> according to some personality tests I am an INTJ I don’t know whether this is considered science but from what I’ve read about the personality type it’s literally a copy paste of who am I so I believe in them .
I know this is tangential to your question, but that is _not_ a scientific/rational approach you are taking w.r.t. Myers-Briggs.
that is _not_ a scientific/rational approach you are taking w.r.t. Myers-Briggs.
What’s wrong with it? “Descriptions of the INTJ type seem to match me” seems like a meaningful statement.
Perhaps you wanted to know whether they read all the other type descriptions too?
I thought Scott had a pretty good post on this:
My MBTI type is “the type of person who did some looking into it years ago and knows that the MBTI is neither particularly scientific nor particularly consistently applied”. Or, as it’s also called, INTJ —tropylium.tumblr.com
The argument against Myers-Briggs is that it’s not scientific. The argument for Myers-Briggs is that I’m also the kind of person who did some looking into it and realizes that MBTI is neither scientific nor consistently applied, and I also test consistently as INTJ, so clearly something is going on here. And every time I read a description of INTJ I have to facepalm because I so consistently recognize myself in it.
(Yes, I’m familiar with the Forer effect and have compared it to descriptions of different types. Yes, I could totally believe their is a Forer + placebo effect where knowing that you have been assigned a certain type makes it sound more relevant to you than other types you read. Yes, I’m still impressed with how well descriptions of INTJs fit me. Also, I notice that people on Less Wrong, ie people like me, are seven times more likely to be INTJ than the general population. That seems like a nice objective result.)
I think it’s easy to reconcile “Myers-Briggs is not scientific” with “Myers-Briggs is a useful and real descriptive tool”...
Thank you for this link it really cleared my thoughts a bit on the subject but here goes my interpretation.
Personality Types are real because we are framed to be one of the two things, the way you answer those tests is binary even if you are given a spectrum to choose from hence I think that if everyone does take a personality test it will end up being one of the 16.
I think that what we consider scientific or not can’t necessarily be generalized. Unlike physics or mathematics where the foundations are axioms that were based on experimentation for the first and logic for the latter personality tests dont fit any. Let’s say we invent a decision framework for psychology to decide whether something is scientific or not and let’s say human experimentation is the way to confirm that then yes personality tests are scientific because first you experiment by answering and you end up finding that the results do actually fit you.
I don’t know why people find the Myers Briggs test unscientific but to say that it’s unscientific needs to have some sort of proof or framework that explains why you think it’s that way.
I agree with both of you and I think Scott nailed the analogy with types and countries.
Let’s say we invent a decision framework for psychology to decide whether something is scientific or not and let’s say human experimentation is the way to confirm that then yes personality tests are scientific because first you experiment by answering and you end up finding that the results do actually fit you.
The problem with that standard is that you are going to find with it that astrology is scientific
> according to some personality tests I am an INTJ I don’t know whether this is considered science but from what I’ve read about the personality type it’s literally a copy paste of who am I so I believe in them .
I know this is tangential to your question, but that is _not_ a scientific/rational approach you are taking w.r.t. Myers-Briggs.
What’s wrong with it? “Descriptions of the INTJ type seem to match me” seems like a meaningful statement.
Perhaps you wanted to know whether they read all the other type descriptions too?
I thought Scott had a pretty good post on this:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/27/on-types-of-typologies/
Thank you for this link it really cleared my thoughts a bit on the subject but here goes my interpretation. Personality Types are real because we are framed to be one of the two things, the way you answer those tests is binary even if you are given a spectrum to choose from hence I think that if everyone does take a personality test it will end up being one of the 16. I think that what we consider scientific or not can’t necessarily be generalized. Unlike physics or mathematics where the foundations are axioms that were based on experimentation for the first and logic for the latter personality tests dont fit any. Let’s say we invent a decision framework for psychology to decide whether something is scientific or not and let’s say human experimentation is the way to confirm that then yes personality tests are scientific because first you experiment by answering and you end up finding that the results do actually fit you. I don’t know why people find the Myers Briggs test unscientific but to say that it’s unscientific needs to have some sort of proof or framework that explains why you think it’s that way. I agree with both of you and I think Scott nailed the analogy with types and countries.
The problem with that standard is that you are going to find with it that astrology is scientific
People also change over time.