Objectively speaking, that is not so. I am part of an engineering community that has used it productively for many years. Thus apparently it is possible for some of your fellow humans to find it more than borderline useless. I suspect you haven’t really given it a good try.
When I took the test, it classified me as an introvert. Since I prefer to be thought of as an extrovert, I changed my type accordingly. Because the test is not very helpful.
Additionally, I reliably find that when I am in the company of other declared NF’s we understand each other easily.
Perhaps you think there is a better preference indication heuristic. I have seen several, but MBTI is my favorite so far.
Anyway my point is: criticizing it as being a poor instrument to categorize people is thinking about it all wrong. We categorize ourselves.
Damn that's super interesting.
The test itself is useless, but self-identifying into a the scheme accompanied with the aforementioned useless test helps you find likeminded people. People you allegedly find that you work better with.
It's a shame that there is no way to self-identify into anything else, and find like-minded people, without relying on a thoroughly antiquated pseudoscientific bullshit classification system.
My point is this:
Praising MB for letting you self-categorise into a scheme that, on the surface, generates better team dynamics than no system at all is giving credit to systematising. It is not giving credit to MB.
Try this self-categorisation system out, and see if it out-performs no system: knowledgeable / unknowledgeable.
Depends on what you're trying to achieve.
If you're looking for insights on yourself: then being asked a question, to have the answer you gave fed back to you with a pretense of insightfulness will easily be outcompeted by staring at a mirror for 10 minutes.
If you're trying to generate complementary group dynamics: sort people by interests and spread them out.
If you're trying to generate efficient groups: sort people by interests and don't spread them out.
Literally the worst kind of systematising will go toe-to-toe with MB.
There isn't a better alternative because the premise you can understand and predict behavior by assigning a few labels based on a few specific questions is bunk science
satisfice|4 years ago
When I took the test, it classified me as an introvert. Since I prefer to be thought of as an extrovert, I changed my type accordingly. Because the test is not very helpful.
Additionally, I reliably find that when I am in the company of other declared NF’s we understand each other easily.
Perhaps you think there is a better preference indication heuristic. I have seen several, but MBTI is my favorite so far.
Anyway my point is: criticizing it as being a poor instrument to categorize people is thinking about it all wrong. We categorize ourselves.
TenToedTony|4 years ago
rlili|4 years ago
TenToedTony|4 years ago
If you're trying to generate efficient groups: sort people by interests and don't spread them out. Literally the worst kind of systematising will go toe-to-toe with MB.
errantmind|4 years ago