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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Personality Tests: Harmful Bullshit or Bullshit which is Harmful?
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Criticism of personality tests is nothing new. There seems to be little validity to their accuracy and almost none to whether a person will be a good/beneficial employee. Yet they are supposedly a big thing in business.
The Myers-Briggs one is mentioned on SOF quite a bit, hopefully facetiously, so I thought I'd ask why they.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
My son is an airline pilot and, along with the technical gubbins, a large amount of time was devoted to personality tests in the selection process.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Snags
Utterly socially unrealistic
# 15351
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Posted
Setting aside the obvious bullshit ones I think the better ones can be of some value, but only when used as one tool among many. And on the understanding that the results are not the whole story about someone/yourself.
Using "Oh, I'm an INJP" or whatever as justification for your life is bollocks. Using it to realise that you may be more suited to Role A over Role B in a particular context may have value.
ATEOTD I guess they can act as aids to self-reflection and understanding when used well, particularly for those who wouldn't normally reflect at all. But you can't build a house with just a hammer.
[ 09. July 2017, 12:54: Message edited by: Snags ]
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Posts: 1399 | From: just north of That London | Registered: Dec 2009
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I think that popular psychology and received wisdom tend towards informal evaluative models. Certain personality traits are good; others are bad. So there's a lot of informal personality categories and tests going on in people's heads anyway.
So I think the benefit of Myers-Briggs-type tests can be that they try hard and mostly successfully to be non-evaluative and non-judgemental: and so they can be a way to clear away the prejudices of received wisdom. It's a way of saying these things aren't something wrong with you or other people; they're just different. And putting a name on just different makes it easier to grasp.
Of course once they've done that job they then need becoming imprisoning frameworks in their own right as described in the article. And then they need to be cleared away in their own right.
[ 09. July 2017, 13:12: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
I took the Myers-Briggs several years ago. It found I was hardly judgmental at all. I clung to that for a long time.
Working at myself with the help of someone who was good at what he does revealed I am highly judgmental. I judged the living hell out of people who don't make the world be the way I know it needs to be for it (me) to be OK. It is an important exercise on my part to catch that judgmental me and stop it.
Would knowing that Myers-Briggs is hooey ridden have helped me see myself more clearly sooner rather than later? Probably not.
My experience is that I tell myself about character traits I have because I want to have them, rather than because I do have them. So, most quick, written tests are going to miss that divide.
Some tests seem to be better than others. But I am no expert.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The Myers-Briggs one is mentioned on SOF quite a bit, hopefully facetiously, so I thought I'd ask why they.
Probably because of the much-higher-than-usual number of INTJs on here ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif) ¹
=
¹I recall that being the finding of a poll here by JimT many years ago...
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
This can't be done without quoting Ken.
quote:
Can the last Myers-Briggs witchdoctor be choked to death by being stuffed every book in the world that takes fucking Fowler's fucking stages of fucking faith fucking seriously and all of them burned on a funeral pyre made up of Gardener's Learning Styles?
And all the rest of the fluffy-bunny pseudo-scientific pop-psychology mendacious controlling bollocks that has been infesting the church like a plague for the past too many decades.
And we can get rid of the moronic nonsense about "Generation XYZ" while we're at it.
And if there is anything left of Freudianism we can lose that as well (surely there can't be, is anyone stupid or ignorant enough to take his psychology seriously these days?)
And as for the poncy post-modernists - shoot the in the kneecaps with an AK47 and then see whether they really think the narratives of the modern era are unpersuasive.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
I think misuse of "tests" like the Myers-Briggs (which as I recall is termed an inventory, not a test) is part of the problem. Using the M-B to predict who will be a good employee or to say "that's just how I am" is a misuse of it. It's not intended to predict anything or justify anything. It's intended as a way of understanding ourselves and others.
My wife and I did the M-B as part of our pre-marital counseling, not to assess compatibility or predict anything, but as a way of understanding how we each tend to process information and prefer to make decisions, especially when our approaches are different. Over the years, we have found that helpful.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
It's intended as a way of understanding ourselves and others.
