Thanks, I appreciate your feedback. Yes, I definitely should not have given anything to four significant figures. I did that without thinking; none of the calculations are precise enough to warrant more than three at most.
I've kept my opinions out of this discussion so far, but I definitely agree with what you say about the test. While the MBTI undoubtedly indicates something, its utility and validity are questionable. It's interesting for novelty value, but that's about it.
I'm definitely in the same boat as you: at various times over the past 5 years or so I have scored as INTP, ENTP and ISTP, so in both our cases, test-retest reliability is an issue. (I didn't take the test yesterday, because at this point I feel I'm too familiar with it to answer without bias.)
I make no claims about how valid this analysis is; it's certainly not going to appear in a statistics journal any time soon. I just decided to do it for fun and was surprised by just how drastically different the results are from the general population.
I think Myers and Briggs would argue that the test is a reflection of how you see yourself. If you get different results, it's because how you see your personality has changed. I've tested differently in the past, but as I've gotten older, I pretty consistently come up with INTP. I think that's because I know my personality better by now.
At the end of the day, all that matters is how you view your own personality. The test is just a way to try to pry that data out of your brain.
If that's the case, then it defeats the entire purpose of the test. It's not a personality test anymore, it's a self-image test. The idea of a personality test is to dig below your self-image to get a picture of what your 'innate personality' is. Whether they're successful at doing this is another story, but that's the idea.
I don't think there's such a thing as an "innate personality" - I'm a very different person than I was 10 years ago, and having just taken the test right now, the results are also likewise different (INTJ -> ESTJ if anyone's interested).
IMHO your personality is not something set in stone - it's a rather slow-changing beast surely, but I think it's a fallacy to believe that it's somehow cemented by some age.
Comments
Thanks, I appreciate your feedback. Yes, I definitely should not have given anything to four significant figures. I did that without thinking; none of the calculations are precise enough to warrant more than three at most.
I've kept my opinions out of this discussion so far, but I definitely agree with what you say about the test. While the MBTI undoubtedly indicates something, its utility and validity are questionable. It's interesting for novelty value, but that's about it.
I'm definitely in the same boat as you: at various times over the past 5 years or so I have scored as INTP, ENTP and ISTP, so in both our cases, test-retest reliability is an issue. (I didn't take the test yesterday, because at this point I feel I'm too familiar with it to answer without bias.)
I make no claims about how valid this analysis is; it's certainly not going to appear in a statistics journal any time soon. I just decided to do it for fun and was surprised by just how drastically different the results are from the general population.
I think Myers and Briggs would argue that the test is a reflection of how you see yourself. If you get different results, it's because how you see your personality has changed. I've tested differently in the past, but as I've gotten older, I pretty consistently come up with INTP. I think that's because I know my personality better by now.
At the end of the day, all that matters is how you view your own personality. The test is just a way to try to pry that data out of your brain.
If that's the case, then it defeats the entire purpose of the test. It's not a personality test anymore, it's a self-image test. The idea of a personality test is to dig below your self-image to get a picture of what your 'innate personality' is. Whether they're successful at doing this is another story, but that's the idea.
I don't think there's such a thing as an "innate personality" - I'm a very different person than I was 10 years ago, and having just taken the test right now, the results are also likewise different (INTJ -> ESTJ if anyone's interested).
IMHO your personality is not something set in stone - it's a rather slow-changing beast surely, but I think it's a fallacy to believe that it's somehow cemented by some age.