Which typology do you believe is the most credible?

[skylights]

I know precisely why it's structured the way it is.

I've been thinking about making a thread on it.

Please do.

 

[uumlau]

Whee, the "scientifically valid" issue again.

Look, a typology is very simple. It works like this:

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

That's a typology. It's a very simple typology, with just 10 classifications. Even if you don't know what the other "8" classifications are, you probably have typed yourself correctly. It is not, however, a very useful typology.

A typology is more like a kind of math than a kind of science. Mathematical statements don't have to be scientifically true, and scientific truths don't have to be able to be described by a particular kind of math. Math is a language that we use to juggle abstract concepts. The concepts are "about" the world, but they are just models/abstractions of what is really in the world. That said, math is much more sophisticated than typology, but the parallel holds.

I've brought up Gödel, Escher, Bach before. The theme of the book is about how far we can go to use abstract concepts to describe the real world, touching very strongly on themes of self-reference. Gödel's completeness theorem says, very roughly, that no useful abstract description of the world can ever be complete. Simple descriptions can be complete, but they aren't useful. Useful descriptions can be very advanced, but they always end up running into problems - they either run into contradictions, or they run into large areas of truth that cannot be properly described/proved.

Math is a very complete abstract system that can describe much of what we know about the world. It isn't too useful at describing people or how people interact.

Personality typologies suffer from a very different issue: they're remarkably useful for describing complex things like people, but they are notoriously incomplete.

Scientifically valid?! You want scientifically f-cking valid? Then stop trying to describe subjective aspects of humanity, such as personality. There is no system capable of being "scientifically valid" about that.

Thus, we are stuck with trying to come up with a language to talk about personality. That language usually hinges upon a typology. MBTI is one such language, which when combined with (modern post-Jung) notions of Jungian functions, helps us talk about how people process things with their minds. The proper question isn't "are the types real" or "are the functions real". The proper question is, "What are we really talking about?"

Enneagram is a different typology, with a different basis. It still provides a language to talk about personality, but the elemental "words" of that language are different, with different underlying core concepts. Again, the proper question isn't about what's real or what's scientifically valid, the proper question is what are those underlying core concepts.

The "scientific" personality systems, like the big 5, are more like the "10 types of people in the world typology", easy to apply, but mostly useless. The scientific accuracy is gained at the expense of anything resembling insights into human nature.

Just as MBTI "Thinkers" eventually need to learn to "Feel", those who strongly value a "scientific" approach in general need to learn that such paradigms tend to fail when handling subjective human matters.

 

[Noon]

Z have you come across a singular origin source on why it is structured that way? I've read a number of differing accounts and have yet to see any strong indication of a foundational basis for it, but admittedly I haven't gone far with the research.

This wasn't directed at me (sorry) but I have a theory on its structure - albeit more like a reconstruction of its dubious-by-common standards origin. I've illustrated it so that it flows better - and like to try & type people by asking which they identify with most - but since it's got a lot to do with sephirot & there's already a commotion about the scientific standard, it'll likely look crazy to a lot of people anyway. In any case this is why scientific validation of the enneagram is not a very high concern of mine.

 

[LittleV]

The Big Five has academic support... but we know that there are more than five main traits. Regardless, they simply encompass hundreds of other traits that different types of researchers get to work with and synthesize (we can meaningfully map things ourselves, to ourselves, because science doesn't allow for biased papers to be published). For instance, they could be used to diagnose personality disorders (extreme scores), depict faces, etc. There are neural bases to traits, while patterns may depend on where a person may lie on a continuum.

(DeYoung et al., 2010)
Extraversion: medial orbitofrontal cortex, nucleus acumbens, amygdala
Neuroticism: amygdala, anterior and mid-cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus
Agreeableness: superior temporal sulcus, temporoparietal junction, posterior cingulate cortex
Conscientiousness: dorsalateral/ventrolateral prefrontal cortex

Socionics is one of the more complex of the typologies... and the Enneagram the most fluid. People often assume that the MBTI is bashed in the scientific community... but that isn't necessarily true; there are a decent amount of papers being published on it... including one by Finch (2013) presenting its utility for one's (subjective) search for meaning. There's purpose in most typologies; the Big Five is plainly not at the forefront for finding personal essence, but instrumental in many other, relevant domains.

 

[skylights]

Excellent post [MENTION=9310]uumlau[/MENTION]

This wasn't directed at me (sorry) but I have a theory on its structure - albeit more like a reconstruction of its dubious-by-common standards origin. I've illustrated it so that it flows better - and like to try & type people by asking which they identify with most - but since it's got a lot to do with sephirot & there's already a commotion about the scientific standard, it'll likely look crazy to a lot of people anyway. In any case this is why scientific validation of the enneagram is not a very high concern of mine.

I've read about connection with the sephirot; it's fascinating. I don't know as much about that system as I would like to. Maybe if Z makes his thread on the origin of it you could share your illustrations?

IMO the Big Five... ughh admittedly it's the most "scientifically valid" but I just don't like it because it has "better" and "worse" weighing to it (or mentally healthier/unhealthier), which is fine in a medical capacity but they're traits that may not change a ton (and there are well-documented patterns to how they tend to change). I'm not really for any system that tells one person they're crappier and another they're fantastic unless it's actually useful information, and I don't really see the Big Five as a useful tool, especially compared to the Enneagram.

 

[five sounds]

Which my little pony are you.

 

[Mindsabre]

From my observations... maybe that jungian cognitive functions (mbti?). Even then... I am skeptical if any of these have any real validity at all. I do not know.

