This is a really nice article, and expresses a lot of things I've dwelled on myself.
On test reliability: I've long had a pet theory that the T-F and J-P axes are much less reliable than the other two. From personal experience, I've taken the 16Personalities test (and similar MBTI tests) several times in the past ten years, and I've never once scored outside the IN box; but I scored INTJ as a young teen, INFP just a moment ago. The reliability stats you give seem to support this theory for the T-F, but not really for the J-P, so idk. (Relatedly: Maybe people are just relatively worse at assessing their T-F and J-P? There's definitely a social pressure to exaggerate conscientousness and adjacent traits in one's self reports, and I imagine that for men there's motivation to downplay how "emotional" one is.)
Also, you mention that "If anything, outlier high IQ people are slightly shifted towards feeling". I was wondering why you think that is? Any specific examples?
When looking at national merit finalists and college prep students, it looks like an artifact of sampling only female students. Comparing the differences, it looks like there's a significant shift toward T for national merit finalists vs the college prep students.
Oh, you mean the graphs on the post, about the Rhodes Scholars and NMFs vs other students. I didn't read them closely enough. Thanks
Though, to be fair, Rhodes scholarships can be for either arts or sciences, no? I'd imagine that for "writing ability" there's an increased tendency to be F, and an increased tendency to T for "math / science ability". So it might depend on what kind of outlier IQ we're talking about.
It's an imperfect but intriguing tool for thinking about most people. And - not too rarely - you'll come across someone who fits perfectly into one of another of the sixteen boxes. And so you have, immediately, a genuine rough sketch of their motivations and thought ways. It's pretty striking the first time.
The lasting and valuable impact, though, was simply encouraging teenage me to start thinking about other people. Understanding them as other beings essentially different from me and each other by various degrees. When before, uncomprehending, I had angrily chafed against these differences.
Once you develop your intuition by thinking along these lines it becomes a tool in its own right and encompasses more than any framework ever can.
For a masterful presentation of this I highly recommend Keynes' "Essays in Biography". Most of all the first section on the four statesmen who negotiated the Treaty of Versailles.
MBTI has significant correlation to Big 5, so its lesser validity is likely primarily due to this. The basic MBTI is more popular, likely because typical people prefer the typological and strengths-weaknesses/equal value framing.
The J/P dichotomy mixes conscientiousness (like being orderly, as a strength) with being closed (like being closed to new information or options, as a weakness), versus being unconscientious with being open. Disorganized, unplanned and unadaptable, unambiguous people obviously, commonly exist, but that is socially undesirable.
As a complement to Big 5, more men should be classified as disagreeable (Big 5) feelers (cognitive type), not thinkers. They primarily process information through a lens of valuations that are simply more competitive and individualistic. This includes their feeling identification as “thinkers.”
Both of these dichotomies have weaker Big 5 correlations and are philosophically weak. I think personality typology has something more to offer, which people are far less aware of, but not where it overlaps with Big 5.
I think essentially any dichotomous system of personality is going to be meaningful. Pick any set of opposing traits, you can place people either side of the line. Sling together a bunch of them and hey presto you have a matrix of personality types. MBTI has taken off because all the traits can be skewed as positive (unlike, say, neuroticism) and enough people will fall one side of the line or the other that you can have a decent spread of types.
You used gifts differing to make a claim that it's predictive, but from what? The tables you posted are circular. Someone who says they prefer logic over emotion will obviously be more likely to be an engineer than a teacher.
Engineers work with things and teachers work with people so it should be a given that the first is more object-(male)oriented on average and the latter is more people-(female)oriented on average.
There is, in fact, an mbtimeme subreddit, some of which are quite funny. It's like commedia dell' arte.
The huge advantage of MBTI, as jeznwznws says, is that people will share their MBTI, but will rarely tell you they lack conscientiousness and agreeableness but are neurotic.
I've received a different result every time I've taken the MBTI. Everything is split close to 50/50 except that Im definitely an intuitive type. For that reason, I don't put much stock in MBTI. There's a lot more than 16 personality types in the world. Prefer the Big 5 aka OCEAN test because its measured as a spectrum. Theres a reason why thats the only one used in psych.
Out of curiosity, did you score close to the middle on your Big 5 scores? That would explain why MBTI is so unreliable for you.
I've gotten ISTJ and INTJ, so while my Openness may be questionable (and indeed I am something of a political centrist), I will admit to low extroversion and agreeableness!
Super high in openness ~95%. 70%ish conscientiousness. 60%ish Extraversion. ~70% Agreeableness (Its a problem at times). ~35% neurotic.
Ive gotten both introvert and extravert, both feeling and thinking, and both judging and perceiving. But those 3 are always split close to evenly, depending on the test.
And Im a left of the middle politically, which somehow puts me on the right these days.
Ah, so the N part tracks, and that's the highest one. The rest, well, as our host points out elsewhere they don't really map 1-to-1 as well as we'd like.
I'm actually about 15% Agreeableness but a huge people pleaser on account of having spent a long time with poor social skills, which means lots of people have no idea how much I hate them. I think.
So if you had to chose MBTI or Big Five? It is easier to ask people their MBTI, that is certain
I think MBTI is better, especially in social settings, because it natually teases out the interactions and is easier to interpret.
Big five is better when you can think for a longer amount of time.
This is a really nice article, and expresses a lot of things I've dwelled on myself.
