myers briggs - what are you ?

[FridgeMagnet]

The last time I took it I got Twilight Sparkle.



It was the full scientific version I did, not one of those knock-off internet ones.

 

[Greebo]

ISTP OTOH that's while still returning to full lucidity, so it's maybe not an indication of normal personality.

 

[8115]

ISFJ (defender). I think that's actually quite accurate.

 

[existentialist]

My ENFP-A personality leads me to believe that I, like everyone else, sees horoscope guff in this (apart from the flattering bits, which are all true). Not done it for years so I can't remember how it came out before.

My Scorpio birthsign leads me, similarly, to be sceptical of horoscopes.

 

[Supine]

....anyone done that Insights one.....?

...that makes you a mix of 4 colours...same idea - based on Jung's 4 basic types - personally I found it spookily accurate for me based on a quite innocuous seeming questionnaire...( I'm very blue )

I have a set of those feckin bricks. I'm predominantly blue but my previouse company wanted red in senior job positions. Even though your taught that the best teams are made from a mixture of colour personalities.

When things were going well at work the colour thing was used to compliment me. When going badly they were used against me.

Glad I left the company.

 

[Greebo]

ISFJ (defender). I think that's actually quite accurate.

ISWYDT

 

[NoXion]

I consistently come up as INTP on these kind of tests.

 

[N_igma]

Apparently at the moment I am a ESFJ-A which is odd because I am pretty sure I have never been one of those when I took the tests before.

This test is bollocks because I got the same and I'm certain that you and I are two very different people.

 

[Winot]

CONSUL (ESFJ-A)

Anyone tried the Enneagram?

 

[weltweit]

This test is bollocks because I got the same and I'm certain that you and I are two very different people.

hmm.. not sure what to make of that
If we both don't think we are ESFJ-A .. what do you think you are / I am?

 

[N_igma]

hmm.. not sure what to make of that
If we both don't think we are ESFJ-A .. what do you think you are / I am?

I am me and you are you

 

[Cheesypoof]

Being INFP, i enjoy the company of other humans but it's nicer being alone.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Myers-brigg was the first time I came across introvert/extrovert descriptions etc in any real way and it really helped me understand myself.

Reading the descriptions I recognised more or less everything on the introvert and nothing on the extrovert, you couldn't give me a description for an extrovert and have me think the test had worked, so I think it's got more to it than horoscopes too, but they definitely do that thing of being vague and universalish statements.

But really I just enjoy taking these kind of tests cos they struggle to categorise me.

But half the questions are basically just, 'are you an introvert or an extrovert' so it's not really that impressive that they manage to put most people at the right end of that (imaginary) dichotomy.

The trick is not describing who you are. Nobody wants to know that. The trick is describing you as you see yourself. Hence shy people are told that it's in their nature to be shy and they should stay that way, while look-at-me types are told that it's entirely right and natural that they keep making themselves the centre of attention. It's fine if you don't want to let other people express themselves, because they don't want to anyway. And it's fine if you want to curl up in your shell and stay there, because that's where you fucking belong.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Incidentally, my personality type is STFU.

 

[SpookyFrank]

And why is there no personality type called 'the arsehole' ?

I expect we've all met quite a few of them, more than enough to identify certain common personality traits which many of them share. But no, everyone is a 'mediator' or a 'protector' or a 'unicorn whisperer' or some shit. We're all just different kinds of wonderful. Especially our bosses who make us take these tests and then demand to know what sort of people we are because when you buy someone's time, you're entitled to know in the innermost workings of their soul.

 

[lazythursday]

But half the questions are basically just, 'are you an introvert or an extrovert' so it's not really that impressive that they manage to put most people at the right end of that (imaginary) dichotomy.

The trick is not describing who you are. Nobody wants to know that. The trick is describing you as you see yourself. Hence shy people are told that it's in their nature to be shy and they should stay that way, while look-at-me types are told that it's entirely right and natural that they keep making themselves the centre of attention. It's fine if you don't want to let other people express themselves, because they don't want to anyway. And it's fine if you want to curl up in your shell and stay there, because that's where you fucking belong.

I agree that no-one should be put in a box if they don't want to be there but I think you're misunderstanding the nature of introversion / extraversion within Jungian psychology. It's not about being shy / being loud (not all introverts are shy) - it's about how your brain works, what type of activity gratifies you.

It made me realise I've spent a lot of time in my life trying to be something I'm not, trying to behave in ways that I find quite exhausting, and that there's nothing wrong with being the type of person I am. Our society tends to reward and champion extraverts and have an expectation of that type of behaviour.

