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The Forer effect

BerberElla

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I was chatting with someone (as you do) and they suggested that my "belief" in MBTI stems from something called the forer effect:

Forer effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Forer effect (also called personal validation fallacy or the Barnum Effect after P. T. Barnum's observation that "we've got something for everyone") is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. The Forer effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some pseudosciences such as astrology and fortune telling, as well as many types of personality tests.

Personally this doesn't ring true to me, I'm not sure why, it just doesn't feel valid to me.

I like to sound out new ideas on other people and hear what they think on a subject before I can properly identify what it is about something that either rings true or doesn't, so I would like to hear any views on this and whether anyone else agrees that the forer effect is valid when it comes to mbti or not.
 

Jack Flak

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It's quite true. Many supposed personality indicators are truisms for all. Write a long description of what it means to be human, then take one paragraph for each supposed personality type, and you have yourself a bullshit system like astrology.
 

Magic Poriferan

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The forer effect is very true, and well proven. The question is whether or not descriptive typology systems suffer from the forer effect. The usual issue with things like the MBTI or the Enneagram, is that people while either complain that they rely on the forer effect, or they will complain that the definitions are too narrow to encompass everyone. There's pretty much no imbetween that satisfies everyone.

Personally, I think the viability of claiming the MBTI relies on the forer effect depends on which author you are looking at. Some are very specific, in a way that should not lend itself to the forer effect. The problem on a bigger scale, as the people are not consistently subscribing to any one author or theory. In fact, people around here use two, almost completely opposed MB derived theories, interchangeably, often without stating which is being used. This allows a lot of cherry-picking, so when you're looking at the MBTI as one whole, comrpised of every work on it, then it is extremely vulnerable to the forer effect.

What's needed is standardization. If there's a valuable life lesson I've gained from the MBTI, it's that sometimes canon actually is a useful thing.
 
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It's true (the Forer effect).

Except that I could never identify with the INFP, ESFJ, etc. descriptions, even before I thought that I was an INTP, or concluded that I am an INTJ. So (to me) there is some degree of truth to the MBTI system.
 

BerberElla

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And to you mbti is on par with astrology?

I honestly can't think of a time when I have looked at someone and been able to guess their star sign, even after knowing them for awhile I still haven't accurately guessed a star sign from any description of it, and yet I have guessed a persons mbti type accurately, more than once and in less time.

That's why it seems to valid to me, because of how accurate compared to others that it is. Even taking minor variations into account, people generally tend to fit their type description.

Isn't the forer effect talking about something more vague? is mbti vague? am I missing something? lol

EDIT: I didn't mean that the forer effect wasn't true, but that it wasn't true to MBTI :newwink:
 

Jack Flak

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As stated, with MBTI, it depends on the type descriptions. Generally they make sense, and I approve of them. It's not like Astrology very much at all. With MBTI (or other 16-type systems), you're talking about behavioral analysis based on behavior, which if not FUBARed, is likely to make sense.
 

Magic Poriferan

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The MBTI is almost guaranteed to be more legitimate than astrology, because astrology is perscriptive rather than descriptive, and because the MBTI at least attempts to work from grounds of feasible psychology, while astrology is magic.

However, being some degree more legitimate than astrology is not much of an accomplshment, and you can look to my first post to see how I feel about the MBTI.
 

BerberElla

12 and a half weeks
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Messages
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The forer effect is very true, and well proven. The question is whether or not descriptive typology systems suffer from the forer effect. The usual issue with things like the MBTI or the Enneagram, is that people while either complain that they rely on the forer effect, or they will complain that the definitions are too narrow to encompass everyone. There's pretty much no imbetween that satisfies everyone.

Personally, I think the viability of claiming the MBTI relies on the forer effect depends on which author you are looking at. Some are very specific, in a way that should not lend itself to the forer effect. The problem on a bigger scale, as the people are not consistently subscribing to any one author or theory. In fact, people around here use two, almost completely opposed MB derived theories, interchangeably, often without stating which is being used. This allows a lot of cherry-picking, so when you're looking at the MBTI as one whole, comrpised of every work on it, then it is extremely vulnerable to the forer effect.

What's needed is standardization. If there's a valuable life lesson I've gained from the MBTI, it's that sometimes canon actually is a useful thing.

Yes, that makes sense, although there isn't really a whole lot of variation in the type descriptions I have read from different authors, there is still a basic core to each one that translates author to author no?



As stated, with MBTI, it depends on the type descriptions. Generally they make sense, and I approve of them. It's not like Astrology very much at all. With MBTI (or other 16-type systems), you're talking about behavioral analysis based on behavior, which if not FUBARed, is likely to make sense.

FUBARed?

Fucked Up By .....A R (hang man?)
 

Magic Poriferan

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there is still a basic core to each one that translates author to author no?



Kind of. There are some really big differences though. Some have a very flexible and relativist concept of types, while others have a very defined, determinist concept of types. Some have theories about type that are more arche-typical, while others have theories that are more composite. Some model their types more on interpretations of empiricism, while others rely more on theoretical reasoning. And in general, people use varrying amounts of deduction, induction, or abduction their theories. All of these things create very different depictions of how the system works, and what the types are like. It especially creates debate over how one determines type.

I would say that there is also a general amount of inconsistency in regards to what single functions mean. Different people give rather different impressions of Introversiona and Extraversion for instance, which I imagine is party a result of interpretation of Jung's writings, and then interpretations of peoples' interpretations of Jung's work.

*I apologize if all of that was esoteric and/or jargony*
 
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