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MBTI Paper

ptgatsby

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Well, it repeats many of the criticisms we know already and the author goes a bit overboard at times but at the end of the day, MBTI is still not scientifically validated and still bears more than a little resemblance to astrology...

http://www.hha.dk/man/cmsdocs/WP/2006/2006-05.pdf

Egad, I'm probably one of the worst when it comes to attack MBTI on this board, but I skimmed it and was... decidedly not impressed.

He makes no allocation for what they have done correctly, even from his own stance. Independent functions not validated - like say, through factor analysis done to create Step II? The one that mirrors FFM and such to a fairly high degree (ignoring the 5th dimension). And yes, the J/P divide has issues, ones they are now addressing under Step III. Or how about the validation studies they have done? Reliability studies? No backing is a completely unfair statement to level and shows ignorance of the instrument, its history and its current research branch.

Then he uses typelogic as a basis for the problems with type? Namely the description of ENFPs that has The following comes partially from the archetype, but mostly from my own dealings with ENFPs. as a disclaimer at the top of the description? I mean, I don't know exactly who the author of the description is, other than a professor at some school, but most of those seem taken from Keirsey to start with (archetype!?).

Hardly MBTI at all. In fact, I'm not sure he once referred to MBTI except through the scientific investigations - like those ones that do correlation studies, test comparisons and such between MBTI and FFM?

And yes, we know that Jung was a bit whacky and didn't have hist stuff validated. Yes, the functions and all that hangover sucks. But Jung is so far removed from the current MBTI body that you might as well blame humors for the failure of MBTI. Actually, in a way, I guess they are.

Obviously written as persuasive and not investigative, this offers nothing new to the debate and merely references every problem, ranging from the scientific problems (functional, hierarchies) to the general (personalities don't capture human nature, don't put people in boxes).

As someone who acts on the ethics boards, he should of stuck to... well... the ethical side. Even one case study would of been nice, since I didn't see one, pointing out what can happen... rather than just supposition.

IMO, this is an opinion piece... and a badly validated one at that. There would be more strength if it was written;

1) Listed actual issues that come from typecasting (reference to IQ for bonus points)... since this is contrary to all ethnical rules MBTI and most personality assessments, since they are to be used for research, not sorting.

2) MBTI as being commercial, therefore violating the ethnical rules not to sort people (ie: despite the code of ethics stating this shouldn't be done, it often is indirectly used this way)

3) Made a single reference to MBTI research

3) Not made a single reference to "typelogic.com"... or any internet site... and picked up an MBTI manual for $100.

4) Hell with that, made a single reference to actual MBTI theory, process or... well... anything.

I admit, I skimmed it... I read fast, but not that fast. Maybe I missed this. If I did, 70% of the report should be eliminated regardless.

Gah. That irritates me.
 

Economica

Dhampyr
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Apr 23, 2007
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70% of the report should be eliminated regardless.

I agree. This paragraph hit home for me though:

Might not something like this happen when the dichotomies of the MBTI test paints a certain picture of a person, characterising the person as being an ENFP, thereby pigeonholing that person in to precisely one of 16 pigeonholes. The individual in question may believe the picture painted and begin to act in a way that would confirm the picture, ignoring aspects that the test could not catch. Others would help to put the individual in the ENFP mould, by acting as if the ENFP interpretation was the picture of the person, leading perhaps to stereotyping or even stigmatisation, and a reductionist view of how to relate to this person.
 

snegledmaca

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nd yes, we know that Jung was a bit whacky and didn't have hist stuff validated. Yes, the functions and all that hangover sucks. But Jung is so far removed from the current MBTI body that you might as well blame humors for the failure of MBTI. Actually, in a way, I guess they are.

I was under the impression that Jung's work was the center piece for MBTI. I mean, didn't the founder construct MBTI solely from Jung's work? In essence, isn't MBTI a direct expression of Jung's ideas? If not, how so?
 

Blackwater

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i aprreciate your counter-criticism, PG and i even agree that he is merely voicing the standard shortcommings of the model.

but i too would like you to elaborate on the fact that jung is supposedly removed from modern mbti. as a former intp yourself, don't you find it the least bit convinving that you can look up the introverted thinking type in a book from 1921 where it says that the type is prone to express himself in overly technical terms, a manner in which he will continue for ends and ends, elaborating, defining, confining etc. etc.
 

