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Are Function Tests Really Useful?

Mal12345

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I think this is the best test on the internet:
http://www.keys2cognition.com/explore.htm

But for a sample score which I found on a forum, here's what you typically get:
extraverted Sensing (Se) **************** (16.6)
limited use
introverted Sensing (Si) ****************************** (30.9)
good use
extraverted Intuiting (Ne) ************************** (26.1)
average use
introverted Intuiting (Ni) ******************************* (31.8)
good use
extraverted Thinking (Te) ************************ (24.6)
average use
introverted Thinking (Ti) ***************** (17.6)
limited use
extraverted Feeling (Fe) ********************************************** (46.1)
excellent use
introverted Feeling (Fi) *********************************************** (47.1)
excellent use

Notice that Fe and Fi are the highest scores on this individual's result, with Fe as highest.

The problem I have is the claim that these tests can find out your MBTI type. But this is sadly mistaken, as good as this test is. In fact, it only tests for dominant functions, and then assumes that your auxilliary is the highest score of the "opposite" function, either rational or irrational depending on your dominant function. So if Fe is your highest score, which is a rational function, and Ni is your second highest score, as an irrational function, the test result assumes you are most likely FeNi, or ENFJ.

But this test just sorts your preferences for dominant functions. Since we all know that auxillaries, tertiaries and inferiors have wildly different traits than the dominant, there needs to be a test for each type of function.
 

INTP

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They can be useful if you know how to interpret them correctly and do some self reflecting at the same time. But if you just look at the scores they show, well its just utter bullshit since it shows 4 functions that you dont use, but are mixtures of other functions.

As with other tests too, how honestly you are able to answer effects how accurate the scores are.

Im not going to analyze your scores now since that type of score is pretty hard to analyze and would require asking some questions.
 

Mal12345

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They can be useful if you know how to interpret them correctly and do some self reflecting at the same time. But if you just look at the scores they show, well its just utter bullshit since it shows 4 functions that you dont use, but are mixtures of other functions.

As with other tests too, how honestly you are able to answer effects how accurate the scores are.

Im not going to analyze your scores now since that type of score is pretty hard to analyze and would require asking some questions.

Yes it requires some reflection. And in the past I have literally dissected tests such as the RETI and MBTI, as well as reflecting on the answers.

But my other point is that none of these function tests test for auxilliary, tertiary, and inferior. Finding the latter two would be a matter of deducing them from the dominant and auxilliary types. But it should be possible to directly test for them. Enough is known about how they operate in the psyche. And the auxilliary doesn't act like the dominant type, so it also needs to be tested for separately.
 

INTP

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Yes it requires some reflection. And in the past I have literally dissected tests such as the RETI and MBTI, as well as reflecting on the answers.

But my other point is that none of these function tests test for auxilliary, tertiary, and inferior. Find the latter two would be a matter of deducing them from the dominant and auxilliary types. But it should be possible to directly test for them. Enough is known about how they operate in the psyche. And the auxilliary doesn't act like the dominant type, so it also needs to be tested for separately.

Well it confuses the scores because it forces functions there that arent really there. For example an ISFJ might score high Ni if he is overidentificating to his Ne(some situation forcing him, or past situation teaching him to), but if Ne is undifferentiated(sort of undeveloped, working unconsciously), which would make it mix with Si, ending up looking like Ni.

Same thing happened with me scoring high on Fi, even tho it was just Fe directing Ti from unconscious.
 

Mal12345

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Well it confuses the scores because it forces functions there that arent really there. For example an ISFJ might score high Ni if he is overidentificating to his Ne(some situation forcing him, or past situation teaching him to), but if Ne is undifferentiated(sort of undeveloped, working unconsciously), which would make it mix with Si, ending up looking like Ni.

Same thing happened with me scoring high on Fi, even tho it was just Fe directing Ti from unconscious.

Sorry, I'm not understanding some of this. Perhaps if you had very little self-knowledge, or aren't skilled at reflection, you might be influenced by the unconscious. But apparently the other functions ARE there, they simply aren't differentiated.
 

INTP

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Sorry, I'm not understanding some of this. Perhaps if you had very little self-knowledge, or aren't skilled at reflection, you might be influenced by the unconscious. But apparently the other functions ARE there, they simply aren't differentiated.

