Personality types

[Ashvin]

@QueenOfdestiny you should know, we're kinda similar

[deleted_user0]

I only tagged you because I found it interesting and thought that you might as well. The idea was not to spark another discussion.

a debater not interested in discussion??? you should retake this test. I think it's fake news!

[Jam]

I don't need a quiz to tell me who I am!

[pecelot]

I think you do, actually

[Dolan]

Maybe I can ask it in a way that speaks more to your ISTJ nature

Just remembered I forgot to reply to this. I don't really believe in the Myers-Briggs personality classification, I think it lacks construct validity. There are better scales that measure personality dimensions out there, such as Eysenck's model and the big five model. They're not perfect, but at least the dimensions they measure cover personality dichotomies better, I think. And they are actually supported by brain studies too.
Secondly, I don't really think I'm an introvert. I'm much more of a clown than I give away.

As far as the other components of this "ISTJ" type go:
S - Why would anyone prefer sensing to intuition or viceversa? Cognition needs both. I'm not even sure you can call sensing and intuition to be separate things. Also it makes no sense to favour the concrete over the abstract, as the theory about this dimension goes. It makes no sense to favour either.

T – Thinking preferred to feeling - Both play their necessary role in forming cognition. Of course, when you're trying to arrive at statements that apply in general, you should try to follow facts, thus objective criteria. It's not a question of following this rule everywhere, you don't have to live by scientific methodology, lol. Feelings play an important role where they're relevant. And there are contexts in which they are less reliable, for example when making political choices.

J – Judgment preferred to perception / predictability and planning preferred to, I suppose, spontaneity. I really don't see any advantage in favouring either.

That's why I doubt that this M-Briggs personality model really captures anything worthwhile. Just thought I'd clarify this perception, which I think it's not accurate.

[Jam]

Maybe I can ask it in a way that speaks more to your ISTJ nature

Just remembered I forgot to reply to this. I don't really believe in the Myers-Briggs personality classification, I think it lacks construct validity. There are better scales that measure personality dimensions out there, such as Eysenck's model and the big five model. They're not perfect, but at least the dimensions they measure cover personality dichotomies better, I think. And they are actually supported by brain studies too.
Secondly, I don't really think I'm an introvert. I'm much more of a clown than I give away.

As far as the other components of this "ISTJ" type go:
S - Why would anyone prefer sensing to intuition or viceversa? Cognition needs both. I'm not even sure you can call sensing and intuition to be separate things. Also it makes no sense to favour the concrete over the abstract, as the theory about this dimension goes. It makes no sense to favour either.

T – Thinking preferred to feeling - Both play their necessary role in forming cognition. Of course, when you're trying to arrive at statements that apply in general, you should try to follow facts, thus objective criteria. It's not a question of following this rule everywhere, you don't have to live by scientific methodology, lol. Feelings play an important role where they're relevant. And there are contexts in which they are less reliable, for example when making political choices.

J – Judgment preferred to perception / predictability and planning preferred to, I suppose, spontaneity. I really don't see any advantage in favouring either.

That's why I doubt that this M-Briggs personality model really captures anything worthwhile. Just thought I'd clarify this perception, which I think it's not accurate.

Classic ISTJ response.

[Dolan]

Shut your talking vagina.

[Goodspeed]

That's why I doubt that this M-Briggs personality model really captures anything worthwhile.

The reason being that, per dichotomy, you don't see the point in favoring one or the other? Of course all are important, and wouldn't it be nice if we could all be perfectly balanced, but it doesn't occur to you that, whether there is a point or not, people naturally have a preference? I can't help but prefer introversion, no matter how much I would've liked to be more extraverted. And that's all it is: A preference. It's not that you only use one, and never the other.

Anyway, the dichotomies are much less meaningful by themselves than they are combined.

It's hard to tell over the internet whether someone is introverted or extraverted so I could go either way on that one. ESTJ seems just as likely. I typed you mostly based on obvious Te and somewhat less obvious Si. I'm certainly no expert though, your posts at the time just reminded me of what I read about those 2 functions.

https://jupiter-34.appspot.com/

[Dolan]

The reason being that, per dichotomy, you don't see the point in favoring one or the other?