Athenian200

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I was under the impression that Jung's work was the center piece for MBTI. I mean, didn't the founder construct MBTI solely from Jung's work? In essence, isn't MBTI a direct expression of Jung's ideas? If not, how so?

Isabel's ideas were partially from Jung's work, and partially from a system her mother Katherine and herself had started working on. She just found that much of what she had come up with was similar to Jung's ideas. She thus decided it would be reasonable to simply adapt Jung's system in an expression of her ideas about personality.
 

ptgatsby

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I agree. This paragraph hit home for me though:

It has some points... points that I have brought up many times, actually... But the support for those points isn't just absent but incorrect.

Considering that there is research about the negative effects of typecasting, the whole thing could be written with only a couple of references. This is nothing new... it's not intrinsic to MBTI, or hidden. What should come across as a comment about the systemic problems to typecasting inherent in MBTI just comes across as a incoherent rant... to me, anyway.

I was under the impression that Jung's work was the center piece for MBTI. I mean, didn't the founder construct MBTI solely from Jung's work? In essence, isn't MBTI a direct expression of Jung's ideas? If not, how so?

MBTI theory may be based from Jung's work, the actual existing MBTI instrument and supporting literature is entirely different.

Jung was based upon 3 personality dimensions. MBTI added a fourth, then adjusted the atitudes via the new J/P hierarchy. Then in the 80's and early 90's, performed factor analysis to develop Step II, redefining the personality traits that each of the 4 dimensions measured (not much changed, mind you, but it did). Literature from Jung is about theory, about cognitive issues and about archetypes. MBTI has gone through validation, factor analysis and reliability studies.

A simple example is how the J/P and attitude problems are being looked at now, in step III... something Jung didn't even have in his theories. According to Myers, J/P is what defines health in terms of type. Ie: you know those little % people put? That's not strength, it's test confidence levels... Step III is suppose to define strength, so to speak.

I'd say that for all of the remaining Jungian theory left in MBTI, MBTI resembles FFM more than a Jungian theory.

Don't get me wrong however, I'm talking about the practical implications more than theory. Theory hasn't moved forward nearly as much as the instrument, although both are considerable... some changes came through having Jung's claims challenged due to statistics and research, others through new theories.

--

Full disclaimer: My support for many of these things is tenuous at best, so don't take my view on it as supportive...
 

snegledmaca

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Isabel's ideas were partially from Jung's work, and partially from a system her mother Katherine and herself had started working on. She just found that much of what she had come up with was similar to Jung's ideas. She thus decided it would be reasonable to simply adapt Jung's system in an expression of her ideas about personality.

So basically she arrived at the same system Jung did, independently of him? I didn't know that. I was under the impression she took Jung's ideas of the dichotomies and made a test from it. Hmm, now that's interesting. I think that might point to the validity of both her and Jung's work (As I think ti's rare that two people, independently of each other, develop the same false theory).

MBTI theory may be based from Jung's work, the actual existing MBTI instrument and supporting literature is entirely different.

Jung was based upon 3 personality dimensions. MBTI added a fourth, then adjusted the atitudes via the new J/P hierarchy. Then in the 80's and early 90's, performed factor analysis to develop Step II, redefining the personality traits that each of the 4 dimensions measured (not much changed, mind you, but it did). Literature from Jung is about theory, about cognitive issues and about archetypes. MBTI has gone through validation, factor analysis and reliability studies.

A simple example is how the J/P and attitude problems are being looked at now, in step III... something Jung didn't even have in his theories. According to Myers, J/P is what defines health in terms of type. Ie: you know those little % people put? That's not strength, it's test confidence levels... Step III is suppose to define strength, so to speak.

I'd say that for all of the remaining Jungian theory left in MBTI, MBTI resembles FFM more than a Jungian theory.

Now I'm confused. Does MBTI use Jung's ideas as it's foundation or not?
 

Economica

Dhampyr
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It has some points... points that I have brought up many times, actually... But the support for those points isn't just absent but incorrect.

Considering that there is research about the negative effects of typecasting, the whole thing could be written with only a couple of references. This is nothing new... it's not intrinsic to MBTI, or hidden. What should come across as a comment about the systemic problems to typecasting inherent in MBTI just comes across as a incoherent rant... to me, anyway.

Not just to you, I agree. :yes: But personally I can use repetition of said points. :blushing:
 

tovlo

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It did seem an opinion piece. Interesting to read all the same.

