Forum opinion on common MBTI remarks

[SolitaryWalker]

Please indicate how many of the statements below you regard as true.

A. If I am an Extrovert, my communication skills are superior to that of people with "I" in their code.
B. If I am an Extrovert, then I am a sociable, friendly person with highly developed interpersonal communication skills.
C. If I test as an Extrovert, my results suggest that I am socially talented and should make lifestyle choices that involve a lot of interaction with people such as public speaking, hosting parties and pursuing careers that will not obligate me to spend a lot of time alone.
D. If I am an intuitive, I am more creative than people who identify as Sensors.
E. If I am an intuitive type, I am a person of high-ideals, a visionary, an intellectual who has great potential to change the way people think.
F. If my MBTI test scores suggest that I am an intuitive type, I am a cerebral person and should make lifestyle choices that emphasize abstract thinking; perhaps I should consider writing novels, poetry, becoming a public speaker or any other enterpise that allows me to share my ideas with others.
G. If I am a Thinking type, my logical reasoning skills are superior to that of people who identify themselves as Feelers.
H. If I am a Thinking type, I am logical, analytical and dispassionate.
I. If my MBTI test-scores suggest that I am a thinking type, I should make lifestyle choices that involve problem-solving, deductive reasoning or dispassionate contemplation; perhaps I should consider specializing in Computer Science, Information Technology or Mathematics.
J. If I am a Judging type, I am generally more organized than people who identify as perceivers.
K. If I am a Judging type, I am a well-organized, responsible person who is generally good at following through on plans.
L. If my test results suggest that I am a judging type, I should consider pursuing careers that involve organizing tasks, helping others find structure in their work and delegating responsibilities; it is quite likely that I would do well in a managerial or an administrative position.
M. If I notice that somebody is a Feeler, I'm inclined to think that they are a friendly person.
N. If somebody is an NT, they are probably more intelligent than most people.
O. If somebody is an NF, they probably do a better job understanding people and would make better counsellors than people of other types.

 

[Such Irony]

I voted none of them. MBTI measures your preferences, not your abilities.

 

[Jaguar]

Cut to the chase and quit playing with people.
Zero.

 

[Glycerine]

zippo.

 

[Rail Tracer]

None.

 

[Snuggletron]

all of them

 

[miss fortune]

zippo.

I have one of those, I've used it for about 5 years now... something about the sounds of flipping it open and lighting it are immensely satisfying

however, I selected zero

 

[highlander]

The choices are worded in absolutes and therefore the answers are too obvious. Next time, make it harder

 

[Coco]

Of course.

S are obsessed by real life, unlike us N wich have VIP Access to Imagination. We N are also more creative and intelligent in general.

I are a bunch of hermit loners who live in the Sahara with their camel called Malek or Abdelkader. Extroverts actually have a life.

T is the most smart of all. F "cares about people" and all that useless stuff. We T's are more intelligent, more logic and more everything. What the F(haha) is the point of being a F. F may be friendly, but we're intelligent and respected.

J is in every way better than P. Ps are unresponsible, messy, indecisive, can't work or focus, ect. Pros of being P: Err... umm... uh...


And all that only comes to one conclusion: ENFP is the best type ^_^

 

[garbage]

Who would outright state that they believe these things? The people who are just cutting their teeth on this stuff.

Who else would blatantly admit to believing these things? Almost nobody.

Now, who would allow perceptions like these to subconsciously color their thinking and their posts? Pretty much everybody, myself included.


.. who would develop very rough mental models and mental categorizations using very loose versions of some of these statements as surface-level constructs, but without believing that their models are absolutely true and so may not have meaning to others? I'm just going to admit up to that.


Also:

C. If I test as an Extrovert, my results suggest that I am socially talented and should make lifestyle choices that involve a lot of interaction with people such as public speaking, hosting parties and pursuing careers that will not obligate me to spend a lot of time alone.

This one is true as worded, because the test questions for Extroversion pretty much revolve around statements such as "I am the life of the party" and "I get bored when I'm alone"--the results will suggest those sorts of lifestyle choices.

There's a case to be made for statement L, too. Both C and L reflect a decent surface-level use of MBTI for career exploration (not career determination). Most of the rest of the statements are, of course, misguided.

 

[skylights]

I voted none of them. MBTI measures your preferences, not your abilities.