Myers Briggs can be surprisingly useful in analysing, for instance, why you struggle to work with a certain person or why some particular problems are happening in your relationship. And it can be abused - I know of a case in an organisation where I used to work where HR people were adamant that a person should not be appointed Director on the basis of her Myers Brigg type. And she got the job and was extremely successful at it.

 

[BigTom]

But half the questions are basically just, 'are you an introvert or an extrovert' so it's not really that impressive that they manage to put most people at the right end of that (imaginary) dichotomy.

The trick is not describing who you are. Nobody wants to know that. The trick is describing you as you see yourself. Hence shy people are told that it's in their nature to be shy and they should stay that way, while look-at-me types are told that it's entirely right and natural that they keep making themselves the centre of attention. It's fine if you don't want to let other people express themselves, because they don't want to anyway. And it's fine if you want to curl up in your shell and stay there, because that's where you fucking belong.

I'm not saying it's impressive that it pigeon holes me correctly, it's not, they are input->output tests. I was saying that it's not quite like horoscopes, where you could pick a description of any star sign and find it matches you, because there's no way an extrovert description would give me something I recognise as myself.
If you don't know what introvert/extrovert is then asking indirect questions is good to find out, no point in asking if someone is an introvert or an extrovert if they don't know what those terms mean. I don't think the dichotomy is imaginary but the other scales I don't get the difference really, I think being at an extreme end of the scale makes you see it differently than if you're towards the middle.

My experience is basically the opposite of your second paragraph, it gave me a lot more confidence to be out in social situations and not worry that I wasn't being hugely social, which in turn has meant I'm much more able to be social because I am at least in situations where socialising is possible. Also has meant that I'm now less introverted than I was because I could identify the behaviours I wanted to change more easily and understand more about where they come from in my mind.

 

[DotCommunist]

you might as well appoint people to roles based on the I Ching, or a reading from a tarot deck

 

[SpookyFrank]

It made me realise I've spent a lot of time in my life trying to be something I'm not, trying to behave in ways that I find quite exhausting, and that there's nothing wrong with being the type of person I am. Our society tends to reward and champion extraverts and have an expectation of that type of behaviour.

Myers Briggs can be surprisingly useful in analysing, for instance, why you struggle to work with a certain person or why some particular problems are happening in your relationship. And it can be abused - I know of a case in an organisation where I used to work where HR people were adamant that a person should not be appointed Director on the basis of her Myers Brigg type. And she got the job and was extremely successful at it.

Now that you mention it I have noticed that all human conflict has pretty much ceased since these tests came along.

Sometimes I struggle to work with certain people because they're aresholes. Self-serving fucking arseholes. But there's no Meyers-Briggs type for that, there'll be a box they can put themselves in which makes them feel better about being an arsehole, but there's no box labelled 'arsehole'. Because all this stuff is about the individual, it's about reinforcing the illusion of the isolated self. So there's nothing in it which critiques selfishness or exploitation or anything like that. And why would there be, this shit was invented for managers after all.

 

[Supine]

And why is there no personality type called 'the arsehole' ?

I expect we've all met quite a few of them, more than enough to identify certain common personality traits which many of them share. But no, everyone is a 'mediator' or a 'protector' or a 'unicorn whisperer' or some shit. We're all just different kinds of wonderful. Especially our bosses who make us take these tests and then demand to know what sort of people we are because when you buy someone's time, you're entitled to know in the innermost workings of their soul.

The beauty of human variation is that you can be an arsehole wherever you end up on the myers briggs spectrum.

 

[BigTom]

Now that you mention it I have noticed that all human conflict has pretty much ceased since these tests came along.

Sometimes I struggle to work with certain people because they're aresholes. Self-serving fucking arseholes. But there's no Meyers-Briggs type for that, there'll be a box they can put themselves in which makes them feel better about being an arsehole, but there's no box labelled 'arsehole'. Because all this stuff is about the individual, it's about reinforcing the illusion of the isolated self. So there's nothing in it which critiques selfishness or exploitation or anything like that. And why would there be, this shit was invented for managers after all.

Nah, the Margeson-Mcann test I did for my current job is explicitly about teams, individuals do the test obviously but then they are put together to see what the spread of personality types is like in the team, it's not meant to be used to consider individuals, except in the context of whether a group of individuals will work as a team and what areas are lacking/need closer attention.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The beauty of human variation is that you can be an arsehole wherever you end up on the myers briggs spectrum.

