HN Poll: What is your personality type?
I just re-tested myself with the abridged version of the MBTI located at:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm
Funny thing is, for the first time in quite some time, my scores have been consistent. I tested as an INFJ for the third time in the last couple years, and when I read the portrait description, it fit like a glove. I skew towards the detail oriented portrait in that I tend to get annoyed when people ignore details. I've been doing my best to mitigate that by educating myself on the different personality types.
Working together is hard, but when done correctly, can really boost productivity and keep your team together. I'm very curious as to what the distribution of the HN community is.
79 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] threadI'm impressed! I'm an INTJ.
*Edited for clarity.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=204240
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722
Been doing this test every year or two for about 6 years now and has by far been the one I find the most accurate. I'm actually pretty interested to see how this survey turns out as well.
Anyone have any predictions on what the distribution might look like?
I'm happy with the result anyway, but I wish I was better at finishing things :)
On the OCEAN model I scored {80, 64, 27, 22, 84}, which is a bit weird.
Link to the one I took: http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive
http://www.viacharacter.org/
E: 44 N: 62 T: 75 P: 44
For all of the "science" that goes into building the models for these tests (not just MBTI), any that rely completely on self-evaluation (especially multiple choice questions), should be taken with a huge grain of salt. They're fine for entertainment, but for anything practical they should be regarded as one step above astrology or haruspicy.
Just to provide an example of the worst case, I've seen companies hold personality test workshops, only to have that bind their thinking and give them reason to quash dissent ("Of course... that's what a XXXX would say" or "I really need a YYYY on this project"). Too many times these things turn into a substitute for actually getting to know your employees' strengths and weaknesses.
I don't want to be seen as overreacting to a simple harmless poll, but I do want to make sure people aren't giving too much credence to their (or others') results.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect
In an interview situation (where you have less time to decide than building an internal team), that could mean going through hypothetical situations and finding out how they would solve a problem, having multiple interviewers, and checking on references. Having them take a personality test beforehand sends a signal that as an employer, you're not willing to take the time to get to know them, which starts everyone off on the wrong foot. Also, IANAL, but it sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
re: self-evaluated multiple-choice - One thing I've done in these sorts of situations is to find concrete situations in which I can say, "when I was in this specific situation that the question was asking about, I did X", which hopefully minimizes the amount of "oh man i want to be an extrovert" sort of answering.
...but yes, agreed, this is really just sort of a goofy little thing, but it's fun and still potentially a bit interesting.
But I know that certain types describe me a lot better than others, and it's clear that one which paints me as extroverted, feelings oriented and sensing is clearly wrong.
I think when it comes down to it, we take these tests for the enjoyment we get in reading about ourselves later. (The Great Facebook Personality Quiz Epidemic of Ought Nine is the foremost recent example of this in action.) It tickles that part of our brains that says "Someone's taken the time to get to know me—I must be important!", even if that someone is really an algorithm. And it's that, combined with all of the parts that are "right", that allows us to overlook the parts that are vague, over-generalized, right-but-with-certain-caveats, or flat-out wrong.
(I'm also a Phlegmatic, and we're a naturally skeptical bunch.)
The assumption that you can judge personalities from a Myers-Briggs test is rather silly. The test was constructed by non-experts based on Carl Jung's theories of psychological types. The "Criticism" section of the test's Wikipedia article [1] is rich in citations of how the test by and large doesn't test anything, except perhaps the I–E scale.
I admittedly kind of have an axe to grind on this test. I think it's a waste of time if you're trying to actually learn something, and especially dangerous when people use it for any actual purposes other than just personal fun.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator#Cri...
They shouldn't be. Quite the opposite in fact. If you have an appropriate understanding of what personality type means then it becomes a lot more useful. If a person's skills, abilities, and personality are nature plus nurture, then MBTI shows the "nature" part. They don't cover the "nurture" part. Of course the other thing is that the MBTI is only applicable if you're sure the person that's taking it is telling the truth. Employees are always going to lie (or at least embellish) on these tests. But tests are only one way to get at this information. If you know what to look for, you can usually glean most peoples' personality types without subjecting them to tests they aren't going to tell the truth on anyway.