Who would outright state that they believe these things? The people who are just cutting their teeth on this stuff.

Who else would blatantly admit to believing these things? Almost nobody.

Now, who would allow perceptions like these to subconsciously color their thinking and their posts? Pretty much everybody, myself included.

agree to both.

stereotypes are built on generalities, which are typically built on some kind of statistical truth.

we wouldn't have the distinctions I-E, N-S, F-T, J-P if there weren't any differences. and expanding those generalities to guide us generally is not harmful - for instance, me looking to what careers ENFPs in general tend to report the most satisfaction in. what is harmful is boxing anyone in (or out) based on generalities; saying you can't be an engineer because you are an ENFP.

i think we just have to acknowledge that they are all value-neutral, and the key to it all is developing all of the functions as best we can, to be balanced and versatile. and that it's just one way of understanding things. it can never account for all the complexities of human personality or experience, and thus should not be used to generate absolutes.

 

[Ginkgo]

Hey SW, you should state what you believe instead of playing with people. Most of your posts consist of either you sarcastically addressing people or writing lengthy diatribes. Both ways, you never really get to the point.

 

[Totenkindly]

Hey SW, you should state what you believe instead of playing with people. Most of your posts consist of either you sarcastically addressing people or writing lengthy diatribes. Both ways, you never really get to the point.

But sometimes the point is best made by showing it or catalyzing it, rather than just saying it.

It's not like these stereotypes don't exist, even if here we've hashed them out a number of times. They're worth shooting down one by one, just for public record.

 

[Neobick]

In a general sense these point are agreeable with, in an absolute sense not.


I would find little value in a system that lack general conclusions being drawn from it.

A: If I am an extrovert I am more "likely" to be x

Would be a sentence I would be able to agree with.

But you are making this absolute, which I cant really say is correct.

 

[Ginkgo]

But sometimes the point is best made by showing it or catalyzing it, rather than just saying it.

It's not like these stereotypes don't exist, even if here we've hashed them out a number of times. They're worth shooting down one by one, just for public record.

The point has already been shown. If there was no observable phenomenon behind SW's poll options then he probably wouldn't have made the poll to begin with.

To make a poll is simply a call to reinforce the fact that these stereotypes exist. If the voter catches on to the purpose of the poll and changes the vote in accordance, then the result is skewed.

It's better to simply state what is or isn't a stereotype so that it may be directly combated or agreed with by others, rather than trying to ruse them into agreement.

What's the point of this thread?

 

[Totenkindly]

Apparently nothing ... partly due to the poster, partly due to the membership.

 

[Glycerine]

Many of these may be true for a lot of people in each grouping but someone's type does not dictate someone's strengths but his preferences. One could find a multitude of exceptions so I chose that I agreed with none.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

I see that most of the people who voted indicated that they believed in none of the statements above. With that fact in consideration, I have just one question.

Why do we keep on making this preposterous connection between a person's MBTI type and certain skills or character features? For example, we have the NT Rationale forum which suggests that being an NT means being a rational thinker. Unless we believe that NTs are by definition more intelligent, rational or analytical than most people, there is no reason to call their forum a "rationale". If people of this type don't have such lofty virtues, regarding an SJ or an SP forum as a "rationale" can be supported by just as cogent of an argument as the act of applying the same descriptive epithet to the NT forum.

 

[Eric B]

I think a lot of it stems from Keirsey's attempts to come up with new names for the temperaments, using stereotypical tendencies to outline the groups.

That's why I prefer the ancient names (for both the temperaments and Interaction Styles).

Then the individual dichotomies end up treated the same way.

 

[Ginkgo]

I see that most of the people who voted indicated that they believed in none of the statements above. With that fact in consideration, I have just one question.

Why do we keep on making this preposterous connection between a person's MBTI type and certain skills or character features? For example, we have the NT Rationale forum which suggests that being an NT means being a rational thinker. Unless we believe that NTs are by definition more intelligent, rational or analytical than most people, there is no reason to call their forum a "rationale". If we don't believe that people of this type have such lofty virtues, regarding an SJ or an SP forum as a "rationale" can be supported by just as cogent of an argument as the act of applying the same descriptive epithet to the NT forum.

Why do we call you SolitaryWalker? Are you walking alone at this moment? You're interacting with a group of people online; so if you are to fulfill your namesake, you should walk far far away until no one hears from you again.