Hemd
New member
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2012
- Messages
- 16
- MBTI Type
- NFPI
Now i've read Reynierse whole article and i a fully agree with him in almost all points. Many of his proposals seem quite natural and logical to me, and the question arising is, why no one before him has raised these questions and issues with MBTI.
The MBTI is now more than 50 years old, and in this 50 years there have been only slight improvements. Behavioral and psychological science is on a completely new standing point and has come up with many things the last 50 years, but the MBTI stayed where it was, mostly ignoring everything whats going on around him, staying in its bubble of jungian theory (which is 90 years old). In MBTI-Terms, MBTI would be pretty high in S and J.
Strange thing is, MBTI did ignore not only the contradicting scientific results and miss the chance of improving the theory, but ignored also the confirming scientific results, which could be used to give MBTI much more scientific credit. Especially the thousands of Big Five studies could be used to advantage for MBTI, but not without acknowledging some of MBTI's shortcomings. And thats where the problem lies.
I also read some of Reynierse cited studies (many i already knew), for example the very critical (but factual and reasonable) works of Pittenger, and it becomes clear that many areas of MBTI theory are not better than astrology:
- there is no evidence for dichotomous preferences, eg. clear "types". All studies show that human preferences are organized in continous traits.
But even accepting that, with continous preferences types are still a useful and needed simplification to understand those traits. But also much information about an individual is lost, when referring to types, because people within one type can differ dramatically, for example a low I and low E type have more in common than a low I and a high I type.
- type dynamics and function theory are - sorry - simply crap. They work the same way than astrology: people believe in the system and therefore see themselves according to it and interpret everything in favor of the system, ignoring the contradictions. In 50 years of MBTI research and hundreds of (MBTI-backed) studies there has been NO evidence for type dynamics. It simply doesn't work. But talking people out of it often is like triyng to talk someone out of religion: people simply believe in it, regardless of any evidence. They simply like the idea of having an exact plan for human behavior, when in reality people are much more individual and don't behave according to such a rigid system.
I think Reynierse ideas are very good and currently the only way for MBTI to get away from outdated theories and overdone and wrong simplification of personality. The first steps have already been done in the new MBTI step 2, which introduced facets for every preference. But if there is to be any mayor change in MBTI, it will surely take many many years.
The MBTI is now more than 50 years old, and in this 50 years there have been only slight improvements. Behavioral and psychological science is on a completely new standing point and has come up with many things the last 50 years, but the MBTI stayed where it was, mostly ignoring everything whats going on around him, staying in its bubble of jungian theory (which is 90 years old). In MBTI-Terms, MBTI would be pretty high in S and J.
Strange thing is, MBTI did ignore not only the contradicting scientific results and miss the chance of improving the theory, but ignored also the confirming scientific results, which could be used to give MBTI much more scientific credit. Especially the thousands of Big Five studies could be used to advantage for MBTI, but not without acknowledging some of MBTI's shortcomings. And thats where the problem lies.
I also read some of Reynierse cited studies (many i already knew), for example the very critical (but factual and reasonable) works of Pittenger, and it becomes clear that many areas of MBTI theory are not better than astrology:
- there is no evidence for dichotomous preferences, eg. clear "types". All studies show that human preferences are organized in continous traits.
But even accepting that, with continous preferences types are still a useful and needed simplification to understand those traits. But also much information about an individual is lost, when referring to types, because people within one type can differ dramatically, for example a low I and low E type have more in common than a low I and a high I type.
- type dynamics and function theory are - sorry - simply crap. They work the same way than astrology: people believe in the system and therefore see themselves according to it and interpret everything in favor of the system, ignoring the contradictions. In 50 years of MBTI research and hundreds of (MBTI-backed) studies there has been NO evidence for type dynamics. It simply doesn't work. But talking people out of it often is like triyng to talk someone out of religion: people simply believe in it, regardless of any evidence. They simply like the idea of having an exact plan for human behavior, when in reality people are much more individual and don't behave according to such a rigid system.
I think Reynierse ideas are very good and currently the only way for MBTI to get away from outdated theories and overdone and wrong simplification of personality. The first steps have already been done in the new MBTI step 2, which introduced facets for every preference. But if there is to be any mayor change in MBTI, it will surely take many many years.