Personality Types

[Breakdown]

I recently did the personality test on 16personalities.com as part of some training at work.

Free personality test | 16Personalities

Free personality test - take it to find out why our readers say that this personality test is so accurate, “it's a little bit creepy.” No registration required!

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I have done that test a few years ago, and the results are pretty consistent and seem to match my behaviour in pretty specific ways. Since then I've watched a few Youtube videos about MBTI types, and it's interesting to see how invested some people get in this subject.

So what do you think - are MBTI tests a useful tool for self awareness and improvement, or is it just a load of old nonsense? Do people really just conform to one personality type?

 

[Shadyside]

Introduction | INFJ Personality (Advocate) | 16Personalities

www.16personalities.com

 

[Chimpzy]

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is pretty much outdated bullshit that at best may provide the vaguest of baselines before an actual psychological screening, and at worst is about as useful as throwing a dart at a board while blindfolded. The greater majority of personality psychology professionals don't take it seriously, there's loads of studies debunking it as pseudoscience, and the research that does support it tends to have been commissioned by the Centre for Applications of Psychological Type, an organisation run by the for-profit Myers-Briggs Company i.e. the one that publishes, distributes and offers training in the test.

But of course a bunch of people,particularly in marketing, human resources and other such corporate types, have latched onto it as way more profound than the meaningless fad that just won't die that it is, because it's easy to understand for someone without a background in psychology, and let's you pigeonhole people into 16 neat little acronyms that they believe will somehow predict job aptitude.

Oh, and there's lot's of supporting material available online and such. Tho not the actual MBTI which is A) not free, so any free test you find online is at best a neutered version of the real thing which is already a load of horseshit, and B) MBTI is actually a process of which the questionnaire is only step 1 of 3 which needs to be administered by someone with the proper qualifications (note I didn't say professional psychologist, because that's not a requirement).

TLDR: MBTI is nonsense. It can be a fun little distraction, but don't take too much stock in it.

Fyi, my result for the test in the OP was ISTJ. Done it a few times before. All of them were different.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I got INTJ.

 

[Buyetyen]

I used to do street magic. Cold reading was one of the skills I built up. Like cold reading, Myers-Briggs is heavily dependent on the Fohrer effect. Short version: Any vague description of a personality we tend to assume is talking about us regardless of whether or not that's the case. The experiment that named the phenomena had people take a bunch of bullshit pop-psych personality tests and then would hand them their results after analysis of their answers. Thing is, the results were the exact same script every single time and and it was so vague as to describe just about anybody. Almost everyone thought that it was an accurate representation of them.

 

[Drathnoxis]

What's with all the personality quizzes lately? Are people getting paid to post links to them all of a sudden?

 

[SilentPony]

SNIP

Its funny, in my Psych class Im in right now one of the first things our instructor had us do was the Myers-Briggs test. She(A Doctor at that) even said it was still one of the most accurate personality tests and that the research against it was the junk science.
And I just think that's funny. Even in Doctoral Academia we're still doing "I know you are but what am I"

ISTP by the way. Nothing is more boring than everyone agreeing.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

What's with all the personality quizzes lately? Are people getting paid to post links to them all of a sudden?

Skynet is here, and deeply interested in one thing only...

Which My Little Pony Character are you most like?

 

[Kae]

I've done this one recently to be honest because I was bored, I did different versions too just to confirm, but anyway most of the tests I took said INTP, but the one you linked in particular said INFP, since the link's right there here's the breakdown it gave me:

99% Introverted>Extroverted
76% Intuitive>Observant
51% Feeling>Thinking
86% Prospecting>Judging
67% Assertive>Turbulent

In any case I don't really hold the test to anything other than I guess it's fun to do, but if anyone thinks they can gain any insight into my personality, there you go.

 

[Trunkage]

54% Introverted
63% Inuitive
68% Feeling
63% judging
49% Assertive

Which is about as descriptive of me as the last one.... Sort of

 

[Ghostrick Dorklord]

Apparently I'm a Mediator

65% Introverted
62% Intuitive
65% Feeling
51% Prospecting
65% Turbulent

Not sure what that really means or how it applies to me so ok! I just like taking quizzes for fun. Shame it didn't had any animal trivia.

 

[Breakdown]

I never mentioned my result in the first post, I got INTP.

 

[Kae]

What's with all the personality quizzes lately? Are people getting paid to post links to them all of a sudden?

