The MBTI Exercise
I recently received my second MBTI assessment, which is in line and in greater depth than my first. This time it was a company initiative. Apparently, psychometric tests are all the rage in the corporate world today, and the mother-daughter test has its obvious glamor (say, when compared to The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which has a very unglamorous name). I think this initiative has its uses. One, it makes employees feel good about themselves. Two, it is a substantial exercise that gives them to talk about for a while. And three, it subtly implores them towards greater self-awareness.
Feeling Good
The MBTI interpretive reports and the introductory books read a bit like the Linda Goodman best-sellers, especially like those pages which people tend to bookmark, underline and reread. No wonder that Isabel Briggs Myers was herself a novelist. Here is a list of (category, word) ordered pairs to illustrate my point: (Extraversion, Initiating), (Introversion, Reflective), (Sensing, Realistic), (Intuitive, Original), (Thinking, Analytical), (Feeling, Tender), (Judging, Systematic), (Perceiving, Emergent). Wouldn't you feel good if you belonged to even one of these? It is a pity that they don't include the names of celebrities who fall under each category, and that is possibly because determining a person's MBTI Step I type is not as easy as determining the zodiac sign from one's DOB.
Small Talk
The MBTI can make good conversation in group meetings while sounding fashionable and intellectual than the weather, at least for as long as people can remember their superficial meanings. I am skeptical about its application to a group, using averages and standard deviations, though. And about its application at an individual level, considering the complexity of its interpretation.
Awareness
Be it interpreting the ambiguity of a movie or a book, or interpreting dreams (despite abandoning that impossible book by Freud in its third chapter), or interpreting MBTI itself, I am tempted to attempt interpretations. Note: I have not done any courses in psychology, and am in no way certified to interpret the psyche much less the MBTI reports.
Over the years I have read quite a bit about MBTI, about its history and its characterisations. It attempts to attribute a type, which supposedly will be the most common pattern found (preferred, if you will) in a person's behavior were you to observe him or her continuously. The type is a combination of the most dominant result in each of four dichotomies: Extravert Vs Introvert, Sensing Vs iNtuitive, Thinking Vs Feeling, Judging Vs Perceiving.
1. Carl Jung, being Swiss, chose and popularized the German version "extravert", but its meaning may be identical to that of "extrovert". I am not sure if psychology attributes any further requirements to the word.
2. Dichotomies, mathematically speaking, are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. In the MBTI types, I don't think they really are dichotomies owing to the duality of mind. Those are just convenient enough to be put together on a single line and also on opposite sides. These "opposite" characteristics are known to be found in the same person, and the functional characteristics in particular can be found simultaneously.
3. As if the usual psychobabble isn't enough to make one's head spin, ambiguity arises from the choice of names for these dichotomies, with added confusion from our day-to-day interpretation of some of these words. Extravert isn't talkative, introvert isn't shy, feeling isn't emotional, judging isn't judgmental, perceiving isn't perceptive. Especially not in MBTI.
4. EI, SN, TF and JP represent four different spheres respectively -- how one gets energy (attitude), how one takes information (function), how one makes decisions (function), and how one deals with the outer world (lifestyle). The interpretation of each of these eight characteristics is confined to the sphere to which they belong.
5. The order of the letters in a type is misleading. The two functions (second and third letters) are not dominant and auxiliary respectively. Contrary to popular usage, the type is better interpreted not using the four letters but using the four words. e.g. Introverted Thinking with Extraverted Sensing is a better interpretation than ISTP, and Extraverted Thinking with Introverted Intuition is a better interpretation than ENTJ (even though one is missing the lifestyle part).
6. The dominant, auxiliary, tertiary and inferior functions again are not to be interpreted as the best, next, third and least functions. I am not sure about the tertiary and the inferior ones, but the dominant and the auxiliary functions have specific roles. While the dominant function is used primarily in the Jungian attitude of choice (introvert or extravert), the auxiliary function is used primarily in the opposite attitude.
Before beginning this exercise I thought that dropping the "Vs" from our minds can be more useful in remembering the fluidity of a personality. Now, I am not sure that will suffice. One needs to be extremely careful, which one can never be, in interpreting these types and detailed reports, and even then take them with a pinch of salt while pigeonholing a person. (I haven't even mentioned the degree or development of a type in these categories.) Tests like the MBTI are however useful in pushing one towards greater self-awareness, that which is taken up independently regardless of the interpretations.
