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Fakin' it. Being another type.

Kalach

Filthy Apes!
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
4,310
MBTI Type
INTJ
Apparently there was some research done on what happens when people try to cheat MBTI tests.

Abstract

This research investigated whether respondents rely on their stereotype of members of a particular occupation when attempting to fake personality questionnaires to gain employment in that occupation. The subjects' test profiles when attempting to fake the MBTI to gain employment as psychiatric nurses were compared to those of actual psychiatric nurses as well as with the subjects' profiles under either the normal administration protocol, instructions to complete the test to give the best general impression of themselves, or instructions to describe a typical psychiatric nurse via their test responses. Although the subjects failed to imitate the profiles of psychiatric nurses, their responses were highly sensitive to these instructional manipulations. The data suggested that subjects' faking strategy is based on their stereotype of members of the target occupation. Although there was a significant difference between the subjects' fake-job and stereotype profiles, these two conditions yielded identical typologies. In addition, the Euclidean distance between these two profiles was significantly less than that between the fake-job profiles and those obtained in any other condition.


I don't actually know what the bolded sentences mean, and reading the article itself will cost money so I'm not going to do that. So...


Splainy?
 

disregard

mrs
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
7,826
MBTI Type
INFP
It means that what the actual type was like (what the, for example, INFJ nurses were really like) and what people perceive people of that type (or occupation) to be like (what the test-taker thought an INFJ would be like) were very different.
 

Matthew_Z

That chalkboard guy
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
1,256
MBTI Type
xxxx
In short, subjects essentially took the MBTI test two times, each with two of the following possible goals:

1. Fake tests best aimed at getting the job (taken by all)

2. Normal MBTI Test (no instruction given as to how respond)
3. Give the best impression of the subject's true self
4. Imitating a stereotypical member of the occupation

If I'm interpreting correctly, the data says that 1 and 4 were not identical(percentage wise, most likely) but still within the same type. However, the distance between 1 and 4 was less than the distance between 1 and either 2 or 3 by a significant margin. (And although I'm uncertain from the wording of abstract, it would appear that 1 is also more distant from the type of actual nurses)
 

Just another ISTJ

New member
Joined
Jan 22, 2009
Messages
117
MBTI Type
IsTj
Enneagram
1w9
Here's the conclusion of the study(hooray for free University database access):

This study revealed several aspects of respondent’s behaviour when completing the MBTI under differing instructions. In general, the results confirm Furnham’s (1990a, b) finding that test profiles are sensitive to the particular instructions given. This result highlights the need for instructional consistency when administering the MBTI if accurate profiles are to be obtained. In the context of the use of the MBTI in vocational selection, the results confirm Furnham’s (1990b) finding that respondents can alter their test profile in response to instructions to fake the test to gain employment in a specific vocation. However, the finding that the Ss’ fake-job profiles differed from those of people actually employed in the target occupation shows that these attempts to fake the test were not successful. Further analyses revealed that success in faking was not a function of either the personality or sex of the respondent.

Finally, it was found that the respondents’ fake-job and stereotype typologies were identical, and that their fake-job profiles were closer to their stereotype profiles than to any other anchor point. Taken together, these results support previous suggestions (Furnham, 1990b; Kroger and Tumbull, 1975) that respondents’ use their stereotype of workers in the relevant occupation when faking personality tests for vocational advantage. While the fake-job profiles differed significantly from the stereotype profiles, it was argued earlier that respondents may not follow this stereotype exactly when faking for vocational advantage. In particular, they may choose to exclude negative aspects of their stereotype of members of the target occupation when attempting to gain employment in that occupation. Further research is required to confirm the present results, and to establish their generality across both target occupations and psychometric tests. First, the MBTI has been shown to be particularly susceptible to faking (Fumham, 1990a), and hence a different pattern of results might be obtained with a more robust test. Second, attempts to confirm that respondents rely on their stereotypes of members of a target occupation when faking personality tests in order to gain employment should both apply the present paradigm across a range of different target occupations and survey the respondents regarding which strategy they used in each faking condition. Finally, the present results imply that success in faking is a function of the accuracy of respondents’ stereotypes of workers in the target occupation. This could be tested by selecting target occupations which vary in proximity to the respondents’ stereotype and observing any consequent changes in the proximity of the respondents’ fake-job profiles and those of workers in the target occupation.
 

miss fortune

not to be trusted
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
20,589
Enneagram
827
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
as a note on this, as someone who has tested intentionally to get another type before, you have to study up on the MBTI quite a bit in order to be able to consistantly answer questions on various tests with a consistant type result :whistling:
 

Moiety

New member
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
5,996
MBTI Type
ISFJ
I'd love to work in the US were people are smart (?) enough to factor MBTI when employing.
 

five

New member
Joined
May 20, 2011
Messages
141
MBTI Type
ZZZZ
Enneagram
5w6
I have hired and fired, dozens of people and got them to do MBTI and DISC tests. It's truly amazing how many people lie or are delusional. I'd see an ESFJ, "warm bubbly, loud personality" coming in for a PA position, and she would test INTJ.

Sure.

Once vested down a path, it takes a lot of courage to admit you were wrong.

You notice this behaviour with people who compulsively lie and are delusional. They need to keep believing the myth. Eg Religious people. The mind builds up defenses to attack and rebutt opposing information that threatens the integrity of the belief.
 
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