as they appear to be. MBTI falls into the second category.

While the latter two are scientific, in that they seek to describe trends based on observation, they aren't science, due to the lack of theoretical prediction (trends aren't predictive, they're merely descriptive of past events) and reproducibility (you can't say an ENFP will react this way, every time stimulus X is applied).
 
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