I have no desire to have let alone perpetuate bad ideas—and it really does sound like you’re aware of some obvious mistakes I’ve made here. If you can explain why my judgement is flawed, I will update my views on the matter, and update the comment accordingly, acknowledging you for the guidance.
I respect your response, since I know that such a passionate disagreement with a position you have mentioned can feel like a personal affront.
What makes me uncomfortable is the assumption a ‘T’ cannot appreciate another persons feelings until they ‘mature’ into an ″F”. The difference isn’t in whether or not they can understand, empathise with and care about other people’s feelings. Some people for example have developed the ability to ellicit feelings from others but respond to them in a way that is more systematic than intuitive. More ‘shutting up and multiplying’ for example. They may even ‘shut up, multiply and decide to respond by giving verbal or physical comfort as appropriate’. But there is still an actual difference in how their internal thought processes are operating and this will often lead two people who have different responses to judge the other as being immature, uncaring or irrational when they are merely different.
I perhaps object to the P vs J distinction here more because while I am balanced between ‘T’ and ‘F’ I am extremely biased towards perception rather than judgement. And when I am most successful at non-Akrasia I am perhaps even more my natural ‘P’ self than at those times I get bogged down in Akrasia. Again, I’m not necissarily endorsing the Myers Briggs system as the best way of describing the different personalities. But I am asserting that there is a real difference. P vs J somewhat relates, for example, with ‘Open and Closed’ from the big 5. “You need to stop being a P and be more of a J” is the kind of thing a Closed/J would say. And, well, Closed/J types tend to be more interested in (and so proficient at) forcing such judgements on others. I, instead, say “you need to continue being a P but get your F@#$ $#!t together to achieve the kinds of things that you (a P) want to achieve, whether or not it looks good to a J”.
Jumping back to your original comment, I may be in ‘violent agreement’ with this part:
and the fact that Myers Briggs considers such things intrinsic was in my opinion damaging.
The way you descibed ‘T’ and ‘P’ I would perhaps refer to as the labels ‘inconsiderate’ and ‘lazy’. Using descriptions of personality as a way to suggest that undesirable traits are inevitable or intrinsic is something I do object to. But I also object to assertions that personalities are not (to a significant extent) intrinsic or that people can (and implicitly should) mould themselves to fit the ‘better’ (F/J) shape.
Thanks for your response. FWIW someone once tried to give me some Myers Briggs P to P mentoring, upon which he exclaimed: “Embrace your P-ness!”. Needless to say that sounded much better in his head.
Some people for example have developed the ability to ellicit feelings from others but respond to them in a way that is more systematic than intuitive.
That’s a very interesting thought. I’d love to see the experiments confirming this hypothesis. If you point me to some peer reviewed papers, I will add them to the page in the link I mentioned. From the minimal research I did, professional psychologists seem to believe there isn’t scientific evidence backing Myers Briggs. An obvious alternative hypothesis to what you describe here is that new behaviors start out being systematic and with enough practice become intuitive. I can’t recall where I heard it from, but there’s a theory that there’s 4 stages of knowing:
Under that model, a systematic response corresponds to the third stage, or perhaps even an inability to “let go” to get to the fourth stage (this can be a obstacle for musicians who get consumed by the technical aspect of music). Perhaps though in this case it’s the wrong model, and as you suggest, “feeling” is a talent that cannot be learnt.
...to suggest that undesirable traits are inevitable or intrinsic is something I do object to. But I also object to assertions that personalities are not (to a significant extent) intrinsic...
I agree. In fact, one of the most useful things I could imagine for personal development would be a table telling me the extent to which personality traits can be changed. Myers Briggs however, has a fairly extreme stance here, asserting the dimensions are intrinsic. Wikipedia:
The Myers-Briggs typology model regards personality type as similar to left or right handedness: individuals are either born with, or develop, certain preferred ways of thinking and acting.
