INTJ

[tongodeon]

Psych student killingmoon took the Myers-Briggs type indicator test recently and got an INTJ, which was my rating when I took the test a few years ago. Her write-up does not contain much that I can find fault with

Comments

[jwgh]

I think pretty much everyone is one of those people about something. (Most tortured grammar of the day.)

[killingmoon]

actually, the MBTI was based on the typology developed by C.G. Jung,
who was one of the most influential folks in psychology in the 20th century!

[killingmoon]

well, of course.
A lot of psychology can't be empirically validated,
that is just the reality of it.
That is why insurance companies have endorsed
shorter-term, behavioral-based therapies more than
longer-term, other kinds of therapies (psychoanalysis,
narrative, self psychology, object relations, etc etc).
Not to mention short-term therapies are more cost-effective.
That doesn't mean other therapies don't work.
You can still get significant data from qualitative studies.
While quantitative studies seem to show that cog-B or say, solution-focused therapy, are more effective on paper than other kinds of therapies;
this should be looked at with caution, as behavioral
therapies are just easier to analyze with scientific methodology,
due to scales and other measures of behavioral change.
That doesn't say much about attitude changes or greater insight.
Anyway, this is obviously a very complicated issue...
I guess the message I want to get across here is
not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[killingmoon]

I'm taking the MMPI test next month sometime...
so that should be interesting.
I'm learning how to administer it & read the results.

[sandwichgirl]

that's funny, i was just going to comment: "for a good time, you should try out the MMPI."

it was required to take it in order to spend the winter in antarctica. i'm no psychologist, but i think this test is absolutely ridiculous, especially in regards to the job i was about to preform. the first time i took it, i didn't pass. my answers were 'inconsistent' therefore 'invalid.' on this test there is no grey area. you either read the newspaper everyday, or you never read it. you either always have wanted to be a florist, or you hate flowers. you can't 'kind of' enjoy fixing a door latch. i have a problem with this. i did an immature lj writeup on my experience, but i locked it because i am paranoid.

some faves:
#292: The things that some of my family have done have freightenend me
#293: I almost never dream
#294: My neck spots with red often

and of course, at the end of the test:

#549: In everything I do lately I feel that I am being tested.

[killingmoon]

yeah, I've heard the questions are really arbitrary...
and I've also heard from folks that have administered it that if you answer outside the norm on the gender and sexuality questions it points to "deviancy"...answers tending towards homosexuality are still seen as deviant, for example. I tend to think that's a whole lot of bullshit...like if you are a biological woman and answer as too "masculine", that's somehow problematic as well...but that's all Western society's problem, imho. That said, I'm still interested to take it.

[sandwichgirl]

yes yes, it is definitely interesting. i love taking it. the questions still make me giggle. i mean, i don't know what they want to hear from a carhartt-sporting female forklift operator who wants to spend the winter managing warehouses, organizing compressed gases, freezing her ass off and refilling propane on a small remote outpost with 91 men and 28 women. but, you know. maybe it means i'm gay.

[kraquehaus]

I am going to make the time to take the test, but more so, to document my thought process while taking it.

These and most other similar tests irritate me because I can usually answer questions in either direction depending on how I read them.

The human mind is too complex a system to be placed with weights and measures on a scale. (e.g., Introverted (I) vs. Extraverted (E): I could be described equally as either, but it is much more complicated than that. How can you place values on such a complex thing as human interactions?)

[waider]

The point is not that you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. The point is that your beauty and uniqueness and snowflakosity are on a scale from one to ten, and there's a good chance that there are some people with values similar if not identical to yours, and based on enough data it's possible to make some roundabout predictions on your behaviour based on where your snowflake melts (to stretch the metaphor to breaking point).

You may wish to consider that there are, for the purposes of marketing, a mere handful of types of people. I can't recall the exact number, but it's in the low double digits. Human interactions aren't really that complex at all, but we'd like to think they are in order to feel a little better about ourselves.

[kraquehaus]

I think we are more complex than you make us out to be. I feel it to be a duality to some extent; one the one hand we are rats in a cage, on the other the oddities and subtle differences come out giving our cages a location called Nimh. i.e., I only disagree with one hand.

I have no problem with these tests being used as a yard stick, but I do have a problem with them being used as volumetric flasks of the mind.

Yes, I just typed, "volumetric flasks of the mind," but I kinda think it is awesome.

[waider]

Let us agree on the awesomeness of the phrase, and leave the complexity of interaction question to one side, then!

[fibbery]

I am an INTJ too, although I tend to think of that as my "ideal self" since I feel I answer the questions from the perspective of who I want to be. I am not always rational, but my goals/values are placed on being rational.