I'm aware of, what I find to be, well-argued criticisms of MBTI out there (such as the dichotomy model vs. a continuum), but I agree setting it up as little more than popular astrology goes a bit far.

I had highlighted the same section Economica had quoted:

Might not something like this happen when the dichotomies of the MBTI test paints a certain picture of a person, characterising the person as being an ENFP, thereby pigeonholing that person in to precisely one of 16 pigeonholes. The individual in question may believe the picture painted and begin to act in a way that would confirm the picture, ignoring aspects that the test could not catch. Others would help to put the individual in the ENFP mould, by acting as if the ENFP interpretation was the picture of the person, leading perhaps to stereotyping or even stigmatisation, and a reductionist view of how to relate to this person.

I also appreciated this comment:

The reality is that personality tests cannot begin to capture the complex human beings we are.

I tend to think MBTI can offer insight, taken as a rough guide, but I feel when used as a weapon of prejudice and discrimination, as I think it sometimes is, it can be a source of emotional harm to self and others.
 

Blackwater

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well of course the instrument isnt jungian seeing as jung had no instrument himself and would probably reject the way which MBTI is used.

also, P/J is added to indicate which function is dominant, isn't it?

to my mind, the one (maybe only) original theoretical contribution from myers was the fact that introverts introvert their dominant function which, it could be argued, is also something jung indicates in his book
 

ptgatsby

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Not just to you, I agree. :yes: But personally I can use repetition of said points. :blushing:

Don't get me wrong, even though I take a giant issue with the paper... I don't disagree entirely. To me it is akin to the conspiracy problem... When you throw bad evidence at truth, the truth becomes less defined, less true. If there is an issue and you read this, you'd think the backing for the "issue" is a joke and never actually address the problem.

There is a debate around if typecasting creates problems or makes problems worse... or that typecasting is net negative... It seems like it conditional on the people involved. Just like any tool... so there is a debate to be had... and a long lengthy one over the ethics and practises of these instruments. MBTI is different because it is commercial and sells under a different guise than the academic ones.
 

Economica

Dhampyr
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When you throw bad evidence at truth, the truth becomes less defined, less true. If there is an issue and you read this, you'd think the backing for the "issue" is a joke and never actually address the problem.

Excellent point! One often wishes some of the people fighting one's own cause would just STFU. :doh:
 

ptgatsby

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Now I'm confused. Does MBTI use Jung's ideas as it's foundation or not?

In a word, yes.

However, Katherine Briggs had created her own model 6 years before finding Jung's work, but put it aside after reading his.

Isabel Briggs attempted to, with Katherine Briggs, valiate the construct of E/I (the core of Jungian views), which didn't happen. It was rejected and a new definition of E/I came from academia.

Isabel taught herself what she needed to know to create the test and validate it. She sent it to Jung, but Jung had no background in instruments or statistics and didn't comment. This is more or less where they parted ways (conceptually, I mean).

well of course the instrument isnt jungian seeing as jung had no instrument himself and would probably reject the way which MBTI is used.

Right... There is Jungian theory in MBTI, no doubt about that... but it is still a long ways removed. One person took the theory and built new theories on it. It's a long way removed in methodology, practise, assumption and so forth.

Maybe I wasn't clear in my OP - what I'm saying is that attacking Jungian theory is 70+ years out of date. Even if it was flawed then, the dichtomies have been validated and tested for reliability and what they describe has been changed.

To put it another way, the reason MBTI isn't based on Jung is because they used vastly different methodologies - to attack Jung as "unsupported" is unfair to an instrument that came from "supported" methodologies.
 

Blackwater

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ok, i think we essentially agree then. about the author of the paper i linked to, i have all but forgotten him. like you and eco agree, he has some points though and im sure there are some faustian newcomers here who would be done some good by reading it, even if most of it could ultimately be stripped.

so, leaving the issue of practical methodology and this specific paper, from a general point of view:

- there is substantial jungian theory in mbti

- there are word-for-word describtions of given types in jungs 1921 book that are still present in modern mbti litterature

- there are kantian metaphysics in all of jungs theory that has probably permeaded into the mbti as well

- mbti dichtonomies stem from the jungian theory of opposites but has been almost entirely stripped from modern mbti (which is good) but still we have akward dichonomies like when people are one 1 point to a given side and yet end up being typed as a 'E' none the less.
 

ptgatsby

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- mbti dichtonomies stem from the jungian theory of opposites but has been almost entirely stripped from modern mbti (which is good) but still we have akward dichonomies like when people are one 1 point to a given side and yet end up being typed as a 'E' none the less.

