In 1967 I took Psychology 101 at Cornell University with Prof. Maas. There were 700+ students in the class. On the first day, we took a Personally Profile Test with about 50 multiple chose questions. Each student used a machine-readable answer sheet (#2 pencil to fill the ovals). The following class we each received a sealed envelope with the results. Without conferring with other students, we were asked to rate from 0 to 100 how well we felt the profile we received matched our personality. Including me, about 90% of the students said the test was remarkably accurate in assessing our personalities. The professor then explained that everyone got the same report, without regard to anything we had answered on the test.
So did he apologize for his secretary fucking up and gave you the correct reports ? I took psychology also and went as a guinea pig for a master student doing an experiment. We got some questionnaires and I knew immediately that it was a trick questionnaire and they were going to try to extract some data. This means my answers were no good and should have been excluded. They should not have used psychology students as subjects because we knew about the trickery involved. It was my only psychology course that I had to take in electrical engineering. I also has to take one term of economics and law.
That's basically what Sabine was saying about her results,, that the conclusion WAS analyzed BUT phrased in a pleasing way... however YOUR "results" were designed to teach you EARLY about the tendency to agree with an assessment YOU YOURSELF agree with... I imagine there was ALMOST NO negativity in this "analyses" right,, which was why ONLY 10% "disagreed" with the form- conclusion...
My favourite quotation about personality comes from the comedian Harry Hill. If I remember rightly he said: "You can learn a lot about someone's personality by getting to know them." 😂
that is why i love tarot cards. it is also nice to just let go from (lack of a better word) logic and just embrace the random, accept there is a lot we are not in control of everything, and like sabbi said take a moment and look around.
And she is exactly right. I, and some friends I know, lay cards for that exact reason. Not because the universe decided that my figure for this week is the emperor but simply because it forces me to ask, how exactly have I been an authority recently, have I used my powers responsibly, should I even continue to be authoritative or am I trying to elevate myself over others?
@@-IE_it_yourselftarot cards are actually a great tool for reflection. There’s so many ways you can approach it depending on your interests. Interestingly a fairly large proportion of people who do tarot dont actually believe they tell the future
There is a channel called Typebook and they type a bunch of people. They've also typed Sabine. As INTP. Just randomly throwing this recommendation here. That's a good channel! It's based on the work of Carl Jung and Psychological 'Type' isn't 'Personality'.
I wouldn't mind seeing this expanded into the additional tests that were mentioned. Especially whether the questions asked in them can evade some of the points you mentioned, like if we give the answers of behavior/personality we want to exhibit or believe to be appropriate rather than behavior/personality we actually engage in.
Psychologist here: great discussion, covered many issues with such tests. One aspect for future discussion: using tests like the MMPI to spot unusual/concerning patterns of answers, as well as patterns that show that someone is "faking good."
I do wish these conversations, which are rightly critical, would recognize that there are some ways to address some of the concerns mentioned. I think the MBTI is irredeemable, but either the FFM or HEXACO can be useful in concert with other tests.
@@chrismorrison8047 Haven't investigated the FFM or HEXACO, but will. Another factor, of course, is the skill with which the tests are administered (comfort of the subject, clarity of directions) and interpreted: big difference between reading canned descriptions of what a response pattern might suggest as opposed to long experience with matching many specific test response patterns with a specific measure to specific clients one gets to know well. So many variables, so little time..
@@maxm2639 I really hope and expect that we'll make some actual progress on this stuff in the coming decades. The FFM was a fantastic, evidence-based foundation. It needs a lot of refinement, but it's actually data-driven rather than theory-driven. Oddly (to me), some people levy that as a criticism. I see that as a virtue, but ymmv. I've not gotten into the details on HEXACO yet, but my initial reading suggests that the addition of "humility" to the factors is both warranted and helpful. To give only one example (and to overstate the findings for illustrative value), I read a study in which agreeableness was highly correlated with teamwork productivity. That wasn't surprising. What WAS surprising was that one aspect of trait emotional intelligence, namely mood, negatively moderated the relationship. Questions about replication aside (the study didn't try to replicate its own findings in a second survey), the results suggested that the higher the optimism, the less agreeability helps predict teamwork, and the lower optimism, the stronger the agreeableness->teamwork association. Those findings are worth interpreting and exploring, but let me try to get to my point. That study utilized the FFM. But HEXACO pulls out humility as its own factor, and humility has been elsewhere correlated with prosocial and ethical behavior. So it might be the case that the original study was overlooking issues in humility, such that highly optimistic people (which could be interpreted as people with high self-efficacy) but very low humility might not reap the other benefits associated with agreeability with respect to teamwork. Of course, all this is only one study with others in the background, so I'm not actually proposing any real conclusions be drawn. What I AM suggesting is that models like HEXACO seem to be building on the legitimate work of the FFM (as opposed to the MBTI). Add to all of THAT the other issues you mentioned, and others beyond, and I think that given enough time we'll come up with better tests that are more predictive and more scientifically useful. I think we're going in the right direction. I just think the public is being mislead by the MBTI.
After working for an international company for a decade I was asked to take part in one of these tests as the company was looking to introduce the test globally before employing people. I did the test and they told me, that based upon my results, they should never have employed me!!! I went on to get promoted a couple of times after this and led several transformational projects and really enjoyed my 35 year fulfilling career despite the test saying I was totally the wrong person for them. 😐
INTJ-T, same as me! I've always felt that the MBTI has a good combination of accuracy and user-friendliness. Those two are probably a bit mutually-exclusive.
It needs to be combined with Neuroimaging, and then keep those borderline and emotionally-selfish, termites and homunculus away from corrupting the truth and reality to benefit their vulnerable-narcissit "feelings".
Yes, the accuracy of the Myers-Briggs test is variable, but the classification it provides can be valuable - it's just better to 'diagnose' based on observation of individuals, rather than bulk-apply a survey with reductive and imprecise questions that elicit inconsistent responses. The 4-sliding-scales approach to typology is unhelpful, and obscures the power of analysing personality types using cognitive functions. We use 'perceiving' functions to input information. These are extraverted sensing (Se), introverted sensing (Si), extraverted intuition (Ne), and introverted intuition (Ni). We use 'judging' functions to process information. These are extraverted feeling (Fe), introverted feeling (Fi), extraverted thinking (Te) and introverted thinking (Ti). Here are some crude explanations of the functions. Perceiving functions: Se gathers external, concrete sensory information (from the 5 senses), Si organises this information, Ne ‘gathers’ (more like *generates*) internal, abstract patterns that it notices from sensory input, and Ni organises these patterns. Judging functions: We use Fe and Fi to process the values and feelings of ourselves and others. We use Te and Ti to process the logic, reasoning and general mental workings of ourselves and others. In other words, Fe and Fi process information about people; Te and Ti process information about things. Every human uses all 8 functions - it would be impossible to navigate life otherwise. We just all differ in our *preferences*, i.e. the functions we tend to use the most. Each personality type is made up of a stack of 4 functions - the dominant, secondary, tertiary and inferior. These are our 4 preferred functions, in that order. Your first function determines whether you're I or E. Your first *perceiving* function determines whether you’re N or S. Your first *judging* function determines whether you’re F or T. Your first *extraverted* function determines whether you’re J or P (if it’s Ne or Se, you’re P, if it’s Fe or Te, you’re J). Here are the four MBTI ‘families’, made up of the same functions: ISFP - Fi, Se, Ni, Te ESFP - Se, Fi, Te, Ni INTJ - Ni, Te, Fi, Se ENTJ - Te, Ni, Se, Fi --------------------------------- ISTP - Ti, Se, Ni, Fe ESTP - Se, Ti, Fe, Ni INFJ - Ni, Fe, Ti, Se ENFJ - Fe, Ni, Se, Ti --------------------------------- ISFJ - Si, Fe, Ti, Ne ESFJ - Fe, Si, Ne, Ti INTP - Ti, Ne, Si, Fe ENTP - Ne, Ti, Fe, Si --------------------------------- ISTJ - Si, Te, Fi, Ne ESTJ - Te, Si, Ne, Fi INFP - Fi, Ne, Si, Te ENFP - Ne, Fi, Te, Si For example, with the INTJ stack (Ni, Te, Fi, Se), the dominant Ni shows that you prefer to find and organise patterns and general trends in the world: rather than dealing with raw, material data (input from your 5 senses), you prefer to transform this data into overall observations and conclusions - you like to find the ‘ultimate’ reason, purpose, explanation, etc. With secondary Te, you prefer making your ultimate judgements based on empirical facts and frameworks established by others (as opposed to your personal, internal logic and reasoning - you still do this, but will be less comfortable arriving at a conclusion with internal logic alone). Fi shows you’re less inclined to care about the values of others and society, and are more comfortable living according to your own, even when they conflict with the values of those around you. Inferior Se means you are less comfortable engaging with the external, material world and would much rather spend time in your internal, mental world. I could go on. My point is that MBTI is a rich and fascinating field that has helped me immensely in understanding myself and others, and appreciating the unique strengths and struggles of every individual. The test misrepresents what MBTI is capable of. I'm such a typology nerd lol.
Easy to tell you are a "fellow" INTJ. Your video made me laugh out loud, spontaneously at a couple of points. If anything, Myers-Briggs tells us who we will be able to relate with easily and who will have a similar sense of humor. I find the M-B personality description spot on for the most part, not just in the flattering aspects.
I also find it more useful than she seems to think, if only because 1) I can predict the "type" most people will get with uncanny accuracy, and 2) I tend to get along or at least communicate well with INTJs and ENFPs pretty reliably. So it is detecting something repeatably, but I can't say what.
As for astrology and horoscopes, the late, great Amazing Randi published a video with a beautifully simple experiment on a group of high school students he was teaching (a critical thinking class). He told his class of approximately 25 that he was going to create an individual horoscope for each student based upon their birthday, of course. After handing out each one, he asked each student to read and then rate how accurate they thought the horoscope was about who they were and their personality traits. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the most accurate) every single student rated their personal horoscope at a four or five out of five. He then asked the students to pass their horoscope to the student behind them such that every student in the class had a horoscope that was not intended for them. He then asked them to read them, and after approximately 10 to 15 seconds, the students realized that each horoscope was exactly the same. They were worded in such a general and flattering manner each person honestly thought the horoscope was about them personally. Randi is greatly missed...
@@meanieweeny4765keep policing people's conversations to yourself. The man is free to share whatever he wants to share. BTW I know my comment is inherently contradictory, but I'm not gonna police my own comments. I'm free to say whatever I want 😉🙃
@@Mr.Anders0n_ You make a good point, but the intent of my commenting is to encourage people to engage in critical thinking and that 'tidbit' didn't really serve that aim, so I will consider it constructive criticism and try to accept it graciously.
Definitely interested in these other tests. I completely agree that they are a tool for self reflection and exploration of who we are. And indeed the MB test has changed over time. I have become more introspective but that is probably through life experiences
I'm confused about the 97% introverted bit. I always thought I was introverted but not as much as 97%. I would be terrified of talking to the public via a regular youtube channel and also being part of an interview panel explaining complex subjects as I've often seen Sabine do. I would just freeze and maybe waffle my way through. Maybe I'm 98% introverted.
FJ once did a video a while back explaining how each personality would deal with the MBTI. The INTJ would write a letter, ripping the MBTI apart and calling it non scientific 😂
Or.. you've made a framework for your life around those assessments. Instead of, looking inward and going on a discovery of yourself, and learning how to update yourself, you ran into a test result that showed you a red thread to follow, to achieve a somewhat similar result. What if the test had said that you are extroverted.
@@elgalas But it didn't. There's a reason why the test showed a tendency towards introversion. It's not because extraversion is entirely missing, but it means that there's a tendency or a desire to be introverted rather than extraverted. This can help a person understand themselves and others better.
I suspect you will find a very high percentage of those watching this are the same. Given that supposedly that type only make up 1 to 4% of the population it could be a method for identifying and recruiting new viewers.
Same here as a INTP, I also find it useful to try to analyze people, to get a start-off point for when I have to talk to them. AKA stereotypes can be useful as a start point before getting to actually know someone.
INTJ-A here. Love to hear the arguments regarding psychological personality test whether it's reliable or not in terms of various usages. Seeing her dissecting every argument or parts of the topic is pretty self-explanatory for her.
I have noticed that personality tests have a galvanizing affect on personality. I worked somewhere we all had to take DiSC tests, in which everyone was labeled either Dominant, Influential, Supportive or Conscientious. Then we all went into a meeting room and were separated out by our types and asked to defend our position. This led to most people adopting extreme versions of the type they had been given. Having worked with many of these people for 10 years, their behavior and beliefs during and after the meeting were noticeably different.
Totally. People really cling to an "authoritative" self-description. It becomes their passport. They smuggle all their oddities, quirks, and genuine human weirdness behind their rubber-stamped "personality" because their "official" personality type has been approved by the authorities. At least, I imagine it's a kind of defense mechanism. Or a designated "safe zone" which they can always retreat to.
@@ucantSQ most people would rather be the villain, than to be nobody at all. I asked if I could stand in the middle because I would rather not label myself, and believed my answers may have differed if I was in a different mood. Instead, I had to stand in the corner and come up with reasons why we need dominant and assertive people. I actually thought that by asserting myself as a conscientious participant, with an influential perspective, in support of the program would have earned me a place in the middle. But no, I was shuffled in with the other Ds.