On test reliability: I've long had a pet theory that the T-F and J-P axes are much less reliable than the other two. From personal experience, I've taken the 16Personalities test (and similar MBTI tests) several times in the past ten years, and I've never once scored outside the IN box; but I scored INTJ as a young teen, INFP just a moment ago. The reliability stats you give seem to support this theory for the T-F, but not really for the J-P, so idk. (Relatedly: Maybe people are just relatively worse at assessing their T-F and J-P? There's definitely a social pressure to exaggerate conscientousness and adjacent traits in one's self reports, and I imagine that for men there's motivation to downplay how "emotional" one is.)
Also, you mention that "If anything, outlier high IQ people are slightly shifted towards feeling". I was wondering why you think that is? Any specific examples?
>"If anything, outlier high IQ people are slightly shifted towards feeling"
It’s from looking at the statistics from Myers’ book. Not really sure why.
When looking at national merit finalists and college prep students, it looks like an artifact of sampling only female students. Comparing the differences, it looks like there's a significant shift toward T for national merit finalists vs the college prep students.
Oh, you mean the graphs on the post, about the Rhodes Scholars and NMFs vs other students. I didn't read them closely enough. Thanks
Though, to be fair, Rhodes scholarships can be for either arts or sciences, no? I'd imagine that for "writing ability" there's an increased tendency to be F, and an increased tendency to T for "math / science ability". So it might depend on what kind of outlier IQ we're talking about.
I've played with MBTI on and off over the years.
It's an imperfect but intriguing tool for thinking about most people. And - not too rarely - you'll come across someone who fits perfectly into one of another of the sixteen boxes. And so you have, immediately, a genuine rough sketch of their motivations and thought ways. It's pretty striking the first time.
The lasting and valuable impact, though, was simply encouraging teenage me to start thinking about other people. Understanding them as other beings essentially different from me and each other by various degrees. When before, uncomprehending, I had angrily chafed against these differences.
Once you develop your intuition by thinking along these lines it becomes a tool in its own right and encompasses more than any framework ever can.
For a masterful presentation of this I highly recommend Keynes' "Essays in Biography". Most of all the first section on the four statesmen who negotiated the Treaty of Versailles.
MBTI has significant correlation to Big 5, so its lesser validity is likely primarily due to this. The basic MBTI is more popular, likely because typical people prefer the typological and strengths-weaknesses/equal value framing.
https://www.clearerthinking.org/post/how-accurate-are-popular-personality-test-frameworks-at-predicting-life-outcomes-a-detailed-investi
The J/P dichotomy mixes conscientiousness (like being orderly, as a strength) with being closed (like being closed to new information or options, as a weakness), versus being unconscientious with being open. Disorganized, unplanned and unadaptable, unambiguous people obviously, commonly exist, but that is socially undesirable.
As a complement to Big 5, more men should be classified as disagreeable (Big 5) feelers (cognitive type), not thinkers. They primarily process information through a lens of valuations that are simply more competitive and individualistic. This includes their feeling identification as “thinkers.”
Both of these dichotomies have weaker Big 5 correlations and are philosophically weak. I think personality typology has something more to offer, which people are far less aware of, but not where it overlaps with Big 5.
I think essentially any dichotomous system of personality is going to be meaningful. Pick any set of opposing traits, you can place people either side of the line. Sling together a bunch of them and hey presto you have a matrix of personality types. MBTI has taken off because all the traits can be skewed as positive (unlike, say, neuroticism) and enough people will fall one side of the line or the other that you can have a decent spread of types.
You used gifts differing to make a claim that it's predictive, but from what? The tables you posted are circular. Someone who says they prefer logic over emotion will obviously be more likely to be an engineer than a teacher.
Only if you take for granted that engineers are logical and teachers are emotional.
But either way, graphs that come directly from the creators own book don't say much. Where do they come from?
Engineers work with things and teachers work with people so it should be a given that the first is more object-(male)oriented on average and the latter is more people-(female)oriented on average.
There is, in fact, an mbtimeme subreddit, some of which are quite funny. It's like commedia dell' arte.
The huge advantage of MBTI, as jeznwznws says, is that people will share their MBTI, but will rarely tell you they lack conscientiousness and agreeableness but are neurotic.
I've received a different result every time I've taken the MBTI. Everything is split close to 50/50 except that Im definitely an intuitive type. For that reason, I don't put much stock in MBTI. There's a lot more than 16 personality types in the world. Prefer the Big 5 aka OCEAN test because its measured as a spectrum. Theres a reason why thats the only one used in psych.
Out of curiosity, did you score close to the middle on your Big 5 scores? That would explain why MBTI is so unreliable for you.
I've gotten ISTJ and INTJ, so while my Openness may be questionable (and indeed I am something of a political centrist), I will admit to low extroversion and agreeableness!
Super high in openness ~95%. 70%ish conscientiousness. 60%ish Extraversion. ~70% Agreeableness (Its a problem at times). ~35% neurotic.
Ive gotten both introvert and extravert, both feeling and thinking, and both judging and perceiving. But those 3 are always split close to evenly, depending on the test.
And Im a left of the middle politically, which somehow puts me on the right these days.
Ah, so the N part tracks, and that's the highest one. The rest, well, as our host points out elsewhere they don't really map 1-to-1 as well as we'd like.
I'm actually about 15% Agreeableness but a huge people pleaser on account of having spent a long time with poor social skills, which means lots of people have no idea how much I hate them. I think.
I dont know how much of that agreeableness is people pleasing, and how much was baked in at birth, but Im certain its both.
It's half nurture, half nature. It always is.