Validity/usefulness of MBTI

[something_else]

I know that scientifically it's been out of fashion for a long time in favour of things like the Big 5 which are more rigorously testable, fair enough, but definitely doesn't mean it's valueless at all

When it comes to personal dev type work though, how useful is it as a tool? It's certainly very interesting and intellectually stimulating and it seems to addict people in a similar way to things like astrology. I'm curious since there seems to have been a spike of conversation about it here recently so I'd like to hear some others' opinions on how it can be used

I was super into it at one point, almost to the point of addiction. Properly into all the cognitive function stuff as well as just the 4 main axes, but I could never actually pin myself down as a type, really. I think I narrowed it down to ISTP, INTP, INFJ, ISFP or INTJ but like I actually cannot pick one of those that resonates with me the most, it depends on my mood and circumstance

That ended up being why I lost interest, it seemed too rigid to base life decision on, especially the idea that you could not change types, which a lot of MBTI people seemed to take very seriously

TLDR: Curious on your overall opinion of MBTI, is it useful for personal dev, or is it just an interesting test to inspire some self reflection?

[Username]

MBTI is just a test. If you want to learn something check Socionics. It's also based on cognitive functions but it uses slightly different naming convention.

[Matt23]

Check out these guys.

 

Basically, they took MBTI, said "we're gunna science the shit out of it and see if we can actually track data", created their own very specific definitions for their terms, and created a specific binary checklist they go through to type people. 

Their goal is to get personality typing accepted into the scientific and university cultures. 

They have like 512 or something subtypes to the original MBTI 16. 

They get videos from people and go in separate rooms to type the same person. 

Out of the 512 subtypes, they say they've gotten the same type around %85 percent of the time and have so far typed like 4000 people I think. 

They have a website and tons of YT videos if you're interested. 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Matt23

[Leo Gura]

It's useful in helping to understand your personality better, to understand your strengths and weaknesses and why your mind works the way it does.

[Hello from Russia]

I find MBTI to be super-limited for what it tries to do

[Superfluo]

@Hello from Russia Try intersecting it with Wilber's quadrants, Spiral Dynamics, Ego Development Stages, Erotic Blueprints, Enneagramm, Horoscope, Reichian Physiology, Cognitive Functions, defense mechanisms, the big 5 personalities, chakra blockages/development, etc.

Edited October 22, 2021 by Superfluo

[Hello from Russia]

@Superfluo Yeah, all these things are way better

[Username]

20 minutes ago, Hello from Russia said:

@Superfluo Yeah, all these things are way better

MBTI types descriptions doesn't give many useful information. I recommend learning Socionics. Working on your PoLR function (your blindspot) is SUPER USEFUL. Without this you are going to judge negatively actions of other people based on this function. You will also supress it and that will create a lot of problems in your life that could be otherwise easily solved.

Also intertype relationships are very insightful. If you face any problem when interacting with someone you will get a tool to understand interaction dynamics. It's very important to understand someone's blindspot because there are things that people are almost unaware and you can't do almost anything about it.

[Hello from Russia]

2 hours ago, Username said:

MBTI types descriptions doesn't give many useful information. I recommend learning Socionics. Working on your PoLR function (your blindspot) is SUPER USEFUL. Without this you are going to judge negatively actions of other people based on this function. You will also supress it and that will create a lot of problems in your life that could be otherwise easily solved.

Also intertype relationships are very insightful. If you face any problem when interacting with someone you will get a tool to understand interaction dynamics. It's very important to understand someone's blindspot because there are things that people are almost unaware and you can't do almost anything about it.

It's all insightful but still way too limiting & shallow. I see that all this stuff will be developing on steroids for the next 500 years and people will find more stuff about personality & human's favorite modes of cognition

Edited October 21, 2021 by Hello from Russia

[Username]

1 hour ago, Hello from Russia said:

It's all insightful but still way too limiting & shallow. I see that all this stuff will be developing on steroids for the next 500 years and people will find more stuff about personality & human's favorite modes of cognition

You would need at least few years of intense learning of Socionics to have only decent understanding. I get that not everybody likes diving in this kind of formal systems - everyone has their own proffered kind of maps, maybe it's not yours.

Maybe you are PoLR Ti..?

[Hello from Russia]

2 minutes ago, Username said:

You would need at least few years of intense learning of Socionics to have only decent understanding. I get that not everybody likes diving in this kind of formal systems - everyone has their own proffered kind of maps, maybe it's not yours.

Maybe you are PoLR Ti..?