I think cognition that would favour one over the other would not be complete. Sure, you could meet some people who are very interested in abstract topics, more so than the average population. But even for the scientifically oriented people (who would usually fall into the category of people interested in theories and abstractions), it's equally important to get the facts right, to have a solid grounding in facts, otherwise theory and abstract hypothesising can be pointless and just an exercise in mental tail chasing.

Of course all are important, and wouldn't it be nice if we could all be perfectly balanced, but it doesn't occur to you that, whether there is a point or not, people naturally have a preference? I can't help but prefer introversion, no matter how much I would've liked to be more extraverted. And that's all it is: A preference. It's not that you only use one, and never the other.

I think it's more a question of context. If you take one of those people who rate themselves to be "introverted" and place them in a context in which most people have the same interests, have similar physical features (ie, they're not too intimidating) and don't have any characteristics that make them less approachable (such as pretentious/expensive clothing/lifestyle), it's likely that they would be more likely to be outgoing and talkative, compared to other contexts. And, conversely, if you take someone who usually rates oneself to be an "extravert" and place them in a context in which most people have radically different interests from them, radically different physical features (they are taller, bigger etc) and social standing, it's likely they would be less outgoing and talkative. But of course, in real life, people rarely get to choose such convenient contexts, most of the time people just navigate through mixed environments and have to adapt to a multitude of personality types and people of different physical characteristics and social statuses. So they are pretty much reacting to a multitude of different situations, that are not equal from person to person. So their "preference" for a particular affective style doesn't really say that much about themselves, since they all have very different kinds of experiences which are not universally equivalent. It could be purely the result of a certain context in which they live(d).

There is a much more useful personality dimension that could more reliably measure someone's affective style: neuroticism (from Eysenck's model). This dimension would measure someone's affective response to stressful stimuli and their affective stability. Such a trait has also been directly linked to brain physiology and brain structural differences. So it seems to offer a much more reliable, measureable and replicable method of classifying people according to personality traits. You don't even need to test this in a social context, you can just use universally replicable tests like the acoustic startle reflex test, which could give you a basic idea on how neurotic a person could be, if they haven't been exposed to other stimuli that could have induced emotional blunting in them.

There are no perfect theories on personality. For example, I doubt that introversion is something completely separate from neuroticism. I think it's likely to be a "subclinical", mild version of neuroticism. The stressful stimuli don't go as far as to reach the endpoint in terms of brain circuitry (that would be the amygdala), so on the surface, introversion appears like just a preference, an affective style, without bearing the hallmarks of affective instability and high arousability, such as it's the case with neuroticism. But that's just my theory.

Anyway, the dichotomies are much less meaningful by themselves than they are combined.

It's doubtul that they even reliably exist. If you build a model on nebulous personality dimensions that are not reliably replicated if a person takes the same test periodically (for example, as this guy testifies: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130917 ... won-t-die/) what are the odds that the overall picture is clearer and has true predictive power?

It's hard to tell over the internet whether someone is introverted or extraverted so I could go either way on that one. ESTJ seems just as likely. I typed you mostly based on obvious Te and somewhat less obvious Si. I'm certainly no expert though, your posts at the time just reminded me of what I read about those 2 functions.

https://jupiter-34.appspot.com/

That's possible. I may appear "introvert" in certain contexts and "extravert" in other contexts. As I said before, if you feel "in control" in a certain social context, it's more likely for you to be more outgoing. But if you change the context and you feel less "in control", you're likely to show a different pattern. Does that mean your personality changed? No, it means everyone has a certain affective potential that comes out differently in different contexts. A football player who also reads a lot is likely to be seen as an "introvert" by his team mates, but if he joins an academic club, he might be seen as an "extravert" and a total Chad.
I followed those links, but frankly I think that kind of stuff is misleading. For example, following the link which referred to the "left-right brain" myth, they say:

Often characterized as the “scientific” side of the brain, the left hemisphere strives to answer how and why questions.

This is an example of hasty generalisation. They think the left side of the brain is specialised in abstract thought, so it must be responsible with a scientific mindset and style of cognition. But actually, if you look into research on brain lateralisation, you find that often people with a high capacity for abstraction (such as scientists) show less brain lateralisation (ie, hemispheric specialisation) than the average population. A notorious case would be Einstein, whose brain lateralisation was unusually low, he had way more inter-hemispheric connectivity than the average person would have (link to study: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/ ... 268/365419, main finding is that his corpus callosum, the area which connects hemispheres was much larger than in controls, which is atypical for male brains and more typical for female brains; male brains usually show a higher degree of left-side hemispheric dominance). Einstein was also left-handed, which is what you would expect in someone with a low level of left hemisphere dominance.
All this meaning there was less left-right specialisation in Einstein's brain than in your average cuck's.

