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What MBTI can't do

You

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People become fanatics. They want to talk about MBTI all the time. Well, what can't MBTI do? What about an individual, beside the obvious, does MBTI not account for in the general population?

:shock:
 
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Mole

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MBTI and the War Machine

MBTI has been very effective for seventy years. Four million Americans do the MBTI test every year not counting the rest of us.

MBTI was invented by Mrs Briggs and her daughter Mrs Myers to fight WW II. And it has been so successful it has been adopted by the military/industrial complex for the last seventy years.

So MBTI can't be understood without understanding its context. And its context is a country that has been perpetually at war for seventy years.

And the flywheel of their whole economy is military spending.

So MBTI is part of shaping your personality rather than analysing, evaluating and integrating your personality.

From its very beginning MBTI has been part of the American war machine and remains part of the war machine today.
 

Thalassa

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Help me purchase and restore a historical home.
 

Such Irony

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Make you more intelligent.
 

You

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Ain't that the truth.
 

You

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MBTI has been very effective for seventy years. Four million Americans do the MBTI test every year not counting the rest of us.

MBTI was invented by Mrs Briggs and her daughter Mrs Myers to fight WW II. And it has been so successful it has been adopted by the military/industrial complex for the last seventy years.

So MBTI can't be understood without understanding its context. And its context is a country that has been perpetually at war for seventy years.

And the flywheel of their whole economy is military spending.

So MBTI is part of shaping your personality rather than analysing, evaluating and integrating your personality.

From its very beginning MBTI has been part of the American war machine and remains part of the war machine today.

Victor the War Mongler.
 
G

garbage

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Thoroughly explain why people behave the way they do or predict how exactly they'll behave.
 

Vamp

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Thoroughly explain why people behave the way they do or predict how exactly they'll behave.

And that's exactly what people are trying to make it do rather than use it as a rough guideline that is in no way definite. But people see absolutes in it.
 

INTP

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there is nothing that MBTI cant do
 

redacted

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It can't do any more than any adjective can.

So, pretty much everything.
 

You

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...So why are we here again?
 
G

garbage

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...So why are we here again?
Nobody expects the things they talk about to be able to do everything, and the discussions about limitations of our subject are just as crucial.

Also, the relationships/friendships/psychology threads are interesting and insightful
 

Coriolis

Si vis pacem, para bellum
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It can't account for pathologies. It can't account for the influence of culture and upbringing, although it often sheds some insight on how people will respond to these. It is less useful in predicting what people will do than in helping to understand why and how they are doing it.
 

redacted

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It can't account for pathologies. It can't account for the influence of culture and upbringing, although it often sheds some insight on how people will respond to these. It is less useful in predicting what people will do than in helping to understand why and how they are doing it.

I don't know... I think upbringing actually is a fairly big factor in what your type is.
 

Wrath Mania

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MBTI has been very effective for seventy years. Four million Americans do the MBTI test every year not counting the rest of us.

MBTI was invented by Mrs Briggs and her daughter Mrs Myers to fight WW II. And it has been so successful it has been adopted by the military/industrial complex for the last seventy years.

So MBTI can't be understood without understanding its context. And its context is a country that has been perpetually at war for seventy years.

And the flywheel of their whole economy is military spending.

So MBTI is part of shaping your personality rather than analysing, evaluating and integrating your personality.

From its very beginning MBTI has been part of the American war machine and remains part of the war machine today.

Unless this is some inside joke I'm not aware of, I'm going to assume you're being serious. In which case, I entirely disagree with this; it's a totally needless application of your political beliefs to the discussion. Yes, Myers and Briggs developed the system to help society during WWII (I wouldn't say 'fight' it, exactly, personality inventories don't make for great weapons), but if anything Myers felt the whole World War resulted from people misunderstanding one another- which is precisely the opposite kind of philosophy the military-industrial complex would endorse.

Sure, MBTI is used by government and big businesses- and often misused for pigeonholing people instead of truly understanding them- but that isn't a limitation of typology. It's a limitation of society. Things like the Big 5- which separates people based on their good and bad qualities- would be much more related to some war machine. That said, none of that has anything to do with limitations.

MBTI describes how people develop and integrate in society brilliantly, just fine. I also think it's pretty good at predicting how people will behave, and certainly good at explaining their cognitive habits. Shit, their physical habits too.

What MBTI, or any personology system cannot do, is judge a person's moral character.
 

Mole

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Unless this is some inside joke I'm not aware of, I'm going to assume you're being serious. In which case, I entirely disagree with this; it's a totally needless application of your political beliefs to the discussion. Yes, Myers and Briggs developed the system to help society during WWII (I wouldn't say 'fight' it, exactly, personality inventories don't make for great weapons), but if anything Myers felt the whole World War resulted from people misunderstanding one another- which is precisely the opposite kind of philosophy the military-industrial complex would endorse.

Sure, MBTI is used by government and big businesses- and often misused for pigeonholing people instead of truly understanding them- but that isn't a limitation of typology. It's a limitation of society. Things like the Big 5- which separates people based on their good and bad qualities- would be much more related to some war machine. That said, none of that has anything to do with limitations.

MBTI describes how people develop and integrate in society brilliantly, just fine. I also think it's pretty good at predicting how people will behave, and certainly good at explaining their cognitive habits. Shit, their physical habits too.

What MBTI, or any personology system cannot do, is judge a person's moral character.

There's no way round the simple fact that it claims to be a personality test and it's not.

So then the interesting question arises - what is it?

So we look at who created it and for what purpose. And we look at how it was created. And we look at who uses it today and for what purpose. And we look at its history.
 
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