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43% INTJ / 54% INTP for me on that one. As Chad said though, some of those I could go either way and some of them I didn't like either choice such as number 6.

Ok, I don't want to be a total stick in the mud. Did the short one.
41% INTJ, 61% INTP

Semi-accurate description of 'myself,' but I still don't quite understand why people even want to label themselves in a certain way and foreclose other ways of being. As Whitman said, "I contain multitudes."

@jacob: Don't mean to suggest they are useless, more simplistic. Or self-fulfilling perhaps. Why would one want to feel personality type is destiny anymore than one's astrological sign is destiny?

(@cmonkey: How can you be 99% introverted if you regularly like to engage with people online? What does the word introverted, at least in its everyday usage even mean in that case? I must be missing something there.)

I suppose I'm sort of a postmodernist, as I find many classificatory systems to be existentially flawed. Some philosophers of science argued that making natural categories just names what already exists, kind of a nomenclature theory. "Cutting nature at its joint." But the critique of that view has been there is no joint--we impose concepts on things that tend to confound them.

Though I suppose my response to personality testing was entirely predictable given I am a statistically proven 61% INTP, right?

@Peanut - http://www.personalityhacker.com/3-bigg ... ty-typing/ ...

Yes, INTPs would naturally be inclined to be annoyed by the MBTI while INTJs would naturally tend to love it. Here's why ...

INTPs and INTJs mentally operate quite differently despite only being separated by a single letter.

The INTJ is a natural pattern-generator making up patterns and patterns of patterns and ultimately connects these patterns to create a system of understanding. This system of mental patterns (a theory) is then compared to observations in reality and the theory is judged by how effective it is at explaining these observations. In short, INTJs tend to make up theories and then check with reality to see if the theory is useful.

The INTP is a natural pattern-recognizer seeing patterns in observations of reality. The INTP then proceeds to create a logical and internally self-consistent explanation of all these observed patterns. In short, INTPs tend to see reality and then check with the theory to see if the theory is correct.

They very much approach the problem of understanding from diametrically opposite ends.

It's evident then that the INTP approach is very well suited for mathematics and IQ tests. Whereas the INTJ approach is very well suited for science and messy data.

An INTP would be annoyed with the MBTI because there's way too much incongruous data (so many weird people all behaving differently in different situations) to fit into a such a simplistic framework. How can the INTP possible meet their strong desire for logic self-consistency when the test subject will behave in different ways depending on whether it's Tuesday or Friday or the sun is shining or not while the supposed framework says they shouldn't? All these instances of data that doesn't fit the theory are telling them that the theory is incomplete, illogical, useless ... The INTP is getting angry because the theory isn't perfect. So it must be wrong. In short, INTPs are in pursuit of the one theory!

An INTJ would love the MBTI because it contains a set of patterns (patterns, patterns, lovely lovely patterns) that more often than not can be matched to a messy set of behavioural observations and mostly predict or explain the why, what, and when. So what if there are some exceptions? Well, patterns aren't perfect but that doesn't mean they're useless. In short, INTJs just want a theory, or two, or three.

Real world anecdotal illustration of the differences ...

A mathematics professor (INTP) telling me (INTJ) that my proof was sloppy and that I should be looking at all the cases (e.g. x>0 AND x=0).
Me telling a student (INTP) that there was no point in him calculating what would happen when the electron's charge converged to zero. (it's a natural constant and doesn't converge to anything.)

@Peanut It is probably a long walk from "preference" to "destiny". I am also heavily introverted, doesn't mean I don't occasionally acknowledge the need for human connection and override that preference to get some.

@peanut,
I wouldn't say I 'regularly' engage with people online. Before discovering this forum last year I never associated with any online group and only occasionally posted in forums of differing topics. And no social media.....ever. As henrik stated, everyone has a need for human connection and I think that online discussions are more preferable for introverts simply because the entire conversation happens in your own mind. We are people too. There is something about this forum that just draws me in and I will never understand it.

I'm not sure how I became so introverted it probably is a miracle of some sort that I met the DW and that we get along so well.

I always come up with a schizoid personality type. I must be taking the wrong test.