There is serious doubt that it even accomplishes this. I've never been directly subjected to any of this in an employment situation. And I've never taken the "real" test. I thought I had, but the official test wants to be paid.* The tests based on the test that I've taken are far too binary. This is, BTW, a criticism of the official one as well.
I also find it odd that so much faith is placed in a test devised following principles whose originator was skeptical of.
*Which I find suspect in that one can pay to take it in a non-professional manner and one can buy the right to use the test with no standard other than a funds transfer.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The Myers-Briggs one is mentioned on SOF quite a bit, hopefully facetiously, so I thought I'd ask why they.
Probably because of the much-higher-than-usual number of INTJs on here ¹
=
¹I recall that being the finding of a poll here by JimT many years ago...
INTJ here!
The article is wrong when it says you are either 100% introvert or extrovert – the actual scoring of MBTI gives percentages, acknowledging that all of us are a mixture.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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BabyWombat
Shipmate
# 18552
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Posted
The priest doing the pre-nup for my husband and I used the Myers Briggs as a starting point and a tool for looking at difference more objectively. At that time we’d already been together for 27 years, but we found the framework very helpful. I have used it ever since for any pre-nup I do -- and couples I’ve worked with also seem to find it helpful. It is harmful if we see it as a definition of or an excuse for behavior, but a good tool for seeing things less personally when there is a difference.
I’ve also worked in human resource recruitment, and find such tools fairly useless in that setting, especially if individuals use the results as an excuse for poor inter-personal behavior in that setting.
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Let us, with a gladsome mind…..
Posts: 102 | From: US | Registered: Feb 2016
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I think the problem is that so many of these are misused. So MB doesn't work if you assume it puts you in one of 16 categories, and that is it. And that you are the same as all others with the same code.
It is much more that this indicates how much you reflect certain features (and, as others have said, it is not a single letter, it is a percentage), and also, how you might relate to others. If you use it like this, it can be productive, knowing that others see things in a radically different way than you. It can also help to see whether the team as a whole has a balance of perceptions.
I think they are useful, but not as definitive indicators, just as ways of seeing differences, and how they work together.
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Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
The only axis that ever meant anything to me was the intro/extroversion one. The others - nah. Don't get 'em.
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Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The article is wrong when it says you are either 100% introvert or extrovert – the actual scoring of MBTI gives percentages, acknowledging that all of us are a mixture.
From Wikipedia:
quote:
Most personality traits do show a normal distribution of scores from low to high, with about 15% of people at the low end, about 15% at the high end and the majority of people in the middle ranges. But in order for the MBTI to be scored, a cut-off line is used at the middle of each scale and all those scoring below the line are classified as a low type and those scoring above the line are given the opposite type.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The only axis that ever meant anything to me was the intro/extroversion one. The others - nah. Don't get 'em.
Isabel Myers considered the which side of that line more important than how much. Which explains why the results tend to emphasize this. However, most people tested cluster in the middle, making her presupposition misleading at best.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Myers-Briggs (self taught Jungian mother and daughter) has as much scientific validity as the Maslowian Hierarchy of Needs ...
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Disclosure: I consulted in health policy and have a lot of medical-legal and governance experience about things like statistically assessing people for risks for expensive health procedures. Had seen a large number of reviews and done 30+ interjurisdictional reviews as well
The Myers Briggs is a categorical classification of people. Dimensional assessment on a continuum is entirely different. To understand properly what tests like the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) or PAI (Personality Assessment Inventory) mean, you need to know statistics like standard deviation, variance, standard error of measurement, various forms of validity, reliability, sampling. And you can't access such tests if you're not properly knowledgable as there are qualifications for purchase and nondisclosure rules with their licensing.
If you imagine the USA joining two world wars late and wanting some way of screening and classifying people. They gave rafts of questions to large groups and found that clusters of questions differentiated groups of people about whom much was already known. They then could use the questions to assess new groups. It's called "empirical keying".
