One for the experts.

[Totenkindly]

That quoted piece has to have been written by someone who studied law. All it needs to do is talk about people as "the party of the first part" and "the party of the second part" to complete the picture. IOW I think there's a lot simpler way of expressing what they were saying, which doesn't fill me with confidence in what they were saying. Why did you find it useful?

Huh? I quoted the part that I thought was applicable to our conversation here. I don't remember the parts you just quoted, and only put in the URL as "further reading" if one was interested.

<Snarky comment>
Lock up the windmills! We're questing for a grand unifying theory of type!
</Snarky comment>

Xander = Tesla

 

[ptgatsby]

<Snarky comment>
Lock up the windmills! We're questing for a grand unifying theory of type!
</Snarky comment>

Heh, just to be clear, there is no such thing as a unifying theory of type! I think working on it is a waste of time... it seperates us from what type, and all of these systems, are about - People!

There are billions of people, and none will react exactly the same - I could type them all as Humans, or under MBTI, or whatever. We can generalise into traits and factors... but it's easy to forget what we are measuring. In the end, a type is just a collection of questions you asked someone to get to know them.

If you aren't someone to lock themselves into the answers they give, then you shouldn't be someone to lock themselves into type!

What type is good at, and why it's a decent investigational instrument, is that you can correlate it with other things. You can say that T's take up the vast (VAST) majority of upper management and executive positions... that has important considerations... but the reverse is rarely true - you can't say that a T is suitable for management. Type shouldn't be used at the individual level - it's far too errant for that. And it isn't what it is created for.

Except MBTI. It was. Bleh.

/rant off

 

[Xander]

Okay we're straying from the point here.

The whole point of this system is the person your testing and NOT the system. The typing systems aren't divorced from each other as they all describe the same thing, the person infront of you. A pro who uses MBTI for management purposes may well fallback onto the enneagram or FIRO when things continue to not work. What you have then is one person and many type systems, it's still one person though. As such there has to be some level of integration going on. All I'm saying is at what level do they combine?

 

[ptgatsby]

Okay we're straying from the point here.

The whole point of this system is the person your testing and NOT the system. The typing systems aren't divorced from each other as they all describe the same thing, the person infront of you. A pro who uses MBTI for management purposes may well fallback onto the enneagram or FIRO when things continue to not work. What you have then is one person and many type systems, it's still one person though. As such there has to be some level of integration going on. All I'm saying is at what level do they combine?

Hmm, didn't you answer your own question? They combine at the root - the person. If you ask different questions, they never quite match up. This is true for every theory-based system out there.

It does not apply to FFM or other systems (15FQ, 16PF) that do not start from a set theory and are literally just asking questions and plunking down the traits.

This means that INTP does not correlate well to FFM (functionally), or Enneagram (wings) because the theories don't mesh. The questions are the common ground... and that's about it. So, the more the questions overlap, the more 'base' correlation there will be, before the theory is applied.

 

[Xander]

Hmm, didn't you answer your own question? They combine at the root - the person. If you ask different questions, they never quite match up. This is true for every theory-based system out there.

It does not apply to FFM or other systems (15FQ, 16PF) that do not start from a set theory and are literally just asking questions and plunking down the traits.

This means that INTP does not correlate well to FFM (functionally), or Enneagram (wings) because the theories don't mesh. The questions are the common ground... and that's about it. So, the more the questions overlap, the more 'base' correlation there will be, before the theory is applied.

Sorry I don't see what your point is. As in I understand there is one but I just don't see it. It's possible it's the Friday afternoon brown out

 

[rivercrow]

/rant on
...

What type is good at, and why it's a decent investigational instrument, is that you can correlate it with other things. You can say that T's take up the vast (VAST) majority of upper management and executive positions... that has important considerations... but the reverse is rarely true - you can't say that a T is suitable for management. Type shouldn't be used at the individual level - it's far too errant for that. And it isn't what it is created for.

Except MBTI. It was. Bleh.

