The local APT chapter had a presentation on Step III last night, and I made sure to sign up for that one (hadn't been able to make it to a meeting for some time. Had to rush, straight after work).
The speaker was Allen L. Hammer, which is a prominent name you can see, in the field. He is heavily involved in the development of these instruments.
The first thing he pointed out was that when it states that it measures “a person's current use of judgment and perceptionâ€, this refers to (what I would call) the “class†or “rationality†of the function “jâ€: T/F or “pâ€: S/N; not the J/P
dichotomy. This always threw me off; I assumed that if Step I deals with the basic dichotomies, and Step II deals with the facets (subscales) of the dichotomies, the Step III “more about judgment and perception†also referred to a dichotomy.
So when it finally came out and the sample reports were put up a few years ago, I couldn't make heads or tails of it, as it doesn't mention anything about dichotomies (As Hammer mentioned, it only briefly mentions the type code). Then, the other descriptions seemed even further away: “Addresses type developmentâ€; “Helps people use their natural types as effectively as possibleâ€. Now, it all fits together!
It's more like some other sort of psychological assessment (for clinical counseling), besides type.
This presentation:
http://www.bapt.org.uk/conference_files/conference_3_gilparsonspresentation.pdf is similar to the Powerpoint he used.
So he pointed out along the way that when you just see fields of grass, you're Sensing, but when you “see†it as a lot of green, you're actually
JUDGING -- putting what you see into a category. Most of us would think seeing in terms of color was Sensing; particularly “Seâ€.
This was in conjunction of surmising “how many colors does a newborn infant see when he looks out at the grass?†(i. e. not yet able to judge it as categories).
This is very good to know, and pivotal to understanding things. It for one helps to understand “undifferentiated†functions (and by extension, “concretismâ€, as we were recently discussing, and I was curious about).
It makes clear that everyone “uses†all four functions, at every moment of the day, but our type is what we prefer, not what we “useâ€.
So the idea behind Step III is to see if there is some deficiency in the two functions (one judgment, the other, perceiving) that we prefer.
An example he gave was an ENFP who can't make a decision, because he's going solely by Ne and underutilizing his Fi. This is what this instrument would pick up.
The reports give “statements†on the problems or strengths, based on the responses. Proteanmix gave several examples in post #3.
So,
>You appear to have confidence in yourself and your ability to handle the situations you face in at least some areas of your life.
Wow, how vague is that?
It's not supposed to be type specific; it's just showing he has good use of whichever preferred function would would be connected with confidence for him.
This, as someone asked, is where more potentially “negative†stuff is brought in to the theory. All of this was in Myers' original work, but held back for that reason.
So then I asked about TDI/Form J and the Comfort/Discomfort scale, and he said that that is completely done away with, except for some of the items being incorporated into Steps II and III. As I have reported before, C/D's subscales were connected with some of those of E/I, T/F and J/P in the factor analysis that was done.
So I guess they gave up on trying to match FFM's “Neuroticismâ€, and those types of traits are covered in this analysis without a fifth factor. (The stuff these reports discuss obviously are not apart of inborn personality. They are things that can be worked on and improved. To me, “Neuroticism†as inborn trait is built in to the five temperaments, as Eysenck originally mapped it to the ancient four. So, in type, it would be implicit in the Keirsey groups and Interaction Styles).
However, the purpose is not to change anything, but to raise discussion about it, like “Do you want to do things like that?â€
One thing that came over from Form J was Confidence, Stamina and Strain (described in link and post #26). An interesting point regarding Stamina was that athletes had the next lowest stamina, after drug addicts! That's because this is measuring “psychic†stamina, and all their stamina is focused on the physical!
So I'm interested in it. They gave a limited time invitation to take it with a feedback session, but it's $225, so I'm not sure right now.