I like the comparison of personality tests to horoscopes. I often think of them similarly. I enjoy them for the fun of it, especially with discussions with others. I don't generally think of it too seriously, but the one aspect that I have found really helpful is understanding that others may see the world through a different lens than I do. I know that is a pretty general thought, but it certainly has been beneficial in understanding people that neither of us probably would have thought to mention otherwise. One thing that is important to remember is that it can be a useful tool to aid in social interactions or self-reflections, however it becomes hazardous when it is used to put people in a box and limits what people can or think they can do.
Both of these gives you an outline of your nature in general, which is a good way to pin point some attributes in one's complex personality, but certainly to that limit only.
That''s one of the biggest issues, people identifying with a type so much they won't accept anything outside of their box, I don't believe there is any personality theory works like this, Jung is often being misinterpreted due to how his archetypes are outlined and how myers briggs foundation incorrectly termed their dimensions dichotomies. Everyone including Sabine still think it's either or with MBTI because of this. For the big 5 test there is the issue that they don't initially have relations between their traits, and thus they can't really generate an image of what your result looks like, MBTI gained popularity just because people were able to see themselves in a type, with an easy four letter label and even a distinct avatar and like celebrities. It are these creative additions that makes everyone love it. The downside of course is that it causes some of us to get attached to one of those types even when it is not our type like how personas work, some men want to be women now or they want to be addressed by a different pronoun, identity is something you can change if you really want it and I don't think we can do anything against that, the only thing we can do is make those people reflect on what their personality really is and hope that spreads among the community, which is something I try to do on the regular
@@nehamotwani6477not really. These tests are very useful to consciously establish your patterns of behavior and more importantly your limiting beliefs that you may have not realized were working against your goals, and they may even help you determine a path forward for your growth. Also, as was said above, they may help you understand why other people don't see the world the same way you do. But you always need to figure out how this result fits your own life and self, not let it box you. If your career of choice isn't amongst the ones recommended for your personality type then are you going to move away from it? Of course not!
They can be a lot more substantive than horoscopes but it depends on the test and the tester. I'm no expert but it would make sense if these tests (and psychology generally) focused on the historical behaviour of the subject rather than asking the person to directly diagnose personality traits and I'm pretty sure that's what modern psychology does, when it's not using brain scans or genetics. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Hardly a revelation 😁
MBTI works great if you actually know yourself and don't lie and tell the test what you want to be instead of how you actually think or act. My type have never changed over the years, and it describes me perfectly. I really struggled to understand how some people worked and why they acted like they did before I knew my type compared to how others work. It really helped me understand others better on a deeper level. And makes it much easier to deal with people way different to me. Just like understanding other aspects of psychology helps with understanding people's quirks and possible struggles they are dealing with. Personality type is just a short hand to describe some more complicated aspects on how you work and experience things compared to other people and yourself. Because there is patterns that arise out of mixing certain personalities together. Sure you can describe the same thing with lots of deep discussions when you get to know somebody. But for introverts that is a very slow process in most cases. And it seems it is introverts that have the most befits of diving deeper in understanding others personifies better by using information like this. Calling personality type test like the same things as horoscopes is way to harsh, horoscopes have zero basis in reality and do not describe anything useful at all. I have used information learned from personality classifications and psychology with great benefits when dealing with other people. If you just take a test and learn a bit about yourself you are missing out. The real value is in understanding better the differences between people and what that can learn you on how to handle and deal with others better.
There is a great document about the importance of emotional intelligence acknowledgement that TH-cam for some reason loves to censor away, and even attempts to encrypt it in code speech were caught. It's insane, althoug kinda not surprising.
I am an ITNJ as well. I participated in a telecom business conference where the guest speaker was also an ITNJ. He related that ITNJs represent 1% of the tested population but in the telecom industry they represent 17% of the executive management.
Excellent video. Thank you, Sabine. I really liked that you highlighted that sometimes there is just no suitable answer given (for me it's ofthen "well it depends") and so people will pick at random. Also that people may likely choose answers based on how they'd like to be perceived. I'm hugely concerned at the use of these tests on people by potential employers and the like - but I do agree with you that they can be useful (and fun!) as a tool for self-reflection and personal development. I'd be keen to see more on the other tests that you didn't have time to cover. Thanks again!
Personally I found it easier to read the temperament profiles (NF, NT, SP, SJ) and find the one that suits me (all 4 are very different) then go from there : T or F and P or J which are rather easy to determine, then , I or E, then read both the remaining profiles to figure out F or T. Tests tend to be very inaccurate because as you said, it depends. The motivations for choosing certain actions I think are more important than the actions themselves and tests can't measure that.
I agree with your analysis of the personality tests. Personality is too complex to be defined by some questions on a written test. As can be paraphrased, "I know personality when I see it". Thanks for coming out of your introvert shell to give us Sabine.
During my career I've had the Myers Briggs test a couple of times, in the context of a group team building sort of thing, with "expert facilitators" who helped us interpret the results. The first time people take it, most feels they are getting profound insights into themselves. But if you think of it as defining "16 rooms", all it really does is tell you what "room" (or MBTI code) you feel most comfortable in at the time you take the test. But anyone can act in anyone of the 16 modes if they want to. And the real power comes from realizing what "rooms" the other folks around you are most comfortable in - this gives you some insight in the most effective approach you should take when trying to influence them (for example, making choices at work on solutions, vendors, etc). The idea is you make your case in the way that they find most comfortable to align with vs making your case in the way you feel most comfortable (for example emphasizing the feelings of others over cost or vice versa regardless as to what you feel the most compelling reason is). Having said all that, I do believe there are more than 16 types of people in the world. Of course, that's my INTJ talking.
Yes, I had that experience too. It was enlightening to realize that other people process information much differently than I do. If the tests and their interpretation are correct, of course...
I think there's a danger that these tests can encourage some people to think about themselves and others in terms of pigeon-holed character traits instead of as rounded individuals. I guess it's human nature to want to divide up dynamic spectra into static categories; it's how we parse the world...
I feel comfortable finding out if someone is an *NT* or not and if they should go upstairs or downstairs to be happy, like, at least some of the patterns within it are bigger than any one room. Good money on the nerds staying in the nerd rooms, maybe even outside culture is mapped onto it like a hologram by outside pressure. Man, measuring this for real sounds super hard.
How do you know when you run a personality test whether or you are getting their 'personality' or simply their role in a society/social system? 'The Funny One' in a group may not be an extrovert, but if the group needs a 'funny one', they may decide to pick up the role.
@@strangelove24 doesn't that make the question, whether you can decide to change your personality? this video seems to suggest that you can, if you keep doing it long enough
This is why I would question the ideal of universality. Since personality can only exist in reference to a standard of behavior (as she says, going to bed every night is hardly a personality trait), this will always be contingent, both on a macro societal level, as well as a micro social level. Am I the personality that constantly speaks over others because I am very full of myself or am I simply surrounded by weak-willed people who are fine with me taking the lead? Is there even a difference? etc.
@@QuinnArgo Psychologists certainly don't use these tests as universal, and certainly not genetically determined. Many tests were initially formulated in a psychiatric environment with people who have so much trouble coping in society, that they either voluntarily or non-voluntarily lock themselves into a psychiatric care unit. Imagine the person who believes themselves to be surrounded by weak-willed people... as a psychiatric patient in a hospital or institution of some kind. In which case their "strong-will" might be interpreted as delusional, meglamaniacal or unduly aggressive. lol And, we might see their society as immoral or dysfunctional, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a good example of such. Note that the book was written by someone who claimed to write it under the influence of LSD, and later went on a cross-country trip promoting use of that substance. I think it did a grave disservice to the truly mentally ill in America, too many of who are presently living in the streets. Anyways any definition of "personality", so far at least, is "squishy", and is necessarily an unknown combination of nature and nurture. I'm just not sure that anyone using personality measures has an ideal of universality. I think Sabine is bringing it up here because many test sellers try to promote their tests as "scientific". Even the best hardly stand up as scientific.
I always thought the Big Five were "found" by doing dimensionality reduction on hundreds of personality related questions: they had test subjects answer those questions, and then they did dimensionality reduction to variables (so a linear model), and measured the error of reverting back from the variables to the answer to the questions. When dropped below 5, the error increased a lot, so they chose 5 variables to represent answers to personality questions (which in turn should be a proxy to the personality). Later came the association/naming of the 5 variables to their current assigned names. Now, this is a principled way to create variables to "described personality". But still, it's not very strong: it's a linear model after all, and there are still errors: both because of information being dropped with the dimensionality reduction, and because the nature of the questions (they, as Sabine describes) are already noisy, and somewhat random at cases... But still, a valid approach to try to simplify / summarize "personality". In the end it all depends if they are useful for whatever one wants to use this personality scores for. And if the use case is entertainment only, then even MBTI can be useful :) Great video, love your posts Sabine!
@@PedroSantos-bw5up Thanks, I was not familiar with the term. It seems they are the same thing according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_analysis : a linear approximation, that projects the original observations to reduced dimensions (factors).
Your analogy to horoscopes is spot-on. I walked out of an interview because they said I had to take a personality test and that their hiring decisions hinged on the results.
@@BUSeixas11 It wasn't that one, this video was my first hearing of it. From the brief description, theirs would designate the role you should have in the company and if you didn't get a result with the role you were applying for, you didn't get to interview. I don't want to work at a place that relies so heavily on fortune-telling., so it wasn't worth the estimated 3 hrs for taking it.
I'm glad you made this video on personality types from a scientific perspective. I love personality tests but I also like to consider scientific analysis for the tests and their validity
I've found that MBPI types are really useful for lazy character creation in writing short stories / novels, because they (like novels) rely on extremely simplistic tropes.
I love your analysis! I’m an introvert like you…that’s really all I need to know. I have done a few tests and each one gave me a different introvert type.INFP seems to me to be the most accurate although I share characteristics with all the others.
Great video Sabine! I would like to point out that the "16 Personalities" test that you took has false branding and is honestly a sham. They actually test for the Big 5 traits and then map them out to each letters: Openness -> N/S, Conscientiousness -> J/P, Extraversion -> E/I, Agreeableness -> F/T , where scoring higher in any trait means you get the first letter of 2. Here you may also notice that Neuroticism is missing so they invented a new letter A/T, but still continues to market it as MBTI which has a lot more depth and nuance with cognitive functions. If you read Jung's book on Personality Types you will also see that he talks about the dominant cognitive function being like the pilot but other functions being more fluid as people develop.
yes yes, i agree with you. i think its quite a shame people just wave their hands over mbti. mbti the way it is now and big 5 as well are only scales, they dont provide that much insight as the cognitive functions. and the fact that even sabine didnt base her mbti around cognitive functions just shows how little it is known. still it was a great video :D
_@Sabine_ -- I took the Myers-Briggs test when I was 16 or 17 and was identified as an INTJ, too. But the results shows a bar graph for each pair of opposites and showed you where you placed on that continuum. It was not "either/or" as you described. (I was part of a group of "brainiacs" and researches wanted to know how we "ticked". I was told that INTJ was one of the most rare combinations and they found a higher-than-normal percentage of INTJs in our group.) That was 50 years ago! (I'm 66 now.) I've taken updated versions of the Myers-Briggs test two times since then (the last was probably 5-6 years ago). Each time it produced INTJ. The first time I took the test, I do not remember the results being entirely positive. It cautioned about potential "problems" for an INTJ. Family and friends who have read my INTJ profile say it "nails" me. The biggest thing I learned from the test is that everyone doesn't think like me. This was huge when I was young, because I viewed everyone as if they were the same and this led to very wrong conclusions for their behavior. My wife is very different and the test has helped me love her. For example, she does not like sudden change (especially about life-changing decisions) and I try to accommodate that. It must have worked because we've been happily married since 1977. So, the test may not always be accurate and people may change, but it still has great benefit in understanding the relative differences between people and how to live with them in the best-possible way.
I ditto everything you said. Including understanding why you/we are different, how it helped us in our relationships with others, and also how this understanding helps in a marriage. It changed my life for the better.
I experienced a similar thing. I am ENTP and my wife is INFJ, so I could at last see that things that I am doing might be too demanding and overwhelming of her at times. I've learned to consider others' way of being much more when I act. This doesn't mean that we have to create identities out of it and put ourselves in boxes. But just being considerate of others, it opened my eyes big time to how others' internal processes work, when and how their intellect shines..
I'm INTJ and also found it helpful in realizing that I think differently than others for specific reasons and it helped me deal with others. If I'm having trouble relating with someone I'll try to type them and use that info to change the way I approach them.
Personality traits are so dynamic based on so many social, economic and regional factors that no test (IMO) is ever going to express some accuracy even half of the time.
I've had occasion to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) multiple times and one of its features is that it's clear that the same questions are asked at different places in the 500-plus questions with different phrasing and wording. Also, while many of the questions seem to be clearly looked for feelings that might indicate mental illness there are many others that don't give any clue as to what the answer you give might "mean".
Well, it was literally designed to evaluate psychopathology and personality disorders. Even as late as 2003, adjustments were made to reflect modern understandings of those illnesses. And it's for developing treatment plans for the diagnosed. It's been used in hiring, but originally this was in order to screen out candidates with undiagnosed mental illness. You say "many of the questions...clearly...", but ALL of the questions are looking for those indications, the entire test is for that purpose! That it's as widely used as it is in employment should probably be quite alarming.