I was trying to figure out what type would best meet the description "smart for a jock" and I happened upon this http://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-priebe/ ... lity-type/ Cracked me up with its accuracy. Since I am very light on the E in my ENTP, my high school identity was exactly a cross between the description for ENTP and INTP. IOW, I was the girl most likely to get anonymous obscene phone calls from fellow student in AP Chemistry but nobody ever thought that maybe I would like to be invited to play Dungeons and Dragons and I tried to drop out of school and just read my way through the library when I was 15 but I was busted and sent to alternative school for a term with all the burn-out thugs and I tried to seduce my favorite English teacher but I bought myself a Vic 20 with my babysitting money etc. etc.

Anyways, was also able to verify that my recent ex is an EXTJ. All makes sense now. I can not be with the Hall Monitor.

Your personality type: “The Advocate” (INFJ-T)
Strength of individual traits: Introverted: 100%, Intuitive: 83%, Feeling: 87%, Judging: 23%, Turbulent: 54%.
Role: Diplomat
Strategy: Constant Improvement

henrik wrote:@Peanut It is probably a long walk from "preference" to "destiny". I am also heavily introverted, doesn't mean I don't occasionally acknowledge the need for human connection and override that preference to get some.

Ditto. I got 100% introverted. That doesn't mean I don't like to connect with people... I love it, as long as its genuine. It means it wears me out to do it, and I need a lot of people breaks.

Above posted link explains why people get different personality types when they take a re-test

The primary method for testing reliability is to give the test to a person on two occasions. This procedure is known as “test-retest reliability." Typically, the test-retest interval can range from several weeks to more than a year. Because type is said to be a constant characteristic, we would expect that people's personality would not change over time. Several studies, however, show that even when the test-retest interval is short (e.g., 5 weeks), as many as 50 percent of the people will be classified into a different type.

The reliability data of the MBTI bring into question the stability of the test. How is it possible that there can be a change in personality, across a short interval, when such a change should not occur? The reliability data also bring into question whether there are meaningful differences across the preference categories.

And this link also posted above explains why that psychologist has a rather simplistic understanding of the MBTI as well as why there are issues with retestability.

Psychologists are notorious for their factor analysis fetish which is why they like the Big5 instead. Now, it so happens that the five dimensions in the big 5 are approximate linear combinations of .... guess what ... the 4 dimensions in the MBTI --- which is why the psychologist see the "mixed vector" and proceed to complain(*) about correlations(**). In other words, they cover the same dimensional space. The issue psychologists seem to have is that the MBTI isn't statistically clean. However, mathematically speaking, that doesn't mean that it doesn't cover the space.

(*) A mixed vector necessarily have to have correlations with a subset of its components, so this is not a valid complaint.

(**) By the way, factor analysis has the same "problem", because it relies on an outside a priori definition of the factors. Not that I have a problem with a priori assumptions, but it does mean the Big5 isn't more pure or holy than the MBTI. To avoid these assumptions entirely, one has to use principal component analysis. However, with PCA there would be no way to name the dimensions beyond "1", "2", ... and then we wouldn't be able to write psych-papers ;-P

Consequentially this complaint smells a lot like a Not Invented Here-issue.

A tool is only as good as its user. If the MBTI is approached with a factor-analysis mindset and simply throwing data/test-results at the problem, it will predictably fail. Conversely, because Big5 is only a factor analysis model, it's impossible to make any explanatory statements, because a factor-analysis is ultimately just a descriptive analysis of one's a priori factors.

They both have their place and the disagreement is likely mainly because of a [mistaken] belief that they're supposed to serve the same purpose.

Beeing INTJ , recently discovered through this excellent blog, I vastly prefer having some Beers and watching the Avatar movie, or possibly the Lord of the Rings DVDs, then reading some about the latest discoveries in Cosmology, or possibly trying to understand the development of Religions or the principles of Evolution ....

I'm guessing that the US President candidates and similar people are MB testing very differently, wondering what type they belong to ? Or what about Madonna, Miley Cyrus or Mick Jagger ? Guessing not INTJs !

o

JasonR wrote: How does the robot handle the mutually exclusive questions that I lied about?
I like being alone (100% no) and I like being with people (100% no).
Should it's head not have exploded?

