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Compensating errors in self-assesment

Ghost of the dead horse

filling some space
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Sep 7, 2007
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ENTJ
There's a thread title and then there's the real issue at hand. So, read. Please.

Suppose someone's comfortable T-F area spans a range from 90% to 99% of T. Let's call that person a he. He considers the ones like "him" at about 95% T, meaning in my system, that about 95% of people are less T, and 5% are more T.

How would this be expressed? The person might be rude, robotic, but he would have a passing interest some some of the things people call "emotion", feelings and such. He would have perhaps read about them and accepted, that the condition of having feelings is strong with the mammals of this planet.

This person would probably consider 80-90% of the population "feelers".

Now, when asked, this person would have a peculiar response to questions about his own thoughts and feelings. Now, a person who designed a TEST QUESTION to distinguish those more than 50% T to those less than 50% T, would have thought of something like "person a pays more attention to people's feeling at a party, whereas person b considers that the material conditions for a successful party are satisfied". Then, the test maker has prepared us a question. The test question goes like this: "at a party, I pay more attention to people's feelings than any of the material conditions around, like food or music."

Then, we have this 90% T person to answer it. The one who's F-T range spans from 90 to 99% T. He thinks: I chose this progressive techno for music, it isn't as hard core than the other options. I considered people's feelings with this. I'm a feeler man, much more than that 99% T who's grumpy at the corner of the room.

So, there's the problem with this system that relies on self-assessment. The scales aren't fixed enough. They're floating. They're too damn floating. All of them.

More examples:

Some people might mistake "planning" for something that they wear long pants in the winter.
Some people might mistake "thinking" for a tendency to collect and spread T-like statements in order to appeal to their emotions.

etc.

We'd need a real center for this. The center would be the perfect xxxx. One who has exactly the decided preferences, who divides the population statistically exactly to those portions defined. For example, 50% e, 50% i. 25% N, 75% S (if that's what we want).

There's a damned good reason for this. I tell it now.

I've worked in statistical jobs for years. I have come accustomed that significant portions of the population only have a good understanding of the subgroups close to them, and a vague understanding of the others. They also seem to over-exaggerate the importance of their own groups. It's funny to talk to 5 of them during the same hour, each of them telling what the world is really like. For example, a poor person might have a great interest to means of distributing wealth. He might know much about the poor. But then, people with income above certain threshold are too "rich" - they seem like alien to him, something who might constitute just 5% of the population, when they are actually 40%.

Bottom line: self-evaluation requires knowledge of the parameters of the population. Without it, self-evaluation as compared to the population, will fail.
 

Ghost of the dead horse

filling some space
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Summary of above

I think I have to make a summary for this without waiting another minute. So: MBTI tests are based on people knowing to answer questions correctly - their opinion of F versus T, I versus E, and others. There's the problem that many people dismiss an entire range of human behavior - say, some people might dismiss the range of 70% to 100% E because they're "attention-seeking nuts". In that case, only the range of 0 to 70% E constitutes a useful option of extraversion for them. That's their world. That world is centered on about 35% E, and he would consider person with 35 to 50% E as "extroverts", even though they would qualify as introverts when compared to the normal population. This becomes a problem for people who try to evaluate themselves.
 

miss fortune

not to be trusted
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so basically you're looking for people's opinions on how self reporting errors skew MBTI results? :)

(I have 6 years of stats education and practice, along with education in public opinion polling and data entry and analysis ;) )
 

Venom

Babylon Candle
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I've worked in statistical jobs for years. I have come accustomed that significant portions of the population only have a good understanding of the subgroups close to them, and a vague understanding of the others. They also seem to over-exaggerate the importance of their own groups. It's funny to talk to 5 of them during the same hour, each of them telling what the world is really like. For example, a poor person might have a great interest to means of distributing wealth. He might know much about the poor. But then, people with income above certain threshold are too "rich" - they seem like alien to him, something who might constitute just 5% of the population, when they are actually 40%.

Bottom line: self-evaluation requires knowledge of the parameters of the population. Without it, self-evaluation as compared to the population, will fail.

I would relate this to the fact that if I had simply taken a step back and compared my irl social self to the hordes of interwebz social fail INXXs, I wouldnt have taken this long to find ENFJ. As you say, I was simply ignorant of the parameters of the populations.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
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May 22, 2008
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I would relate this to the fact that if I had simply taken a step back and compared my irl social self to the hordes of interwebz social fail INXXs, I wouldnt have taken this long to find ENFJ.

:rofl1:
 

The_Liquid_Laser

Glowy Goopy Goodness
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Jul 11, 2007
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The biggest discrepancy I've seen is on the E/I dimension. Some statistics say that the population is about 50% Introvert while other statistics say it is closer to 20-25%. According to the OP this means that some of the original test makers were extreme introverts and that is why some tests only show introverts being a small portion of the population.
 

Ghost of the dead horse

filling some space
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Some scales strive for global balance in scales, and then, the population the United States is about 75% E. In other fields, a lot of literature is centered on the situation in USA, so that might be the case with personality psychology as well.

Edit: but really, one can decide to divide the population in exactly the proportions one wishes. For some reason, the psychologists have found it most useful to divide 75% of people to S and the rest to the N group. This gives the feeling that in their opinion, someone totally S is not that much different from someone 50% S 50% N, but a person of say, 80% N should be distinguished from them.
 

redacted

Well-known member
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Nov 28, 2007
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I've thought about this too. I generally use the 50/50 I/E, T/F, and J/P and 75/25 N/S statistics to scale my assessments of people. I figure those are the numbers the most people use, so they're most likely to agree with me.

But yeah, if you don't have a scale, you run into all sorts of bias problems.
 

Tamske

Writing...
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I read the first post, and I think you've got a point there. If you're very T, people who are even more T will stand out to you.

I'm quite short and I tend to notice when people are short. People of middle height, tall or very tall? They all look the same to me.

It's just the same. For a 95%T it's probably hard to distinguish between 60%T, 50%T and 5%T - they all seem to act like Feelers :D. And the ones that are 99%T will stand out and you will remember them.

Still, there is Feeler :)hug:) and there is soap opera or Disney (*flee*).
 
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