That's by design. It's a problem when someone figures out what the test is "supposed to be asking" because then they can just answer based on the result they want to get. You can't completely avoid getting someone who knows how the test works, especially since one of the ethical principles of psychology is to be open with the research, but you don't have to make it any easier than it needs to be.
I am an INTJ too, every time I have taken it over the decades. Also that was a fun video and i too have loved astrology and personality tests even though I didn't really believe in astrology and wondered about PTs. Thanks for your take on why they are just fun and make a person think a little more about their life.
I got my degree in psychology during the "behaviorist" era of the "science" - when stimulus-response ruled the day. Psychology was trying to be "scientific". If it had been given a "personality" test we might have learned that psychology was the jealous type, jealous of the hard sciences that is. Anyway, I remember that in my very first Pcych course (101) the instructor advised the class that if they are ever given a personality test, or any other test of that general sort, to answer all the questions as if they were the perfect, well-adjusted, sane, level-headed, cooperative, reasonable people that any company or institution would likely be looking for, and not to give into the temptation to tell the truth.
Yes, you're right. Made the same experience during my studies (curative education). There was a big hype about the work of this Italian group (Milan School), who believed, they could 'scientificize' psychology. Though the outcome of behaviorism is not totally crap and works quite accurate in some cases, your term of jealousy nails it.
I know it's pseudoscience but knowing I'm an INFJ has really allowed me to become more aware of why I think and act the way I do. The odd thing is how this was brought to my attention. I didn't go out looking for personality content because I didn't even know such a thing existed. It was TH-cam that started recommending INFJ content. I ignored it for quite a long time but YT was persistent with the content. Eventually I watched one and was surprised how much it lined up with my personality. After watching it I went and took a test and sure enough it said I was INFJ. I've taken several since then and they always come up INFJ. What bothers me is that YT was able to make this determination based on my viewing and comment history. Of course in reality the personality type itself means very little, but YT's algorithm being sophisticated enough to know what I would get on these tests is creepy.
It's mostly the phenomenon of feeling a sense of belonging as soon as somehow has a label for you, indicating that there are more of you, and you have a community.
@@zazugeeeven if it was ai fueled that ai would have been trained exclusively by highly intelligent people with mountains upon mountains upon mountains of direct userdata, along with the knowhow to work it all into a functional algorithm. Ai really aren't that good on their own yet.
A lot of INFJs are mistyped in the type sphere; 16personalities is especially biased towards giving people intuition (N) as one of the dichotomies. Also, I doubt that YT somehow understood you as a person; I think that it just recommended you videos which people who are like you tend to watch.
@@kairostimeYT Yeah, 16 was the the first one I took. I watched a video a few months later about it not being accurate which is why I took the others. It's probably a good idea for anyone interested in personality tests to take multiple ones to make sure they're getting an accurate assessment (or at least as accurate as it can be). It's possible YT recommended the videos to me because people with similar watch histories were watching them. Makes me curious about how other people that have similar watch histories became aware of the MBTI because it certainly wasn't in the wheelhouse of my normal viewing.
I really really appreciate your videos, its like a sigh of relief every time i see you take nuance. Of course this is just my opinion, but i resonate with your analysis on many social topics. I'm really rooting for this channel and that the festering hand of capital doesn't completely ruin its content.
Those kinds of tests always feel like BS to me. The questions are so simple. I have to interpret the questions myself and decide which answer is "most honest". I have to think "what is the tester asking me and how will they judge my answer?" And there is no guide to the questions either. Do I answer how I feel right now? Or do I answer how I will be in the future? If I answer using my current state, does that mean my personality will change in the future? Is it how other people would answer for me? Or should I answer for my self? Which is more accurate? Or is it all biased nonsense? And there is never anything surprising either. If I give introverted answers, they will say I am introverted. If I give empathetic answers, they will say I am empathetic. SO WHAT IS THE POINT??? YOU TAKE THE TEST TO GET A RESULT YOU ARE NOT SURE ABOUT. BUT THE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ARE SO OBVOIUS THAT YOU KNOW WHAT THE RESULT WILL BE FROM THE START!!!!!!!
The way to get the most meaningful and accurate results is to always be honest (instead of worrying about what others might think), and to always answer "how do I _usually_ feel about this issue?" (which is personality and stays constant for months or years) rather than replying with what you feel _right now_ (which fluctuates from day to day). As for what the "point" is, the only "point" you should be associating with personality tests in your mind is "better self understanding". If the results ring true, and appear to tell you what you already know, that's a _good_ thing, not a _bad_ thing as you imply. That's really the only usefulness of these tests: to goad people into actually doing honest self-examination. Any other use (HR, etc) is bogus. If someone tries to give you a Big-5, MBTI, Socionics, or Enneagram test during an HR interview, say "this is unethical; i withdraw my application", walk out, and go get a job elsewhere instead; the internal workings of your own mind is your business only.
I was hoping to see some mention of the 8 cognitive functions interpretation of Myers-Briggs personality types. It’s a bit more concrete of an idea than the axes interpretation. While the axes interpretation are easy for an online test, the cognitive functions have more interesting implications. You might notice INFP and INTP are less similar than they seem after you read about Ti versus Fi, for example.
Axes have validity. Fi and Ti, for example, are on the same axis. But yes, you do and should consider the cognitive functions. It's also important to note that Fi doesn't mean feeling. Ti is a linear thinking process, thus Fi is simply a comparative thinking process. The gap between the compared causes a limbic attention to devise a gravity of importance. However, both Fi and Ti are essentially thinking.
Very nice video, Sabine! I would like to watch more content of yours examining the other tests you mentioned at the end of the video in the future. Thank you!
_Everybody can find a personality test where they are a really special person._ Boy, I better start looking around, then. My wife is usually the one doing the testing, and I rarely get the results I'd like.
Well, motivating people by focusing on their strengths and only "incidentally" identifying their weaknesses is a pretty good strategy (probably THE best, unles you have someone who's completely delusional and needs to be completely broken down and rebuilt...)
Not...really though? I mean if you're an ISFJ for instance you're automatically not special since they're a pretty high part of the population. If you're an INFJ yeah you're rare but...that also means it's harder for people to understand you so actually it's MORE work on you to work on that.
Thanks so much for the elucidation of the Meyers-Briggs Test. I took this test many years ago. Result said i was an INTJ. Since then I have been very satisfied to be myself...no labels please.
MBTI works well for the initial group stage called forming (ask Bundesnachrichtendienst). Moreover, it is a rather sad state of affairs that Jung did not receive an honorable mention in this video. Finally, combining the MBTI with the HEXACO seems to be working quite well.
Definitely would be interested in a followup video covering newer tests. I also think it would be interesting to cover some of the actual debunking done on astrology. I remember reading that for example a single natal chart textual interpretation was given to hundreds of people born on different dates, and they all pretty much agreed it described them reasonably well. That to me shows a point that was mentioned in this video (that people like to hear good things about themselves,) but I don´t think that is a proper, scientific way to show that astrology does not work. There are many other ways, and I´m sure those have been pursued, but they are not widely known. So I think it would be a great topic for Sabine to cover in this channel.
It would be really cool to do another video with the other, newer personality tests. Maybe psychologists have actually gotten better at testing people's personalities? Or maybe it's just way too difficult to get people to be objective about themselves, but still it'd be interesting to see how these newer tests stack up against the other ones.
I haven't studied psychology for a long time but last job I had used 'personality' tests too frequently, (at least once a year) The relevant questions were very obvious to me so I gave them false answers (just because I could) then told the people running the S***show later towards the end of whatever course we were being primed on. (Corporate America, must have loyalty to the company while they screw you over) Usual reply was 'You can't do that' My reply was always 'I just did' 🤣 If the company had used the same people every year it would have become obvious to them I had MAJOR personality disorder as the results varied so much, but, it took major downturn before I got laid off 12 years after starting there (along with several hundred other people)
Would recommend delving deeper into teh cognitive functions of myers briggs type theory, as well as checking out other interpretations of cognitive functions such as Harry Murrell’s cognitive personality theory. It goes further into the mechanics of different cognitive functions and gives stable definitions of the various functions as well. Very interesting stuff! Love your content! Would be cool if you went more into this topic!
I'm disappointed there wasn't any discussion of the MMPI, which fixes the self-report aspect by having an enormous battery of questions that have nothing to do with the target behaviour (e.g. "I prefer showers to baths"), and based on how those correlate with known patterns assesses Five Factor traits. It's basically a behavioural measure, where the behavior being measured is "answers on a questionnaire," rather than a self-report scale.
The personality test I'm quite fond of is The Enneagram, it tells you about your core motivations and fears, and doesn't say anything about how much of an introvert or how emotional you are, so it seems more universal and useful than these other tests.
@@imperiumderstimme3331 the thing with enneagram is you can't just take a test and get prescribed a result. You can start with a test but you really should read the core desires and fears and see which one you identify with the most
Your suggestion made me curious about this test, but the 3 I found on the internet (top results) turned out to be false advertisements. They told me the tests were free and/or required no email but that proved to be false when I was done. I'm not interested in getting a barrage of spam and neither I am going to pay for what constitutes as a curiosity gimmick.
My fundamental critic of psychology is that it is a study of mind and behavior that is generaly focused on the psychologist own cultural echochamber. When I started to be interrested in Japenese mangas I found out that they had a list of 49 different personalities that defined all the characters of their stories. And that was from their own psychologists theories about personality. When I got interested in Korean mangas and Chinese mangas I found out they also had their own different sets of character personalities also based on their own psychologists theories of personality. My second critic is most of the researches are funded by businesses interested in how to better "manage" their workforce and PR firms interested in how to efficiently push their products to the consumers. IMO natural selection of the DNA needed to build the mind and behavior of the human species has never met those two narrow environmental constraints. So I don't expect any "universaly" valid theories from the current studies on personality.
Personality tests are a bit like by asking someone if they usually arrive on time, and when they say yes, telling them that you have tested them positive for the trait Punctuality. Punctuality is positively correlated with job performance, so this test is really scientifically relevant.
Reading the book Please Understand Me II (about Myers-Briggs) when I was 18 was a life changing experience for me. This was preinternet and the concept that introverts existed blew my mind. The idea that people could go to parties and gain energy from them was just completely foreign to me, reading that this was for many people but not all was a huge relief. That book has chapters for each personality type and admits it's describing extremes. But it's fascinating how it describes the same situations as viewed by different personality types, it helped me a lot in understanding why other people behave what for me is strangely. Also how people's personality type change under stress and over time was super interesting. As the book says, the answer is only useful to you and if you dont give honest answers the only person you're fooling is yourself. I'm not surprised it doesn't correlate with anything else like job performance. I imagine anybody can be a good manager, they'll just experience it in a different way. So, I believe these tests won't solve all your problems, but if they help you understand yourself, that's a huge win.
The book "Please Understand Me II" was first published in 1998, which was not pre-internet. In fact, 41% of adults in the U.S. went online in 1998 according to the Pew Research Center archives. Here are examples of some companies which you should still recognize and which had internet websites in 1998: Google, Hotmail, Myspace, the New York Times, Amazon, Ebay, Apple, Microsoft, Time, Wired, and Yahoo. Internet browsers available in 1998 included Mosaic, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, and Microsoft Internet Explorer. I was 38 years old in 1998, and I remember very well using the internet at work and at home in 1998, as well as for several years before that. I was one of the 41% of U.S. adults who were online in 1998. Perhaps you were not using the internet in 1998, but that does not mean it did not exist nor that it was not being used by many others. Perhaps you have just forgotten that the internet was around in 1998 and earlier - the World Wide Web launched into the public domain in 1993 (The World Wide Web made it simple for anyone to navigate the internet. All users had to do was launch a newly developed program called a "browser," type in a URL and hit return.). Instead of a personality test, perhaps you need to have your long-term memory tested. 😉 The 1998 book "Please Understand Me II" was an update and expansion of the book "Please Understand Me: An Essay on Temperament Styles," first published in 1978, which was definitely pre-internet. The original book was also definitely very popular when I was 18 in 1978 and through at least most of the 1980s. From Goodreads: "Keirsey and Bates's Please Understand Me, first published in 1978, sold nearly 2 million copies in its first 20 years, becoming a perennial best seller all over the world. Advertised only by word of mouth, the book became a favorite training and counseling guide in many institutions -- government, church, business -- and colleges across the nation adopted it as an auxiliary text in a dozen different departments...Please Understand Me II [First published May 1, 1998], an updated and greatly expanded edition of the book, far more comprehensive and coherent than the original, and yet with much of the same easy accessibility..."
It can be mind blowing to become aware of different ways people can be. But how would you go about testing the validity of Meyers-Briggs, as opposed to just its reliability? It purports to be an objectively valid test, but it asks us to accept the types it sorts us into on faith in the expertise of its designers. C.G. Jung, who developed some of the categories the test uses, did not believe that personality types are necessarily fixed. He thought that our personalities could undergo a lot of change.
