Why is it SJ and SP....

[Jack Flak]

It's a trained bias, nothing more.

Wrong. In fact, I can say if it were a trained bias, I would be the first in line to rebel against it if it didn't make sense. I don't even like functions. How many other people here do you see railing against functions?

 

[ptgatsby]

Wrong. In fact, I can say if it were a trained bias, I would be the first in line to rebel against it if it didn't make sense. I don't even like functions. How many other people here do you see railing against functions?

Sorry, that's all it is. You are a victim of confirmation bias.

 

[Jack Flak]

Sorry, that's all it is. You are a victim of confirmation bias.

You've shown your inability to observe patterns before, so I assume you don't see what I see, or most Ns here see. It is an S trait, to not see the forest through the trees. Is this "confirmation bias?" That through inductive reasoning, every additional sample only reinforces the theory?

 

[ptgatsby]

You've shown your inability to observe patterns before, so I assume you don't see what I see, or most Ns here see. It is an S trait, to not see the forest through the trees. Is this "confirmation bias?" That through inductive reasoning, every additional sample only reinforces the theory?

Awww, you so cute when you get personal. Sorry if I hit a nerve. Funny that you project so many traits onto me due to my type, though.

The thread isn't about me, or the S/N divide. It is about the NT/NF:SJ/SP groupings. They are simply trained and reinforced: there is no backing to why they are chosen.

 

[Jack Flak]

Awww, you so cute when you get personal. Sorry if I hit a nerve. Funny that you project so many traits onto me due to my type, though.

No, no, you misunderstood, as I should've expected, and made myself painfully clear. I'm no good at that, because even for all I know about people, I still give them more credit than they deserve.

I noticed the trait in YOU first, regardless of type. Then I realized it's an S trait, so it reinforces type theory.

 

[ptgatsby]

No, no, you misunderstood, as I should've expected, and made myself painfully clear. I'm no good at that, because even for all I know about people, I still give them more credit than they deserve.

I noticed the trait in YOU first, regardless of type. Then I realized it's an S trait, so it reinforces type theory.

I'm sure you believe that.

 

[Jack Flak]

I'm certain of it, but as you may know I believe, certainty is always fallible, in everyone.

 

[ptgatsby]

I'm certain of it, but as you may know I believe, certainty is always fallible, in everyone.

Certainly make certainty useful.


So, where were we. Right. The reason for the divisions is because we are taught them. They have no meaning in MBTI theory, or MBTI practise. Research doesn't support them, theory doesn't support them... it's simply a taught method, supported by biases inherent in classification.

Away from MBTI, it would be strength that determines the more deterministic/predictive outcome, but that's up to the individual to decide if it should apply to MBTI.

Naturally research would simply correlate each trait individually, groupings of traits would offer no real meaning anyway.

 

[Jack Flak]

So, where were we. Right. The reason for the divisions is because we are taught them. They have no meaning in MBTI theory, or MBTI practise. Research doesn't support them, theory doesn't support them... it's simply a taught method, supported by biases inherent in classification.

Away from MBTI, it would be strength that determines the more deterministic/predictive outcome, but that's up to the individual to decide if it should apply to MBTI.

Naturally research would simply correlate each trait individually, groupings of traits would offer no real meaning anyway.

Are you condoning following certain rules because they are rules, and ignoring other rules because they are rules? That's not a question, really. That's what you're doing.

 

[ptgatsby]

...and not ST and SF?

Just to agree with most of the first page and ensure the OP was answered despite me being distracted, ST and SF has as much meaning as NF and NT, just as NP and NJ have as much meaning as SP and SJ.

They are just not in conventional use. It doesn't matter much, though, since it is just a classification, like any other (including full type).

If you are looking for the actual chain of events, you can take a look at Personality Test - Keirsey Temperament Website It's an offshoot of MBTI, but because it isn't as restricted as MBTI information, it had spread farther and become more popular.

Are you condoning following certain rules because they are rules, and ignoring other rules because they are rules? That's not a question, really. That's what you're doing.

Since you didn't ask, I won't answer.

 

[Eric B]

Here's a study on different letter combinations:

A New Look at David Keirsey's Temperaments
(Old version:
A New Look at David Keirsey's Temperaments
AOL is shutting down its ftp space at the end of the month, and I now have to start looking to find somewhere move all my pages as well).

He also has an article that is not published that uses data from the Step II subscales, and he points out that the Keirseyan groupings are better than the others (according to the statistics), as far as maximum difference. But then, SP, SJ, EN and IN are even higher.

