As I always suspected I don’t have a Myers Briggs type. Is there any compelling evidence that they exist? I’ve always been a bit bemused by these tests but they seem very popular in startup world.
They are simply categories that are defined, so they exist by definition. But they have poor predictive power. From wikipedia:
Though the MBTI resembles some psychological theories, it is generally classified as pseudoscience, especially as pertains to its supposed predictive abilities. The indicator exhibits significant scientific (psychometric) deficiencies, notably including poor validity (i.e. not measuring what it purports to measure, not having predictive power or not having items that can be generalized), poor reliability (giving different results for the same person on different occasions), measuring categories that are not independent (some dichotomous traits have been noted to correlate with each other), and not being comprehensive (due to missing neuroticism). The four scales used in the MBTI have some correlation with four of the Big Five personality traits, which are a more commonly accepted framework
EDIT: My theory is that Myers-Briggs is more popular among laypeople than Big5 precisely because it's less scientific. People feel like their Myers-Briggs type tells them something non-obvious about themselves. Big5 is so straightforward that it doesn't tell them anything they didn't know before.
By exist I am referring to the validity of the binary measurements. If I ask you where you generally sit on the binary scale of awake and asleep you couldn’t give a definitive answer because it changes depending on the circumstances. It’s a meaningless measurement (as alluded to in your copy paste). I get the same from MBTI.
> My theory is that Myers-Briggs is more popular among laypeople than Big5 precisely because it's less scientific.
My theory is that it is more popular not directly because it is less scientific, though for a closely related reason--because its so heavily marketed by the private firm behind it and their army of certified consultants, which has created lot of visibility (much of which is at least one step removed from the marketing, so that people are often not directly aware of the marketing.)
I think you have quite a limited view of science if you think it can only tell you obvious things. My view is that Myers-Briggs is less popular with scientists/academics than Big5 because they haven't worked out how to measure it accurately yet.
You might be normal. MB doesn't have a type for being in the middle of the range in any dimension so those people would get random scores each time the take a test. If being normal in all 4 dimensions is correlated (unexceptional well adjusted person?), then that might be the majority of the population for whom it's meaningless.
Myers-Briggs theory actually suggests that people trend towards balanced as they age. There are still more subtle differences that can be picked up, but an online test is unlikely to find them.
When I took this in my 20s I was within a couple points of halfway on every category. I've always been quite adaptable and have tested myself enough to eventually decide what I'm not. Less official tests taken later in life have been less middling; but they haven't been consistent, either.
But don't worry, it's pseudoscience. I took a quiz to determine my astrological sign once, too.
Introversion/Extraversion is well known and accepted as part of the Big5 and other more mainstream models (the MBTI definition is actually slightly more general, defining extraversion as a preference for external stimulation in general rather than specifically socialisation, but I think the evidence is still relevant).
The Judgement/Perception dichotomy (called Rational/Irrational by Jung) corresponds to System 1 and System 2 thinking in Dual-process theory for which there is a large body of evidence, including the work of Kahneman and Tversky which is well respected enough to have won a nobel prize (in economics). Interestingly from an HN perspective this also seems strongly analogous to CPU (serial) vs GPU (parallel) processing.
The Thinking vs Feeling and Sensing vs. Intuition distinctions have less evidence at this point.
First, their interpretation of I/E is not the same that the Big5 label it. The Big 5 also don't look at it as binary.
I'm also not sure how to interpret your System 1 vs System 2 comment, as thats also not binary. Everyone uses both. Is it supposed to be a preference? Do you have a link describing that? It doesn't make sense to the way the two are described to me either.
> First, their interpretation of I/E is not the same that the Big5 label it. The Big 5 also don't look at it as binary.
The MBTI also doesn't look at thing like E and I as binary when it comes to the "type of a person". A single preference is binary under the MBTI, but everyone has multiple preferences. For example, if someone's primary function is "Extroverted Thinking" then their secondary function may be "Introverted Intuition". As the relative strength (degree of preference) may vary continuously, that leads to a continuous grading of "extraversion" when describing a person
As far as I can see, the Big 5 doesn't even attempt to explain what's going on at a sub-person level, which probably does mean that there is little evidence for those parts of the MBTI theory, but it also means there is little evidence against it. In any case, I've seen a lot of people arguing that the MBTI is rubbish because there are degrees of extraversion (and other described properties) in people, and that's a poor reason to dismiss the theory because it predicts exactly that.
> I'm also not sure how to interpret your System 1 vs System 2 comment, as thats also not binary
Though the MBTI resembles some psychological theories, it is generally classified as pseudoscience, especially as pertains to its supposed predictive abilities. The indicator exhibits significant scientific (psychometric) deficiencies, notably including poor validity (i.e. not measuring what it purports to measure, not having predictive power or not having items that can be generalized), poor reliability (giving different results for the same person on different occasions), measuring categories that are not independent (some dichotomous traits have been noted to correlate with each other), and not being comprehensive (due to missing neuroticism). The four scales used in the MBTI have some correlation with four of the Big Five personality traits, which are a more commonly accepted framework
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...
EDIT: My theory is that Myers-Briggs is more popular among laypeople than Big5 precisely because it's less scientific. People feel like their Myers-Briggs type tells them something non-obvious about themselves. Big5 is so straightforward that it doesn't tell them anything they didn't know before.