You're basically ignoring what the video criticized about the MBTI. While the test might be helpful to think about patterns in your or other peoples behavior, it can also be misleading, due to it lacking in validity. However, what you said about intraversion and extroversion is also a scale on the Big Five model, which at least has been validated successfully - contrary to the MBTI. I think we should be careful when putting ourselves and others into boxes, when those boxes don't even accurately describe an aspect of reality. Personality tests that categorize people into a small number of types might be easy to grasp, but sadly they are also inaccurate and misleading.
By all means keep reviewing personality tests. I, too, find them useful as ways of advancing self-reflection, though I do find some of them useful in anticipating how someone around me might react under stress conditions.
INTJ-T here. In the past I was extremely sceptical about personality types until about 10 years ago my sister said I might have Aspergers. I had not heard about that and checked it out. It turned out about half of the symptoms linked to Aspergers fits very well to me. This got me interested to find out why I have always felt an alien among other people. A couple of years ago I took the MBTI test. The test is what it is, but I have found it very beneficial to think about cognitive functions and how they explain various experiences in my life. This has helped me a lot to understand (and accept) myself and other people. Much better than not understanding myself and other people at all. Nowadays I respect other people much more. In my youth I thought other people are stupid for not understanding logical systems (we INTJs excel in that), but now I know they are not stupid. Their heads just processes information differently making it possible for them to be superior in some other things such as memorising new information fast on superficial level or making other people feel good with social skills.
I'm so sorry to hear about your mental disability. Keep your head up guy, it must suck to be you but on the flip side at least you are living and breathing. We must always count our blessings.
Oddly enough I’m autistic and INTJ-T as well! Personally I don’t believe in personality types as an accurate measurement but it’s fun as a broad look at people
@@LemurG Autism is linked to introversion and INTJ is the most introverted of the MBTI personality types. I believe INTJs are actually high functioning autists. Smart, but socially awkward and struggling with sensory information. It all comes from the cognitive functions stack really...
I got INTJ as a teenager as well, I don't think I would anymore necessarily. I just have autism that's all. I am pretty skeptical of the tests because they don't really have much room for people to be multifaceted. You can be both logical and considerate of others feelings, and some people are both illogical and inconsiderate.
16personalities is NOT a MBTI test, it's actually a BIG 5 test where the letters are then replaced with the MBTI ones. You got Introvert Open (intuition) conscientious (thinking) disagreeable (judging) and neurose (turbulant). Generally the MBTI is not a questionnaire and is not fully positivist, and the human interaction is a big part of the interview. The definition and criteria of evaluation used to define personality is both shallow and uninteresting, which is why nobody care about the BIG 5. Carl Jung's was mostly focused on internal conflicts and their ying/yang apsect (how feeling expresses itself in a person over relying on Thinking for instance) I recommend his book "the psychological types", it's extremely well reaserched (more than half of the book is a full inventory since the greeks of the main ways to define and understand personality) and is quite explicit on the scope and limitations it's not something that you PASS, it's long term process that you did with the assistance of a psycholist and often in a therapethic context.
I love your videos. I got the same Briggs-Myers results, which made me happy, despite having the inclination these test simply make the individual feel special.
Ha ha! Did Myers Briggs about 30 years ago with my team. It was treated as a bit of fun, but despite the criticism it gets, actually helped put project teams together (especially making sure there was a completer/finisher on the team). I’m ENTP and have been tested the same three times since, which is unusual for an engineer as most are ISTJ.
I think where people go wrong is that they think these results are prescriptive rather than descriptive, or it's believed that people are restricted because of the results. Sometimes it's a self fulfilling prophecy- would you like to come out and go bowling? "No,no, I'm introverted, I wouldnt enjoy something like that"... that sort of thing.
@@trybunt indeed - MBTI isn't a 'personality type' test, it's a 'personality disorder' test, based on Jung's analysis of psychiatric patients. If anything it should be used to indicate which behaviours you need to move away from, not clutch on to.
I think that you should think about personalities from these tests as how likely you are to approach a problem, and not identify yourself as one personality absolute. I used the myers briggs test and became an INTJ-T. It has been important for me, just to give myself an explanation for what is "normal" for me. Now I can leave a conversation without having any bad conscience 👍
I am intj too. I think you are right that these personality tests are interesting but not much beyond that. Maybe that's part of our so called personality that we look at things like this and work then out. You and I both being intj will mean that we are still individual people and have parts of our personalities, how we deal with things different to each other. I really like this video.
I am INTJ too. I tested myself and my friends just to have a starting point, an initial superficial framework to buiild upon. I find it hard to describe someone's personality and these tests can help build vocabulary to put your own understanding of others into words. I have a friend that is also INTJ and there are many traits that we recognize in ourselves and in each other, but many that we do not share or do not share with the INTJ type. And so far the most interesting part of it all is finding contradictions between people and their types and the contradictions within themselves and ourselves beyond the personality types, and into the contradictions that live within ourselves individually and as a group. I think we really know ourselves and other people well when we are aware of the contradictions within ourselves. Kinda like these tests are an useful tool to scratch the surface of personalities. And get up to speed at spotting contradictions!
Agreed about personality models being simpler than real people. MBTI seems to indicate how people process new information. DISC is how you behave in your current role. PF16 is more useful in my experience. But none of them replace getting to know the real person.
I would like to mention that the 16personalities test which you took is actually a big 5 test using the pop-culture MBTI lettering system. (So it’s not actually MBTI) The makers of the test say this themselves in some background reading on the website.
Condescending of you to use the word 'actually'. You use the word in a confused way. The M-B was invented before the Big Five, and was based on Jung's 1921 work.
@@christophergame7977 You may have misunderstood what I’m saying slightly. I’m sure Sabine would agree that if she made an error (which she did when she said 16personalities is an MBTI test), it is worth pointing out, and ‚actually‘ is quite an appropriate word for correcting someone.
@jeremiahttumanmusik6186: You are saying that the test Sabine took was not the MBTI? Fair enough. You are saying that she took a Big Five test instead? Fair enough. Will you give details to support your statements? Will Sabine be able to confirm or clarify that for us? It is condescending to call the lettering system "pop-culture". (I think that there are substantial flaws in the MBTI. That doesn't entirely demolish it.) I regard it as condescending to use the word 'actually' to "correct someone". Moreover, l think it detracts from your message.
5:40 - "And that I may struggle to find people who can keep up with my non-stop analysis of everything around me". So "true" for someone with a million followers on TH-cam :) Sabine wouldn't get a blogger job for sure, they would dismiss her based on these tests :)
In one of my last jobs (IT) my boss regularly told me "you just keep on talking and no-one understand a thing you're saying". It wasn't meant to be derisive (at least that's my perception but I'm shoddy taking hints, too LOL) but I literally dumbed down my software analysis after that bc I want people to understand what I'm saying. And I also quit that job after a while.
Please do a video about those newer personality tests! I’ve never heard of them and I’m curious to know if they’ve fixed the issues with the older tests.
The reason they constantly need newer ones is because they're total BS, humans are too complex to be devided in a set of different boxes. It does not define who we are. I have attributes of each of those boxes and I refuse to put myself into any of them indefinitely.
Thnx for being so self revealing, Sabine. (FYI - I appreciate most of all your candidness..whether or not I agree with you...that's probably because I sense you mean no personal harm.)
I had to smile at this one, since I’m consistently INTJ. Undergraduate MIT physics (course 8) ’81, but moved on to a different career. It may all be astrology, but still fun. An excellent video as always.
My experience with curiousity is totally different. I do not tend to procrastinate learning new things. It also increased my ability to carry out mundane chores efficiently and just in time. It´s not procrastination if the deadline is met.
@@maxlutz3674 : How many of your chores don't have deadlines? And in the case of writing a report, how much quality is sacrificed by "efficiently" writing it at the last minute?
It makes me very glad to know that I share personality traits with Sabine. We have exactly the same Myers-Briggs personality. No wonder I always felt an affinity for her YT channel!
Very very few people bring me into a state of 'mental resonance and awe' as you do and so the stakes were high when I pressed play. How relieved and happy I was to learn we both share the ways of an INTJ. Sure, it doesn’t hold up to scientific standards but boy o boy what a joy 😊
I would be interested in seeing you analyze MBTI taking the Jungian Functions into account. My experience is that it is a very accurate and reliable system when used properly, but there is so much misinformation about it, and the good information that actually explains all of the problems people have with it can be hard to find
Thank you for your work. When a potential employer requires one of these as a condition of employment, I respectfully withdraw from consideration. Something tells me that the firms using these as a screening tool receive a more comprehensive report than the version given to candidates taking such tests.
This is one of my favorite videos, I think because I feel like I know Sabine a little better, and what’s more interesting than getting to know someone who you find interesting. Sabine, I think you are a beautiful person thank you for sharing your knowledge and your self with us.
Nice video about personality tests - as often, thank you for ordering my (very similar) thoughts into a structured, well verbalized, more abstract form :)
Yes, interesting subject--please continue. I'd also like to hear some statistical analysis of longitudinal applications of those one-shot tests with the validity challenges mentioned in the video. Thanks.
@@jollyjokress3852 I guess so. Especially if I lead them towards this conclusions by specially crafted answers, like Sabine did. Most of the questions in such tests seem pretty transparent in their intention.
They don't suggest anything, they tell you where you are in a parameter respect to the rest of the population in a normal distribution according the number of people who took the test
Like other person said, they don't "suggest" anything. It's not astrology. It's more like a way to help you examine yourself and give you terms and words to talk about your personality. Your complaint is like saying that if I were to measure you and you were 6 foot 3 inches, that the measurement made you tall. That doesn't even make sense. Yes, there are people and companies who misunderstand and abuse these tests for stuff they are not intended for (for example, a sales person could be either introverted or extroverted and be successful, just by different methods, so trying to use tests like these to see if you're the "kind of person" who is a salesperson is worthless) BUT that doesn't mean the information is worthless.
It would be cool if you covered ‘Socionics’, aka Russian MBTI, made to add statistical rigour. It has *the most* intense Wikipedia page - would be nice to learn if they had any success Also @ 8:20 I believe ‘category error’ is the specific philosophical term for what you describe!
@@yuriy5376 Basically, yeah but it's actually more helpful than MBTI imo. The point anyways is to help, identify types and put them into some use through some means
I'd say Socionics is successful; it is taught in universities across eastern europe. It's pretty useful learning how different types of people can unintentionally engage your mind or set you off.
Thanks for reprting on this. My gut told me this was the truth about these tests, but given their popularity, i realized years ago I'd get no insights about them by asking
Sabine is not impressed with personality tests accuracy and reliability. Classic INTJ! Personally I found the Myers-Briggs accurate to almost an unsettling degree. Even negative stereotypes associated with my personality (INFJ) like believing in conspiracy theories, being a devil's advocate to an annoying degree, having terrible fashion sense, having a bit of an ego when it comes to interpersonal relationships and becoming the "unlicensed therapist" of the friend group, and many others, are very relatable to me. Scary how such a simple test explains basically 80% of my personality.
As she says in the video it's not surprising that a summary based on your own thoughts about yourself agrees with your own thoughts about yourself. Perhaps it's surprising that it can do that with only 16 buckets? But then for everyone like you there is probably someone else that doesn't think the bucket fits them well at all
You could say that about many people, though. Don't get me wrong, I think people are prone to certain behaviours, and there are certain people I meet and I think "oh brother, he's one of those types" where it feels like you have them pegged as a type, but I think this is more a case of us human beings trying to find patterns because it would be much easier if everyone just fit one of the molds we've already made in our heads.
For me the INT part is stable, but the last letter is variable. It depends on my mood, or what I've last done. I don't think I have a strong preference, the exact situation determines which way I fall.
ENTP here. Glad that Sabine is touching this topic. I agree that people don't want to become someone they despise which is their true self. It takes a lot of time, reflection, and realization to truly accept who are are and what we are naturally capable of, especially our limits. Personality type isn't something we should be proud of, it's something to reflect and improve on things we are naturally weak and underdeveloped.
Two things: 1) I went in “open general”, (meaning, they get to pick my career. I know, crazy), into the USAF, and I’ll be damned…they picked the right one for me. Computer operator. I made that into a 30 year career as a programmer. 2) I took a personality test in my job, TDF (thinker, decision maker, feeler). Out of 50, 15were “feelers”, 2 were Thinkers (me), the rest all “decisions makers”. I answered my questions honestly, but the later group, some of those people were wanna-be leaders, so I suspect there was dishonest self assessment going. PS: I was very embarrassed to be sectioned off with another introvert. We both would rather not be there.
@@Penfold497 Depends: - for my opinion of the video, a slight minus - for my opinion of the validity of the test, a minus -for my opinion of the social effect, also a minus -for my opinion of the usefulness of the test as a starting point for self reflection or debate, a plus I agree with the end of the video. The existence itself of these tests or of astrology or of tarot is not the issue. The issue is what people do with them. If they are an ice breaker for introspection, good. If they are a simptom of magical thinking, they are varying degrees of bad depending on how much they influence decision making. If you read the horoscope to choose whether you will have tea or coffee today, that is harmless, maybe even a way to introduce some whimsy into your routine. If you base some important personal decisions on it, it's bad. If you are in a position of power and base a decision that affects many people on it, it's very very bad.
Would love to get more videos like this! Though I think you should reflect over how people answer when doing a test. There are many reasons for a person to make different Choices when retaking a test, their true personality, the person thier friends tell them they are and who they want to be, for example.
