The MBTI

[Tabouli]

David:
> One problem I have with psychometric tests is that their compilers 
don't seem to be aware of the distinction between what you prefer and 
what you do

As a psychologist who has studied, administered and developed psychological scales, I'm inclined to be cautious with them myself.  They can be very useful, but as I said in my rant on physics envy on the main list, it should always be remembered that personality and intelligence and so on can't really be measured with the same level of accuracy and certainty that you can measure mass and length.

I wrote a few psychological tests for my thesis, and the amount of pilot testing and statistical mucking around you do behind the scenes to get an acceptable scale is amazing.  I have quite 30 pages in my appendices devoted to item-total correlations, scree plots, validation procedures (which mostly centre around the question "does this scale show a significant positive correlation with the scores on established scales measuring the same sort of thing?"), scale reduction techniques, and so on.  Weary stuff.

I'm only vaguely familiar with the MBTI, but I do know that it's a well-established and respected scale, and has no doubt been carefully normed and balanced and so forth.  I completed it a few months ago, but I remember the same sort of problem David has when doing it. (btw David, I found it published in a book, which you could probably find for free in a university library somewhere). I have at least two distinct sides to my personality, which could be roughly designated The Intellectual and The Artist, and these two sides would have opposite answers to a lot of the MBTI questions, particularly the E/I and T/F questions.  I can state with certainty that I'm N and P, but the other two depend so completely on my mode I couldn't really say.  The Artist is a Feeler, the Intellectual a Thinker.  The Artist craves solitude for rest, reflection and creativity; the Intellectual craves company, for social input and stimulation and analysis (and as a result I suspect people who know me would be more likely to designate my public self ENTP, because they don't see me in INFP mode!).

I really found it difficult to answer the E/I T/F questions.  If it's a matter of how I am the majority of the time, looking at my life as a whole I'd have to choose for the Intellectual, but looking at the last six months I'd have to choose for the Artist.  If it's a matter of which of the sides is my True Self, I don't think I could answer... I treasure my Artist, feel she is more fundamental to my nature (as opposed to nurture) and want to give her more air time, but does that me she is the real me, more so that the Intellectual who has dominated until recently?  As for Thinking and Feeling, when my emotions dominate, as they occasionally do, they *really* take over, wipe out everything else like a tidal wave, all rationality, all analysis, everything.  Yet as soon as the tidal wave recedes, the Thinker comes rushing in, tutting at the mess, and analyses everything back into place.

I did eventually come up with a code by reading the descriptions of each type and deciding which sounded most like me as a whole, but even there I was wavering between a couple. Can't remember what I finally settled on.  INTP, maybe?  What are they like?

(Did anyone else who did the test have this sort of problem?)

Tabouli.


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