So how does that statement on the left hemisphere being the scientific part of the brain hold versus evidence? Left hemisphere dominance is the typical pattern you see in most people who are right-handed. There's nothing special or unusual in someone showing left hemisphere dominance. Does that mean the average cuck is capable of coming up with the next breakthrough in physics? Unlikely. It just means that that statement is a nebulous generalisation, that is vaguely based on some scientific fact (that language is, on average, lateralised in the left hemisphere in most right-handed people). And based on that, they weave a whole argument that goes way beyond what the initial fact supported, they build a whole abstract edifice that gives the impression that the left hemisphere is the "scientific side of the brain". If that were true, again, then most average people would be great scientists. And yet, that's not what we're seeing in real life.

[Goodspeed]

I think it's more a question of context. If you take one of those people who rate themselves to be "introverted" and place them in a context in which most people have the same interests, have similar physical features (ie, they're not too intimidating) and don't have any characteristics that make them less approachable (such as pretentious/expensive clothing/lifestyle), it's likely that they would be more likely to be outgoing and talkative, compared to other contexts. And, conversely, if you take someone who usually rates oneself to be an "extravert" and place them in a context in which most people have radically different interests from them, radically different physical features (they are taller, bigger etc) and social standing, it's likely they would be less outgoing and talkative. But of course, in real life, people rarely get to choose such convenient contexts, most of the time people just navigate through mixed environments and have to adapt to a multitude of personality types and people of different physical characteristics and social statuses. So they are pretty much reacting to a multitude of different situations, that are not equal from person to person. So their "preference" for a particular affective style doesn't really say that much about themselves, since they all have very different kinds of experiences which are not universally equivalent. It could be purely the result of a certain context in which they live(d).

As mentioned, it's a spectrum. Everyone is both introverted and extraverted to different degrees. A high degree of extraversion is correlated with "talkativeness", but as you illustrated this would differ depending on the context as well. What it really means is that you have a preferred focus on the external, meaning you gain energy from external stimuli. Introverts on the other hand focus on the internal, and gain energy when there are less external stimuli.

There is a much more useful personality dimension that could more reliably measure someone's affective style: neuroticism (from Eysenck's model). This dimension would measure someone's affective response to stressful stimuli and their affective stability. Such a trait has also been directly linked to brain physiology and brain structural differences. So it seems to offer a much more reliable, measureable and replicable method of classifying people according to personality traits. You don't even need to test this in a social context, you can just use universally replicable tests like the acoustic startle reflex test, which could give you a basic idea on how neurotic a person could be, if they haven't been exposed to other stimuli that could have induced emotional blunting in them.

There are no perfect theories on personality. For example, I doubt that introversion is something completely separate from neuroticism. I think it's likely to be a "subclinical", mild version of neuroticism. The stressful stimuli don't go as far as to reach the endpoint in terms of brain circuitry (that would be the amygdala), so on the surface, introversion appears like just a preference, an affective style, without bearing the hallmarks of affective instability and high arousability, such as it's the case with neuroticism. But that's just my theory.

Introversion and neuroticism are alike for sure. A quick google search shows this is a common thought, that there are differences but the two are correlated. And indeed, no theory on personality is perfect or would fully encompass the complexity of the human brain. But to say that the four MBTI dichotomies "don't exist" is overstating things and it comes off especially arrogant considering how little you seem to know about the theory. I'm sure you know what they say about how ignorance relates to confidence.

And of course personality is linked to physiological differences in the brain. It seems likely that, as we develop neuroscience, we will find more and more of these links. You, as an xSTJ, are predictably focused on tangible facts and weary of psychology as a whole. I understand this perspective, and share it to an extent. I started studying psychology/neuroscience, lasted about half a year, and was rather dissatisfied with the way some studies seemed to jump to conclusions without really trying to prove themselves wrong. This is an issue with people, not the science itself, and mistakes like these are made in other sciences as well, but it comes up more frequently in psychology because it is studying something that is effectively intangible and extremely hard to measure.