11:37 All tests are usefull for the ones that make you take the tests. All tests are made in a precise way, to understand a precise caracteristic. The bigFive was created by the military to help them choose the right candidates for the job.
I'm interested in these newer tests. I haven't taken them myself so I wonder what they're like. Personality tests help me describe myself more easily. Sure, I know they're just doing the hard work for me, but at least it's easy to look up the results if someone wants to know about my personality. I'm a fan of MBTI precisely because it does the best job of simplifying the process. I'm an INTP.
8:15 "it's like trying to describe a book with it's weight and electrical resistance .... does it tell you anything about the book that matters?" At our secondhand bookstore we would weigh every book that was worth over £2.50 online, we had a scale on the front desk. This was important when buying and posting books due to the Royal Mail charges for various weights and sizes of book. We often made losses due to forgetting to add the weight of the padded envelope, forgetting the Amazon sales charge, people assuming postage was only £2.80, the spring in the scale being broken (it was replaced). So there was a reference table I made in excel to capture all these factors and ensure we made at least 50p on each listing else it wasn't worth our time. We should have charged more as the business ultimately failed but a lot of people bought books off us on amazon, and weighing them was essential to the process.
Perhaps in the future, an AI based system will be able to observe and track your traits, and make a conclusion from OBSERVATION ( like your family and friends might do), rather than self-reporting. These might be more accurate. As far as entering into a relationship where you are often told you're an ignorant jerk, many people do this all the time. It's called marriage.
As an INTJ, I found your insights very interesting and informative, delivered with a unique style across both video and the written word. No wonder; apparently we have a similar outlook and approach to information.
![fellow fellow - พรุ่งนี้ไม่มีใครรู้ feat. INK WARUNTORN [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QP6JyjYx_W0/mqdefault.jpg)
![เปิด อาณาจักร หมื่นล้าน "สาระตั้ม" l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3XE0nPF4YkQ/mqdefault.jpg)
In 1967 I took Psychology 101 at Cornell University with Prof. Maas. There were 700+ students in the class. On the first day, we took a Personally Profile Test with about 50 multiple chose questions. Each student used a machine-readable answer sheet (#2 pencil to fill the ovals). The following class we each received a sealed envelope with the results. Without conferring with other students, we were asked to rate from 0 to 100 how well we felt the profile we received matched our personality. Including me, about 90% of the students said the test was remarkably accurate in assessing our personalities. The professor then explained that everyone got the same report, without regard to anything we had answered on the test.
Ha!! Brilliant!
At which point you all quit?
Much like fortune tellers and astrology then
So did he apologize for his secretary fucking up and gave you the correct reports ?
I took psychology also and went as a guinea pig for a master student doing an experiment. We got some questionnaires and I knew immediately that it was a trick questionnaire and they were going to try to extract some data. This means my answers were no good and should have been excluded. They should not have used psychology students as subjects because we knew about the trickery involved. It was my only psychology course that I had to take in electrical engineering. I also has to take one term of economics and law.
That's basically what Sabine was saying about her results,, that the conclusion WAS analyzed BUT phrased in a pleasing way... however YOUR "results" were designed to teach you EARLY about the tendency to agree with an assessment YOU YOURSELF agree with... I imagine there was ALMOST NO negativity in this "analyses" right,, which was why ONLY 10% "disagreed" with the form- conclusion...
My favourite quotation about personality comes from the comedian Harry Hill. If I remember rightly he said: "You can learn a lot about someone's personality by getting to know them." 😂
Great quote, thanks!
Lol.
Lol quite so...
@@esrevergnireenigne6534 the 4 categories of Facebook user. I deleted my profile after the CA scandal.
Voice of reason
Sabine you passed my personality test. You unquestionably have one, and it does everything we need it to do.
I loved the final reflection Sabine gave about using personality tests and horoscopes as a way to open conversation about ourselves.
that is why i love tarot cards. it is also nice to just let go from (lack of a better word) logic and just embrace the random, accept there is a lot we are not in control of everything, and like sabbi said take a moment and look around.
And she is exactly right. I, and some friends I know, lay cards for that exact reason. Not because the universe decided that my figure for this week is the emperor but simply because it forces me to ask, how exactly have I been an authority recently, have I used my powers responsibly, should I even continue to be authoritative or am I trying to elevate myself over others?
She's divinely inspired
Yes, like the weather, horoscopes and personality tests are useful as a subject of small talk, mostly for women.
@@-IE_it_yourselftarot cards are actually a great tool for reflection. There’s so many ways you can approach it depending on your interests.
Interestingly a fairly large proportion of people who do tarot dont actually believe they tell the future
There is a channel called Typebook and they type a bunch of people. They've also typed Sabine. As INTP. Just randomly throwing this recommendation here. That's a good channel! It's based on the work of Carl Jung and Psychological 'Type' isn't 'Personality'.
I wouldn't mind seeing this expanded into the additional tests that were mentioned. Especially whether the questions asked in them can evade some of the points you mentioned, like if we give the answers of behavior/personality we want to exhibit or believe to be appropriate rather than behavior/personality we actually engage in.
I second that
i'd watch it too. include luxxprofile please
Take an MRI test; combine it with the important MRI test!
@@Human_01when I got an MRI done on my wrecked SI joint, it didn't help with that, nor when I got one on my wrecked shoulder. 😂
Sabine, yes please, breakdown those new personality tests! This stuff is fascinating ❤ (Absolutely love your channel)
Psychologist here: great discussion, covered many issues with such tests.
One aspect for future discussion: using tests like the MMPI to spot unusual/concerning patterns of answers, as well as patterns that show that someone is "faking good."
I do wish these conversations, which are rightly critical, would recognize that there are some ways to address some of the concerns mentioned. I think the MBTI is irredeemable, but either the FFM or HEXACO can be useful in concert with other tests.
@@chrismorrison8047 Haven't investigated the FFM or HEXACO, but will. Another factor, of course, is the skill with which the tests are administered (comfort of the subject, clarity of directions) and interpreted: big difference between reading canned descriptions of what a response pattern might suggest as opposed to long experience with matching many specific test response patterns with a specific measure to specific clients one gets to know well.
So many variables, so little time..
@@maxm2639 I really hope and expect that we'll make some actual progress on this stuff in the coming decades. The FFM was a fantastic, evidence-based foundation. It needs a lot of refinement, but it's actually data-driven rather than theory-driven. Oddly (to me), some people levy that as a criticism. I see that as a virtue, but ymmv.
I've not gotten into the details on HEXACO yet, but my initial reading suggests that the addition of "humility" to the factors is both warranted and helpful. To give only one example (and to overstate the findings for illustrative value), I read a study in which agreeableness was highly correlated with teamwork productivity. That wasn't surprising. What WAS surprising was that one aspect of trait emotional intelligence, namely mood, negatively moderated the relationship. Questions about replication aside (the study didn't try to replicate its own findings in a second survey), the results suggested that the higher the optimism, the less agreeability helps predict teamwork, and the lower optimism, the stronger the agreeableness->teamwork association.
Those findings are worth interpreting and exploring, but let me try to get to my point. That study utilized the FFM. But HEXACO pulls out humility as its own factor, and humility has been elsewhere correlated with prosocial and ethical behavior. So it might be the case that the original study was overlooking issues in humility, such that highly optimistic people (which could be interpreted as people with high self-efficacy) but very low humility might not reap the other benefits associated with agreeability with respect to teamwork.
Of course, all this is only one study with others in the background, so I'm not actually proposing any real conclusions be drawn. What I AM suggesting is that models like HEXACO seem to be building on the legitimate work of the FFM (as opposed to the MBTI).
Add to all of THAT the other issues you mentioned, and others beyond, and I think that given enough time we'll come up with better tests that are more predictive and more scientifically useful. I think we're going in the right direction. I just think the public is being mislead by the MBTI.
What are your thoughts on Erich Fomm character types?
After working for an international company for a decade I was asked to take part in one of these tests as the company was looking to introduce the test globally before employing people. I did the test and they told me, that based upon my results, they should never have employed me!!! I went on to get promoted a couple of times after this and led several transformational projects and really enjoyed my 35 year fulfilling career despite the test saying I was totally the wrong person for them. 😐
That was brilliant Sabine.
As you implied in your presentation, personalities in relation to our environment cannot be separated.
Im an infj. Your personality is great and i love your german accent. Its a pleasure to listen to you discuss interseting topics.
INTJ-T, same as me! I've always felt that the MBTI has a good combination of accuracy and user-friendliness. Those two are probably a bit mutually-exclusive.
It needs to be combined with Neuroimaging, and then keep those borderline and emotionally-selfish, termites and homunculus away from corrupting the truth and reality to benefit their vulnerable-narcissit "feelings".
@@Human_01sounds nazi germanyish.
@@Human_01 calm down, were all screwed and thats fine
Me too
Thank you for providing a balanced and unbiased view as usual! Love your videos. - INTP
Same: rare because most have been hunted down and killed owing to annoyingness😂
@@celiacresswell6909 Right?
Same here INTP .
INTP in the house. I mean literally. I just stay in my house.
@@storm14k😂
if not for anything else your subtle sense of humor alone is worth a subscription
Yes, the accuracy of the Myers-Briggs test is variable, but the classification it provides can be valuable - it's just better to 'diagnose' based on observation of individuals, rather than bulk-apply a survey with reductive and imprecise questions that elicit inconsistent responses. The 4-sliding-scales approach to typology is unhelpful, and obscures the power of analysing personality types using cognitive functions.
We use 'perceiving' functions to input information. These are extraverted sensing (Se), introverted sensing (Si), extraverted intuition (Ne), and introverted intuition (Ni).
We use 'judging' functions to process information. These are extraverted feeling (Fe), introverted feeling (Fi), extraverted thinking (Te) and introverted thinking (Ti).
Here are some crude explanations of the functions.
Perceiving functions: Se gathers external, concrete sensory information (from the 5 senses), Si organises this information, Ne ‘gathers’ (more like *generates*) internal, abstract patterns that it notices from sensory input, and Ni organises these patterns.
Judging functions: We use Fe and Fi to process the values and feelings of ourselves and others. We use Te and Ti to process the logic, reasoning and general mental workings of ourselves and others. In other words, Fe and Fi process information about people; Te and Ti process information about things.
Every human uses all 8 functions - it would be impossible to navigate life otherwise. We just all differ in our *preferences*, i.e. the functions we tend to use the most. Each personality type is made up of a stack of 4 functions - the dominant, secondary, tertiary and inferior. These are our 4 preferred functions, in that order.
Your first function determines whether you're I or E. Your first *perceiving* function determines whether you’re N or S. Your first *judging* function determines whether you’re F or T. Your first *extraverted* function determines whether you’re J or P (if it’s Ne or Se, you’re P, if it’s Fe or Te, you’re J).
Here are the four MBTI ‘families’, made up of the same functions:
ISFP - Fi, Se, Ni, Te
ESFP - Se, Fi, Te, Ni
INTJ - Ni, Te, Fi, Se
ENTJ - Te, Ni, Se, Fi
---------------------------------
ISTP - Ti, Se, Ni, Fe
ESTP - Se, Ti, Fe, Ni
INFJ - Ni, Fe, Ti, Se
ENFJ - Fe, Ni, Se, Ti
---------------------------------
ISFJ - Si, Fe, Ti, Ne
ESFJ - Fe, Si, Ne, Ti
INTP - Ti, Ne, Si, Fe
ENTP - Ne, Ti, Fe, Si
---------------------------------
ISTJ - Si, Te, Fi, Ne
ESTJ - Te, Si, Ne, Fi
INFP - Fi, Ne, Si, Te
ENFP - Ne, Fi, Te, Si
For example, with the INTJ stack (Ni, Te, Fi, Se), the dominant Ni shows that you prefer to find and organise patterns and general trends in the world: rather than dealing with raw, material data (input from your 5 senses), you prefer to transform this data into overall observations and conclusions - you like to find the ‘ultimate’ reason, purpose, explanation, etc. With secondary Te, you prefer making your ultimate judgements based on empirical facts and frameworks established by others (as opposed to your personal, internal logic and reasoning - you still do this, but will be less comfortable arriving at a conclusion with internal logic alone). Fi shows you’re less inclined to care about the values of others and society, and are more comfortable living according to your own, even when they conflict with the values of those around you. Inferior Se means you are less comfortable engaging with the external, material world and would much rather spend time in your internal, mental world.
I could go on. My point is that MBTI is a rich and fascinating field that has helped me immensely in understanding myself and others, and appreciating the unique strengths and struggles of every individual. The test misrepresents what MBTI is capable of.
I'm such a typology nerd lol.
Easy to tell you are a "fellow" INTJ. Your video made me laugh out loud, spontaneously at a couple of points. If anything, Myers-Briggs tells us who we will be able to relate with easily and who will have a similar sense of humor. I find the M-B personality description spot on for the most part, not just in the flattering aspects.
I find the flattering aspects to be the least accurate parts of personality description most of the time.
I also find it more useful than she seems to think, if only because 1) I can predict the "type" most people will get with uncanny accuracy, and 2) I tend to get along or at least communicate well with INTJs and ENFPs pretty reliably. So it is detecting something repeatably, but I can't say what.
