← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Quantrill
Thread ID: 16312 | Posts: 24 | Started: 2005-01-14
2005-01-14 20:35 | User Profile
I was just curious as to how many folks here are familiar with the Meyers-Briggs Personality Profile, and of those, how many have taken the test or know their type. I am extremely skeptical of psychology's pretensions as a hard science, but I think this test can be useful. As long as you don't take its results as gospel truth, and you realize that people can act differently in different contexts, I think there is something to be gained by reading over the profile of your own 'type'. A free on-line version of the test can be found here: [url="http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm"]http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm[/url]
Profiles of each type can be found here: [url="http://www.personalitypage.com/portraits.html"]http://www.personalitypage.com/portraits.html[/url]
By the way, I am an INTP.
2005-01-14 21:25 | User Profile
Interesting, Q. Thanks.
I was an INTJ, FWIW.
2005-01-14 22:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]I was just curious as to how many folks here are familiar with the Meyers-Briggs Personality Profile, and of those, how many have taken the test or know their type. [/QUOTE]Its well known that there are actually only two types of personalities, those that like and need personality tests and those who don't.
The tie in of "the psychlogical regime" with totalitarianism has been discussed recently on this forum.
2005-01-14 22:10 | User Profile
I recently spent a full day "bonding" with coworkers while "interpreting" the results of our taking a variant of this.
My boss was steamed when his test showed that his personality type was exactly opposite of the one required for his position and profession. Could have saved him the trouble there; maybe there is some truth to the thing.
However, I prefer endlessly administering to myself the classic of classics, The F Scale test:
[url]http://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm[/url]
This determines your level of Authoritarian Personality tendencies and was brought to us by the good Presbyterians of the Frankfurt School. I usually score, depending on my mood, just to the right of Il Duce.
2005-01-14 23:30 | User Profile
[QUOTE=weisbrot]However, I prefer endlessly administering to myself the classic of classics, The F Scale test:
[url]http://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm[/url]
This determines your level of Authoritarian Personality tendencies and was brought to us by the good Presbyterians of the Frankfurt School. I usually score, depending on my mood, just to the right of Il Duce.[/QUOTE]
Is that all there is? It seems so simple. and so brazenly a pure test for political and social conservatism.
In general that's my problem with personality tests. As a pure scientist, I figure any real personality test requires some degree of opaqueness to the subject regarding the objectives of the question, to give some degree of real insight. But I think I've been brought up implicitely to expect too much.
2005-01-14 23:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Its well known that there are actually only two types of personalities, those that like and need personality tests and those who don't.
The tie in of "the psychlogical regime" with totalitarianism has been discussed recently on this forum.[/QUOTE] I think that attempts to understand basic personality types are valid. These are not panaceas. They are not hard science. They should be taken with a grain of salt. No individual type is any better than any other type. People's types can change. As one tool you can use to examine your own habits and ways of thinking, however, these tests have their place.
2005-01-15 00:48 | User Profile
ISTJ.
I forgot my F-Test score, I think when I took that test last it was 4.86 or something--basically it told me "try doing more things with your left hand" or something like that.
2005-01-15 01:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]I think that attempts to understand basic personality types are valid. These are not panaceas. They are not hard science. They should be taken with a grain of salt. No individual type is any better than any other type. People's types can change. As one tool you can use to examine your own habits and ways of thinking, however, these tests have their place.[/QUOTE]Noted conservative sociologist James Davison Hunter discusses the general role of psychology, which he calls "the psychological regime", in one of his latest books, [I]The Death of Character[/I]. It was pretty interesting. Succinctly he is not to positive concerning it, especially its overuse, as are other conservative writers I've read.
Basically he points out psychology attempts to fill a lot of the functions other humanistic (in the broad sense, as in humanities) filled in areas of greater culture richness. To me there is just a basic poverty in the scientific outlook on man, which makes genuinely valuble conclusions from psychology rather sparse. It is just characteristic of a society that now looks to the sciences for quick, "gimmicky" solutions to difficult sociopolitical problems.
2005-01-15 01:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Is that all there is? It seems so simple. and so brazenly a pure test for political and social conservatism. The F-test seems like BS to me, too.
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]In general that's my problem with personality tests. As a pure scientist, I figure any real personality test requires some degree of opaqueness to the subject regarding the objectives of the question, to give some degree of real insight. But I think I've been brought up implicitely to expect too much.[/QUOTE] That is a good point. Once you understand the dimensions the Meyers-Briggs test is trying to quantify, then it becomes very possible to 'game' the test. Also, this free free on-line test is shorter than the actual pen-and-paper test, so I have no idea if it produces the same results as the real one. I just thought it would stimulate some discussion. After all, everybody needs a break from the Thirty-years War, right Okie? :wink:
2005-01-15 01:14 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust] Basically he points out psychology attempts to fill a lot of the functions other humanistic (in the broad sense, as in humanities) filled in areas of greater culture richness. To me there is just a basic poverty in the scientific outlook on man, which makes genuinely valuble conclusions from psychology rather sparse. It is just characteristic of a society that now looks to the sciences for quick, "gimmicky" solutions to difficult sociopolitical problems.[/QUOTE] I agree with this. I don't think personality types explain anything at all. They are rather more like taxonomy.
2005-01-15 01:27 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]I agree with this. I don't think personality types explain anything at all. They are rather more like taxonomy.[/QUOTE]Well it goes back to your basic understanding of personality, which in turn goes back to your worldview and view of man.