No, my points is that 99.9% maps that we have as society for these things are pure garbage. It's way deeper than this. I'm lately transcending the notion of following some maps and realizing how limited and shitty they really are. Especially compared to what you can discover yourself with the direct insight, i.e. find new better maps

[Username]

3 minutes ago, Hello from Russia said:

No, my points is that 99.9% maps that we have as society for these things are pure garbage. It's way deeper than this. I'm lately transcending the notion of following some maps and realizing how limited and shitty they really are. Especially compared to what you can discover yourself with the direct insight, i.e. find new better maps

Ok, I get that. In my opinion this system is great. I spent more than ten years studying it and it was worth my effort. However at this point I wouldn't be willing do spent so much time on any map. My maps covered enough territory and I'm getting less and less from studying new ones. Socionics is a high quality map, but only a map.

[Nahm]

Before it can be projected, value must be believed. Delusion functions via the exact same mechanism. 

[diamondpenguin]

@Hello from Russia I find it spot on for me. Because I literally go around and use my introverted intuition to figure out what will happen all day everyday. It's like I can see the future and I can read others like a book. I use go around and see how others feel all day too. I feel like you just have to retest over and over to get proper results. And mine came out as INFJ every time. "The ultimate mentalist".

[Loba]

It seems to have some value if you want to understand how you are paying attention to the world and how other people might be paying attention to the world and you can get an idea of what different people value and why and why you value what you do.

Mbti has been a very valuable tool in understanding the way other people think and pay attention.

Fortunately for me my personality is very stereotypical of the infp and so I didn't have too much trouble in figuring out what type I was, but for someone who has a lot more subtleties it can be a bit difficult and you might need to pay for a quality typing service to get an idea of what your true type is.

What I have learned from mbti is that I can pay attention to things in different ways, I like to try to maneuver my senses around to get an idea of what different personality types live through.  It's fun!

I highly recommend mbti as long as you don't become too rigorous with it or too dogmatic in how you approach it i.e. the n vs s problem.  If you use it to learn about different ways of approaching things rather than fitting people into a box of what you expect that personality type to be then you'll have a much broader understanding of how this quality tool can be used for self development purposes.

[Carl-Richard]

If you're completely unconvinced by the scientific rigour of the theory (e.g. low predictability), the cognitive functions are still useful to describe and categorize cognition and behavior. You don't necessarily have to treat cognitive functions as internal, behavior-determining structures to find them useful as concepts. For example, in a lecture we had to find a reason why we feel anxiety before group presentations, and the most extraverted person in the class said that she was afraid to let down the other members of the group, which is typical of Extraverted Feeling (Fe). Then from there, you can start making probabilistic statements like "she seems to express Fe rather often", and if you'd like, you could start building a case for her being an Fe user.

[EternalForest]

I see it as pop psychology, a fun tool that can perhaps help you learn more about yourself but human beings simply cannot be put into 16 neat little boxes.

[Carl-Richard]

15 minutes ago, EternalForest said:

I see it as pop psychology, a fun tool that can perhaps help you learn more about yourself but human beings simply cannot be put into 16 neat little boxes.

Human beings cannot be comprehensively described by single personal adjectives either, but we still do:

"I'm shy." "I'm introverted." "I'm depressed."

There is no such thing as a grand theory of personality. Personality psychology has about 6 different domains, and MBTI seems to fall under the cognitive domain.

[Yog]

On 10/20/2021 at 3:46 PM, something_else said:

TLDR: Curious on your overall opinion of MBTI, is it useful for personal dev, or is it just an interesting test to inspire some self reflection?

It is, actually quite more than it is given credit for.

But the thing is, in order for it to be useful, you should feel quite uncomfortable while working with it. Originally it was meant to be used in clinical setting to measure your NEUROSES. Jung's idea was to help people see their neuroses so they can transcend them.

Mayers and Isabel Brigs co-opted it and turned it in " all is cool, everyone is different, Americanized corporate type of test". Jung did not agree with this usage.

Remember, this is a "mental illness" test, if you identify with your type in order to find comfort you are doing it wrong. Let this be your alarm. Much of the community is corrupted by the very same thing. Instead of using it as ego dissolving tool, they are using it as ego boosting tool. Be careful not to fall in this trap. Its extremely easy to fall into it given the current typology climate.

If you adopt this mindset and study typology, you'll be able to type waaaay more efficiently, you'll be measuring right, and it will work in double-blind fashion opposed to relying on your memetic mind to abstractly snap around to what "feels" the closest.

"Objective personality" are one of the few in the community that got the method and the spirit right.

[hyruga]

I used to hate MBTI with a passion. I still do but not as much.

I have a judging personality and I am trying to judge less and be more open minded. 

I used to think a lot and care more about logic than people. I used to be a hardcore INTJ but recently my tests results seems to fluctuate a lot so I can be ISTP sometimes but mostly I am still a thinker but because the quiz questions are so obvious: You already know what they are asking for while doing the quiz.

Mbti will always be popular as it seems to cover more depth than other personality tests even though a portion may be pop psychology.