As for astrology and horoscopes, the late, great Amazing Randi published a video with a beautifully simple experiment on a group of high school students he was teaching (a critical thinking class). He told his class of approximately 25 that he was going to create an individual horoscope for each student based upon their birthday, of course. After handing out each one, he asked each student to read and then rate how accurate they thought the horoscope was about who they were and their personality traits. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the most accurate) every single student rated their personal horoscope at a four or five out of five. He then asked the students to pass their horoscope to the student behind them such that every student in the class had a horoscope that was not intended for them. He then asked them to read them, and after approximately 10 to 15 seconds, the students realized that each horoscope was exactly the same. They were worded in such a general and flattering manner each person honestly thought the horoscope was about them personally. Randi is greatly missed...
The Amazing Randi was ... amazing! Until my library was forcibly dismantled I had several of his books.
@@capnkirk5528 Keep those tidbits to yourself that last comment did not need mentioning at all
@@meanieweeny4765keep policing people's conversations to yourself. The man is free to share whatever he wants to share. BTW I know my comment is inherently contradictory, but I'm not gonna police my own comments. I'm free to say whatever I want 😉🙃
@@meanieweeny4765 Good point. Edited slightly.
@@Mr.Anders0n_ You make a good point, but the intent of my commenting is to encourage people to engage in critical thinking and that 'tidbit' didn't really serve that aim, so I will consider it constructive criticism and try to accept it graciously.
Definitely interested in these other tests. I completely agree that they are a tool for self reflection and exploration of who we are. And indeed the MB test has changed over time. I have become more introspective but that is probably through life experiences
Amusing to see Sabine confirming her INTJ personality type score by tearing it apart.
Predictable. No test was needed
Yep. Kinda funny because that's pretty much exactly what an INTJ would do.
I'm confused about the 97% introverted bit.
I always thought I was introverted but not as much as 97%. I would be terrified of talking to the public via a regular youtube channel and also being part of an interview panel explaining complex subjects as I've often seen Sabine do. I would just freeze and maybe waffle my way through.
Maybe I'm 98% introverted.
FJ once did a video a while back explaining how each personality would deal with the MBTI. The INTJ would write a letter, ripping the MBTI apart and calling it non scientific 😂
What is it with Ni doms' practically pathological need for theory validation via peer-reviewed publication? Isn't this rather paradoxical?
I’m an INTJ and while I take it with a pinch of salt, it has helped me understand me somewhat and recognising these factors helps me nourish them.
Same here. Solidly INTJ every time I've taken it over the years. Comforting in a way.
Or.. you've made a framework for your life around those assessments. Instead of, looking inward and going on a discovery of yourself, and learning how to update yourself, you ran into a test result that showed you a red thread to follow, to achieve a somewhat similar result. What if the test had said that you are extroverted.
@@elgalas But it didn't. There's a reason why the test showed a tendency towards introversion. It's not because extraversion is entirely missing, but it means that there's a tendency or a desire to be introverted rather than extraverted. This can help a person understand themselves and others better.
I suspect you will find a very high percentage of those watching this are the same. Given that supposedly that type only make up 1 to 4% of the population it could be a method for identifying and recruiting new viewers.
Same here as a INTP, I also find it useful to try to analyze people, to get a start-off point for when I have to talk to them.
AKA stereotypes can be useful as a start point before getting to actually know someone.
INTJ-A here. Love to hear the arguments regarding psychological personality test whether it's reliable or not in terms of various usages.
Seeing her dissecting every argument or parts of the topic is pretty self-explanatory for her.
I have noticed that personality tests have a galvanizing affect on personality. I worked somewhere we all had to take DiSC tests, in which everyone was labeled either Dominant, Influential, Supportive or Conscientious. Then we all went into a meeting room and were separated out by our types and asked to defend our position. This led to most people adopting extreme versions of the type they had been given. Having worked with many of these people for 10 years, their behavior and beliefs during and after the meeting were noticeably different.
Totally. People really cling to an "authoritative" self-description. It becomes their passport. They smuggle all their oddities, quirks, and genuine human weirdness behind their rubber-stamped "personality" because their "official" personality type has been approved by the authorities. At least, I imagine it's a kind of defense mechanism. Or a designated "safe zone" which they can always retreat to.
@@ucantSQ most people would rather be the villain, than to be nobody at all. I asked if I could stand in the middle because I would rather not label myself, and believed my answers may have differed if I was in a different mood. Instead, I had to stand in the corner and come up with reasons why we need dominant and assertive people. I actually thought that by asserting myself as a conscientious participant, with an influential perspective, in support of the program would have earned me a place in the middle. But no, I was shuffled in with the other Ds.
@@Rybot9000 Labels can give some people a feeling of status and importance.
@@ucantSQlove your answer! Can I ask what your favorite book is because you sound like an interesting intelligent person ☺️
I like the comparison of personality tests to horoscopes. I often think of them similarly. I enjoy them for the fun of it, especially with discussions with others. I don't generally think of it too seriously, but the one aspect that I have found really helpful is understanding that others may see the world through a different lens than I do. I know that is a pretty general thought, but it certainly has been beneficial in understanding people that neither of us probably would have thought to mention otherwise. One thing that is important to remember is that it can be a useful tool to aid in social interactions or self-reflections, however it becomes hazardous when it is used to put people in a box and limits what people can or think they can do.
Both of these gives you an outline of your nature in general, which is a good way to pin point some attributes in one's complex personality, but certainly to that limit only.
That''s one of the biggest issues, people identifying with a type so much they won't accept anything outside of their box, I don't believe there is any personality theory works like this, Jung is often being misinterpreted due to how his archetypes are outlined and how myers briggs foundation incorrectly termed their dimensions dichotomies.
Everyone including Sabine still think it's either or with MBTI because of this.
For the big 5 test there is the issue that they don't initially have relations between their traits, and thus they can't really generate an image of what your result looks like, MBTI gained popularity just because people were able to see themselves in a type, with an easy four letter label and even a distinct avatar and like celebrities.
It are these creative additions that makes everyone love it.
The downside of course is that it causes some of us to get attached to one of those types even when it is not our type like how personas work, some men want to be women now or they want to be addressed by a different pronoun, identity is something you can change if you really want it and I don't think we can do anything against that, the only thing we can do is make those people reflect on what their personality really is and hope that spreads among the community, which is something I try to do on the regular
@@nehamotwani6477not really. These tests are very useful to consciously establish your patterns of behavior and more importantly your limiting beliefs that you may have not realized were working against your goals, and they may even help you determine a path forward for your growth. Also, as was said above, they may help you understand why other people don't see the world the same way you do. But you always need to figure out how this result fits your own life and self, not let it box you. If your career of choice isn't amongst the ones recommended for your personality type then are you going to move away from it? Of course not!
They can be a lot more substantive than horoscopes but it depends on the test and the tester. I'm no expert but it would make sense if these tests (and psychology generally) focused on the historical behaviour of the subject rather than asking the person to directly diagnose personality traits and I'm pretty sure that's what modern psychology does, when it's not using brain scans or genetics.
The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Hardly a revelation 😁
German English is a very hard to understand
MBTI works great if you actually know yourself and don't lie and tell the test what you want to be instead of how you actually think or act.
My type have never changed over the years, and it describes me perfectly.
I really struggled to understand how some people worked and why they acted like they did before I knew my type compared to how others work.
It really helped me understand others better on a deeper level.
And makes it much easier to deal with people way different to me.
Just like understanding other aspects of psychology helps with understanding people's quirks and possible struggles they are dealing with.
Personality type is just a short hand to describe some more complicated aspects on how you work and experience things compared to other people and yourself. Because there is patterns that arise out of mixing certain personalities together.
Sure you can describe the same thing with lots of deep discussions when you get to know somebody.
But for introverts that is a very slow process in most cases.
And it seems it is introverts that have the most befits of diving deeper in understanding others personifies better by using information like this.
Calling personality type test like the same things as horoscopes is way to harsh, horoscopes have zero basis in reality and do not describe anything useful at all.
I have used information learned from personality classifications and psychology with great benefits when dealing with other people.
If you just take a test and learn a bit about yourself you are missing out.
The real value is in understanding better the differences between people and what that can learn you on how to handle and deal with others better.
Great video. Couldn't agree more. I'd love to hear you explore emotional intelligence tests like EQ and DISC and such.
Yes, please!
There is a great document about the importance of emotional intelligence acknowledgement that TH-cam for some reason loves to censor away, and even attempts to encrypt it in code speech were caught. It's insane, althoug kinda not surprising.
There is no such thing as EQ.
@@JBplumbing12That's a low-IQ statement. 😉
I am an ITNJ as well. I participated in a telecom business conference where the guest speaker was also an ITNJ. He related that ITNJs represent 1% of the tested population but in the telecom industry they represent 17% of the executive management.
Excellent video. Thank you, Sabine. I really liked that you highlighted that sometimes there is just no suitable answer given (for me it's ofthen "well it depends") and so people will pick at random. Also that people may likely choose answers based on how they'd like to be perceived. I'm hugely concerned at the use of these tests on people by potential employers and the like - but I do agree with you that they can be useful (and fun!) as a tool for self-reflection and personal development. I'd be keen to see more on the other tests that you didn't have time to cover. Thanks again!
Personally I found it easier to read the temperament profiles (NF, NT, SP, SJ) and find the one that suits me (all 4 are very different) then go from there : T or F and P or J which are rather easy to determine, then , I or E, then read both the remaining profiles to figure out F or T. Tests tend to be very inaccurate because as you said, it depends. The motivations for choosing certain actions I think are more important than the actions themselves and tests can't measure that.
I agree with your analysis of the personality tests.
Personality is too complex to be defined by some questions on a written test.
As can be paraphrased, "I know personality when I see it".
Thanks for coming out of your introvert shell to give us Sabine.
During my career I've had the Myers Briggs test a couple of times, in the context of a group team building sort of thing, with "expert facilitators" who helped us interpret the results. The first time people take it, most feels they are getting profound insights into themselves. But if you think of it as defining "16 rooms", all it really does is tell you what "room" (or MBTI code) you feel most comfortable in at the time you take the test. But anyone can act in anyone of the 16 modes if they want to. And the real power comes from realizing what "rooms" the other folks around you are most comfortable in - this gives you some insight in the most effective approach you should take when trying to influence them (for example, making choices at work on solutions, vendors, etc). The idea is you make your case in the way that they find most comfortable to align with vs making your case in the way you feel most comfortable (for example emphasizing the feelings of others over cost or vice versa regardless as to what you feel the most compelling reason is). Having said all that, I do believe there are more than 16 types of people in the world. Of course, that's my INTJ talking.
Yes, I had that experience too. It was enlightening to realize that other people process information much differently than I do. If the tests and their interpretation are correct, of course...
I think there's a danger that these tests can encourage some people to think about themselves and others in terms of pigeon-holed character traits instead of as rounded individuals. I guess it's human nature to want to divide up dynamic spectra into static categories; it's how we parse the world...
I feel comfortable finding out if someone is an *NT* or not and if they should go upstairs or downstairs to be happy, like, at least some of the patterns within it are bigger than any one room. Good money on the nerds staying in the nerd rooms, maybe even outside culture is mapped onto it like a hologram by outside pressure. Man, measuring this for real sounds super hard.
well of course there are more than 16 personalities. MBTI is an abstraction, which will give you a rough idea aboot who a person is.
@@Dejawolfsjup... I mean... It's 4 Bits of information, it's only gonna tell you so much...
How do you know when you run a personality test whether or you are getting their 'personality' or simply their role in a society/social system? 'The Funny One' in a group may not be an extrovert, but if the group needs a 'funny one', they may decide to pick up the role.
That's the definition of personality, since we live in societies and not in a vacuum
@@strangelove24 doesn't that make the question, whether you can decide to change your personality? this video seems to suggest that you can, if you keep doing it long enough
This is why I would question the ideal of universality. Since personality can only exist in reference to a standard of behavior (as she says, going to bed every night is hardly a personality trait), this will always be contingent, both on a macro societal level, as well as a micro social level. Am I the personality that constantly speaks over others because I am very full of myself or am I simply surrounded by weak-willed people who are fine with me taking the lead? Is there even a difference? etc.
@@QuinnArgo Psychologists certainly don't use these tests as universal, and certainly not genetically determined. Many tests were initially formulated in a psychiatric environment with people who have so much trouble coping in society, that they either voluntarily or non-voluntarily lock themselves into a psychiatric care unit. Imagine the person who believes themselves to be surrounded by weak-willed people... as a psychiatric patient in a hospital or institution of some kind. In which case their "strong-will" might be interpreted as delusional, meglamaniacal or unduly aggressive. lol And, we might see their society as immoral or dysfunctional, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a good example of such. Note that the book was written by someone who claimed to write it under the influence of LSD, and later went on a cross-country trip promoting use of that substance. I think it did a grave disservice to the truly mentally ill in America, too many of who are presently living in the streets. Anyways any definition of "personality", so far at least, is "squishy", and is necessarily an unknown combination of nature and nurture.
I'm just not sure that anyone using personality measures has an ideal of universality. I think Sabine is bringing it up here because many test sellers try to promote their tests as "scientific". Even the best hardly stand up as scientific.
Its about traits parts of a hole a hole fixed design.