Some minor niggles:
Closed/J types tend to be more interested in (and so proficient at) forcing such judgements on others.
were you saying that J is correlated with being judgmental? I thought Myers Briggs explicitly tried to avoid saying that. Wikipedia seems to confirm here:
Note that the terms used for each dichotomy have specific technical meanings relating to the MBTI which differ from their everyday usage. For example, people who prefer judgment over perception are not necessarily more judgmental or less perceptive.
and perhaps a technical error here:
P vs J somewhat relates, for example, with ‘Open and Closed’ from the big 5.
s-N is the one that’s primarily correlated with Openess. Wikipedia here:
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) measures the preference of “intuition,” which is related to openness to experience.
Personally, I’ve found it really hard to correctly apply these correlations in real life. The noise in the theory will increase with the noise generated by me applying the theory. Even if a personality theory has some truth to it, it’s often the case that its typically usage ends up operating at the noise floor along with astrology. I noticed you almost seemed shocked to find out someone was an ‘S’. Was your surprise appropriately correlated with the correlations?
I guess I’m in the position, like most other people, of being a forced amateur psychologist. As a consumer of the pop-psychology available to the masses, I can give my vote as to whether a theory or technique has had a favorable help/hinder ratio. The ones that I’ve found the most helpful have challenged me to change what I thought I couldn’t, and the ones that have hindered me have drawn grid-lines and told me how I can deal with living in my allocated square. The helpful ones also seem to talk about universal principles of human nature, rather than getting bogged down in categorization. Books like How to Win Friends and Influence People have been vastly more helpful to my personal development than Myers Briggs.
I still haven’t addressed all your points (I’d like to hear more about how you overcome Akrasia), but this comment is getting ridiculously long and quite possibly boring so I’ll stop here for now.
were you saying that J is correlated with being judgmental? I thought Myers Briggs explicitly tried to avoid saying that.
I would expect a correlation of ‘judgemental’ with ‘J’ only along the same lines I would expect ‘P’ to be correlated with akrasia and ‘T’ to be correlated with ‘emotionally blind’. For that matter, along the same lines I would expect the darkness of people’s skin to be correlated positively with running speed and negatively correlated with swimming performance. So, with all the reasons both practical and political not to make a big deal of the correlation.
What I more specifically suggested in that tangental phrase was that ‘J’ type thinking is probably a more useful tool when it comes to social influence than ‘P’ thinking is.
That’s a very interesting thought. I’d love to see the experiments confirming this hypothesis. If you point me to some peer reviewed papers, I will add them to the page in the link I mentioned. From the minimal research I did, professional psychologists seem to believe there isn’t scientific evidence backing Myers Briggs.
I would tend to agree with that. In fact, I would be shocked if the MBTI was found to be the optimal way to carve up the correlations between the multitude of small traits into 16 arbitrary categories. I would love to see more research done collecting all of the information that ‘personality test’ questions collect, adding in some DNA test results and seeing what correlations can be found. For now I’ve seen enough (eg. Twin tests on the big 5) to conclude that a significant amount of personality is genetic but I know the systems we have for describing personality right now are abysmal.
An obvious alternative hypothesis to what you describe here is that new behaviors start out being systematic and with enough practice become intuitive. I can’t recall where I heard it from, but there’s a theory that there’s 4 stages of knowing
That’s one of Abraham Maslow’s ideas. Of all the educational philosophers they paraded in front of us while I was doing my Di. Ed. I have to say Maslow was the most interesting (to me). I certainly preferred him to de Bono and his thinking hats and it is less ‘arbitrary’ than Gardener and his ‘multiple intelligences’ that my professors loved so much.
I don’t think ‘the stages of knowing’ have been the subject of any explicit scientific investigation but the concepts do seem to have direct relevance to the research on developing expertise that Ericsson is noted for collecting and compiling (first in his own book and then in the handbook.) There is solid research on the impact of training intervention that can described as moving from ‘unconscious’ to ‘conscious and there are entirely different training needs for developing ‘conscious competence’ than for moving ‘conscious skills’ to ‘unconscious’. We can even have studies (on basketball free throw shooting) that can predict how different motivations work best in for each stage.