The MBTI isn't in the same category. It's something to highlight some ideas to consider. The "learning styles" ideas, like "emotional intelligence", though beloved of certain groups, lack data and ecological validity (they don't reflect anything substantive in the real world).
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The only axis that ever meant anything to me was the intro/extroversion one. The others - nah. Don't get 'em.
Isabel Myers considered the which side of that line more important than how much. Which explains why the results tend to emphasize this. However, most people tested cluster in the middle, making her presupposition misleading at best.
absolutely true - however, and I'm as inclined to view it as voodoo as the next person, it *is* interesting when you're not most people. They use it a lot at work (I do a lot of human behavioural work), and I'm off the scale on Intuition and Feeling.
which, apparently, is unusual for a man. I've doe it enough times to know that I'm INFP, but the n and p are oscillating somewhere around the middle and the I and F are somewhere on the fringes of the grid.
does it mean anything? I'd like to say not, because I think that we're all individuals. At the same time, has it helped me, helped me relate to other people, and helped other people relate better to me? In all honesty, probably.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
bottom line, for me, MB is at worst an interesting party trick and at best quite useful (provided you take it with a pinch of salt and don't hang your hat on it).
Having said that, I'm perhaps working in a very unusual niche where that is true - somewhere in the vague and cloudy triangle of management consultancy, marketing and advertising.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The MBTI isn't in the same category. It's something to highlight some ideas to consider. The "learning styles" ideas, like "emotional intelligence", though beloved of certain groups, lack data and ecological validity (they don't reflect anything substantive in the real world).
yes, I could just have written that!
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
- however, and I'm as inclined to view it as voodoo as the next person, it *is* interesting when you're not most people.
I'm a fair distance from being confused as being most people. Which, ISTM, fuels my skepticism. I think the average person would find a chord struck close enough. But when the note is often in dischord, one is more likely to question.
quote:
does it mean anything? I'd like to say not, because I think that we're all individuals.
Everyone is an individual. But individuality, like most things, is a spectrum; not a yes/no thing.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
does it mean anything? I'd like to say not, because I think that we're all individuals. Everyone is an individual. But individuality, like most things, is a spectrum; not a yes/no thing.
There's a Monty Python sketch where someone addresses a crowd saying, "We're all individuals" and a lone voice comes back, "I'm not."
Pure Python.
Huia
[ 09. July 2017, 20:27: Message edited by: Huia ]
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Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
... To understand properly what tests like the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) or PAI (Personality Assessment Inventory) mean, you need to know statistics like standard deviation, variance, standard error of measurement, various forms of validity, reliability, sampling. ...
Anything that describes itself in those terms immediately arouses my suspicion.
For there to be any value in these things, whether Myers Briggs, Belben, Enneagram, 16PF or whatever, the two most fundamental things are not to take them too seriously and not to rely on them to excuse you from making your own assessments of what you think your own or anyone else's strengths and weaknesses are.
So OK as an entertaining way of helping work groups see that their colleagues may engage with the world in surprisingly different ways from themselves. But lethal and iniquitous as a tool to use in recruitment.
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Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Not quite, but close.
Shhh
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
No the whole point of those measures is to give people understandings about the lack of accuracy of the results. For me, I am so close to the middle on one scale with MBTI that I regularly switch.
My big problem is that they tell us far more about who people think they are than who they are perceived to be by others. You need both perspectives to get a rounded picture of who a person is.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
The article is wrong when it says you are either 100% introvert or extrovert – the actual scoring of MBTI gives percentages, acknowledging that all of us are a mixture.
I took the MBTI which was done by a professional, who explained the results in detail. Each trait has a possible score of 1 to 50. Someone who scores 15 on the introvert scale is much less introverted than someone who scores 45. A score of 10 or less has very little significance.
This was done at a church conference, and there was a table of books for sale. I bought a book about prayer styles appropriate to different profiles. It explained why I could never pray in a special time period set aside for prayer. My natural prayer style is at odd moments during the day. It was very helpful to read this; it meant I could stop thinking something was wrong with me.
