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Mbti and the Facts

reckful

New member
Joined
Jul 6, 2013
Messages
656
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5
In 1943 mbti was introduced to induct women into the war machine, and mbti was sold to the military. And you thought mbti was all about you.

The idea that the primary purpose behind Briggs and Myers's development of the MBTI was job placement is pretty much just one of those internet memes that get passed around.

Briggs and Myers developed the MBTI with the same core aim as Jung — namely, to help people better understand themselves and others who differed from them. Briggs was working on her own typology — not with any business purpose in mind, as I understand it — before Psychological Types was published, and later published two articles about Psychological Types in The New Republic. The Myers-Briggs typology was basically just a family hobby for the next 20 years or so, until the outbreak of World War II prompted Isabel Myers (Briggs' daughter) to start work on an MBTI test because — as described in the introduction to Gifts Differing — "the suffering and tragedies of the war stirred Myers's desire to do something that might help peoples understand each other and avoid destructive conflicts." In addition, as noted on a CAPT website, "she noticed many people taking jobs out of patriotism, but hating the tasks that went against their grain instead of using their gifts."

Myers' focus was on the employees, not the employers, and she wanted the employers to try to do a better job recognizing each individual's "gifts" rather than giving them "tasks that went against their grain." And in fact, the official MBTI folks have made it clear that they consider it inappropriate and unethical to use the MBTI in connection with hiring, firing, job placement and/or promotions, and also consider it unethical to require any employee to take the MBTI in the first place. (For more on that, see here and here.)

As noted in the revised Preface (by Peter Myers) to the 1995 edition of Gifts Differing, Briggs and Myers did indeed put together an initial (largely untested) version of the MBTI in 1943 in hopes that it might be used in connection with wartime job placement, but the military wasn't interested, so that trial version was never used for that purpose.

You titled this thread, "Mbti and the facts," Mole. But for as long as I've been reading your MBTI-related posts at this forum, you've consistently demonstrated a jaw-dropping lack of concern for the facts, and the post I've quoted is just one more example.
 

j.c.t.

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Joined
Jul 6, 2018
Messages
387
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
451
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I don't think personality theory should be regarded as truth, and it definitely shouldn't be applied in real life. To claim that MBTI, Socionics and the Enneagram is somehow scientific is ridiculous. I see it more as a theoretical system used for fun, not to be taken seriously.
 

reckful

New member
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Jul 6, 2013
Messages
656
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5
To claim that MBTI ... is somehow scientific is ridiculous. I see it more as a theoretical system used for fun, not to be taken seriously.

You're misinformed.

There are hard sciences, soft sciences and pseudosciences, and temperament psychology — in any of its better-established varieties, including the MBTI and the Big Five — belongs (along with most of psychology) in the "soft science" category. And the MBTI can actually point to years of studies that basically put it on a par (psychometrically speaking) with the Big Five.

If you're interested, you can read more about that — and about several other issues often raised by people claiming to "debunk" the MBTI — in this TC Wiki article (which I already linked to earlier in the thread).

It was written in reponse to a Vox article, but the multiple points of misinformation it addresses are the same ones that appear over and over in the great internet MBTI-Is-Astrology Echo Chamber.

Among the sources cited in that TC Wiki article is a 2003 meta-review and large-sample study that summed up the MBTI's relative standing in the personality type field this way:

In addition to research focused on the application of the MBTI to solve applied assessment problems, a number of studies of its psychometric properties have also been performed (e.g., Harvey & Murry, 1994; Harvey, Murry, & Markham, 1994; Harvey, Murry, & Stamoulis, 1995; Johnson & Saunders, 1990; Sipps, Alexander, & Freidt, 1985; Thompson & Borrello, 1986, 1989; Tischler, 1994; Tzeng, Outcalt, Boyer, Ware, & Landis, 1984). Somewhat surprisingly, given the intensity of criticisms offered by its detractors (e.g., Pittenger, 1993), a review and meta-analysis of a large number of reliability and validity studies (Harvey, 1996) concluded that in terms of these traditional psychometric criteria, the MBTI performed quite well, being clearly on a par with results obtained using more well-accepted personality tests.​

...and the authors went on to describe the results of their own 11,000-subject study, which they specifically noted were inconsistent with the notion that the MBTI was somehow of "lower psychometric quality" than Big Five (*aka* FFM) tests. They said:

In sum, although the MBTI is very widely used in organizations, with literally millions of administrations being given annually (e.g., Moore, 1987; Suplee, 1991), the criticisms of it that have been offered by its vocal detractors (e.g., Pittenger, 1993) have led some psychologists to view it as being of lower psychometric quality in comparison to more recent tests based on the FFM (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1987). In contrast, we find the findings reported above — especially when viewed in the context of previous confirmatory factor analytic research on the MBTI, and meta-analytic reviews of MBTI reliability and validity studies (Harvey, 1996) — to provide a very firm empirical foundation that can be used to justify the use of the MBTI as a personality assessment device in applied organizational settings.​

