It's not like 'astrology debunked'. I have looked at many of the other types, and the only one which seems somewhat close to me, but not quite, is INTP, the rest are leagues off. It's kinda like- INTJ is 95% stuff that are true for me, and the rest are 25% at best. The test itself had some weird questions so the % may be off (maybe that's why some people get inconsistent results) but the type description, when you look at the right one, hits the nail on the head.
I know for sure i am EXTP im pretty sure i am ENTP after reading the descriptions of it. but i got put into ESTP my score E-44% S-1% (im pretty sure im N) T-75% P-35%
ENFP myself. Anyway, the one thing I didn't see much addressed in this thread is the effect of context. As in, going back to what the original poster was saying about change... It's hard to tell if you've really changed, or if you've just been put into a life situation that has shaped your personality in certain ways. These days I'm far more introverted than I used to be, but I blame that on context and not a personality change.
Well it's not perfect, but it does give somewhat meaningful results and breaks down personality into various factors that people can easily digest and understand. That's not so bad.
Okay, its kind of strange to revisit old arguments with new information. Rereading the thread had me integrate the following idea: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/06/near-far-summary.html into what is meant by the sensing-intuitive scale in MBTI. Sensing is near while intuitive is far. I'm not sure if it fits exactly as a "personality trait" while it is a psychological mode of operation (actually I'd say is more of an associative network?). I suppose that is why it doesn't show up in factor analysis based tests like OCEAN, since people likely have different frames for different activities so they do not have strong self correlation. Nontheless the near-far idea does have psychological importance thus "feels right" to be included in the exam nonetheless. Now, I haven't developed my understanding about nearfar to have a comprehensive hypothesis about how all this integrates, but it is exciting to find connections in different ideas to explore. It really does point to an way into clarifying the S-N scale that have been confusing me for a while, as can be seen in earlier posts. -- So yeah I've changed
So do horoscopes. They have the same level of empirical support. Not that I'm saying horoscopes are bad, but people should be honest about what the tests are doing: providing some vague adjectives which may or may not apply to you, so you can recognize the accurate ones and ignore the inaccurate ones. It's helping you describe yourself to other people, it's a thesaurus, not a test for something you didn't know about yourself.
Indeed a tool for personality description. My following results I expected in being conditioned by rich engineering education and being naturally shy. I took the test 3 times for a mean. INTJ; 78% Introvert; 62% intuitive; 75% thinking; 67% judging. Tests are limited by their design for the masses. They are limited in understanding because there's many variables and great diversity, hence unhelpful if one seeks understanding or has it.
I've always had intense difficulty with tests like these. My responses to the vast majority of the questions are things like: "Sometimes yes, sometimes no." "In what context?" "That is not applicable to my life or experience." "I don't understand." "I don't know." "I am not aware of having strong feelings one way or the other." "I don't believe it is possible to know one way or the other." "That depends on how you define [ambiguous word used in question]." I just took the humanmetrics.com test Xom linked in the OP, and was told:
You know one major problem with measures like the MBTI is that they implicitly assume that each individual has one overarching true "self" to be evaluated and understood. There's some research research in social psychology that would argue against that point.
So... Took the test again... Introvert(44%) iNtuitive(38%) iNtuitive Thinking(25%) Judging(1%) You have moderate preference of Introversion over Extraversion (44%) You have moderate preference of Intuition over Sensing (38%) You have moderate preference of Thinking over Feeling (25%) You have marginal or no preference of Judging over Perceiving (1%) So once again, INTJ as opposed to INTP, which is my usual one, admittedly, only just, but still, nice seeing the slow changes (last year I was an ISTJ)
With MBTI is is, or at least should be, all about the functions. While I consider the MBTI and even more so Jungian Cognitive Functions a valuable tool, I've become highly critical of most online tests because they usually do not measure functions but preference. In my opinion, they're doing more harm than good. For example, INTJ and INTP have a completely different function stack. INTJ is: - dominant introverted intuition - auxiliary extraverted thinking - tertiary introverted feeling - inferior extraverted sensing INTP is: - dominant introverted thinking - auxiliary extraverted intuition - tertiary introverted sensing - inferior extaverted feeling. There is zero functional overlap. If you look at the functions - which the MBTI is based on - it's almost impossible to vacillate between INTJ and INTP. It just doesn't make any sense. Changing from an INTP to an INTJ would mean complete neurological re-wiring. That's extremely unlikely to happen. A difference in only one letter can be huge. So don't go by the letters, go by the functions. There are many good resources on this online. As a very basic starting point, you might want to go to: - http://www.cognitiveprocesses.com/ - http://www.youtube.com/user/DaveSuperPowers - http://www.keys2cognition.com/cgjung.htm (definitely not perfect but useful)