Moo
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Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
I get why corporate culture would like such tests, but why churches?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
So OK as an entertaining way of helping work groups see that their colleagues may engage with the world in surprisingly different ways from themselves. But lethal and iniquitous as a tool to use in recruitment.
.. though not entirely surprising. There's a large amount of cult like thinking among HR, management consultants and such types.
.. and yes, I equally have a lot of issues with these tests, and don't see that the MBTI is necessarily all that much better than quizzes about 'learning style' or 'emotional intelligence', essentially it's a case of self sorting with very little empirical backing in reality (as opposed to the battery of statistics associated with test results themselves). The MTBI is the inverse to a set of Barnum statements
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
My big problem is that they tell us far more about who people think they are than who they are perceived to be by others. You need both perspectives to get a rounded picture of who a person is.
Jengie
Hmm. Have any of you had a inventory of yourself taken by your spouse or partner? Did it match closely your own results? Just curious.
(And Hi, tortuf! Good to see you here. ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) )
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Of course the current psychological testing everyone is participating is what they label "analytics", which is all statistics.
Measurement theory is about how to measure difficult-to-measure things. Humans have a tendency to name things and then set about measuring things. Do intelligence, depression, obsessiveness, religiousity, nostalgia, resilience, boldness, autism, attention deficit among others, actually exist? Nostalgia was a potentially life threatening condition often seen in soldiers. Attention deficit exists mostly in schools. Etc.
Thus, statistics are one necessary component, but also required is some form of validity (measuring something that is real) and doing so reliably (consistently). It doesn't matter if it makes you uncomfortable. It is done to some degree to all of us everyday. In the other side, hunan judgement is consistently shown to be less accurate, less useful and more error prone. Notwithstanding that one can assess something with wrong methods which doesn't actually represent reality, e,g., eugenics.
The misperception of online quizzes and tests which are easy to fake as psychological tests is a problem. We also have police making assessments of people using wrong methods and assessing wrong things all the time, hence racial profiling, their belief that certain ways of talking indicate guilt, failure to understand the interactions they have influence.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
There's a large amount of cult like thinking among HR, management consultants and such types.
Corporate culture, in all but the rarest businesses, governmental departments, etc.; is a mix of hokum, semi-meaningless buzzwords, misapplied theory, self-justification and lies. And that is when intentions are good.
Standards such as MBTI, even if they were valid, cannot accurately predict a good employee.
quote:
The MTBI is the inverse to a set of Barnum statements
A minute born every sucker?
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The misperception of online quizzes and tests which are easy to fake as psychological tests is a problem.
Real psychological tests can be difficult to asses. Removing preconceptions and administering them in a neutral fashion is difficult at the best of times. The choice of what and how is fraught with potential bias.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
The most useful information I get from MB and other tests is how to work with people who are very different from me. (Which is a lot of people when you're an INTJ.) When our team is under pressure, most of my co-workers get cranky but I'm all cool, calm and cheerful. They understand that if I haven't set my hair on fire, it's NOT because I don't care. Conversely, when things are tough, I don't take it personally if they're not their usual cheerful selves.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
Has anyone on the Ship ever done the Enneagram? It's something I've thought about doing for a while, just out of curiosity, but never got round to it...
I find the introvert/extrovert scale helpful, especially in family dynamics, but I can never remember the rest of my Myers/Briggs result anyhow.
The other scale that I've actually found useful is askers/guessers.
Guessers only ask something of someone once they've considered it for a while and are sure they're going to say yes (and even if the person does say 'yes', they still worry if the person has said only said yes because they feel obliged). If someone asks something of a guesser, they will expect the other person to have gone through the same process, so if they feel the request is unreasonable they feel pressured and worried, because saying 'no' is difficult.
Askers have none of those worries. If they want something, they'll ask for it. If the person says 'no', no problem. If someone asks something of them, they'll just assess and say yes or no. Askers can't comprehend why guessers don't just say 'no' when they feel put-upon. Saying 'no' to an asker doesn't offend them at all (unlike a guesser).
Maybe it's pop-psychology, but recognising those traits in myself and friends has definitely helped some relationships go a bit more smoothly.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Has anyone on the Ship ever done the Enneagram? It's something I've thought about doing for a while, just out of curiosity, but never got round to it...
