There's a brief but amusing section about the Meyers Briggs test in The Big Test which I don't have on hand, but which basically says the same as this extract from the wikipedia entry: The MBTI has not been validated by double-blind tests, in which participants accept reports written for other participants, and are asked whether or not the report suits them, and thus may not qualify as a scientific assessment. The MBTI has also been criticised on the two measures of any psychometric test: validity and reliability. Test retest reliability is considered to be low, with test takers who retake the test often being assigned a different type. Validity has been questioned on theoretical grounds.
The (un)reliability bit (in the technical statistical sense of the word "reliable"), is what you're running into, as do very many people.
This is why I only take double-blind validated personality tests, such as OK Cupid's "Which hairstyle of Jennifer Love Hewitt are you?" I'm #3 hairstyle, FYI.
Re: The Big TestsubstituteApril 11 2006, 21:01:28 UTC
Personality tests, for me, mostly belong as livejournal paste jobs. I'm sure that some of them if used judiciously by smart people can be helpful, but the widespread use of things like the MTBI and MMPI is probably not for the best.
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The MBTI has not been validated by double-blind tests, in which participants accept reports written for other participants, and are asked whether or not the report suits them, and thus may not qualify as a scientific assessment. The MBTI has also been criticised on the two measures of any psychometric test: validity and reliability. Test retest reliability is considered to be low, with test takers who retake the test often being assigned a different type. Validity has been questioned on theoretical grounds.
The (un)reliability bit (in the technical statistical sense of the word "reliable"), is what you're running into, as do very many people.
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I've never looked at her hair.
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