The way I think about it is almost like design patterns for people. Sure, everyone is unique. But we're not all that unique. There are almost always underlying themes and principles that make totally different people think similarly but not the same. If you think about it that way, personality type becomes a lot more useful.
Personally, I don't think the MBTI is worth much. It is not a bad introduction to ones own preferences, but does not seem to measure them well or consistently.
On the other hand, the ideas in the Myers-Briggs theory have helped me greatly in understanding myself and others. For example, I'm heavily NP, while someone I've had close interactions with is a strong SJ. This has helped me deal with this person, and get a clue about what is going on when they seem to be acting (from my naive point of view), nonsensically.
Then, they lined us all up on a scale from I to E and asked us to group up with the people next to us and do some simple things - like "plan a party".
The people at the I end of the spectrum planned a very, very different party than those at the E end. The difference was shocking. I think the extreme I people invited two close friends for dinner at their apartment. The E extremests planned a 10,000 person rager. All from the simple instructions "Plan a party."
Similar raknings for the other three pairings produced similarly dramatic differences in the way we approached common tasks. So I'm pretty sure it's not just entertainment.
You could argue people were just doing what they were "supposed" to do, but being one of those people - I don't think that was the case. We were just playing goofy icebreaker games as far as we knew.
On the other hand, practically speaking, all it taught me was "Don't assume everyone thinks like you." Not exactly a huge breakthrough, but not astrology either.
Today I am somewhere between ENTP and INTP
ENTP (E: 1 N: 75 T: 50 P: 33)
I have to admit, I'm not really a fan of Myers-Briggs. It makes loose, mutable categories, and doesn't make any helpful, testable predictions other than sweeping generalizations (such as INTP = programmer).
The enneagram, however, that I like. Its proponents attempt to attach mystical garbage to it, which is unfortunate: it makes strong predictions, changes in personality (my I -> E, for instance) occur in predictable ways, and it functions to make all sorts of interactions easier. At first glance, it seems less descriptive than MBTI (9 types instead of 16), but it also accounts for emotional health and secondary characteristics in a way that make it more descriptive and less of a pigeonhole system.
It won't work 100%; you can't pigeon-hole everyone. It's just a model. But in the end, I found my research of the enneagram to be extremely helpful for personal growth by allowing me to be more aware of my own patterns. Patterns for reacting to problems, patterns for trying to get what I want, etc.
The MBTI is really a confused mess. It purports to be based on Jung's type system. However, a close reading of the relevant section of Jung's <i>Psychological Types</i> reveals the following. Jung identified eight types. The descriptions in his book correspond quite closely, in fact, with eight of the Enneagram types. (The omitted one is the Three.) Myers and Briggs then took the dimensions Jung had identified and multiplied them out to get 16 types which now correspond more poorly to the Enneagram types.
If you don't know about the Enneagram, you might say, "okay, so what? so they don't correspond well -- that doesn't prove the MBTI is wrong." But if you will study the Enneagram you will see there is much more to it. For instance, the connections between one's type and how one related to one's parents; the spectrum of expressions of each type, from unhealthy to healthy; and the concepts of integration and disintegration, which connect the nine types in a clear, fixed, and quite beautiful structure. If you prefer not to hear the mystical overtones in that structure, that's certainly your choice, but they're there.
The Enneagram is a profound tool for self-understanding and self-improvement. The MBTI can be a useful place to start for people who are new to self-exploration, but it won't take you nearly as far.
http://www.andrewlipson.com/lstest.html
I'm also a dom who enjoys pain, both ways. But yeah, these personality tests are worth near 0$ (they're funny, and my time is not free).
A friend of mine said he had heard of it in France (where I'm from), but it's clearly not common.
Is it an American thing?