Which is why that spectrum is a crock of shit. There's no 'human decency' metric in it.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Nah, the Margeson-Mcann test I did for my current job is explicitly about teams, individuals do the test obviously but then they are put together to see what the spread of personality types is like in the team, it's not meant to be used to consider individuals, except in the context of whether a group of individuals will work as a team and what areas are lacking/need closer attention.

That sounds incredibly fucking sinister to me.

 

[lazythursday]

Now that you mention it I have noticed that all human conflict has pretty much ceased since these tests came along.

Sometimes I struggle to work with certain people because they're aresholes. Self-serving fucking arseholes. But there's no Meyers-Briggs type for that, there'll be a box they can put themselves in which makes them feel better about being an arsehole, but there's no box labelled 'arsehole'. Because all this stuff is about the individual, it's about reinforcing the illusion of the isolated self. So there's nothing in it which critiques selfishness or exploitation or anything like that. And why would there be, this shit was invented for managers after all.

Oh this is bollocks - you can believe in class exploitation and that people fall into different psychological types at the same time. You can be any one of the Myers Brigg types and still be an arsehole. I think you're viewing this entirely through the prism of how some companies use these tests rather than looking at whether they have anything useful to tell us outside of that context.

 

[BigTom]

That sounds incredibly fucking sinister to me.

why?

Margerison-McCann Team Performance Wheel

This is the list of personality types - the test is basically a myers-brigg test overlaid with something else, I can't remember exactly what, it takes the 4 scales which are bascially myers-briggs and then does something like if you're strong I and strong T or strong E and weak F then you become type A or something like that.

So one of the things it is supposed to do is to show you who is the kind of person that is good at getting new ideas & starting new things, and who is good at making sure things get finished. If you only have people in the team who are good at starting new things then they need to be aware that there's no-one around to keep them on track and they need to work on ensuring they keep going on a task or project or whatever until it's done rather than getting distracted by new things, and/or you may need to hire someone who does fit that personality type.

You can reject the personality type stuff as bollocks but I don't see how it's sinister?

 

[SpookyFrank]

You can reject the personality type stuff as bollocks but I don't see how it's sinister?

Because first they put you in a box then they decide what to do with you based on the colour of the box. Human lego. A fucking plague on that.

 

[Supine]

The personality type stuff is valid I think. If used well by companies it can help people understand themselves and their colleagues better.

I have no doubt that it can be misused and for sinister purposes if a company needs a stick to beat you with.

 

[Dandred]

Wankers scale!

 

[SpookyFrank]

The personality type stuff is valid I think. If used well by companies it can help people understand themselves and their colleagues better.

I have no doubt that it can be misused and for sinister purposes if a company needs a stick to beat you with.

That's just it isn't it. It's all about describing people in terms of where they should be in the context of 9-5 drudgery, not who they are as actual human beings. Whatever box they put you in, there's a place for you in the post-industrial service economy somewhere. Nobody need be excluded. Except for the poor and all those other people upon whose permanent exclusion from the Big Wheel Of Teamwork the whole fucking system is predicated.

What personality types are best suited to working ten hour shifts in a petrol station kiosk six days a week? What personal qualities best protect workers against hallucinating from sheer boredom, or developing chronic muscle pain from spending every day sat in the poor-quality chair that the well-oiled ideas machine of the human resources department chose because it was the second least-expensive option? Are introverts or extroverts better suited to getting kicked off their zero-hour contracts after six months so that the spokes of the McGillicuddy-Macclesfield Merry-Go-Round of Synergy don't have to give them any sick pay?

It's a legitimisation of a fundamentally shit lifestyle. A reinforcement of the idea that the place you are assigned by your betters is the place where the laws of nature always intended you to be. The content is irrelevant, the use to which that content is put is everything. It is always a stick to beat people with, that's all it fucking is. That's all any of this managment-theory shit ever is. Another rusty nail driven through the same old beating stick.

 

[lazythursday]

That's just it isn't it. It's all about describing people in terms of where they should be in the context of 9-5 drudgery, not who they are as actual human beings.

If you look on the thousands of websites devoted to Myers Brigg I think you'll find far more of it is about who you might be compatible with sexually as how you should be manipulated in the workplace.

It can be used in the way you describe, yes. But certainly that's not the only way it's used organisationally. And you can also use it to help understand what makes you tick and that can be quite empowering on a personal level, free from the context of being a wage slave.

And I'm sure you could use it as a tool to operate more effectively as a revolutionary cell as well as a customer services department.