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by sunstone 2076 days ago
Myers-Briggs has almost zero validity as a method of assessing personalities (check the straight dope) so this is really a fools errand. Anyone wanting to use a validated assessment should check out the big five personality test. And it's free.
2 comments
liminvorous 2076 days ago
If you’re using validity in its psychological jargon sense here I think a lot of mbti enthusiasts on Reddit would say that the tests are unreliable, but the classification is still good for finding a sense of community with people who think in similar ways to you.
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ragnarkar 2075 days ago
Yep, that's similar to how I feel about MBTi.

One thing you need to separate out the 16 MBTI archtypes with the test(s) used to determine which type you are. Not everyone fits into one of the 16 types perfectly and not every test reliably figures out which of the 16 types you are, not to mention that dividing the entire human population into 16 types is an overly simplistic way of categorizing personalities.

That doesn't mean MBTI is useless. You can take a test and hope that it reasonably finds what type you are or you can simply read the archtypes for all 16 types and figure out which type you are closest to.

I think the community element is the most underrated aspect of MBTI, esp if you're a rare type that's been misunderstood most of your life. I can certainly related as an INTP and have struggled most of my life when taking the advice of my parents, teachers, professors, mentors, even self-help gurus only to get limited results despite following their advice almost exactly. When I learned that I was an INTP and followed the advice from other INTPs, I finally felt understood and was able to follow a different set of advice that got me much further in life than following the conventional advice from the former parties.

Is it scientific? It's debatable. Is it useful? It depends but personally, it has been tremendously helpful.

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jclos 2075 days ago
"Astrology for nerds" is one way of describing it that I always liked even though I don't know who is the original author of the expression (if there even is one).
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