That doesn't change the fact that many drawn conclusions are valid, and based on good science. One shouldn't take MBTI too far, it is a fairly basic description of a personality, but it has a basis in reality. I was able to type friends, family and colleagues somewhat successfully even knowing very little about MBTI and if it works that way, it would also work the other way around (meaning you can have people take the test and have meaningful information about their personality without having to know them at all).

It's doubtul that they even reliably exist. If you build a model on nebulous personality dimensions that are not reliably replicated if a person takes the same test periodically (for example, as this guy testifies: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130917 ... won-t-die/) what are the odds that the overall picture is clearer and has true predictive power?

Oh look, anecdotal evidence. You're such a fan of that. That's your Si
I think it has predictive power in certain contexts. There's a reason companies use it. Of course, it doesn't really work for people who don't know themselves or have trouble answering questions about themselves. Like that guy. If you take a good test and answer questions truthfully, there is no chance you will be INTJ in one of them and ESFP in another. Unless you really changed, which can happen. Not that much, I don't think, but people can change.

That's possible. I may appear "introvert" in certain contexts and "extravert" in other contexts. As I said before, if you feel "in control" in a certain social context, it's more likely for you to be more outgoing. But if you change the context and you feel less "in control", you're likely to show a different pattern. Does that mean your personality changed? No, it means everyone has a certain affective potential that comes out differently in different contexts. A football player who also reads a lot is likely to be seen as an "introvert" by his team mates, but if he joins an academic club, he might be seen as an "extravert" and a total Chad.
I followed those links, but frankly I think that kind of stuff is misleading. For example, following the link which referred to the "left-right brain" myth, they say:

Often characterized as the “scientific” side of the brain, the left hemisphere strives to answer how and why questions.

This is an example of hasty generalisation. They think the left side of the brain is specialised in abstract thought, so it must be responsible with a scientific mindset and style of cognition. But actually, if you look into research on brain lateralisation, you find that often people with a high capacity for abstraction (such as scientists) show less brain lateralisation (ie, hemispheric specialisation) than the average population. A notorious case would be Einstein, whose brain lateralisation was unusually low, he had way more inter-hemispheric connectivity than the average person would have (link to study: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/ ... 268/365419, main finding is that his corpus callosum, the area which connects hemispheres was much larger than in controls, which is atypical for male brains and more typical for female brains; male brains usually show a higher degree of left-side hemispheric dominance). Einstein was also left-handed, which is what you would expect in someone with a low level of left hemisphere dominance.
All this meaning there was less left-right specialisation in Einstein's brain than in your average cuck's.

So how does that statement on the left hemisphere being the scientific part of the brain hold versus evidence? Left hemisphere dominance is the typical pattern you see in most people who are right-handed. There's nothing special or unusual in someone showing left hemisphere dominance. Does that mean the average cuck is capable of coming up with the next breakthrough in physics? Unlikely. It just means that that statement is a nebulous generalisation, that is vaguely based on some scientific fact (that language is, on average, lateralised in the left hemisphere in most right-handed people). And based on that, they weave a whole argument that goes way beyond what the initial fact supported, they build a whole abstract edifice that gives the impression that the left hemisphere is the "scientific side of the brain". If that were true, again, then most average people would be great scientists. And yet, that's not what we're seeing in real life.

Introverts are cucks, extraverts are chads. Cute.
I'm not interested in discussing neuroscience. I didn't actually read what I linked you, rather hoped it would provide some explanation about the meaning of Te and Si.

Take the test? It doesn't take long. Don't think about the answers too much. And no, there is no "it depends" answer.
https://jupiter-34.appspot.com/

[Dolan]

I think it's more a question of context. If you take one of those people who rate themselves to be "introverted" and place them in a context in which most people have the same interests, have similar physical features (ie, they're not too intimidating) and don't have any characteristics that make them less approachable (such as pretentious/expensive clothing/lifestyle), it's likely that they would be more likely to be outgoing and talkative, compared to other contexts. And, conversely, if you take someone who usually rates oneself to be an "extravert" and place them in a context in which most people have radically different interests from them, radically different physical features (they are taller, bigger etc) and social standing, it's likely they would be less outgoing and talkative. But of course, in real life, people rarely get to choose such convenient contexts, most of the time people just navigate through mixed environments and have to adapt to a multitude of personality types and people of different physical characteristics and social statuses. So they are pretty much reacting to a multitude of different situations, that are not equal from person to person. So their "preference" for a particular affective style doesn't really say that much about themselves, since they all have very different kinds of experiences which are not universally equivalent. It could be purely the result of a certain context in which they live(d).

