Well, for those pointing out the negatives, keep in mind that this in a free online test. It's a starting point, and it gives you a general idea of where you stand. You need to go to a licensed psychologist if you want more accurate results.

Often found myself wishing there was an "it depends" option for a lot of those polarised questions, especially on the T/F switch, but hey, that's a P talking.

I'm very leery of people using it to hire, but that said, someone with strong preferences for ENFP answers probably won't be truly satisfied monitoring screens in a control tower, while someone pulling high scores on all four axes for ISTJ is unlikely to sign up for early childhood teaching as their first career choice.  That doesn't mean, however, that the ENFP can't manage exacting vigilance, and it doesn't mean that the ISTJ doesn't enjoy and work well with small children, and you will find individuals enjoying success in the very last sort of career you might predict based on a 120-question test with a tail of employment suggestions.  People find value in things through very indvidual filters, and a counter-intuitive tendency can sometimes make for exceptional achievements precisely because the individual is thinking outside the norm for that area.  There's a huge continuum between those MBTI poles, hence the predictive weakness.   <edit>  It may be that some firms/institutions have found associations between specific task performance indices and MBTI preferences, in which case it's hard to blame them if they use it to help get a fix on candidates. 

A friend who runs a small company recently got all her staff to go through the MBTI as a casual exercise in "what floats your boat" and "what works for you?"  For her, it was a non-judgemental way of teasing out operational preferences and encouraging staff to see their differences as strengths to play to rather than interpersonal obstacles. 

ETA:  As Surreal says, people know what they like, and the MBTI, flawed as it is, is just one way of trying to elicit and organize these self-identified declarations.  It lends itself well to online testing, so here we are.

Last edited by warrigal (2012 October 04, 5:23 pm)

Yep.  In so much as it looks at declared preferences, I can see why they might be attracted to using it, especially if it has been suggested that the process has some value - I doubt it is lost on readers of this forum that such decisions often get made on the basis of poorly executed research (or on the basis that the plural of anecdote is "data").  Reporting bias, candidates reading the play and answering accordingly, all this is problematic, supposing the tool has validity in the first place, and I didn't mean to suggest that the decision was necessarily rational, but that I can understand the attraction of something that purports to cut through the noise.  ETA:  And of course if you fudge your responses, ultimately it is yourself you are kidding, first. 

For forum purposes, it's a interesting glimpse into how we see ourselves, a fun look at a way of trying to assort complex behaviour into rough categories based on self-reporting, at least for the subset replying.

Last edited by warrigal (2012 October 04, 7:39 pm)

I like to think I would have, too *g*.

Last edited by warrigal (2012 October 04, 7:51 pm)

magamo wrote:

I don't know the validity of those personality tests, and I kind of feel like it's only marginally more reliable, if at all, than relying on blood types, ages, star signs, genders, races, religion, physical appearances, and any other crap. But for reasons that remain completely mysterious to me, using this kind of test for hiring isn't considered discrimination based on nonsense and stereotypes

Yes, this is very true. It's infuriating for me as a psychology student to be told these lies and getting little response when I point out that what people really are doing is discrimination. It's especially problematic when it comes to immigrants since these tests are so heavily affected by language patterns and skills, like I mentioned earlier.

magamo wrote:

For the sake of simplicity, assume that you can obtain any personality type as your test result without prior knowledge of the mechanism of the test, i.e., common sense is enough to completely game the test result. Assume that you want a honest person who would follow your order. Then you deliberately tell candidates that you want a certain kind of person and also tell not to lie about your personality during the test because you want an honest answer from you. Since the assumption is that the test is a crapshoot if you don't lie, those who got a different personality type than the one you told them you want are more likely honest and followed your instruction. If the number of personality types in the test is sufficiently large, you may ignore all the candidates who got the "correct" personality type. If there are certain personality types that are known to be rare as the outcome, you can pick this one as the type you tell them you want to further reduce the number of unlucky honest candidates who followed your instruction but got the "right" one. Of course, you don't need to care what the rare type is like because the test is a crapshoot in the first place so it doesn't matter if the type sounds suitable for the job or not.

I understand what you're getting at, but those who lean toward the "target" personality type don't necessarily need to be dishonest. Because of the ambiguity of the questions in these tests, having a salient personality type in mind might make you interpret yourself and answer the questions accordingly, even if you don't consciously mean to give false answers. So the ambiguous nature of personality means the test distributer will end up with more false positives than expected. There are some psychological tests that have built-in probes for lying the test, essentially questions with answers that together paint a picture of an impossibly "good" person if you're mindlessly "cheating" (the questions are akin to "I have never lied" and "whenever I step on an ant I say a prayer"). But it's not very hard to avoid this as a cheater, all you have to do is ask yourself whether your answers seem reasonable and adjust them accordingly. Prior test takers, eg prior job applicants, giving tips to others also counter-acts the effectiveness of these dishonesty probes. Some psychologists treat this as a really good fail-safe. I say they're full of shit.