I always thought the Big Five were "found" by doing dimensionality reduction on hundreds of personality related questions: they had test subjects answer those questions, and then they did dimensionality reduction to variables (so a linear model), and measured the error of reverting back from the variables to the answer to the questions. When dropped below 5, the error increased a lot, so they chose 5 variables to represent answers to personality questions (which in turn should be a proxy to the personality). Later came the association/naming of the 5 variables to their current assigned names.
Now, this is a principled way to create variables to "described personality". But still, it's not very strong: it's a linear model after all, and there are still errors: both because of information being dropped with the dimensionality reduction, and because the nature of the questions (they, as Sabine describes) are already noisy, and somewhat random at cases... But still, a valid approach to try to simplify / summarize "personality". In the end it all depends if they are useful for whatever one wants to use this personality scores for. And if the use case is entertainment only, then even MBTI can be useful :)
Great video, love your posts Sabine!
@@PedroSantos-bw5up Thanks, I was not familiar with the term. It seems they are the same thing according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_analysis : a linear approximation, that projects the original observations to reduced dimensions (factors).
Your analogy to horoscopes is spot-on.
I walked out of an interview because they said I had to take a personality test and that their hiring decisions hinged on the results.
From this we may conclude that your personality is very serious and no nonsense, and you keep a strong track of your time.
It really depends on what personality test they used. The Big Five dimension of conscientiousness is strongly predictive of job performance
@@BUSeixas11 It wasn't that one, this video was my first hearing of it.
From the brief description, theirs would designate the role you should have in the company and if you didn't get a result with the role you were applying for, you didn't get to interview.
I don't want to work at a place that relies so heavily on fortune-telling., so it wasn't worth the estimated 3 hrs for taking it.
I'm glad you made this video on personality types from a scientific perspective. I love personality tests but I also like to consider scientific analysis for the tests and their validity
As usual, an excellent presentation. Thank you, Sabine
I've found that MBPI types are really useful for lazy character creation in writing short stories / novels, because they (like novels) rely on extremely simplistic tropes.
Excellent Sabine, Thankk!
I love your analysis! I’m an introvert like you…that’s really all I need to know. I have done a few tests and each one gave me a different introvert type.INFP seems to me to be the most accurate although I share characteristics with all the others.
Great video Sabine! I would like to point out that the "16 Personalities" test that you took has false branding and is honestly a sham. They actually test for the Big 5 traits and then map them out to each letters: Openness -> N/S, Conscientiousness -> J/P, Extraversion -> E/I, Agreeableness -> F/T , where scoring higher in any trait means you get the first letter of 2. Here you may also notice that Neuroticism is missing so they invented a new letter A/T, but still continues to market it as MBTI which has a lot more depth and nuance with cognitive functions. If you read Jung's book on Personality Types you will also see that he talks about the dominant cognitive function being like the pilot but other functions being more fluid as people develop.
god i FUCKING HATE 16PERSONALITIES
yes yes, i agree with you. i think its quite a shame people just wave their hands over mbti. mbti the way it is now and big 5 as well are only scales, they dont provide that much insight as the cognitive functions. and the fact that even sabine didnt base her mbti around cognitive functions just shows how little it is known. still it was a great video :D
_@Sabine_ -- I took the Myers-Briggs test when I was 16 or 17 and was identified as an INTJ, too. But the results shows a bar graph for each pair of opposites and showed you where you placed on that continuum. It was not "either/or" as you described. (I was part of a group of "brainiacs" and researches wanted to know how we "ticked". I was told that INTJ was one of the most rare combinations and they found a higher-than-normal percentage of INTJs in our group.) That was 50 years ago! (I'm 66 now.) I've taken updated versions of the Myers-Briggs test two times since then (the last was probably 5-6 years ago). Each time it produced INTJ. The first time I took the test, I do not remember the results being entirely positive. It cautioned about potential "problems" for an INTJ. Family and friends who have read my INTJ profile say it "nails" me. The biggest thing I learned from the test is that everyone doesn't think like me. This was huge when I was young, because I viewed everyone as if they were the same and this led to very wrong conclusions for their behavior. My wife is very different and the test has helped me love her. For example, she does not like sudden change (especially about life-changing decisions) and I try to accommodate that. It must have worked because we've been happily married since 1977. So, the test may not always be accurate and people may change, but it still has great benefit in understanding the relative differences between people and how to live with them in the best-possible way.
I ditto everything you said. Including understanding why you/we are different, how it helped us in our relationships with others, and also how this understanding helps in a marriage. It changed my life for the better.
I experienced a similar thing. I am ENTP and my wife is INFJ, so I could at last see that things that I am doing might be too demanding and overwhelming of her at times. I've learned to consider others' way of being much more when I act. This doesn't mean that we have to create identities out of it and put ourselves in boxes. But just being considerate of others, it opened my eyes big time to how others' internal processes work, when and how their intellect shines..
I'm INTJ and also found it helpful in realizing that I think differently than others for specific reasons and it helped me deal with others. If I'm having trouble relating with someone I'll try to type them and use that info to change the way I approach them.
I second that. I'm a (consistent) INTJ-A, but I'm only 59% introverted.
Personality traits are so dynamic based on so many social, economic and regional factors that no test (IMO) is ever going to express some accuracy even half of the time.
I think the five factor model is useful but A big part of being an adult is adjusting your personality traits to fit the situation.
@@brianjonker510 🪛
Totally wrong. Your personality is not an outcome of your socioeconomic status.
@@BUSeixas11 oh if only it was that simple
I've had occasion to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) multiple times and one of its features is that it's clear that the same questions are asked at different places in the 500-plus questions with different phrasing and wording. Also, while many of the questions seem to be clearly looked for feelings that might indicate mental illness there are many others that don't give any clue as to what the answer you give might "mean".
Well, it was literally designed to evaluate psychopathology and personality disorders. Even as late as 2003, adjustments were made to reflect modern understandings of those illnesses. And it's for developing treatment plans for the diagnosed. It's been used in hiring, but originally this was in order to screen out candidates with undiagnosed mental illness. You say "many of the questions...clearly...", but ALL of the questions are looking for those indications, the entire test is for that purpose! That it's as widely used as it is in employment should probably be quite alarming.
That's by design. It's a problem when someone figures out what the test is "supposed to be asking" because then they can just answer based on the result they want to get. You can't completely avoid getting someone who knows how the test works, especially since one of the ethical principles of psychology is to be open with the research, but you don't have to make it any easier than it needs to be.
I am an INTJ too, every time I have taken it over the decades.
Also that was a fun video and i too have loved astrology and personality tests even though I didn't really believe in astrology and wondered about PTs. Thanks for your take on why they are just fun and make a person think a little more about their life.
I got my degree in psychology during the "behaviorist" era of the "science" - when stimulus-response ruled the day. Psychology was trying to be "scientific". If it had been given a "personality" test we might have learned that psychology was the jealous type, jealous of the hard sciences that is. Anyway, I remember that in my very first Pcych course (101) the instructor advised the class that if they are ever given a personality test, or any other test of that general sort, to answer all the questions as if they were the perfect, well-adjusted, sane, level-headed, cooperative, reasonable people that any company or institution would likely be looking for, and not to give into the temptation to tell the truth.
This! 😂😂😂😂
Yes, you're right. Made the same experience during my studies (curative education). There was a big hype about the work of this Italian group (Milan School), who believed, they could 'scientificize' psychology. Though the outcome of behaviorism is not totally crap and works quite accurate in some cases, your term of jealousy nails it.
I know it's pseudoscience but knowing I'm an INFJ has really allowed me to become more aware of why I think and act the way I do. The odd thing is how this was brought to my attention. I didn't go out looking for personality content because I didn't even know such a thing existed. It was TH-cam that started recommending INFJ content. I ignored it for quite a long time but YT was persistent with the content. Eventually I watched one and was surprised how much it lined up with my personality. After watching it I went and took a test and sure enough it said I was INFJ. I've taken several since then and they always come up INFJ. What bothers me is that YT was able to make this determination based on my viewing and comment history. Of course in reality the personality type itself means very little, but YT's algorithm being sophisticated enough to know what I would get on these tests is creepy.
It's mostly the phenomenon of feeling a sense of belonging as soon as somehow has a label for you, indicating that there are more of you, and you have a community.
so AI is better at typing than humans?
@@zazugeeeven if it was ai fueled that ai would have been trained exclusively by highly intelligent people with mountains upon mountains upon mountains of direct userdata, along with the knowhow to work it all into a functional algorithm. Ai really aren't that good on their own yet.
A lot of INFJs are mistyped in the type sphere; 16personalities is especially biased towards giving people intuition (N) as one of the dichotomies. Also, I doubt that YT somehow understood you as a person; I think that it just recommended you videos which people who are like you tend to watch.
@@kairostimeYT Yeah, 16 was the the first one I took. I watched a video a few months later about it not being accurate which is why I took the others. It's probably a good idea for anyone interested in personality tests to take multiple ones to make sure they're getting an accurate assessment (or at least as accurate as it can be).
It's possible YT recommended the videos to me because people with similar watch histories were watching them. Makes me curious about how other people that have similar watch histories became aware of the MBTI because it certainly wasn't in the wheelhouse of my normal viewing.
The
You're not alone. I would do the same just to show them it was meaningless. Just be careful they don't start thinking you're loonytoons 🙂.
U funny
I really really appreciate your videos, its like a sigh of relief every time i see you take nuance. Of course this is just my opinion, but i resonate with your analysis on many social topics. I'm really rooting for this channel and that the festering hand of capital doesn't completely ruin its content.
Those kinds of tests always feel like BS to me. The questions are so simple. I have to interpret the questions myself and decide which answer is "most honest". I have to think "what is the tester asking me and how will they judge my answer?"
And there is no guide to the questions either. Do I answer how I feel right now? Or do I answer how I will be in the future? If I answer using my current state, does that mean my personality will change in the future? Is it how other people would answer for me? Or should I answer for my self? Which is more accurate? Or is it all biased nonsense?
And there is never anything surprising either. If I give introverted answers, they will say I am introverted. If I give empathetic answers, they will say I am empathetic. SO WHAT IS THE POINT??? YOU TAKE THE TEST TO GET A RESULT YOU ARE NOT SURE ABOUT. BUT THE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ARE SO OBVOIUS THAT YOU KNOW WHAT THE RESULT WILL BE FROM THE START!!!!!!!
The way to get the most meaningful and accurate results is to always be honest (instead of worrying about what others might think), and to always answer "how do I _usually_ feel about this issue?" (which is personality and stays constant for months or years) rather than replying with what you feel _right now_ (which fluctuates from day to day). As for what the "point" is, the only "point" you should be associating with personality tests in your mind is "better self understanding". If the results ring true, and appear to tell you what you already know, that's a _good_ thing, not a _bad_ thing as you imply. That's really the only usefulness of these tests: to goad people into actually doing honest self-examination. Any other use (HR, etc) is bogus. If someone tries to give you a Big-5, MBTI, Socionics, or Enneagram test during an HR interview, say "this is unethical; i withdraw my application", walk out, and go get a job elsewhere instead; the internal workings of your own mind is your business only.
I was hoping to see some mention of the 8 cognitive functions interpretation of Myers-Briggs personality types. It’s a bit more concrete of an idea than the axes interpretation. While the axes interpretation are easy for an online test, the cognitive functions have more interesting implications. You might notice INFP and INTP are less similar than they seem after you read about Ti versus Fi, for example.
The idea of the cognitive functions is much more interesting to me.
Axes have validity. Fi and Ti, for example, are on the same axis. But yes, you do and should consider the cognitive functions. It's also important to note that Fi doesn't mean feeling. Ti is a linear thinking process, thus Fi is simply a comparative thinking process. The gap between the compared causes a limbic attention to devise a gravity of importance. However, both Fi and Ti are essentially thinking.
@@NotSoNormal1987 At the same time, psychiatry's looking ever more at the subconscious and emotive.
Very nice video, Sabine! I would like to watch more content of yours examining the other tests you mentioned at the end of the video in the future. Thank you!
The goal ist to make you feel special. Everybody can find a personality test where they are a really special person.
„Ist”, hallo Freund
Remind them that special does not mean useful.
_Everybody can find a personality test where they are a really special person._
Boy, I better start looking around, then. My wife is usually the one doing the testing, and I rarely get the results I'd like.
Well, motivating people by focusing on their strengths and only "incidentally" identifying their weaknesses is a pretty good strategy (probably THE best, unles you have someone who's completely delusional and needs to be completely broken down and rebuilt...)
Not...really though? I mean if you're an ISFJ for instance you're automatically not special since they're a pretty high part of the population. If you're an INFJ yeah you're rare but...that also means it's harder for people to understand you so actually it's MORE work on you to work on that.
I will meet my new psychologist Monday. I hope it doesn't turn into a barricade situation. Love y'all.
Thanks so much for the elucidation of the Meyers-Briggs Test. I took this test many years ago. Result said i was an INTJ. Since then I have been very satisfied to be myself...no labels please.
MBTI works well for the initial group stage called forming (ask Bundesnachrichtendienst). Moreover, it is a rather sad state of affairs that Jung did not receive an honorable mention in this video. Finally, combining the MBTI with the HEXACO seems to be working quite well.
It is derived, but completely butchered from Jung's types. No similarities whatsoever.
@@EmperorPenguinXRemas Myers-Briggs extended - not butchered - Jung’s typology: by adding the 4th axis.