But the SP/SJ/NT/NF grouping does correspond to the ancient temperaments in part —in "action" (or in a "conative" sense, as Berens calls it; and Keirsey mixed up the Choleric and Phlegmatic). The Interaction Styles (ISF/INP, ESF/ENP, IST/INJ and EST/ENJ) are the more familiar social version of the four temperaments, though "temperament" has come to refer only to the conative groups.

 

[Nocapszy]

Sorry, that's all it is. You are a victim of confirmation bias.

PT...
I don't know how you get this shit...

It's not confirmation bias. No wait -- I changed my mind. I do know how you get these ideas.
Damned online type descriptions. That looks like astrology, which is confirmation bias. You look for the right things, you're bound to find them eventually 'cause people do a lot of shit. Surely sooner or later they'll fit something in the description, and when they do it occurs to you "oh! ISTP!"

But that's for the part-timers. The people who don't understand.

But the functions... or even fuck cognitive processes. N T F and S are designed specifically to cover every base. If you're taking in information, either it's abstract, or it's concrete. One of the two. It can't not be. Or if you're not taking in information, you've got to be dealing with information. One observation we can be sure of in humans is if they're not deep in cognition, they're stuck listening/watching something. So either they're dealing with information, or they're gathering more. If not gathering, then it's conscious cognition, which is either using emotions to make decisions or logic to make decisions.
It can't be avoided.

As for solid type... well it's really really hard to be completely variable. You're bound to do one thing more than all the other three.

Even when people sleep their senses are still listening.

Functions or even the letters if you like that way better are literally infallible. If someone does something J, we call them J. Maybe they don't remain consistent, and especially with the letters instead of functions, that's true, but it's impossible to not be doing one of them at a time.

And then when you do, we have a name for it.

It's like naming an insect. I see an ant. I call it an ant. If it's not an ant, then it's something else. And of course we have names for every discovered insect as well. Or at least we could. The principle point is, we have a word to identify every possible contingency. And that's all it is.

 

[ptgatsby]

PT...
I don't know how you get this shit...

It's not confirmation bias. No wait -- I changed my mind. I do know how you get these ideas.
Damned online type descriptions. That looks like astrology, which is confirmation bias. You look for the right things, you're bound to find them eventually 'cause people do a lot of shit. Surely sooner or later they'll fit something in the description, and when they do it occurs to you "oh! ISTP!"

But that's for the part-timers. The people who don't understand.

But the functions... or even fuck cognitive processes. N T F and S are designed specifically to cover every base. If you're taking in information, either it's abstract, or it's concrete. One of the two. It can't not be. Or if you're not taking in information, you've got to be dealing with information. One observation we can be sure of in humans is if they're not deep in cognition, they're stuck listening/watching something. So either they're dealing with information, or they're gathering more. If not gathering, then it's conscious cognition, which is either using emotions to make decisions or logic to make decisions.
It can't be avoided.

As for solid type... well it's really really hard to be completely variable. You're bound to do one thing more than all the other three.

Even when people sleep their senses are still listening.

Functions or even the letters if you like that way better are literally infallible. If someone does something J, we call them J. Maybe they don't remain consistent, and especially with the letters instead of functions, that's true, but it's impossible to not be doing one of them at a time.

And then when you do, we have a name for it.

It's like naming an insect. I see an ant. I call it an ant. If it's not an ant, then it's something else. And of course we have names for every discovered insect as well. Or at least we could. The principle point is, we have a word to identify every possible contingency. And that's all it is.

Thank you for your message. Please let me know when it addresses the OP or anything I said (or at least explain how anything said disagrees with what I said - if anything, you seem to support my POV.)

 

[Nocapszy]

It's not a bias. I'll permit use of the word confirmation since there's not really any way out of it, but unless all confirmation biases cover every possibility, I don't understand why it's called a bias.

You don't have to ignore other things if you attend typology.

 

[ptgatsby]

It's not a bias. I'll permit use of the word confirmation since there's not really any way out of it, but unless all confirmation biases cover every possibility, I don't understand why it's called a bias.

You don't have to ignore other things if you attend typology.

Confirmation bias is the selective processing of information. So, if you are addressing what I was referring to, it does cover anything in which an existing belief in a system influences the mind's ability to process information outside of it, yes.

In this case, it refers to the tendency to see differences according to an existing mindset - the Kiersey's groupings in the OP. This causes people to associate more to the groupings than would otherwise be deserved.

However, none of what brought up addresses the OP or anything I said, again. The four main factors of MBTI are just that - independent factors. The grouping of them are arbitary (and since you are a functions guy, not related to functions, so I presume you don't support it either).

