r/SubredditDrama • u/nolvorite I delight in popcorn, therefore I am • Oct 15 '14
Wherein people argue whether taking an MBTI test is the only way to know your true MBTI in /r/entp, an MBTI-related sub
Just to be clear, an MBTI is a myers-briggs type indicator, a set of codes that identify your personality. ENTP is one of those codes. Anyway to the actual drama...
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u/circleandsquare Oct 15 '14
MBTI is hilarious–it's the psychological equivalent of Which Seinfeld Character Are You? on Buzzfeed. I'm Uncle Leo, by the way.
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Oct 16 '14 edited Oct 16 '14
I always thought of it as starsigns for people who want to pretend they're too smart for starsigns.
YOU ARE: An ENTP
You are a wonderful, outgoing soul with a strong intuition, a thoughtful nature and unerring perception.
Your MBTI personality is : The Inventor."ERMAGUSH I AM ALL THOSE BLAND, POSITIVE THINGS IT SAID!
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u/nolvorite Oct 15 '14
Well it's not exactly scientific, but you'd be surprised how accurate it is once you get into the functions.
Also i'd probably be the hotel greeter guy
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u/ANewMachine615 Oct 15 '14
The issue is that the test is bad at actually categorizing people, and often people end up testing into totally different archetypes several weeks later. So either it's not measuring anything well, or what it's measuring changes so rapidly as to not be worth measuring.
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Oct 15 '14
People guessing the MBTIs of dead people is stupid. The test is based on positive self-identification of traits (and non-identification of blind spots)-- you don't get the type that you are, you get the type that you think you are. Major difference. Still fun to watch people fight, though.
I don't think it's a very useful representation of anything, but I find the test kind of fun-- I've done it a couple of times now and I still come out INTJ. "How fun," I thought. "Apparently it's quite an unusual type." But then I went to the subreddit r/intj and damn, wow, every single post is about avoiding social events and thinking you're better than other people. Of course, I'm allowed to think that way, but I don't know who these assholes think they're fooling!
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u/SonofSin17 Oct 17 '14
Ahhh, another INTJ redditor. It's actually comical how many people on reddit get 'objectively' typed as INTJ.
Anyway, the biggest use I've ever seen for MBTI is to properly identify your workers as a supervisor. That way you can understand their strengths and weaknesses better and put them in situations that they'll flourish better in.
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u/nolvorite Oct 15 '14
You don't know it in-depth.
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Oct 15 '14
I think I know it well enough-- it's a holdover from the era of psychoanalysis. Like most relics of that school of thought it's amusing but only as revealing as the person taking the test wants it to be, like a Rorschach blot or word association.
It's not totally worthless, but it's best to conceive of it as something which is mostly for fun, like a marginally more grounded horoscope.
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u/TheLadyEve Oct 15 '14
Most of the psychologists I know wouldn't go near the MBTI--it just doesn't have the validity and reliability of more refined instruments like the MMPI-2. But because you don't have to be a psychologist to administer it, and because it is fairly simple to interpret, people still use it (and, IMO, take it way too seriously).
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u/thenuge26 Oct 15 '14
I didn't even know what it was until I saw people on OKCupid taking it way too seriously. "If you're not an INTJ don't bother messaging me." lolwat?
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u/TheLadyEve Oct 16 '14
"If you're not an INTJ don't bother messaging me."
That's utterly bizarre. Maybe this is unfair profiling on my part, but I usually avoided people on OKC who put their type in their profile.
The thing that really gets me about that test is the poor test-retest reliability. Anecdotally speaking, I took the thing three times and got a different result each time (ENFJ, INFJ, and ENTJ). Basically, if you fall towards the middle of the spectrum in any of the 4 categories, there's a high chance that your type will vary based on mood, developmental phase, current stressors, etc.
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u/death_by_chocolate Oct 16 '14
Folks like the Meyers-Briggs because most of the 'traits' it is supposed to elicit are existentially positive, or at worst, neutral. If you take it, you're not going to find out that you're depressed or neurotic or sociopathic; you're going to find out that you're pretty good at this and well-suited for that which betrays its genesis as an employee evaluation tool. It tends to reinforce the positive assessments people already have about themselves.
I suspect that it still finds use today in busy HR departments because it's free and easy to present to new workers--and the mere act of testing tends to enhance the authority and power of the employer. It's a quick and dirty way of demonstrating exactly who's in charge. I kinda don't think they're evaluating folks based on their responses to the MBTI when they have a candidate with a resume right in front of them.
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u/nolvorite Oct 15 '14
I think the MBTI explained my thought processes pretty well. It may not be the most accurate, but it does have some degree of accuracy.
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u/walterfisk Oct 15 '14
MBTI drama is some of my favourite drama. I just can't stop being entertained and Impressed by the amount of time people spend talking about and obsessing over a personality test. I can get the appeal behind 99.999% of hobbies, but this one just escapes me.
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u/lilahking Oct 15 '14
It also is not an exact test with people scoring differently when taking it multiple times.
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u/walterfisk Oct 15 '14
Yeah, the people in the drama thread even mention this multiple times. I don't get how you can be aware that the test is inaccurate and also subscribe to it as a philosophy for life.
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u/swiley1983 Oct 15 '14
scientifically valid way to obtain someone's MBTI type
IKEK
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u/nolvorite Oct 15 '14
Not necessarily scientific, they're just saying you need to be unbiased to come up with the right conclusion
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Oct 15 '14
I find the MBTI helpful as a tool for learning about your self and identifying your strengths, but some of these people take it way to far
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u/up_my_butt Oct 15 '14
Isn't the MBTI based on the works of a couple of psychologists who are... let's say... regarded as dubiously rigorous by the scientific community?
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u/Renaiconna Oct 15 '14
I don't know about Myers and Briggs as people, but the MBTI certainly lacks reliability and the way people get slotted into categories is of dubious validity in that it ignores the fluidity of an individual's mind set.
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Oct 16 '14
Heck, maybe the idea has some validity, but judging yourself or asking an online test to judge sure doesn't.
How many painfully unfunny people think they're hilarious?
How many "charismatic leaders" are actually pushy assholes?
How many "womanizers" are actually creepy and repulsive?The last person who should be judging your character is yourself
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u/up_my_butt Oct 15 '14
I was referring mostly to Freud and Jung...
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u/Renaiconna Oct 15 '14
In that case, it really depends on the psychologist. Neo-Freudianism and non-evidence-based psychoanalysis is still a thing in many places, although current research paradigms reject them.
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u/Xentago Oct 15 '14
It's rather fascinating. It's so important to him to be a specific type... but at the same time denigrates the test as being incorrect 50% of the time in determining types.
If the test is useless, then the label is meaningless.
The label comes from the test, so if the test is wrong so often as to be unreliable then you don't "feel" like an ENTP, because ENTP wouldn't be a real thing.
It's a really weird dichotomy where he acknowledges the validity of the personality type archetypes but simultaneously dismisses the device responsible for them.