Wife and I did, maybe 25 years ago. We found it pretty spot on for us (I was a pretty strong 9—Peacemaker; she was a 2—Helper). Can't say there's any particular way we've used that info, though, other than to say "that's interesting" or to recall it occasionally.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Snags
Utterly socially unrealistic
# 15351
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I get why corporate culture would like such tests, but why churches?
Mixed bag of reasons and mixed bag of motivations depending on the individual church (or possibly individual within a church) but ...
... essentially (most) churches are also organisations. There are jobs to be done, and people needed to do them, albeit often volunteers not paid. So trying to find different tools to help "fit" people to different roles can have an attraction. It will probably also have a semi-pastoral slant too, in terms of wanting to use people 'well' rather than forcing them into wholly inappropriate roles just because they're available.
In my limited experience this kind of stuff generally only crops up for whatever "leadership team" the congregation has, and sometimes on specific courses aimed at helping people discover gifts/talents/places where they could potentially serve when they know the want to do something, but don't know what. It's not like everyone sits in the pews doing MBTI once a year.
Personally it makes me twitchy in a church setting because it can be an indicator that the church is buying into too much corporate-think and not enough church-think. Whilst there is much that the average church can learn from business about Getting Stuff Done Properly, there is also much that the average church should most definitely be Doing Very Differently to business. IMO, obviously.
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Vain witterings :-: Vain pretentions :-: The Dog's Blog(locks)
Posts: 1399 | From: just north of That London | Registered: Dec 2009
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I get why corporate culture would like such tests, but why churches?
On the one hand it can be an attempt to make things more 'professional' or even get 'the best' of current 'thought' into the church.
OTOH of course a large number of churches and church movements consciously/unconsciously ape business culture - see the old line church growth movements like Willow Creek - which were very much built along the large conglomerate model (it's telling that Jack Welch spoke a couple of times at their conference), through the churches in the 90s/00s which aped Microserf style valley startup culture (bare feet, meeting in coffee shops, surfer necklaces and apple macs), through to the current hipster church era.
I guess a lot of baggage is brought along each time - from faddy personality trends, to the TED talk style of dialogue.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Thus, statistics are one necessary component, but also required is some form of validity (measuring something that is real) and doing so reliably (consistently).
And you think those do not require statistics? Reliability whether through test-retest, ICC, Cronbach's Alpha, Bland and Altman graph or Generalisability theory is highly statistical. Validity is slightly more complex but can involve a number of statistical tests including regression, Kappa and so on.
Sorry, you are in my area of expertise.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
Myers Briggs is an audit of preferences. For example, the process does not conclude that you, me or anybody else is an extravert or introvert.
Extraverting and introverting are things we do. The questionnaire identifies, correctly, that I prefer extraversion, but that doesn't mean I am extravert all the time.
The questionnaire is a guide, not a straitjacket. It was no surprise to me, or my wife, or my friends that I came across as strongly preferring extraversion. What was novel was the move from noun to verb.
You can apply similar arguments to sensing/intuiting, thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving. Plus all of these words have a specific, technical meaning in MB.
Properly understood, Myers Briggs provides some language to help understand human diversity. Its use for assessing work capability is a misuse. Any personality type can do any job; their personality preferences may be an indicator, no more than that, of aspects of a particular job which they may find more challenging.
Typecasting people into 16 groups is as daft as astrology typecasting us into 12 groups. But MB doesn't do that, though some practitioners may well do.
I didn't disagree with the late ken about anything very much, but I did on this topic. Though I agreed with him entirely about Mickey-mouse misuse, particularly in the job recruitment field, and half-assed practitioners.
[ 10. July 2017, 12:35: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
You can apply similar arguments to sensing/intuiting, thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving.
I'm not sure; they've always felt like near-synonyms to me.
quote:
Plus all of these words have a specific, technical meaning in MB.
Which I've never managed to grasp.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
The MTBI is the inverse to a set of Barnum statements
A minute born every sucker?