So I still don't see how you disagree with me, except that you think you are perfect at identifying all behaviour and not prone to any bias in your mental processing. I, of course, would laugh at any such claim. Your use of functions is inevitably invoking a level of confirmation bias - you are literally interpreting data to fit your own personal model. Any transformation invokes biases.

 

[Jack Flak]

In this case, it refers to the tendency to see differences according to an existing mindset - the Kiersey's groupings in the OP. This causes people to associate more to the groupings than would otherwise be deserved.

You're effectively stating that it's impossible to have the same conclusion as Keirsey simply because he had it first, which is nothing but the definition of wrong.

 

[ptgatsby]

You're effectively stating that it's impossible to have the same conclusion as Keirsey simply because he had it first, which is nothing but the definition of wrong.

Nope, I stated that's why they are the popular division.

 

[Jack Flak]

Nope, I stated that's why they are the popular division.

That's not much of an argument. I might as well say "people only think the Earth revolves around the Sun because it's the most popular opinion."

 

["?"]

...and not ST and SF?

Are you asking why Keirsey changed it from ST-SF to SP-SJ? He gives a good reason in his book, however Myers-Briggs enthusiasts argue that his change makes no sense. When asked to bestfittypes.com, their response was:

Why isn’t it ST and SF instead of SJ and SP?

The code matching relationship of temperament and the MBTI (Artisan—_S_P, Guardian—_S_J, Rational—_NT_, Idealist—_NF_) is not based on the logic of cognitive processes or Jung’s typology as in the functional pair groupings (the two middle letters of the code) that are often done with the MBTI. It is rather a matching of patterns among the sixteen types with the temperament patterns. There is an underlying logic that fits, but this logic did not determine the groupings. It is simply that the temperament themes and patterns are found in the types with those letters in the code. The patterns match.

Not sure what that means, but clearly Keirsey was coming with his theory, from a differing direction and differing measurements. I think that most are aware of Keirsey’s work, however there is very little on how Myers-Briggs saw the two letter codes, except for her brief outline in “Gifts Differing.” I did find this site that discusses ST-SF-NT-NF

 

[ptgatsby]

That's not much of an argument. I might as well say "people only think the Earth revolves around the Sun because it's the most popular opinion."

I'm not arguing with you, I'm patronizing. I'd only be arguing if I thought you would require you to be willing to substnatiate your point of view with data, or at least some form of support. However, since I do follow a tit-for-tat strategy, feel free to offer some to what follows below.

There are two questions. The first is "why those", and the second "why any". The reason why those groupings are used is because they are popular, not because they are right. Your agreement does not validate or invalidate the groupings. You are welcome to support your opinion, but your opinion on their validity is not support. You are more than welcome, as above, to provide the data on why Kiersey decided to used those traits for his groupings. I think you will find his theory published around the net.


As for "why any would be as valid"... The 4 traits in MBTI measures a different axis. Since each measures independent factors (and has been validated to do so), the "greater" differences to any combination of them is a subjective interpretation based on how you define your measurements of difference. If what you measure is included in the groupings that you proscribe to, not surprisingly, you see those differences.

Therefore groupings serve a particular purpose - they measure something specific, not "differences". It's like expressing a 3d axis in three groupings of 2 axis notation. The difference between any two of those axises is dependent on the point you wish to measure. If you select a point that flattens to extremes against two axises, it's not difficult to say that they measure "more difference". An example for the NT/NF and SP/SJ divide would be intelligence (since kiersey treed from N/S, the strong relationship to it overrides the lack of correlation of T/F and P/J). However, it'd fall apart if you were to measure "Rank in corporations and military", or "OCD", or "athletic ability", or "marriage success", or "sex".

That even ignores that expressed behaviour is roughly normally distributed. Hell,less than 50% of the people who take MBTI would select the same type when taken a year apart... So when you can't categorize the majority of your observations against any measurement type. IQ is a good example of that bias as well. Due to the distribution of S and N, Ns have a much smaller range and a large amount of Ss overlap the Ns. Yet, observationally, this is difficult to differentiate this easily (never mind have issues with rating IQ).

Alternatively, it could be argued from functions and dominance, but since the design of MBTI is to determine attitude from the P/J divide, including it only in half of them would be essentially meaningless - you couldn't relate it to functions in this design. Since Kiersey treed out the functions, starting with N/S as the primary divide, he is setting his standard of measurement against it. By choosing a different axis for the 2ndary correlation, he is simply manipulating perception - using two different measuring schemes, as in expressing magnitude in xy and xz axises. Misleading, and yes, heavily biased towards a single axis.