 

[Flâneuse]

I don't know about the most credible, but I find the most useful for me are:
1. Enneagram - The most brutally honest, and the most revealing.
2. MBTI - INFP fits me pretty well, especially the descriptions that lean more towards e9-ish (rather than e4-ish) traits. It's little too optimistic and idealized though -- not enough focus on what's wrong with each type and how they can improve.
3. Socionics - Oddly, I relate to Socionics's Fi description more than that of MBTI, but neither IxFj description fits me that well. INFj is the closest fit, but there are still a lot of differences. I find the Socionics type descriptions focus too much on surface traits and behaviors rather than inner lives/thought processes.

 

[entropie]

Said the ENTP 7w8, so

You know so, just trieing to blend in

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I find myself wavering on which system I find the most valid. Obviously each one has weaknesses and strengths, so it's very hard to say which is the best, or most accurate scientific model.

I used to think socionics and enneagram were shit compared to MBTI, but I've been questioning that conclusion lately.

I'd like to find a way to consolidate them into one superior system. That would be daunting, and I'd lose interest halfway through. fuck it

 

[Ene]

I like MBTI best, but even is only, at best, a suggestive template, not a personality dictate. It should be used to help understand one's cognitive preferences, not to define one's self or limit a person to a set of acceptable behaviors and thought patterns associated with that particular "type."

I think the best way and most credible way to understand human personalities is to interact with them in the real world and only use typology systems as a tool to help in that understanding. It's like typology systems are mere paint brushes. The art lies within the artist, not the brushes.

 

[King sns]

I like to navigate between everything, and really I don't see "more credibility" in any of them. If I was describing a person or group, I would just use the system that works best for that situation. Though, in order of most used to least used, I would say socionics>ennea>JCF.
(Fi logic )

 

[WhoCares]

None of them. You cannot break up the infinite into 16 or so classifications.

 

[draon9]

Michael jackson

 

[erm]

Big 5 is easily the most credible. Not because of any special insights it contains, but because it is treated with much more consistency and empiricism than any others.

1. It maintains definitions really well. In say, MBTI, one man's Fi is another man's Ti (even more extreme with the full four letter types), but Big 5 has accountable definitions that hold across people and even cultures to some degree.

2. It's definitions are much more specific and quantifiable. The polar opposite of enneagram.

3. It makes fewer unnecessary assumptions. MBTI and Socionics make factual claims regarding dichotomies in particular. Where big 5 has a dichotomy, it's actually due to you answering negatively or positively to the same question or idea, so one naturally takes away from the other. In Jung's stuff, even the introversion/extroversion dichotomy doesn't have much reality in testing (e.g. someone can be more introverted AND extroverted than someone else), let alone the other functions.

The biggest assumption it doesn't make are that personalities are actually real. You can generalize traits about a person's behavior, but it doesn't mean they'll hold in the future. Instead Big 5 makes the minimal assumption of personal "traits" that could change over time.

4. It's actually somewhat empirical. It doesn't have the greatest predictive power, but when plenty of studies find quite a strong affect regarding a trait, you can have at least some confidence it's not just a semantic game or trying to make a prejudice more legitimate via technical terms.

Unfortunately this means it's the most boring. People can't play around with it in their heads nearly as easily. I've also heard it said that 5 variables goes slightly beyond what the brain is comfortable manipulating mentally, whereas four is the sweet spot between challenge and ease.

You can also make up your own semantics, and as long as you treat it with the same methodology, it'll likely be just as good as big 5.

 

[uumlau]

^^ Yes, it's credible to ask, "Is this apple red?" and get the answer, "Yes, the apple is red."

Fully reliable and repeatable.

The "insights" part you casually dismiss is where "validity" comes in.

 

[EcK]

Jesus and Hitler as INFJ?!

I didn't really read the OP

 

[erm]

The "insights" part you casually dismiss is where "validity" comes in.

No, no. The validity comes from the empiricism and the factor analysis that follows. That's what gets us the predictive power (i.e. insight).

You're still dealing with a lot of problems, but with something as complex and self-referencing as the brain it's easily the best way. Psychology itself has most of those problems in general, but compared to folk psychology it's a dream.

 

[uumlau]

No, no. The validity comes from the empiricism and the factor analysis that follows. That's what gets us the predictive power (i.e. insight).

You're still dealing with a lot of problems, but with something as complex and self-referencing as the brain it's easily the best way. Psychology itself has most of those problems in general, but compared to folk psychology it's a dream.

At which point we're begging the question of whether psychology can be "scientific" in a truly meaningful sense. The irony, in my opinion, is that the more "scientific" psychology gets, the stupider it gets.

 

[erm]

At which point we're begging the question of whether psychology can be "scientific" in a truly meaningful sense. The irony, in my opinion, is that the more "scientific" psychology gets, the stupider it gets.

Psychology is the science of the mind and wouldn't exist without the scientific method that spawned it (turbulently). Incredible advances have been made despite the complexity and the acceleration of neuroscience and computation will only increase that rate. Big 5 is hardly a significant part of that, but still describes a person's emotions and traits far more effectively than say, MBTI, who's few factual claims are largely disproved by this point or were trivial in the first place.

Non-scientific psychoanalysis has often been significantly outperformed by algorithms with only a few simple variables in them. Folk psychology in general has gone the same way, though a few surprises are there (willpower, for example, largely resembles an actual process of the brain). The machine learning and data mining you need for a complex science like psychology, or just the abstract/neurological data of the basics, is not going to satisfy that instinct to understand people and play around with personal perceptions very much.