I’ve followed you down that tangent a bit (It’s a subject I’m fascinated by!) but how does this relate to what I was saying about possible Think/Feel differences? It is somewhat isomorphic. Anyone (without a significant dissability) can gain skill then expertise in, well, more or less anything. But there are preferences and tendencies in response that people will naturally take unless they are motivated to train themselves (or are coercively trained) to do it differently. An example:
If my sister sees a kid that has been punched in the nose by a bully she will naturally inclined to comfort the victim. I will be naturally inclined to go and beat the bully to a pulp. Now, my sister can go learn martial arts and train herself to implement a policy of vigilante justice if she wants to. Likewise, I can learn what is most effective in comforting victims and hold my rightious anger in check somewhat. But there is a clear difference of personality here. One that is influenced by, but not directly determined by, testosterone in the brain both right now and during developmental stages. This is a different difference to T vs F but it is one that is more obvious and one that I can actually describe reasonably. I just haven’t looked into MBTI all that much in the last 10 years or so.
I have no desire to have let alone perpetuate bad ideas—and it really does sound like you’re aware of some obvious mistakes I’ve made here. If you can explain why my judgement is flawed, I will update my views on the matter, and update the comment accordingly, acknowledging you for the guidance.
I respect your response, since I know that such a passionate disagreement with a position you have mentioned can feel like a personal affront.
What makes me uncomfortable is the assumption a ‘T’ cannot appreciate another persons feelings until they ‘mature’ into an ″F”. The difference isn’t in whether or not they can understand, empathise with and care about other people’s feelings. Some people for example have developed the ability to ellicit feelings from others but respond to them in a way that is more systematic than intuitive. More ‘shutting up and multiplying’ for example. They may even ‘shut up, multiply and decide to respond by giving verbal or physical comfort as appropriate’. But there is still an actual difference in how their internal thought processes are operating and this will often lead two people who have different responses to judge the other as being immature, uncaring or irrational when they are merely different.
I perhaps object to the P vs J distinction here more because while I am balanced between ‘T’ and ‘F’ I am extremely biased towards perception rather than judgement. And when I am most successful at non-Akrasia I am perhaps even more my natural ‘P’ self than at those times I get bogged down in Akrasia. Again, I’m not necissarily endorsing the Myers Briggs system as the best way of describing the different personalities. But I am asserting that there is a real difference. P vs J somewhat relates, for example, with ‘Open and Closed’ from the big 5. “You need to stop being a P and be more of a J” is the kind of thing a Closed/J would say. And, well, Closed/J types tend to be more interested in (and so proficient at) forcing such judgements on others. I, instead, say “you need to continue being a P but get your F@#$ $#!t together to achieve the kinds of things that you (a P) want to achieve, whether or not it looks good to a J”.
Jumping back to your original comment, I may be in ‘violent agreement’ with this part:
The way you descibed ‘T’ and ‘P’ I would perhaps refer to as the labels ‘inconsiderate’ and ‘lazy’. Using descriptions of personality as a way to suggest that undesirable traits are inevitable or intrinsic is something I do object to. But I also object to assertions that personalities are not (to a significant extent) intrinsic or that people can (and implicitly should) mould themselves to fit the ‘better’ (F/J) shape.
Thanks for your response. FWIW someone once tried to give me some Myers Briggs P to P mentoring, upon which he exclaimed: “Embrace your P-ness!”. Needless to say that sounded much better in his head.
That’s a very interesting thought. I’d love to see the experiments confirming this hypothesis. If you point me to some peer reviewed papers, I will add them to the page in the link I mentioned. From the minimal research I did, professional psychologists seem to believe there isn’t scientific evidence backing Myers Briggs. An obvious alternative hypothesis to what you describe here is that new behaviors start out being systematic and with enough practice become intuitive. I can’t recall where I heard it from, but there’s a theory that there’s 4 stages of knowing:
Unconscious incompetence → conscious incompetence → conscious competence → unconscious competence.
Under that model, a systematic response corresponds to the third stage, or perhaps even an inability to “let go” to get to the fourth stage (this can be a obstacle for musicians who get consumed by the technical aspect of music). Perhaps though in this case it’s the wrong model, and as you suggest, “feeling” is a talent that cannot be learnt.