As mentioned, it's a spectrum. Everyone is both introverted and extraverted to different degrees. A high degree of extraversion is correlated with "talkativeness", but as you illustrated this would differ depending on the context as well. What it really means is that you have a preferred focus on the external, meaning you gain energy from external stimuli. Introverts on the other hand focus on the internal, and gain energy when there are less external stimuli.

And how do you gain that kind of preference? Can you prove it's a preference and it's not the product of how questionnaires are drawn up?

There is a much more useful personality dimension that could more reliably measure someone's affective style: neuroticism (from Eysenck's model). This dimension would measure someone's affective response to stressful stimuli and their affective stability. Such a trait has also been directly linked to brain physiology and brain structural differences. So it seems to offer a much more reliable, measureable and replicable method of classifying people according to personality traits. You don't even need to test this in a social context, you can just use universally replicable tests like the acoustic startle reflex test, which could give you a basic idea on how neurotic a person could be, if they haven't been exposed to other stimuli that could have induced emotional blunting in them.

There are no perfect theories on personality. For example, I doubt that introversion is something completely separate from neuroticism. I think it's likely to be a "subclinical", mild version of neuroticism. The stressful stimuli don't go as far as to reach the endpoint in terms of brain circuitry (that would be the amygdala), so on the surface, introversion appears like just a preference, an affective style, without bearing the hallmarks of affective instability and high arousability, such as it's the case with neuroticism. But that's just my theory.

Introversion and neuroticism are alike for sure. A quick google search shows this is a common thought, that there are differences but the two are correlated. And indeed, no theory on personality is perfect or would fully encompass the complexity of the human brain. But to say that the four MBTI dichotomies "don't exist" is overstating things and it comes off especially arrogant considering how little you seem to know about the theory. I'm sure you know what they say about how ignorance relates to confidence.

It's not just me saying that, it's professionals who are actually doing research in this field (for example: http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/HRMWebs ... p/mbti.pdf). The MBTI model is based on Jungian writings, which are not scientific, they're basically philosophical speculation on personality classifications. Jung didn't really perform any research to get at those "archetypes". And Myers and Briggs were not psychologists.

And of course personality is linked to physiological differences in the brain. It seems likely that, as we develop neuroscience, we will find more and more of these links. You, as an xSTJ, are predictably focused on tangible facts and weary of psychology as a whole.

We don't find more and more evidence to support the MBTI model, though. We do find support for personality traits like sensation-seeking and neuroticism.
Why would I be "weary of psychology"? I studied it in parallel with neuroscience topics. Psychology can provide some guidance where abstract insight is needed to make sense of the empirical data. However, unchecked speculation can lead people astray and make them believe in fanciful abstract schemas that don't really provide much explanatory value. In this respect, the MBTI model has a status in psychology that is similar to that of Freud's stages of psychosexual development. I haven't heard or seen anyone in this profession using MBTI tests and I had quite a few friends who were trained psychologists and a few who were neuroscientists that were doing primary research. They pretty much treat it as pseudoscience.

That doesn't change the fact that many drawn conclusions are valid, and based on good science.

Such as?

One shouldn't take MBTI too far, it is a fairly basic description of a personality, but it has a basis in reality. I was able to type friends, family and colleagues somewhat successfully even knowing very little about MBTI and if it works that way, it would also work the other way around (meaning you can have people take the test and have meaningful information about their personality without having to know them at all).

That's probably because what you're using to estimate their traits is based on proxy measures. For example, if you want to classify someone as being more of a thinker than a feeler, or an introvert rather than an extravert, you're making estimations based on cognitive styles (on how they write, how they express themselves, how they structure their answers, how they react to events etc). Psychological questionnaires also use a similar approach, albeit more methodical and thorough, by asking people about their typical behavioural choices, their typical reactions to certain events etc. So of course if you estimate someone to be more inward-oriented (to have a higher level of neuroticism), you're more likely to have them down as "introverted".
On the other hand, the fact that you say you are able to classify them in a way that is consistent with the results they get from applying a questionnaire doesn't really mean much. You might simply be very familiar with the questionnaire and make successful estimations of how they would answer those questions, which are very simple, so it wouldn't be an extraordinary feat to be able to estimate other people's potential answers, especially if you know them very well. So of course you would be able to "predict" their "type", when you're using the same criteria.