I'm sure there's a better way to catch liers. Maybe a good alternative is to switch it up? Something like asking for example programmers if they spend more than one hour meditating each day during one round of interviews and then whether they spend more than one hour exercising every morning during the next, etc. That will probably lead to rumor-spreading again, but it might be a bit better.

Edit: Oh and yeah the blood type thing is really a type of racism, even if the interviewers don't realize it.

Last edited by Surreal (2012 October 05, 2:30 am)

prink wrote:

As for employers requiring people to take this test, I'm sure there's some science behind that too

Are you saying science makes racism and other kinds of discrimination ok? What if an employer says, "Sorry, pal. You're black, and stats say you and your kind commit crime more often than we caucasians. Science tells us our company's better off avoiding you blacks like the plague."?

@Surreal
It's not just detecting a lier though. It's about knowing if the candidate lies when doing so benefits him but the employer told him not to. It's not about any kind of lie. It's the honesty in such particular situations. Also, knowing what kind of thing a person lies about leaks much more information than knowing the fact that a person lied. We all know humans lie. What's more important is when and about what.

prink wrote:

magamo wrote:

Are you saying science makes racism and other kinds of discrimination ok?

That's a rather odd conclusion to take away from my post. I assure you that is not what I was saying, nor was I trying to imply it. And to be quite honest, I don't see how this test specifically would facilitate that. Racism exists in virtually every facet of society, and if an employer wanted to discriminate, I don't think they need a test to do so. They could simply look at the person and tell them no...

I'm not saying the personality test contributes to racism against a particular race, ethnic group, etc. What I'm saying is that using the test for hiring is discrimination for the same reason as using, say, crime statistics between races is.

You classify 7 billion human beings into several categories. And then by using statistics, biology, phycology, social science, etc., you "explain" people in each category as in, they tend to like this, tend to think this way, tend to be good at this kind of stuff and bad at that kind of stuff, and the like. And you hire people based on these descriptions.

If these categories are races, genders and the like, a lot of people would agree that this is discrimination, regardless of science behind it. Why are personality types ok then? What's the difference? What do you mean by "there's some science behind that"? I understand that there are many situations where this kind of analysis must be employed, e.g., when deciding the dosage of medicine. If science says a black person responds to a particular chemical substance more strongly or an East Asian is immune to a certain kind of medicine, this should be taken into account. But for hiring purposes without giving any particular reason? I don't get how this is not the same kind of discrimination.

Last edited by magamo (2012 October 05, 6:36 pm)

I am not claiming that one specific personality test is used to infer crime rates. What I am saying is that it is discrimination to deprive a group of people of human rights they are entitled, whether your reasoning is based on scientific facts or not. If you take away human rights from a certain group of people, it's discrimination no matter what.

The correlation between your post and my opinion above is as follows. If I undersand correctly, your claim "As for employers requiring people to take this test, I'm sure there's some science behind that too" assumes that the use of science makes this practice reasonable. I do not think that this assumption is correct. Regardless of it being based on scientific facts, it is discrimination to deprive people of human rights simply because they fall into a certain category. If you actually believe that science makes it ok, science has become religion to you. Scientific facts should not encourage any discrimination. It is always neutral. If you use scientific facts to back up your discrimination, whether it is logical to you or not, it does not change the fact that it is discrimination in that you prevent a certain group of people from receiving the right they deserve. If you meant that because of the use of science, this practice can be logical to employers from the pure business viewpoint but is discrimination based on scientific facts, I apologize that I misread your post.

Because I am not saying that the MTBI says something about someone being more likely to commit crimes, I do not think that I am obliged to give examples that do not exist.

Edit: Oh, wait. Is your comment referring to the OP's comment about being based on Jung? OP said, "I have no clue how accurate or scientific the typing is (it's based on Jung after all)" And if you're saying Jung is scientific enough, well, I don't know what to say... Maybe, it's legit science, I guess... I'm not qualified to judge that.

Last edited by magamo (2012 October 05, 7:43 pm)

INTJ as I suspected, with a 100% introvert. I must say that I felt some kind of recognition in the questions that are clearly introvert vs. extrovert, for as far as I know I've only encountered people that say that not being social is bad, so I felt relieved that there are clearly more people like me.

@Tzadeck: That almost sounds unbelievable, if it's true then I too would have stopped with the interview immediately.

Last edited by Kyoshi88 (2012 October 05, 9:00 pm)

prink wrote:

Okay, well, let me start by providing an example to rival your claim. The MTBI matches individuals with specific personality types and skill sets. This is what it has been historically used for, and if an employer is seeking a very specific type of person, the MTBI can be a great tool for verifying whether applicants are innately well-suited for the job. A job that includes public speaking and being around lots of people, for example, is probably more suitable for someone who is extroverted. In this case, I think it's perfectly fine discriminating against introverts, especially since it's not a "human right" to have a job in public speaking that involves interacting with lots of people.

I recognize the argument you're making and acknowledge its validity. If you applied this line of thinking to something like the pseudoscience of "race and intelligence," I would be agreeing wholeheartedly. I just don't think it applies to the MTBI.