We are all influenced by the unconscious all the time, im not going to start to argue about it, because you dont seem to have much understanding about the subject(you wouldnt make that ridicilous claims if you had).

Also the fuctions are T S N F, so yea ALL FOUR functions are there, but they are each oriented to only one direction. Undifferentiated functions are chained to other functions and because there is no conscious control over them, you cant consciously orient them and when they are chained to conscious function and directing them. So for example with this my Fe Ti looking like Fi, was because i was only able to consciously handle Fe by handling Ti(to which Fe was chained to) and because my conscious attitude was towards introversion, my F seemed introverted also, since introversion was what i was conscious of, but it was Ti that i was using to control the Fe.

Its quite funny that i used to believe this functions being oriented both ways before, but after about a year of doing self reflecting with this, i figured out how it really went and only after that started reading jung, which explained it pretty much exactly how i figured it out on my own.

Also if you look at beebean typology and these so called archetypes, those 'shadow' functions and how they behave are exactly how undifferentiated functions behave with other functions. For example this 8th function is inferior attached to dom.
 

Mal12345

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We are all influenced by the unconscious all the time, im not going to start to argue about it, because you dont seem to have much understanding about the subject(you wouldnt make that ridicilous claims if you had).

I'm not quite understanding your animosity over a simple question. It must be your unconscious Fe at work again.
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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I think they could be useful if they were lengthier. And perhaps incorporated picture interpretation. This test is low on questions. I have the Hartzler book and it's helpful, but again, low on questions. I don't put much stock in anything beyond the first three functions myself. I think after that, it just depends on what you are doing, and your environment, what functions become utilized more, because by that time a person is in their 20's.

For example, my Ti is supposed to be my tertiary function, but my husband of 20+ years was an ISTP and I met him at the age of 19. So I just learned to rely on his Ti for the most part. Now in functions tests Ti is one of my weakest functions.....but I DO use it sometimes more than other functions.

And I also don't buy into the whole T-trippin thing about how functions "tie" together, like peeps like to say on here, how "Te makes me look like I use Fe" or "my Ti-Fi mimics Fe-Te" LOL or whatever they say.....the whole Ti-Fe / Ni-Se etc. stuff thrown around. Jung was clear about if you are using T, you are NOT using F; same with the irrational functions.

Aphrodite out....:smile:
 

INTP

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I'm not quite understanding your animosity over a simple question. It must be your unconscious Fe at work again.

I wasnt answering any question, but was just correcting some distorted views of yours. Also i wasnt doing it unconsciously, nor was i being hostile towards you. Yes what i said was motivated by Fe, but the idea was to help you to have better view on the subject, not attack you. The part about saying that you dont clearly have understanding about how unconsciousness works, was simply because its true and i dont care to start arguing about the unconsciousness with someone who has nothing to offer me about it, but would just most likely stubbornly keep his own views on it and make some arguments that i would need to debunk rookie arguments all day and it not leading to anything. If you not having enough info about the subject bothers you, find out some info about it or listen what i would have to offer for you instead starting arguing back.
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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I wasnt answering any question, but was just correcting some distorted views of yours. Also i wasnt doing it unconsciously, nor was i being hostile towards you. Yes what i said was motivated by Fe, but the idea was to help you to have better view on the subject, not attack you. The part about saying that you dont clearly have understanding about how unconsciousness works, was simply because its true and i dont care to start arguing about the unconsciousness with someone who has nothing to offer me about it, but would just most likely stubbornly keep his own views on it and make some arguments that i would need to debunk rookie arguments all day and it not leading to anything. If you not having enough info about the subject bothers you, find out some info about it or listen what i would have to offer for you instead starting arguing back.

:laugh:

The Typology Guru II strikes again.
 

Jaguar

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He takes a couple of college classes in psychology and thinks he's going to school people. Too funny.
 

Mal12345

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I wasnt answering any question, but was just correcting some distorted views of yours. Also i wasnt doing it unconsciously, nor was i being hostile towards you. Yes what i said was motivated by Fe, but the idea was to help you to have better view on the subject, not attack you. The part about saying that you dont clearly have understanding about how unconsciousness works, was simply because its true and i dont care to start arguing about the unconsciousness with someone who has nothing to offer me about it, but would just most likely stubbornly keep his own views on it and make some arguments that i would need to debunk rookie arguments all day and it not leading to anything. If you not having enough info about the subject bothers you, find out some info about it or listen what i would have to offer for you instead starting arguing back.