It's doubtul that they even reliably exist. If you build a model on nebulous personality dimensions that are not reliably replicated if a person takes the same test periodically (for example, as this guy testifies: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130917 ... won-t-die/) what are the odds that the overall picture is clearer and has true predictive power?

Oh look, anecdotal evidence. You're such a fan of that. That's your Si
I think it has predictive power in certain contexts. There's a reason companies use it. Of course, it doesn't really work for people who don't know themselves or have trouble answering questions about themselves. Like that guy. If you take a good test and answer questions truthfully, there is no chance you will be INTJ in one of them and ESFP in another. Unless you really changed, which can happen. Not that much, I don't think, but people can change.

"That guy" is a trained psychologist, so while anecdotal, his evidence does have a bit more significance than the opinion of a layman. And he probably has somewhat more insight into his own personality than someone who is not a psychologist, I'd wager.
I think it's quite possible to get different answers at different points in time, because the questions are so generic, that you could easily switch options at different moments, depending on mood, on current state of mind, on changing experiences.

That's possible. I may appear "introvert" in certain contexts and "extravert" in other contexts. As I said before, if you feel "in control" in a certain social context, it's more likely for you to be more outgoing. But if you change the context and you feel less "in control", you're likely to show a different pattern. Does that mean your personality changed? No, it means everyone has a certain affective potential that comes out differently in different contexts. A football player who also reads a lot is likely to be seen as an "introvert" by his team mates, but if he joins an academic club, he might be seen as an "extravert" and a total Chad.
I followed those links, but frankly I think that kind of stuff is misleading. For example, following the link which referred to the "left-right brain" myth, they say:

Often characterized as the “scientific” side of the brain, the left hemisphere strives to answer how and why questions.

This is an example of hasty generalisation. They think the left side of the brain is specialised in abstract thought, so it must be responsible with a scientific mindset and style of cognition. But actually, if you look into research on brain lateralisation, you find that often people with a high capacity for abstraction (such as scientists) show less brain lateralisation (ie, hemispheric specialisation) than the average population. A notorious case would be Einstein, whose brain lateralisation was unusually low, he had way more inter-hemispheric connectivity than the average person would have (link to study: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/ ... 268/365419, main finding is that his corpus callosum, the area which connects hemispheres was much larger than in controls, which is atypical for male brains and more typical for female brains; male brains usually show a higher degree of left-side hemispheric dominance). Einstein was also left-handed, which is what you would expect in someone with a low level of left hemisphere dominance.
All this meaning there was less left-right specialisation in Einstein's brain than in your average cuck's.

So how does that statement on the left hemisphere being the scientific part of the brain hold versus evidence? Left hemisphere dominance is the typical pattern you see in most people who are right-handed. There's nothing special or unusual in someone showing left hemisphere dominance. Does that mean the average cuck is capable of coming up with the next breakthrough in physics? Unlikely. It just means that that statement is a nebulous generalisation, that is vaguely based on some scientific fact (that language is, on average, lateralised in the left hemisphere in most right-handed people). And based on that, they weave a whole argument that goes way beyond what the initial fact supported, they build a whole abstract edifice that gives the impression that the left hemisphere is the "scientific side of the brain". If that were true, again, then most average people would be great scientists. And yet, that's not what we're seeing in real life.

Introverts are cucks, extraverts are chads. Cute.
I'm not interested in discussing neuroscience. I didn't actually read what I linked you, rather hoped it would provide some explanation about the meaning of Te and Si.

That's fine, but what I wrote does prove that whoever wrote those explanatory pages on personality dichotomies is pretty much clueless about the whole debate on hemispheric asymmetry and specialisation. This is another popular myth that is being spread in the media in a very misleading way (there is no such thing as "left-hemisphere thinking type" or "creative right-hemisphere dominant type", it's all born out of misunderstanding the science behind this topic). But that's often the case when media try to popularise science and do it in a way that completely distorts and simplifies findings to the point they become complete caricatures of actual science.