Not to undermine them, but even the best of shrinks cannot tell everything about you, thanks to the mysteries held in a fistful of human tissue. This is a good thing, or their academic counterparts would suffer a dearth in their grants.
Feeling Good
The MBTI interpretive reports and the introductory books read a bit like the Linda Goodman best-sellers, especially like those pages which people tend to bookmark, underline and reread. No wonder that Isabel Briggs Myers was herself a novelist. Here is a list of (category, word) ordered pairs to illustrate my point: (Extraversion, Initiating), (Introversion, Reflective), (Sensing, Realistic), (Intuitive, Original), (Thinking, Analytical), (Feeling, Tender), (Judging, Systematic), (Perceiving, Emergent). Wouldn't you feel good if you belonged to even one of these? It is a pity that they don't include the names of celebrities who fall under each category, and that is possibly because determining a person's MBTI Step I type is not as easy as determining the zodiac sign from one's DOB.
Small Talk
The MBTI can make good conversation in group meetings while sounding fashionable and intellectual than the weather, at least for as long as people can remember their superficial meanings. I am skeptical about its application to a group, using averages and standard deviations, though. And about its application at an individual level, considering the complexity of its interpretation.
Awareness
Be it interpreting the ambiguity of a movie or a book, or interpreting dreams (despite abandoning that impossible book by Freud in its third chapter), or interpreting MBTI itself, I am tempted to attempt interpretations. Note: I have not done any courses in psychology, and am in no way certified to interpret the psyche much less the MBTI reports.
Over the years I have read quite a bit about MBTI, about its history and its characterisations. It attempts to attribute a type, which supposedly will be the most common pattern found (preferred, if you will) in a person's behavior were you to observe him or her continuously. The type is a combination of the most dominant result in each of four dichotomies: Extravert Vs Introvert, Sensing Vs iNtuitive, Thinking Vs Feeling, Judging Vs Perceiving.
1. Carl Jung, being Swiss, chose and popularized the German version "extravert", but its meaning may be identical to that of "extrovert". I am not sure if psychology attributes any further requirements to the word.
2. Dichotomies, mathematically speaking, are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. In the MBTI types, I don't think they really are dichotomies owing to the duality of mind. Those are just convenient enough to be put together on a single line and also on opposite sides. These "opposite" characteristics are known to be found in the same person, and the functional characteristics in particular can be found simultaneously.
3. As if the usual psychobabble isn't enough to make one's head spin, ambiguity arises from the choice of names for these dichotomies, with added confusion from our day-to-day interpretation of some of these words. Extravert isn't talkative, introvert isn't shy, feeling isn't emotional, judging isn't judgmental, perceiving isn't perceptive. Especially not in MBTI.
4. EI, SN, TF and JP represent four different spheres respectively -- how one gets energy (attitude), how one takes information (function), how one makes decisions (function), and how one deals with the outer world (lifestyle). The interpretation of each of these eight characteristics is confined to the sphere to which they belong.
5. The order of the letters in a type is misleading. The two functions (second and third letters) are not dominant and auxiliary respectively. Contrary to popular usage, the type is better interpreted not using the four letters but using the four words. e.g. Introverted Thinking with Extraverted Sensing is a better interpretation than ISTP, and Extraverted Thinking with Introverted Intuition is a better interpretation than ENTJ (even though one is missing the lifestyle part).
6. The dominant, auxiliary, tertiary and inferior functions again are not to be interpreted as the best, next, third and least functions. I am not sure about the tertiary and the inferior ones, but the dominant and the auxiliary functions have specific roles. While the dominant function is used primarily in the Jungian attitude of choice (introvert or extravert), the auxiliary function is used primarily in the opposite attitude.
Before beginning this exercise I thought that dropping the "Vs" from our minds can be more useful in remembering the fluidity of a personality. Now, I am not sure that will suffice. One needs to be extremely careful, which one can never be, in interpreting these types and detailed reports, and even then take them with a pinch of salt while pigeonholing a person. (I haven't even mentioned the degree or development of a type in these categories.) Tests like the MBTI are however useful in pushing one towards greater self-awareness, that which is taken up independently regardless of the interpretations.
Not to undermine them, but even the best of shrinks cannot tell everything about you, thanks to the mysteries held in a fistful of human tissue. This is a good thing, or their academic counterparts would suffer a dearth in their grants.
posted by Sravan | 20:00
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