Whaddya Mean Personality Types Are Complex?
http://introvertdear.com/2015/03/10/science-says-there-are-4-kinds-of-introverts/
I keep saying that the type categories are not binary. I refer to myself as a social introvert, although I'm also a thinking introvert according to this scale.
People think the type systems are crap because they're under the erroneous belief that the systems are the same thing as the tests. They're not. All the tests are crap. All of them. Some are slightly better than others, but the best thing I can say about the tests is that they might help narrow down the number of type categories you should be looking at to determine your type. And that's another thing - YOU determine your own type, not the tests. It's not like a horoscope where you're assigned a category based on totally arbitrary criteria. It's self-referencing. The tests can sometimes rule out certain categories so that you don't have to waste time reading all of them to determine your type. But that's the best they can do.
However, as my resident type expert keeps saying, and as he said during his lecture at Dragoncon, the tests are not the same as the system.
There is variability in the systems too, and some systems are better than others. But, generally speaking, the better systems aren't binary. The tests may ask binary questions, but the SYSTEM offers a spectrum. You're 68% introverted & 32% extroverted, or whatever. The better systems also acknowledge that we all have some of every category, it's just that we tend to have preferences or we tend to do some things more often than others. Much like being right or left handed, those of us with two hands use both of them all the time, but we have a dominant hand, one that takes on more of the tasks or the more complex or strength-oriented tasks. Even ambidextrous people usually have a tendency to choose a particular hand over another, perhaps for certain tasks. That's what the systems are measuring - preferences, not absolutes.
They also usually only cover personality from a specific angle and won't cover other things. For instance, mental health issues are usually separate from personality type systems even though they affect your personality. And they're not terribly predictive - they can't tell you which profession you should enter, for example. They might be indicative of your happiness in a very specific work environment (a strong J surrounded by strong P types in a particular office that's really chaotic might feel frustrated at work often, for example), but really, all the industries require a mix of personalities to cover all the wide, varied tasks involved in making that industry run. They can't tell you who to marry either, but they might help explain why your partner does certain things and offer ways to work with each other over conflicts so that you both get what you need. And, to stretch the handedness analogy, the test for handedness won't tell you what your eye prescription is or what color your hair is. The different type systems tend to focus on certain aspects of personality over others, so there is not one over-arching system that will cover all elements of who you are (although some systems are more useful and more accurate than others).
Type is actually a very complex discipline that can take years of study. It's not as simple as taking an online quiz and now you're locked into a box. I can tell you my MBTI letters, for example, but that barely scratches the surface, even if we stick just with MBTI. As a former partner learned the hard way, you can't treat people based on their type category alone because we're not a monolith even within the more complex type systems. Our individual expression and individual experience of our type categories will manifest in unique combinations, making us all individuals who just happen to have a few things in common enough to loosely group us together. They can be useful for interpersonal communication and for conflict resolution, but that's about it. And I say that as a strong supporter of using type systems.