To be fair I remember them being pretty popular in the old forum, to the point where Th Escapist itself used to publish a lot of them, so it really isn't that surprising that the community still enjoys them to some degree.

 

[Chimpzy]

To be fair I remember them being pretty popular in the old forum, to the point where Th Escapist itself used to publish a lot of them, so it really isn't that surprising that the community still enjoys them to some degree.

Wait, people liked the quizzes? Cuz I was in it only for dem sweet sweet badges.

 

[Kae]

Wait, people liked the quizzes? Cuz I was in it only for dem sweet sweet badges.

Well if I recall correctly they did, to the point where I recall that people often made threads about quizes that weren't part of the Escapist and therefore didn't give badges, I'm too lazy to look it up but I'm sure this Myers Briggs test had a few threads on the old forums, I also recall a D&D 3.5 alignment test that was linked and an Ultima Which of the Avatar's virtues do you embody? test.

So yeah I guess people like doing personality quizes.

 

[Chimpzy]

Well if I recall correctly they did, to the point where I recall that people often made threads about quizes that weren't part of the Escapist and therefore didn't give badges, I'm too lazy to look it up but I'm sure this Myers Briggs test had a few threads on the old forums, I also recall a D&D 3.5 alignment test that was linked and an Ultima Which of the Avatar's virtues do you embody? test.

So yeah I guess people like doing personality quizes.

Could be. All I really remember from the quizzes back in those days was people invariably retaking them until they got the badge(s) they wanted.

 

[Kae]

Could be. All I really remember from the quizzes back in those days was people invariably retaking them until they got the badge(s) they wanted.

Yeah, that was definitely a thing.

 

[JoJo]

I've taken Myers-Briggs test three times over the years and twice got INTJ and once got INTP. Reading some of the summaries of the other types online, though, I can see a lot that sound like they would fit me. Makes me suspect that, as Buyetyen suggests, there's an element of the horoscope effect at play.

 

[Shadyside]

lol I remember those old escapist questions that asked what you would do if you saw a turtle on its back or something.

 

[Adam Jensen]

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is pretty much outdated bullshit that at best may provide the vaguest of baselines before an actual psychological screening, and at worst is about as useful as throwing a dart at a board while blindfolded. The greater majority of personality psychology professionals don't take it seriously, there's loads of studies debunking it as pseudoscience, and the research that does support it tends to have been commissioned by the Centre for Applications of Psychological Type, an organisation run by the for-profit Myers-Briggs Company i.e. the one that publishes, distributes and offers training in the test.

I blame the internet, mostly. It dumbed down a very useful human categorization system that Jung pioneered. Online tests are shit, as are most tests. And most people shouldn't test themselves because their answers will never be truthful and accurate. People tend to respond to these tests based on what they would like to be true, what sounds cooler. That's why the internet is so full of supposed INTJ's (The Mastermind!) despite the fact that they are supposed to be one of the rarest types in existence.

When done correctly, MBTI works and it works well. You can use it to predict how people will behave in any given situation. But that takes a lot of expertise that most people on the internet do not posses. And there's no reason why MBTI wouldn't work when you think about it, considering that you can categorize people based on pretty much any criteria you can think of.

Take my boss and one of my colleagues, for instance. My boss is the quintessential ENTJ. A high achiever, entrepreneur who sees connections between things and can accurately predict what's gonna happen by analyzing things that most people don't see (that would be introverted intuition and it's weird as fuck and most people who claim to be introverted intuitives just aren't). But his primary way of communicating with people and making decisions is very aggressively practical and factual (that would be extroverted thinking). His emotional intelligence is very low, and he doesn't factor in his employee's personality differences. All he cares about are results and getting to the end goal of his vision, whatever it may be. Everything else is a distraction to him. He fits the description of an ENTJ to a T.
Then there's my colleague, a wonderful person. She fits the description of an ENFP 100%. I've never seen a clearer example of this type. I could write a book about her and it wouldn't be enough because it's so strange how accurate it is.

But the typology is far more complex than what internet tests have to offer. When you know a bit about typology, and you see such clear examples around you, you can begin to analyze and get a deeper understanding of what Jung meant when he was describing cognitive functions and various types. It's not about "this type likes this and dislikes that" or "this type is the most likely to drink or get a divorce". That's bullshit. Typology is much more nuanced.