This kind of thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect#.22Barnum_statements.22
Ah. Then I would say that the MBTI is a perfect example of the purpose of a Barnum statement whilst inverting the structure.
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
Personally it makes me twitchy in a church setting because it can be an indicator that the church is buying into too much corporate-think and not enough church-think. Whilst there is much that the average church can learn from business about Getting Stuff Done Properly, there is also much that the average church should most definitely be Doing Very Differently to business. IMO, obviously.
Corporate think is bullshit. The best intentioned schemes would be to eliminate bias, but they do not work.
Most of it is snake-oil sold to management. It is worse in a church, IMO, because they are supposed to work for the betterment of the people and that is not what corporations are designed to do.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Myers Briggs is an audit of preferences. For example, the process does not conclude that you, me or anybody else is an extravert or introvert.
Extraverting and introverting are things we do. The questionnaire identifies, correctly, that I prefer extraversion, but that doesn't mean I am extravert all the time.
I follow the line of thinking that Introversion/extroversion lies in where one is "centred" rather than activities. Shy=/=introvert, outgoing=/=extrovert.
The idea of preferences having much to do with compatibility is off. There are too many variables.
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
The most useful information I get from MB and other tests is how to work with people who are very different from me. (Which is a lot of people when you're an INTJ.) When our team is under pressure, most of my co-workers get cranky but I'm all cool, calm and cheerful. They understand that if I haven't set my hair on fire, it's NOT because I don't care. Conversely, when things are tough, I don't take it personally if they're not their usual cheerful selves.
How does a test do any of this, though? My childhood was a continuous lesson that I do not process things as other people do and embracing it has taken some time. However, I see such tests as detrimental to the process of learning how to deal with others in that I do not see the correlation of results with behaviour that adherents do.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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irreverend tod
Shipmate
# 18773
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Posted
I did the eeneagram a while back. I came out with equal numbers for 1, 8 and 9; make of that what you will. I suspect I would be any of those personality types dependent on the situation I was in and who else was there with me.
The most important thing is knowing yourself inside and out and the best thing I found for that is Ignatian Spiritual exercises. Other reflective programs are available, but I haven't got round to giving them a go yet.
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Diocesan Arsonist and Lead thief to the Church of England.
Posts: 55 | From: England | Registered: May 2017
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Leaf
Shipmate
# 14169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Has anyone on the Ship ever done the Enneagram? It's something I've thought about doing for a while, just out of curiosity, but never got round to it...
I did it, about the same time as Nick Tamen. My take on it:
- it's less reliable than astrology
- it could be compared to a homeopathic version of personality inventory: one drop of something interesting/effective, diluted in a gallon of bullshit.
[ 10. July 2017, 20:44: Message edited by: Leaf ]
Posts: 2786 | From: the electrical field | Registered: Oct 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
The MBTI looks a lot like a mystified version of the four of the Big Five personality traits. (Stability-Neuroticism is omitted.) To get there you largely need to take out the binary descriptions and also the model for the underlying structure of the traits, and then tinker a little with the definitions. The Big Five traits are usually considered about as reliable as scientific personality assessment gets (maybe not saying much).
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Ohher
Shipmate
# 18607
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Posted
I have to confess substantial dismay when, upon applying to a master's program in theology at a well-respected institution in my region, I was informed that I'd need to take the Meyers-Briggs thingie. Having already been subjected to this stupidity twice in previous sorties into higher ed (and receiving quite different results each time over an 8-month period), I did wonder whether the whole enterprise was worth pursuing.
Really, if we're going to set hurdles for people to clamber over, why not make them at least marginally meaningful?
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From the Land of the Native American Brave and the Home of the Buy-One-Get-One-Free
Posts: 374 | From: New Hampshire, USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ohher:
(and receiving quite different results each time over an 8-month period),
As I've mentioned, I've not taken the official MB, but every such test I have taken I could answer honestly and have different results the same day.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Not quite, but close.
Thanks Dave. I couldn't remember where it was from. I think that, and the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. are amongst their best.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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