This is the big one, in terms of validation, and the big influence from Jung. The lack of gradients is very important... but as I mentioned, Step III was meant to deal with this, so who knows what will happen now. Though I'm sure you can guess my opinion on using J/P to further measure strengths in N/S and F/T.

The way I see MBTI presented in companies is more along the concept of interative themes... mixtures of traits. The Jung descriptions may be part of the culture with MBTI, but they don't define MBTI very well anymore. Having done PI as well... I don't see many differences anymore. Even the report from MBTI, despite what the trainer says, reads like a strength measurement.

(Once more railing against web descriptions, I suppose.)
 

ygolo

My termites win
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Though I have known that these personality theories existed for a while, I have only done in-depth investigation for a few months.

Perhaps, I will add suggestions to the Feedback section.

But not all of Blackwater's points were know to me, and I found some particular points pt made interesting.

My questions are now:

  1. What are the current MBTI traits, and where do we find sources?
  2. What would be the value of studying Jung's ideas with respect to understanding people? Have his notions all been debunked?
  3. Percentages indicating confidence levels implies some form of metric space. How do we find out what that space is? Or it could mean the existence of some form of null-hypothesis (in which case we would want to know what their null-hypothesis was) Are researchers BSing levels of significance again?
  4. Jung and Kantian metaphysics, interesting. Where can I find out more?

(note:I don't expect only pt and Blackwater to answer, or for either of them to answer at all. Any help is appreciated)
 

Maverick

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There are papers out there that are scientific in nature and provide far more compelling arguments and evidence in disfavor of the MBTI.
 

ptgatsby

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  1. What are the current MBTI traits, and where do we find sources?


  1. This is a bit difficult to answer... I don't even have a test I could violate the copyright of to hand to you :D

    Wikipedia has the information, however, but it breaks down to;

    I/E, F/T, S/N and J/P (pretty obvious, I know). The subtraits have 5 in each side of each trait (wiki).

    For further breakdown, I can offer this paper(PDF Warning) that compares the language used in FFM vs MBTI. It kind of helps.

    [*]What would be the value of studying Jung's ideas with respect to understanding people? Have his notions all been debunked?

    I wouldn't say debunked - they have been validated as far as his observations go... there seems to be a true F/E/S nature to people... He is still a big part of psychology, but then so is Freud. I can, however, say that I don't think it's the right approach and have no interest in it.

    It might sit better with you - it sits with bluewing, for example. I couldn't stand psychology of that nature and want to treat it like a hard (if still special) science... not like philosophy, which is what it felt like.

    [*]Percentages indicating confidence levels implies some form of metric space. How do we find out what that space is? Or it could mean the existence of some form of null-hypothesis (in which case we would want to know what their null-hypothesis was) Are researchers BSing levels of significance again?

    I don't know, actually. However, I believe that MBTI simply uses strength as a measurement of confidence. ie: if you answer 90% I, then you are 90% certain to be an I!

    You'd have to get the scoring guide to be sure. I'm pretty sure it works that way, however, because I'm nearly positive that the trainers are not working with any tables that could generate confidence levels. (By nearly positive, I mean positive but without proof.)

    I obviously disagree with this methodology :D
 

Mycroft

The elder Holmes
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A small clarification:

Jung did address the J/P divide in so much as he presented the idea of the "dominant function". J/P is not a trait in and of itself - it simply indicates which function is extraverted. For a J, the judging function will be extraverted. For a P, the perceiving function. If the person in question is an extravert, the extraverted function will be the dominant, if introverted the reverse case is true.

Jung also mentioned that everyone has a "supporting function" to go along with their dominant. If a person's dominant function is one of what he referred to as the "irrational functions", i.e. iNtuition or Sensing, their supporting function would be one of the "rational functions", i.e. T or F.

MBTI simply uses 4 letters to indicate what a person's dominant function and supporting function is. So, up until here, no divergence from Jung's thinking. To be entirely honest, I'm not exactly sure where and how MBTI diverges from Jung's thinking.

From some of the posts I've seen on this board, it seems that Jung also touched upon tertiary and inferior functions as well, but I haven't seen this in any of his works I've read. I've read pretty much everything readily available by Jung, so I'd be curious to know where these posters came across these mentions. (No, that's not sarcasm.)
 
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