Take the test? It doesn't take long. Don't think about the answers too much. And no, there is no "it depends" answer.
https://jupiter-34.appspot.com/

I did try to take the test, but after a few tens of questions I just gave up, because it was all so obviously expressed in a way that fabricates dichotomies that don't really exist. Most data on human traits are typically distributed in a normal fashion (so-called bell or Gauss distributions). It rarely happens that human traits are dichotomically distributed, for example in the case of sexual dimorphic traits. But that's what you would expect to find, given that sex is a dichotomic category in itself -- if nature "intended" to have a normal distribution of sexual characteristics we wouldn't have had any sexes at all, just one giant spectrum. But as it stands, on average, men do have almost 20 times higher testosterone levels than women (280 to 1,100 ng/dL for men, 15 to 70 ng/dL for women).

For example, the test asks:

You join in the social life of a new area
rapidly
slowly

How rapidly is rapidly and how slowly is slowly? And where does the cut-off point lie and for what reason?
See? That's why I said that these questions are made in such a way as to manufacture false dichotomies. Sure, you could classify people according to sociability, but not by coming up with such "splitting" techniques which necessarily throw one person into one category. It leads to artifically dichotomised data, when your data points might look more like a normal distribution if you allowed the subject a gamut of choices.

When you make plans, you follow them consistently
Yes
No

What if you make plans and you try to follow them consistently, but then something happens and you need to adapt. Does this question take such occurrence into account in any way? So, for example, if you answer Yes, does it mean you will always keep trying to follow the plan, no matter what happens? How is this science, lol?

In small groups, you are usually
one of the most talkative
relatively quiet and restrained

In what kind of groups? Random groups? Office/co-workers groups? Party groups? Does the context really not matter at all? We're talking about psychological phenomena, who experiences generic events?

You are better at learning
abstract concepts
facts and procedures

How about both? If you are a good learner, you should be able to learn both equally.
Or is this about testing if someone has better gross motor skills versus fine motor skills? Then it's the wrong question, if that was the intention. There are much better ways to measure fine/gross motor skills than that.

Are you more
sensitive
impartial

That's like asking: Are you shorter or fatter? Why should one preclude the other? You can be both sensitive and impartial.

It's frustrating when people don't consider
others' feelings
the facts

How about both, again? Making only one kind of judgment/assesment will only give you a partial perspective on a situation.

Meeting a new person, you first might try to
probe how he thinks
connect to his emotions

Don't most people actually do both? Both connect to someone's ostensible emotions, while also trying to get an idea on how they think? I'm not even sure you can do one of them exclusively. Cognition needs at least a modicum of affective salience, otherwise there's not even an incentive to know anything.

And so it goes on and on and on.

Why is this test so popular? Because it's very simple and easy to relate to, like horoscopes, and it's supported by a business that actually makes money promoting it to companies.

[deleted_user0]

That guy" is a trained psychologist, so while anecdotal, his evidence does have a bit more significance than the opinion of a layman

Only very little, though, as can be seen when you try to psycho analyze whomever you're talking to. Usually you're wrong.

Other than that, yes, mbti is bs.

What do you think of the tests with people who had their brain halves separated though?

[Goodspeed]

@Dolan As I said it's a basic description of someone's personality. You are treating it as if it's trying to be an all-encompassing theory of human personality which it isn't. Again, one shouldn't take it too far. It's useful, but only to an extent. And of course trained psychologists wouldn't use it in therapy (or anywhere else), they have much better tools at their disposal. The advantage of MBTI is that it is accessible and quick (all you need to do is have someone fill out a questionnaire). That's why companies use it instead of paying for an extensive psychoanalysis, and why people on the internet use it. It is meaningful, just not as meaningful as you seem to expect of it.

You join in the social life of a new area
rapidly
slowly

How rapidly is rapidly and how slowly is slowly? And where does the cut-off point lie and for what reason?

Relatively. Compare yourself to other people. And if you're still neutral then, press skip. Or answer whatever you feel more strongly about, or would choose most often. I know this is hard for you, but try to choose whatever "feels" more right.

How is this science, lol?

It's not. It's a questionnaire made by a guy on the internet.