I agree. In fact, one of the most useful things I could imagine for personal development would be a table telling me the extent to which personality traits can be changed. Myers Briggs however, has a fairly extreme stance here, asserting the dimensions are intrinsic. Wikipedia:
Some minor niggles:
were you saying that J is correlated with being judgmental? I thought Myers Briggs explicitly tried to avoid saying that. Wikipedia seems to confirm here:
and perhaps a technical error here:
s-N is the one that’s primarily correlated with Openess. Wikipedia here:
Personally, I’ve found it really hard to correctly apply these correlations in real life. The noise in the theory will increase with the noise generated by me applying the theory. Even if a personality theory has some truth to it, it’s often the case that its typically usage ends up operating at the noise floor along with astrology. I noticed you almost seemed shocked to find out someone was an ‘S’. Was your surprise appropriately correlated with the correlations?
I guess I’m in the position, like most other people, of being a forced amateur psychologist. As a consumer of the pop-psychology available to the masses, I can give my vote as to whether a theory or technique has had a favorable help/hinder ratio. The ones that I’ve found the most helpful have challenged me to change what I thought I couldn’t, and the ones that have hindered me have drawn grid-lines and told me how I can deal with living in my allocated square. The helpful ones also seem to talk about universal principles of human nature, rather than getting bogged down in categorization. Books like How to Win Friends and Influence People have been vastly more helpful to my personal development than Myers Briggs.
I still haven’t addressed all your points (I’d like to hear more about how you overcome Akrasia), but this comment is getting ridiculously long and quite possibly boring so I’ll stop here for now.
I would expect a correlation of ‘judgemental’ with ‘J’ only along the same lines I would expect ‘P’ to be correlated with akrasia and ‘T’ to be correlated with ‘emotionally blind’. For that matter, along the same lines I would expect the darkness of people’s skin to be correlated positively with running speed and negatively correlated with swimming performance. So, with all the reasons both practical and political not to make a big deal of the correlation.
What I more specifically suggested in that tangental phrase was that ‘J’ type thinking is probably a more useful tool when it comes to social influence than ‘P’ thinking is.
I would tend to agree with that. In fact, I would be shocked if the MBTI was found to be the optimal way to carve up the correlations between the multitude of small traits into 16 arbitrary categories. I would love to see more research done collecting all of the information that ‘personality test’ questions collect, adding in some DNA test results and seeing what correlations can be found. For now I’ve seen enough (eg. Twin tests on the big 5) to conclude that a significant amount of personality is genetic but I know the systems we have for describing personality right now are abysmal.
That’s one of Abraham Maslow’s ideas. Of all the educational philosophers they paraded in front of us while I was doing my Di. Ed. I have to say Maslow was the most interesting (to me). I certainly preferred him to de Bono and his thinking hats and it is less ‘arbitrary’ than Gardener and his ‘multiple intelligences’ that my professors loved so much.
I don’t think ‘the stages of knowing’ have been the subject of any explicit scientific investigation but the concepts do seem to have direct relevance to the research on developing expertise that Ericsson is noted for collecting and compiling (first in his own book and then in the handbook.) There is solid research on the impact of training intervention that can described as moving from ‘unconscious’ to ‘conscious and there are entirely different training needs for developing ‘conscious competence’ than for moving ‘conscious skills’ to ‘unconscious’. We can even have studies (on basketball free throw shooting) that can predict how different motivations work best in for each stage.
I’ve followed you down that tangent a bit (It’s a subject I’m fascinated by!) but how does this relate to what I was saying about possible Think/Feel differences? It is somewhat isomorphic. Anyone (without a significant dissability) can gain skill then expertise in, well, more or less anything. But there are preferences and tendencies in response that people will naturally take unless they are motivated to train themselves (or are coercively trained) to do it differently. An example:
If my sister sees a kid that has been punched in the nose by a bully she will naturally inclined to comfort the victim. I will be naturally inclined to go and beat the bully to a pulp. Now, my sister can go learn martial arts and train herself to implement a policy of vigilante justice if she wants to. Likewise, I can learn what is most effective in comforting victims and hold my rightious anger in check somewhat. But there is a clear difference of personality here. One that is influenced by, but not directly determined by, testosterone in the brain both right now and during developmental stages. This is a different difference to T vs F but it is one that is more obvious and one that I can actually describe reasonably. I just haven’t looked into MBTI all that much in the last 10 years or so.