/rant off

True--Type does not indicate competence or aptitude. That is something that the CAPT instructor reiterated.

However--and this is why I'd prefer to be involved with personal coaching/counseling and not with HR--many introductory type classes do not adequately make this limitation clear. So you get people with a taste of type drawing understandable (misinformed) conclusions.

I hear you on the origins of MBTI. I think the theory's grown beyond that and the community seems to have recognized that the original intent might not have been healthy/beneficial.

What the SRTTs are useful for from my perspective is understanding what strengths might be advantageous in different careers and what sorts of folks you might be surrounded with.

 

[Xander]

You mean they've started doing SWOT analysis on your type now!!
Ouch! That's gotta hurt if that comes up bad. Talk about the one test you never want to do badly in!!

"Excuse me sir your results are in. According to our tests your a crap human being."

uch:

 

[FemMecha]

<Snarky comment>

Lock up the windmills! We're questing for a grand unifying theory of type!

</Snarky comment>

Wouldn't we need to also consider the effects of gravity on personality then? Also, there's not a way to understand the relationship between quirks and quarks yet. We'll get there.

I don't claim expertise on these personality systems, but will be more interested when there are theories for cognition that can be measured via neuroimaging and so forth. Combining theories that cannot be proven or falsified seems problematic from the get go to me. Each system is likely flawed and/or incomplete, so to combine two such systems could create more flaws and missing pieces, especially if the overlap is related to the inherent flaws in each. What do you think?

 

[Xander]

Each system is likely flawed and/or incomplete, so to combine two such systems could create more flaws and missing pieces, especially if the overlap is related to the inherent flaws in each.

:steam: Pessimist!!!

 

[rivercrow]

Wouldn't we need to also consider the effects of gravity on personality then? Also, there's not a way to understand the relationship between quirks and quarks yet. We'll get there.

It involves super strings also, I'm sure.

I don't claim expertise on these personality systems, but will be more interested when there are theories for cognition that can be measured via neuroimaging and so forth. Combining theories that cannot be proven or falsified seems problematic from the get go to me. Each system is likely flawed and/or incomplete, so to combine two such systems could create more flaws and missing pieces, especially if the overlap is related to the inherent flaws in each. What do you think?

There are some studies on MBTI and physiology. There's a recent study suggesting some link b/w iris structure and personality type (CANOE [IIRC]).

The MBTI (and this is the only area I've been trained in, so I have a comfort factor here) has been scrutinized pretty thoroughly for the last 50 years. The research on it convinces me that it's reliable and valid. Is it the end-all? No, of course not.

By the same token, ask an obstetrician if everything about pregnancy is known. No, it's not. There are some generalities that are reliable, but every pregnancy is unique.

I'm very content with a tool or series of tools (and the MBTI sorter is a tool to get at the Jungian theory) that is reliable 80-90% of the time. I think that's acceptable reliability for gaining some clearer insight into our own heads.

 

[edcoaching]

Getting back to the MBTI/Enneagram connection...

Type theory is about perception and judgment--how people take in information and make decisions.

The Enneagram is about our defense systems--the mechanisms we use to protect ourselves from the world. I'm an INFJ/E7--I use optimism as a defense system and it becomes dysfunctional when I lapse into "I don't have to do anything proactively in this situation because it will all work out." INFJ/E3s, a more "common" combination, fall into perfectionism as in "it will all work out if I just do it all correctly".

As I understand it, each of the 16 types can have any of the 9 Enneagram defense systems, making for quite the variety.

The best resource on this I know is Pat Wyman's "Three keys to Self-Understanding" published by CAPT. Center for Applications of Psychological Type: MBTI and Archetype Training, Books, Research, Support Materials for Myers-Briggs Professionals and Users - Capt.org Home Page. In addition,the Association for Psychological Type, Association for Psychological Type International will be offering an online class on type and Enneagram, facilitated by Pat, this September. She's used the combinations in counseling women for years, helping them recognize when they're using their detrimental defense systems so they can turn around and use their healthy type preferences.

edcoaching (INFJ)