Myers-Briggs and You

cornflake said:

This is a big clue that it's a joke. For actual psychometrics, you normally need a Ph.D or to be working under someone who holds one, to get a copy of the measure to administrate. Tho, that sounds about right for M-B, as neither did the creators.

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"What are your qualifications?"

"I have $2100 in cash and I can count to 10."

"Welcome aboard!"

GailD said:

...What Myers-Briggs (and others) can be good for is to provide a guideline to focus the interview with a prospective employee. But a guideline only.

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There is no evidence that is the case.

I'm still scratching my head at the idea that the whole of humankind can be shoe-horned into 16 personality types, regardless of culture. That's some A-grade deterministic codswallop there.

Woohoo! I'm shredded wheat with nuances of sea turtle.

You are most like Shredded Wheat! You are very predictable and reliable! You like for things to be calm and in order! You rather spend your time furthering your career and climbing the corporate ladder! Sometimes you take things way to serious!

The turtle totem wisdom teaches us about walking our path in peace and sticking to it with determination and serenity. Slow moving on earth, yet also incredibly fast and agile in water, those who have the turtle as totem or spirit animal may be encouraged to take a break in their busy lives and look around or within themselves for more grounded, long-lasting solutions. Traditionally, the turtle is symbolic of the way of peace, whether it’s inviting us to cultivate peace of mind or a peaceful relationship with our environment.

HR Garcia said:

I agree, anything that gets you thinking about how you present yourself to the world, etc..isn't all bad. For those irritated by companies still using it: are companies actually still using it? I work for an enormous global company and we don't. There are some small groups that used to utilize the Kingdomality inter-personal communications quiz but I don't think they do anymore. It has never been used by HR for hiring purposes. I would think enough research has been done that no reputable company would use it to determine who they hire. It's too easy to answer the way you want to be, instead of the way you are. But for personal reasons, for self-reflection, and if you're honest with your answers...I don't see the harm.

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Exactly. The tests wouldn't profit the company. The system would just be exploited by anyone who learned the types desired/trending. And in the end the company would have a bunch of people who weren't a good fit for the job, just clever enough to fake the test.

hereticdoll said:

Exactly. The tests wouldn't profit the company. The system would just be exploited by anyone who learned the types desired/trending. And in the end the company would have a bunch of people who weren't a good fit for the job, just clever enough to fake the test.

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Yes, well, you'd get that even if they were honest, because the test is pseudo-science at best.

Helix said:

I'm still scratching my head at the idea that the whole of humankind can be shoe-horned into 16 personality types, regardless of culture. That's some A-grade deterministic codswallop there.

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I agree. And every time I've done the test, I've got different results. Results vary depending on my mood. Plus, if I ever had to do this for a job interview, it would be very, very easy to find out what qualities they were looking for and answer the questions accordingly. I've also been sorted into all four Hogwarts houses on separate occasions in various online tests. Pottermore sorted me into Griffindor, and that's the definitive one seeing as JK Rowling wrote it, but on another online test that uses the same questions and method as the Pottermore one, but gives you a percentage for each house instead of just sorting you into one, my percentage for Griffindor, Slytherin and Ravenclaw were incredibly close, just a couple of percentage points between the three. (And I'm kind and loyal like Hufflepuffs too.)

When you break the Hogwarts houses down into subcategories, e.g. if someone's a Slither-claw (mix of Slytherin and Ravenclaw) you can end up with just as many categories as the Myers Briggs test. And it's got just as much scientific validity (i.e. not much). You'd probably get just as good results by asking someone outright how they see themselves in relation to the different categories. People generally already know if they like parties or are details orientated or whatever. Someone who hates interacting with large groups of people all day long probably isn't going to apply for jobs that require them to interact with large groups of people all day long to begin with.

I love all the personality tests though. They are great fun and I especially love the barmy ones. Like "what colour is your guardian angel's aura" and stuff like that. I just like seeing what results they give me. And they're even better if you use them for developing characters. I'd recommend that as an exercise for anyone who's struggling with developing a particular character - go on Playbuzz and answer a few personality tests on behalf of this character. You'll have fun and develop your character at the same time. I sort all my characters into Hogwarts houses. And find out what Avengers character they are, who their guardian angel is, what Norse god they are like and all sorts. I do this for fun, even when I'm happy with their character development so far. It's quite hard to do this for my characters in stories I write set 40,000 years ago or earlier because their answers to questions relating to situations in the modern world would probably be "freak out and run away" because they're only familiar with technology from the middle palaeolithic and early upper palaeolithic eras, but it's still fun.

Helix said:

Yes, well, you'd get that even if they were honest, because the test is pseudo-science at best.

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Yup. It's useless for the hiring process, just as a sorting hat would be. A sorting hat is however, fun.

cornflake said:

Hey, it is just as rigorous as any other quiz invented by people without a relevant education or idea of how to create a psychometric!

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Its inventor did have some education, though. In eugenics.

It is built largely to promote her rather bizarre and fairly distressing views on race.

This is a longer read than the explainers, but worth it, and actually some pretty good journalism to boot.

We did Myers-Briggs at work years ago. I cam out as INTP. A little later on in the day, we were going over some bit of work and I pointed something out or made some comment or something that fit into the 'Thinking' category, and then said jokingly 'Ah, that'll be my 'T-ness' coming out!'

Except it wasn't the Thinking category, it was the Perception category....