That's not inconsistent, really. The robot probably just assumes you're one really unhappy meatbag.

JasonR wrote:This makes me confused. You can change 50% of your answers and are still the same person...?

The simplest explanation is that each answer sends you along some vector into 4D space and ultimately it adds the all up to figure out where in MBTI space you live. Then based on previous answers from a calibration population and knowing their MBTI types from elsewhere, it matches you to that population. If it's a clever robot, it uses something more snazzy than mere linear algebra. Don't assume that each question directly tests just one particular dimension.

Bonus question: What does this say about the EJs in the calibration population?

JasonR wrote:IHow does the robot handle the mutually exclusive questions that I lied about?

Enhanced interrogation, obviously

7wannabe5 so disappointed for you!

Who would not want to be with the hall monitor? ... all that power and scrutiny...

Write that book,would be so fun to read.

@cmonkey: Well, for a 99%! rating I would expect someone who never engages with people online, let alone frequently for a whole year, and someone who would definitely not (want to) be married. I don’t understand how online convo can be understood as taking place entirely in one’s own mind? It’s not like you’re creating the dialogue. More like an email penpal. Maybe you believe in miracles, but I generally don’t. Faulty diagnostics or definitions seem more likely to me.

@Peanut - As Dragline would say ... "You keep using that word/concept. I do not think it means what you think it means." Online convo provides a much cleaner as well as a delayed signal that allows an introvert to reflect on what is said. Compare this to a transcription of what's said in person (includes visuals) or over a phone (just voice). Such things contains an enormous amounts of noise ... uhhh ehhh.. ermm ... repeat ... shout ... uhhh.. repeat again ... irrelevant ... hahahaha .... irrelevant ... already stated ... repeat previous ... uhhh hahaha! That involves a LOT more noise an requires real time processing. Introverts tend to pay equal attention to the noise but because they go deeper than extroverts, they're wasting tremendous amounts of mental energy on extrovert communication style.---Or even introvert ad lib communications. Introverts tend to pay a lot more attention to quality than quantity and thus their buffer is overwhelmed and they stop processing in an IRL situation.---Or maybe more accurately, introverts require a higher S/N ratio because they don't posses the pre-filter that extroverts have allowing them to ignore all the noise.

GandK wrote:

henrik wrote:@Peanut It is probably a long walk from "preference" to "destiny". I am also heavily introverted, doesn't mean I don't occasionally acknowledge the need for human connection and override that preference to get some.

Ditto. I got 100% introverted. That doesn't mean I don't like to connect with people... I love it, as long as its genuine. It means it wears me out to do it, and I need a lot of people breaks.

Yes, that was my basic understanding too--that social interaction drains energy from the introvert. According to that definition my DH is an introvert, even though he becomes the center of any social gathering. But it always seemed weird to me because nobody would describe him as an introvert. Only 'funny,' 'knows how to have fun,' 'irreverent,' etc.

I confess I am biased because my MIL is a big Meyers-Briggs proponent just because she went to OSU in the 60s and learned it in her Psych 101 class. I, like someone else on the thread, thought it had since been largely discredited. If some remapping of it unrelentingly persists, well and good.

Peanut wrote: I confess I am biased because my MIL is a big Meyers-Briggs proponent just because she went to OSU in the 60s and learned it in her Psych 101 class. I, like someone else on the thread, thought it had since been largely discredited. If some remapping of it unrelentingly persists, well and good.

That whole paragraph sounds strange to me. First, what does your MIL use Myers-Briggs for? It's just a way of communicating about people's similarities and differences. It's useful to know someone is an ESFP when you meet him (assuming you know what that means), just like its useful to know he's from Idaho, and a Quaker, and a 75-year-old vegan who rides a bike everywhere. Each of those things changes the way you perceive his words when he speaks and hopefully helps you to understand his point of view a little better.

And second, M-B isn't really fact based, so I'm not sure how it can be either credited or discredited. In the case of this thread it's people indicating, in an unscientific online test, what they tend to prefer. Who's to argue with them? And the test spits out a handful of labels and a synopsis of how people with those labels tend to behave... which we more or less just indicated ourselves through the test. Who's to argue with that, either?