I didn't say anything about not understanding the unconscious. I said I didn't understand what you were saying about it.
 

INTP

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Jung was clear about if you are using T, you are NOT using F; same with the irrational functions.

Aphrodite out....:smile:

Actually this is false, jung talks quite alot about undifferentiated functions mixing together in 'psychological types'

Fusion of the psychological functions, of thinking with feeling, feeling with sensation, feeling with intuition, and so on, is archaic, as is also the fusion of part of a function with its counterpart.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 684.]

-Typology guru II
 

INTP

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I didn't say anything about not understanding the unconscious. I said I didn't understand what you were saying about it.

Exactly, you didnt understand even some of the basics, but still made some claims about it, so i said that im not going to argue about it. Whats so hard to understand?
 

Mal12345

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Exactly, you didnt understand even some of the basics, but still made some claims about it, so i said that im not going to argue about it. Whats so hard to understand?

Maybe, just maybe, I don't understand your Finglish?
 

INTP

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He takes a couple of college classes in psychology and thinks he's going to school people. Too funny.

If you want to discuss about any subject related to psychology, id be happy to. But it seems that all you can do is talk nonsense based on your stupid assumptions about stuff.
 

Jaguar

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If you want to discuss about any subject related to psychology, id be happy to. But it seems that all you can do is talk nonsense based on your stupid assumptions about stuff.

There's nothing you can teach anyone. You make up shit as you go along.
 

AphroditeGoneAwry

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Actually this is false, jung talks quite alot about undifferentiated functions mixing together in 'psychological types'



-Typology guru II


lol.

I'll post your whole quote:

In anthropology, the term archaic is generally descriptive of primitive psychology. Jung used it when referring to thoughts, fantasies and feelings that are not consciously differentiated.

Archaism attaches primarily to the fantasies of the unconscious, i.e., to the products of unconscious fantasy activity which reach consciousness. An image has an archaic quality when it possesses unmistakable mythological parallels. Archaic, too, are the associations-by-analogy of unconscious fantasy, and so is their symbolism. The relation of identity with an object, or participation mystique, is likewise archaic. Concretism of thought and feeling is archaic; also compulsion and inability to control oneself (ecstatic or trance state, possession, etc.). Fusion of the psychological functions, of thinking with feeling, feeling with sensation, feeling with intuition, and so on, is archaic, as is also the fusion of part of a function with its counterpart.["Definitions," CW 6, par. 684.]

I think whatever goes on the unconscious is a crapshoot. I'm sure they mix all up in there together and have a great time.

I'm speaking to differentiated, preferred functions. The more differentiated, the more preferred. When you pull a function out for use from your unconscious, you use it alone, I believe, and Jung was adamant about that reg F/T and N/S especially (not that i buy it totally myself 100%), not with another function, despite what happens down below in the psyche.

Does your unconscious Fe affect your Ti when you say something, and that makes it appear Te? Mkay. Whatever you say. For me, Ti is Ti, etc. and so on. Not some muddled function soup.

My point was, Guru II, that no one knows wtf is happening. It's basically ALL up for conjecture. Isn't it?


~Aphrodite
 

Mal12345

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lol.

I'll post your whole quote:



I think whatever goes on the unconscious is a crapshoot. I'm sure they mix all up in there together and have a great time.

I'm speaking to differentiated, preferred functions. The more differentiated, the more preferred. When you pull a function out for use from your unconscious, you use it alone, I believe, and Jung was adamant about that reg F/T and N/S especially (not that i buy it totally myself 100%), not with another function, despite what happens down below in the psyche.

Does your unconscious Fe affect your Ti when you say something, and that makes it appear Te? Mkay. Whatever you say. For me, Ti is Ti, etc. and so on. Not some muddled function soup.

My point was, Guru II, that no one knows wtf is happening. It's basically ALL up for conjecture. Isn't it?


~Aphrodite

You see, INTP, the above is an example of someone attempting to debate with a Genius such as yourself. So far all I have done is ask questions in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of your point. So please learn to differentiate the two kinds of posts.
 
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