@prink

Please read this quote from the Wikipedia article about MBTI:

Wikipedia wrote:

Not for selection

The results of the assessment should not be used to "label, evaluate, or limit the respondent in any way" (emphasis original).[25] Since all types are valuable, and the MBTI measures preferences rather than aptitude, the MBTI is not considered a proper instrument for purposes of employment selection. Many professions contain highly competent individuals of different types with complementary preferences.

This claim is probably based on the exact same argument as mine.

By the way, I must admit that I feel it's only marginally better than blood types and whatnot because it's based on Jung's theories. I don't have a Ph.D. in that field, so my impression can be horribly wrong. I don't have anything to back up my impression other than the usual dose of salt I take for anything related to Freud and the like outside academia. I could be an idiot.

Edit: here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Brig … and_ethics

Last edited by magamo (2012 October 05, 11:46 pm)

@prink
Please read the post right above you. It's not for purposes of employment selection, as the quote says. If you use it for such purposes, my opinion is that it constitutes discrimination.

prink wrote:

Yeah, I can agree with that.

Hmm. It seems to me the following claim of yours kind of contradicts what the quote from Wikipedia says though?

prink wrote:

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.

But I guess it doesn't matter much. In any case, if I understand what MBTI was originally designed for correctly, it's a tool to help better analyze a person by professionals such as psychiatrists, not by your employer or boss. It's definitely not for evaluating a person for any purposes. Am I wrong on this? This is my understanding of the situation. I could be totally wrong, of course. I may be just another naysayer complaining about MBTI like the ones the linked article on allbussiness.com portrays.

Also, you might change your opinion slightly about its credibility if you read through the Wikipedia article, especially the Validity and Reliability sections. Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source though...

Last edited by magamo (2012 October 06, 12:25 am)

Even though I think these kinds of tests are largely BS, I think an employer should be able to use them or any other 'discriminatory' method to pick who they employ.

I think it's the employers legitimate right to pick employees using what ever criterion they feel appropriate even if that makes them racist/sexist or whatever else. If the discriminated group is just as good at the job then they can be snatched up by more rational employers (a win win for both parties in the long run).

Surreal wrote:

As long as people don't take it too seriously, treating it basically the same as say one of those "What Naruto character are YOU?" tests, I don't think it harms anyone.

I thought this MBTI test was for me to find out that that I'm Mr. Burns and Gandalf...

nadiatims wrote:

Even though I think these kinds of tests are largely BS, I think an employer should be able to use them or any other 'discriminatory' method to pick who they employ.

I think it's the employers legitimate right to pick employees using what ever criterion they feel appropriate even if that makes them racist/sexist or whatever else. If the discriminated group is just as good at the job then they can be snatched up by more rational employers (a win win for both parties in the long run).

i wasn't gonna reply to this, but, it's still grating on me, so... :p

This seems to be absolutely wrong. For starters, i can't think of any good reason to value an employers freedom to unfairly discriminate over an applicant's right to a fair shot at a job. But let's run through this argument:

For this to work, there would have to be very specific market conditions, i.e. there has to be a shortage of labour, or no reserve pool for this strategy to even begin to make sense. If there's only 80 applicants for 100 jobs, it doesn't matter if 40 employers are irrational, because the other 60 will want the discriminated against applicants.

But let's see what happens when there isn't a labour shortage.

Let's say there are 100 employers, and 200 people looking for work, all with roughly the same skill and experience levels, and all who would be 1st choice for any job, all other things being equal. 100 people have brown eyes, and the other 100 have green eyes, which (let's imagine) mimics the natural population distribution.

40 employers don't like people with brown eyes, and decide to discriminate against them, picking green eyed applicants instead.

So, now we have 60 jobs left, 100 applicants with brown eyes, and 60 applicants with green eyes, all with roughly the same skill levels.

The other 60 employers don't discriminate, so everyone has a 60/160 chance of getting a job.

So, of the brown eyed applicants, ((60/160)*100)= 37.5 will get jobs (let's call that 38), and of the green eyed applicants, ((60/160)*60)= 22.5 will get jobs (let's call that 22).

So, at the end of the process, 62 of the applicants with green eyes got jobs, whereas only 38 with brown eyes did.

(i hope i got the maths roughly right here...!!!)

You would need positive discrimination to redress the balance, not just rational employers.

Your argument relies on cutting downwards through the groups, and saying, well, the top 40 applicants with green eyes are now gone, so the rational employers will employ the top 40 applicants with brown eyes next, since they are better than the rest of the green eyed applicants. But when you compare people of the same skill and ability levels, (which is what you should be doing) that argument doesn't hold.

Last edited by IceCream (2012 October 12, 9:34 am)