Why is this test so popular? Because it's very simple and easy to relate to, like horoscopes, and it's supported by a business that actually makes money promoting it to companies.

And because it is meaningful, to an extent. Oh what a hard thing to admit.
For example, if I had known your type beforehand I could have predicted your approach to discussions. Your focus on detail, on the past, your love for anecdotal evidence.
I have seen the theory work in real life, when we had people take the test in our company. However little, it tells you something about a person.
Open your mind a little. Again, hard for you, I know.

[Dolan]

What do you think of the tests with people who had their brain halves separated though?

Which tests? Did they apply MBTI tests on people with separated brain hemispheres? I haven't heard of that.

If it's about other tests, it would help if you could mention which kind of tests. What I can say, off the cuff, is that I'm vaguely familiar with two types of procedures that have been used in the past to separate brain hemispheres:
- lobotomy - which severed fibre connections between the prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain
- corpus callosotomy - which was a specific procedure for separating "brain halves" at the corpus callosum, the bundle of fibers which connects hemispheres under the cortex

Lobotomy is now considered a barbaric method of treating mental illness by surgery. In most cases it debilitates people, making them unable to lead a life by themselves. It's what is to be expected when you cut the connection between the executive function of the brain (which is located, to a great extent, in the frontal lobes) and the rest of the brain.

Corpus callosotomies separate brain halves in the brain region that enables communication between them, the corpus callosum. So what you can expect is that people's ability to coordinate movements and their management of both sides of their body is severely impaired. Brain hemispheres are typically specialised in controlling the opposite part of the body: so, for example, in right-handed people, the left hemisphere usually oversees and controls the right side of the body. You might get pretty weird consequences, like one side of the body working independently, in a non-coordinated way, relative to the other side of the body. That's why such a destructive procedure has only been used to treat epilepsy cases that didn't respond to any other kind of treatment and were too severe to manage otherwise. And it usually works, epileptic seizures are prevented, but at a huge cost for the individual's ability to function normally.

In general, any such invasive and destructive procedure that cuts connections in the brain leads to a break in the flow of information in the brain and disrupts information integration between both sides of the brain. So the outcome is usually serious impairment of fundamental brain functions. To some extent, the brain is capable of adapting and developing workaround solutions. It's not unheard of for brain functions to relocate to other regions, after suffering lesions (for example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 2306570104). And a callosotomy doesn't completely break any possible communication between hemispheres, there still are some white matter fibres crossing between both sides of the brain at other commissures (anterior, hippocampal, habenular, posterior and supraoptic commissure). If these are left intact, then some degree of communication between hemispheres would still work, allowing for integration of pain stimuli, visual processing, memory formation etc.

To the extent that some brain functions are specialised in certain hemispheres (like language is typically specialised in the left hemisphere in most right-handed people), you would expect that people would show very specific patterns of disability or preservation of abilities. For example, if they were shown objects in the left-hand visual field, they would probably not be able to talk about what they see, but they might be able to draw that. And conversely, if they were shown something in the right-hand visual field, they might be able to talk about the stimuli, but not be able to draw them.

[Mr_Bramboy]

I did one of these, but what does it mean?

[fightinfrenchman]

Anyone do one of these? https://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/

It makes me seem pretty awful

[Goodspeed]

How does that make you seem awful?

I feel like that could've been done in 10 questions instead of 80. As for the results... they are quite literally repeating what I just told the test by answering the questions so I didn't learn anything.

https://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/re ... y=1990&g=m

[fightinfrenchman]

Someone on Twitter said it was better than the one that started this thread and I just took it at face value

[Dolan]

Tbh, you got the results I would expect just from reading what you usually post here. And those kinds of personality traits are also reflected in the kind of values you support in politics.

Though, this is a rough measure of personality. It shouldn't be taken absolutely or as a very precise measurement.

Personality can also evolve in time to some extent; temperament not so much.

[XeeleeFlower]

@fightinfrenchman Fellow anxious people unite!

[tedere12]

Every time I re-do this test I get a different result

[deleted_user]

Every time I re-do this test I get a different result

Nice, you're more complicated than an insect

[tedere12]

Every time I re-do this test I get a different result

Nice, you're more complicated than an insect

that's the answer I was looking for

[Goodspeed]

Just fishing for compliments..

[tedere12]

I'm an idiot