Seems like we disagree mainly because we give different amounts of credit to the science behind those personality tests. Or maybe I'm just too pessimistic about your average company's morals...

I think in order for your argument to work, the test needs to be incredibly accurate. Otherwise, applicants are not evaluated fairly. For example, an employer needs a person who is taller than 5'6" for a certain job. The job can't be done by a shorter person. Now, statistically speaking, it makes logical sense to ignore all female applicants and only invite male applicants for interviews because chances are that more than half of the female applicants are not qualified while male applicants are more likely qualified. But apparently using gender for selection is discrimination. Each individual has the right to be evaluated equally and should be given the chance if they're taller than 5'6". It doesn't matter if it is a scientific fact that a female is likely shorter than the required height.

The same goes for all sorts of things. Statistics may say that people from a certain region have a certain tendency with a fairly high probability while others exhibit the same tendency much less likely. Given this is a fact, is it ok to turn down or hire an applicant on the ground that they're from the region or not? It might be like, "Oh, you were born in China? Sorry. We don't want Chinese because you guys are usually [insert any scientifically valid claim], and people like you aren't qualified." Does this Chinese person not have the human right to be evaluated not on the nationality but on who he is and what he can do?

Your argument sounds like this type of discrimination to me. If those personality tests out there used by companies for hiring purposes are extremely accurate, you have a valid point. If a person is certainly not qualified, it's perfectly ok to reject him by using an accurate and reliable measure. Of course, I'm no expert on this, and they might be uber-accurate to the extent that it doesn't constitute discrimination anymore. But my impression is that it's far from a near-perfect test, and if you categorize billions people into whatever small number of types and "explain" what each type is like (e.g., what kind of thing people of each type is more suited for), it's so coarse that it's as discriminating as judging by sex, race, nationality, etc.

Last edited by magamo (2012 October 05, 10:09 pm)

prink wrote:

I don't understand why you think a skills test would help facilitate the kinds of discrimination you just described. The idea that the contents of this test can determine someone's nationality is just plain silly...

I don't quite follow your logic and can't seem to understand why you think I claimed the test could identify a test taker's nationality... You seem to have used the same logic in previous posts, e.g., you thought I was saying the test has something to do with race. I'm starting to think that I can't convey my thought in the form of abstract notions to you. If my previous post sounded like the test should reveal the nationality of a person, my command of English is so horrible or we think in different ways.

Also,

prink wrote:

The test is most definitely not the sole deciding factor in whether an employer who uses the MBTI hires someone or not. They still look at resumes and conduct interviews, and I would imagine an introverted person can get a job that is usually considered more suitable for an extroverted person if they can demonstrate that they have the experience and skill to fulfill the role.

this doesn't make it right either. I don't know how much weight they give to the test result. But if you see applicants through colored glasses based on things that are not reliable, it's discrimination still. The examples I gave are exaggerated to make the point clear, if you didn't notice.

Last edited by magamo (2012 October 05, 10:29 pm)

prink wrote:

Your endless tangents are hard to follow.

I'm sorry about that. I'm just another nonnative speaker and tend to be verbose when it could be put concisely and succinctly if I were as proficient as in Japanese.

prink wrote:

I don't know what point you're trying to make, and I already asked you specifically to support your claim with evidence from the MBTI. No, you didn't specifically say it, but you implied it when you dedicated an entire paragraph to it. If that wasn't your point, what was? (Before you answer, please relate it to MBTI somehow.)

As I already said, you seem to have misread my posts. Hence, I can not relate my comments to MBTI or other tests the way as you wish; what I'm saying is probably entirely different from what you think it is. And, to be honest, I don't understand what my posts look like to your eye because your replies are sometimes a bit too perplexing for me to comprehend. If I sounded like the test should reveal gender, race, nationality etc. to you, I can't seem to get my idea across. If you reread my posts again, and still can't follow me, I'd be grateful if you could allow me to give up this conversation here.

To help you understand my points, however, I didn't imply the test should reveal nationality, race or anything like that. Those are placeholders for categories in a sense. Any kind of categorization is as bad if it leads to illogical stereotypes, inaccurate labeling, unfair treatment and so on. Personality is used just like race, gender, nationality and the like, which is my main point. To be clear, I'm not saying personality reveals those other labels.

You might find it helpful if you stop thinking that if one thing is considered discrimination, it must be something that is already considered so by others. My definition of discrimination isn't like "Discrimination is either racism, nationalism,..." I already gave my definition: It is discrimination if one deprives a group of people of human rights. And personality is used to do this, which is my point. It's not necessarily related to race, gender and any other controversial notions. Please reread my posts carefully.

prink wrote:

I think the answer to that last sentence I have quoted above and why we can't communicate on the same wavelength is that you admittedly have no clue what the MBTI is or what you're talking about. You're basing your argument on your own preconceived notions of the test without actually putting in any effort to understand it, which is why you've just gone in circles.

I guess you're right. Sorry for my weird logic based on ignorance. Please forget what I said if you read it again and it still doesn't click to you.

Last edited by magamo (2012 October 05, 11:26 pm)