McCrae and Costa are the leading Big Five psychologists, and authors of the NEO-PI-R, and after reviewing the MBTI's history and status (including performing their own psychometric analysis) back in 1990 — using an earlier version of the MBTI (Form G) than the one being used today — they concluded that the MBTI and the Big Five might each have things to teach the other, approvingly pointed to the MBTI's "extensive empirical literature," and suggested that their fellow Big Five typologists could benefit by reviewing MBTI studies for additional insights into the four dimensions of personality that the two typologies essentially share, as well as "valuable replications" of Big Five studies.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
The idea that the primary purpose behind Briggs and Myers's development of the MBTI was job placement is pretty much just one of those internet memes that get passed around. Briggs and Myers developed the MBTI with the same core aim as Jung — namely, to help people better understand themselves and others who differed from them. Briggs was working on her own typology — not with any business purpose in mind, as I understand it — before Psychological Types was published, and later published two articles about Psychological Types in The New Republic. The Myers-Briggs typology was basically just a family hobby for the next 20 years or so, until the outbreak of World War II prompted Isabel Myers (Briggs' daughter) to start work on an MBTI test because — as described in the introduction to Gifts Differing — "the suffering and tragedies of the war stirred Myers's desire to do something that might help peoples understand each other and avoid destructive conflicts." In addition, as noted on a CAPT website, "she noticed many people taking jobs out of patriotism, but hating the tasks that went against their grain instead of using their gifts." Myers' focus was on the employees, not the employers, and she wanted the employers to try to do a better job recognizing each individual's "gifts" rather than giving them "tasks that went against their grain." And in fact, the official MBTI folks have made it clear that they consider it inappropriate and unethical to use the MBTI in connection with hiring, firing, job placement and/or promotions, and also consider it unethical to require any employee to take the MBTI in the first place. (For more on that, see here and here.) As noted in the revised Preface (by Peter Myers) to the 1995 edition of Gifts Differing, Briggs and Myers did indeed put together an initial (largely untested) version of the MBTI in 1943 in hopes that it might be used in connection with wartime job placement, but the military wasn't interested, so that trial version was never used for that purpose. You titled this thread, "Mbti and the facts," Mole. But for as long as I've been reading your MBTI-related posts at this forum, you've consistently demonstrated a jaw-dropping lack of concern for the facts, and the post I've quoted is just one more example.

This thread is about a scholarly study from Oxford University that shows mbti a cult and a business, called "Personality Brokers". Why not read it first?

So many come here believing mbti is all about them.
 

The Cat

Just a Cat who hangs out at the Crossroads
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Oct 15, 2016
Messages
23,552
Good faith is critiquing a book after we have read it; and bad faith is critiquing a book before we have read it.

And bad faith characterises a cult.

You seem by all available evidence to be a well read fellow, with an admirable appreciation for books and what seems to me a love of stories. Given that part of this thread is about facts, I'd like to know your opinion about banned books and retroactively editing a work of fiction to fit in with modern sensibilities. To me this seems a slippery slope; your post above made me think of some of those controversies, and I wondered if you had any insight from your perspective?
 

reckful

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Joined
Jul 6, 2013
Messages
656
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5
This thread is about a scholarly study from Oxford University that shows mbti a cult and a business, called "Personality Brokers". Why not read it first?

A scholarly study from Oxford?

Well... it's true that Ms. Emre is an associate professor at Oxford, buuut it's maybe worth mentioning that she's an associate professor of English. And although I haven't bought her book (and don't intend to), I've read an article and more than one interview, and it's clear she's a far-from-reliable source on the MBTI.

For a takedown of one of her articles, see this post.
 

Jaguar

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May 5, 2007
Messages
20,647
I don't want to listen to an English professor, I'd rather listen to someone sitting in her bathrobe with curlers in her hair at the kitchen table - obsessing over her daughter's every move and feverishly documenting it while stuffing herself with chocolate chip cookies.
 

Mole

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I don't want to listen to an English professor, I'd rather listen to someone sitting in her bathrobe with curlers in her hair at the kitchen table - obsessing over her daughter's every move and feverishly documenting it while stuffing herself with chocolate chip cookies.
I sympathise.
 

Mole

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A scholarly study from Oxford? Well... it's true that Ms. Emre is an associate professor at Oxford, buuut it's maybe worth mentioning that she's an associate professor of English. And although I haven't bought her book (and don't intend to), I've read an article and more than one interview, and it's clear she's a far-from-reliable source on the MBTI. For a takedown of one of her articles, see this post.
After all you may be right. How interesting it is to explore the interface between belief and the suspension of disbelief, between fact and faith.
 

Mole

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You seem by all available evidence to be a well read fellow, with an admirable appreciation for books and what seems to me a love of stories. Given that part of this thread is about facts, I'd like to know your opinion about banned books and retroactively editing a work of fiction to fit in with modern sensibilities. To me this seems a slippery slope; your post above made me think of some of those controversies, and I wondered if you had any insight from your perspective?
How good to hear from you, Jack. And yes we can focus on the content of a book or focus on the book as a medium.

The content can be pc or not pc, while the medium can be invisible or seen to shape our sensibilities as literate individuals.

My own taste is for moderation in pc.
 
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