I think there are good branches of psychology, (Kevin MacDonald works in one) Naturally though personality tests tend to come though from those branches of psychology associated with educational/therapeutic enterprises, with their puerile, trivializing adolescent assumptions. (where of course the multicultural propogandists like the Eric Fromm school groupies also concentrate)
2005-01-15 01:28 | User Profile
Quantrill,
Interesting topic you started. I am a ISTJ. My F-Test score was 4.7
:cheers:
2005-01-15 05:13 | User Profile
INTJ here. I suspect that a lot of paleo-cons run this way, fwiw.
2005-01-15 10:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Interesting, Q. Thanks.
I was an INTJ, FWIW.[/QUOTE]
ENFP, but they told me I could be an INFP since I was basically right on the cusp. It seems to make sense.
2005-01-15 12:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]ENFP, but they told me I could be an INFP since I was basically right on the cusp. It seems to make sense.[/QUOTE] I would be surprised if the vast majority of posters here were not 'I's. If anyone was going to be an 'E' (even a marginal one) it makes sense that it would be you, since you strike me as more gregarious than most of us.
2005-01-15 15:12 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]I would be surprised if the vast majority of posters here were not 'I's. If anyone was going to be an 'E' (even a marginal one) it makes sense that it would be you, since you strike me as more gregarious than most of us.[/QUOTE]
For kicks I took another test online today and I came up "I" this time, although again very weakly "I".
I am quite gregarious when the mood hits me. Other than that, I think that the description of the INFP fits me to a "T."
Maybe I'm sort of a I-to-E amphibian, open and closed by turns.
2005-01-15 16:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]The F-test seems like BS to me, too.[/QUOTE]
Well, yes. Consider the source. In the end, the same source as the Meyers-Briggs. I would agree that the interpretations can reflect certain characteristics common to groups of people. They can also appeal to the characteristics individuals hope or intend to display to others. I think these tests tend to emphasize that desire and use each person's natural tendency to display that image while categorizing people in groupings that display characteristics mostly of the test-makers own creation, at least as they are interpreted by analysis of the progressive sort. The world becomes one big Seinfeld show, starring You the gentile.
It seems like a stretch to accept that the questions elicit valid, applicable responses, even in the aggregate. And then to accept that the interpretation applied to those responses is valid. And finally to accept the conclusions reached from those interpretations have any meaning whatsoever- well, that seems to me to be similar to accepting without question the presentation of the American "Civil War" given by historians and Hollywood, or the history behind WWI given by same, or that diversity is our strength, etc. These distortions all come from the same source, and the Frankfurt School combined with the "science" of psychology are amplifiers of said distortions.
I'm an IDGAH.
2005-01-15 19:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE=weisbrot]Well, yes. Consider the source. In the end, the same source as the Meyers-Briggs.
So you're saying jewish organizations and politicized pathologization are a general characteristic of "personality" tests? Seems a reasonable hypothesis, but I'm not a student of the field.
They can also appeal to the characteristics individuals hope or intend to display to others. I think these tests tend to emphasize that desire and use each person's natural tendency to display that image while categorizing people in groupings that display characteristics mostly of the test-makers own creation, at least as they are interpreted by analysis of the progressive sort. That sounds like a very good interpretation to me.
The world becomes one big Seinfeld show, starring You the gentile. Presumably as Kramer :lol:
2005-01-16 04:56 | User Profile
The test says I'm an INTP.
2005-01-16 06:19 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]So you're saying jewish organizations and politicized pathologization are a general characteristic of "personality" tests? Seems a reasonable hypothesis, but I'm not a student of the field.
That sounds like a very good interpretation to me.
Presumably as Kramer :lol:[/QUOTE]
The tests were developed by disciples of Carl Jung, who was a gentile. Jung as you very probably know broke with the very Jewish Freud and started his own school.
Like you I'm no expert, but query how much Jewish influence is likely in the Jungain school.
2005-01-19 04:29 | User Profile
I took the F scale test and finished at 4.233333333: disciplined but tolerant; a true American.
2005-01-21 16:12 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]The tests were developed by disciples of Carl Jung, who was a gentile. Jung as you very probably know broke with the very Jewish Freud and started his own school.
Like you I'm no expert, but query how much Jewish influence is likely in the Jungain school.[/QUOTE] Just to clarify, the Meyers-Briggs test was based upon Jungian theory. The test that Weisbrot mentioned, the F-test, is purely a product of Frankfurt School Marxist Jews. The former, I think, has some validity. The latter, I'm certain, is total BS.
2005-01-21 21:14 | User Profile
I'm INFP. F scale 3.1.
2005-01-22 01:33 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]Just to clarify, the Meyers-Briggs test was based upon Jungian theory. The test that Weisbrot mentioned, the F-test, is purely a product of Frankfurt School Marxist Jews. The former, I think, has some validity. The latter, I'm certain, is total BS.[/QUOTE]A large part of Chapter 6 of [I]Culture of Critique[/I] of course was devoted to critiquing the F-test, along with other psychological products of Frankfurt School Critical Theory like [I]The Authoritarian Personality[/I].
MacDonald mentions [I]The Authoritarian Personality[/I] still has enormous influence even today (measured in cites etc.). One can imagine how strong its influence was when these tests came out. Although like I say I'm not a close student here.