Definitely would be interested in a followup video covering newer tests. I also think it would be interesting to cover some of the actual debunking done on astrology. I remember reading that for example a single natal chart textual interpretation was given to hundreds of people born on different dates, and they all pretty much agreed it described them reasonably well. That to me shows a point that was mentioned in this video (that people like to hear good things about themselves,) but I don´t think that is a proper, scientific way to show that astrology does not work. There are many other ways, and I´m sure those have been pursued, but they are not widely known. So I think it would be a great topic for Sabine to cover in this channel.
It would be really cool to do another video with the other, newer personality tests. Maybe psychologists have actually gotten better at testing people's personalities? Or maybe it's just way too difficult to get people to be objective about themselves, but still it'd be interesting to see how these newer tests stack up against the other ones.
I haven't studied psychology for a long time but last job I had used 'personality' tests too frequently, (at least once a year)
The relevant questions were very obvious to me so I gave them false answers (just because I could) then told the people running the S***show later towards the end of whatever course we were being primed on. (Corporate America, must have loyalty to the company while they screw you over)
Usual reply was 'You can't do that'
My reply was always 'I just did' 🤣
If the company had used the same people every year it would have become obvious to them I had MAJOR personality disorder as the results varied so much, but, it took major downturn before I got laid off 12 years after starting there (along with several hundred other people)
Would recommend delving deeper into teh cognitive functions of myers briggs type theory, as well as checking out other interpretations of cognitive functions such as Harry Murrell’s cognitive personality theory. It goes further into the mechanics of different cognitive functions and gives stable definitions of the various functions as well. Very interesting stuff!
Love your content! Would be cool if you went more into this topic!
I'm disappointed there wasn't any discussion of the MMPI, which fixes the self-report aspect by having an enormous battery of questions that have nothing to do with the target behaviour (e.g. "I prefer showers to baths"), and based on how those correlate with known patterns assesses Five Factor traits.
It's basically a behavioural measure, where the behavior being measured is "answers on a questionnaire," rather than a self-report scale.
The personality test I'm quite fond of is The Enneagram, it tells you about your core motivations and fears, and doesn't say anything about how much of an introvert or how emotional you are, so it seems more universal and useful than these other tests.
Is there a specific website you'd recommend?
Not any specific one, but the top results on google should be good
@@imperiumderstimme3331 the thing with enneagram is you can't just take a test and get prescribed a result. You can start with a test but you really should read the core desires and fears and see which one you identify with the most
@@imperiumderstimme3331 I love the enneagram. I've a 5 with a strong 4 wing.
Your suggestion made me curious about this test, but the 3 I found on the internet (top results) turned out to be false advertisements. They told me the tests were free and/or required no email but that proved to be false when I was done. I'm not interested in getting a barrage of spam and neither I am going to pay for what constitutes as a curiosity gimmick.
My fundamental critic of psychology is that it is a study of mind and behavior that is generaly focused on the psychologist own cultural echochamber. When I started to be interrested in Japenese mangas I found out that they had a list of 49 different personalities that defined all the characters of their stories. And that was from their own psychologists theories about personality. When I got interested in Korean mangas and Chinese mangas I found out they also had their own different sets of character personalities also based on their own psychologists theories of personality.
My second critic is most of the researches are funded by businesses interested in how to better "manage" their workforce and PR firms interested in how to efficiently push their products to the consumers. IMO natural selection of the DNA needed to build the mind and behavior of the human species has never met those two narrow environmental constraints. So I don't expect any "universaly" valid theories from the current studies on personality.
Personality tests are a bit like by asking someone if they usually arrive on time, and when they say yes, telling them that you have tested them positive for the trait Punctuality. Punctuality is positively correlated with job performance, so this test is really scientifically relevant.
Bulloney. Arrive on time for What ?
Test: Are you honest?
Me: Yes!
Tester: Wow, the dishonest personality type is so rare!
😛
@michaelblacktree Are you a high Ne user? :)
I call them Personality Pests
There are third-person evloutations of these things, too. They just tend to match, so it's not done much.
Reading the book Please Understand Me II (about Myers-Briggs) when I was 18 was a life changing experience for me. This was preinternet and the concept that introverts existed blew my mind. The idea that people could go to parties and gain energy from them was just completely foreign to me, reading that this was for many people but not all was a huge relief.
That book has chapters for each personality type and admits it's describing extremes. But it's fascinating how it describes the same situations as viewed by different personality types, it helped me a lot in understanding why other people behave what for me is strangely. Also how people's personality type change under stress and over time was super interesting.
As the book says, the answer is only useful to you and if you dont give honest answers the only person you're fooling is yourself. I'm not surprised it doesn't correlate with anything else like job performance. I imagine anybody can be a good manager, they'll just experience it in a different way.
So, I believe these tests won't solve all your problems, but if they help you understand yourself, that's a huge win.
It is such a good book, especially if you want to truly find out your MBTI type it does a better job without a test than doing any test out there.
The book "Please Understand Me II" was first published in 1998, which was not pre-internet. In fact, 41% of adults in the U.S. went online in 1998 according to the Pew Research Center archives.
Here are examples of some companies which you should still recognize and which had internet websites in 1998: Google, Hotmail, Myspace, the New York Times, Amazon, Ebay, Apple, Microsoft, Time, Wired, and Yahoo.
Internet browsers available in 1998 included Mosaic, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
I was 38 years old in 1998, and I remember very well using the internet at work and at home in 1998, as well as for several years before that. I was one of the 41% of U.S. adults who were online in 1998.
Perhaps you were not using the internet in 1998, but that does not mean it did not exist nor that it was not being used by many others.
Perhaps you have just forgotten that the internet was around in 1998 and earlier - the World Wide Web launched into the public domain in 1993 (The World Wide Web made it simple for anyone to navigate the internet. All users had to do was launch a newly developed program called a "browser," type in a URL and hit return.). Instead of a personality test, perhaps you need to have your long-term memory tested. 😉
The 1998 book "Please Understand Me II" was an update and expansion of the book "Please Understand Me: An Essay on Temperament Styles," first published in 1978, which was definitely pre-internet. The original book was also definitely very popular when I was 18 in 1978 and through at least most of the 1980s.
From Goodreads: "Keirsey and Bates's Please Understand Me, first published in 1978, sold nearly 2 million copies in its first 20 years, becoming a perennial best seller all over the world. Advertised only by word of mouth, the book became a favorite training and counseling guide in many institutions -- government, church, business -- and colleges across the nation adopted it as an auxiliary text in a dozen different departments...Please Understand Me II [First published May 1, 1998], an updated and greatly expanded edition of the book, far more comprehensive and coherent than the original, and yet with much of the same easy accessibility..."
It can be mind blowing to become aware of different ways people can be. But how would you go about testing the validity of Meyers-Briggs, as opposed to just its reliability? It purports to be an objectively valid test, but it asks us to accept the types it sorts us into on faith in the expertise of its designers. C.G. Jung, who developed some of the categories the test uses, did not believe that personality types are necessarily fixed. He thought that our personalities could undergo a lot of change.
Very well said (written) and completely in agreement!
You're basically ignoring what the video criticized about the MBTI. While the test might be helpful to think about patterns in your or other peoples behavior, it can also be misleading, due to it lacking in validity. However, what you said about intraversion and extroversion is also a scale on the Big Five model, which at least has been validated successfully - contrary to the MBTI.
I think we should be careful when putting ourselves and others into boxes, when those boxes don't even accurately describe an aspect of reality. Personality tests that categorize people into a small number of types might be easy to grasp, but sadly they are also inaccurate and misleading.
By all means keep reviewing personality tests. I, too, find them useful as ways of advancing self-reflection, though I do find some of them useful in anticipating how someone around me might react under stress conditions.
INTJ-T here. In the past I was extremely sceptical about personality types until about 10 years ago my sister said I might have Aspergers. I had not heard about that and checked it out. It turned out about half of the symptoms linked to Aspergers fits very well to me. This got me interested to find out why I have always felt an alien among other people. A couple of years ago I took the MBTI test. The test is what it is, but I have found it very beneficial to think about cognitive functions and how they explain various experiences in my life. This has helped me a lot to understand (and accept) myself and other people. Much better than not understanding myself and other people at all. Nowadays I respect other people much more. In my youth I thought other people are stupid for not understanding logical systems (we INTJs excel in that), but now I know they are not stupid. Their heads just processes information differently making it possible for them to be superior in some other things such as memorising new information fast on superficial level or making other people feel good with social skills.
16personalities is unscientific. dave powers' Objective Personality mbti expansion types with strict definitions and double blind tests
I'm so sorry to hear about your mental disability. Keep your head up guy, it must suck to be you but on the flip side at least you are living and breathing. We must always count our blessings.
Oddly enough I’m autistic and INTJ-T as well! Personally I don’t believe in personality types as an accurate measurement but it’s fun as a broad look at people
@@LemurG Autism is linked to introversion and INTJ is the most introverted of the MBTI personality types. I believe INTJs are actually high functioning autists. Smart, but socially awkward and struggling with sensory information. It all comes from the cognitive functions stack really...
I got INTJ as a teenager as well, I don't think I would anymore necessarily. I just have autism that's all. I am pretty skeptical of the tests because they don't really have much room for people to be multifaceted. You can be both logical and considerate of others feelings, and some people are both illogical and inconsiderate.
This channel has grown so much and the production is just tops!!!! Keep it up!
16personalities is NOT a MBTI test, it's actually a BIG 5 test where the letters are then replaced with the MBTI ones.
You got Introvert Open (intuition) conscientious (thinking) disagreeable (judging) and neurose (turbulant).
Generally the MBTI is not a questionnaire and is not fully positivist, and the human interaction is a big part of the interview.
The definition and criteria of evaluation used to define personality is both shallow and uninteresting, which is why nobody care about the BIG 5.
Carl Jung's was mostly focused on internal conflicts and their ying/yang apsect (how feeling expresses itself in a person over relying on Thinking for instance)
I recommend his book "the psychological types", it's extremely well reaserched (more than half of the book is a full inventory since the greeks of the main ways to define and understand personality) and is quite explicit on the scope and limitations
it's not something that you PASS, it's long term process that you did with the assistance of a psycholist and often in a therapethic context.
People who bash 16personalities but support big 5 are insane since it's just the NEO-PI-R test with different labels.
This means beautiful SABINE is a true genius . ❤
I love your videos. I got the same Briggs-Myers results, which made me happy, despite having the inclination these test simply make the individual feel special.
Ha ha! Did Myers Briggs about 30 years ago with my team. It was treated as a bit of fun, but despite the criticism it gets, actually helped put project teams together (especially making sure there was a completer/finisher on the team). I’m ENTP and have been tested the same three times since, which is unusual for an engineer as most are ISTJ.
this is exactly how it shouldn't be used
I've seen INTJ INTP and others listed as the most common for engineers. Probably because it's pretty arbitrary...
I think where people go wrong is that they think these results are prescriptive rather than descriptive, or it's believed that people are restricted because of the results. Sometimes it's a self fulfilling prophecy- would you like to come out and go bowling? "No,no, I'm introverted, I wouldnt enjoy something like that"... that sort of thing.
@@trybunt indeed - MBTI isn't a 'personality type' test, it's a 'personality disorder' test, based on Jung's analysis of psychiatric patients. If anything it should be used to indicate which behaviours you need to move away from, not clutch on to.
I think that you should think about personalities from these tests as how likely you are to approach a problem, and not identify yourself as one personality absolute.
I used the myers briggs test and became an INTJ-T.
It has been important for me, just to give myself an explanation for what is "normal" for me.
Now I can leave a conversation without having any bad conscience 👍
I am intj too. I think you are right that these personality tests are interesting but not much beyond that. Maybe that's part of our so called personality that we look at things like this and work then out. You and I both being intj will mean that we are still individual people and have parts of our personalities, how we deal with things different to each other. I really like this video.
intj as well. I only like the test and the classification because it makes me believe that i belong somewhere
Also intj. These kinds of things are fun to play with but I'm not very fond of employers using it to determine if your worth a try for employment.
It's characteristic of an INTJ to not put much stock in personality testing! 😊
I am INTJ too. I tested myself and my friends just to have a starting point, an initial superficial framework to buiild upon. I find it hard to describe someone's personality and these tests can help build vocabulary to put your own understanding of others into words. I have a friend that is also INTJ and there are many traits that we recognize in ourselves and in each other, but many that we do not share or do not share with the INTJ type.
And so far the most interesting part of it all is finding contradictions between people and their types and the contradictions within themselves and ourselves beyond the personality types, and into the contradictions that live within ourselves individually and as a group. I think we really know ourselves and other people well when we are aware of the contradictions within ourselves.
Kinda like these tests are an useful tool to scratch the surface of personalities. And get up to speed at spotting contradictions!
This has to be the most smooth transition into an ad talk I've seen in quite a while. Kudos, Sabine.
Thank you for your ultimate conclusion. This is exactly why I am for them.
Agreed about personality models being simpler than real people. MBTI seems to indicate how people process new information. DISC is how you behave in your current role. PF16 is more useful in my experience. But none of them replace getting to know the real person.
I would like to mention that the 16personalities test which you took is actually a big 5 test using the pop-culture MBTI lettering system. (So it’s not actually MBTI) The makers of the test say this themselves in some background reading on the website.
Yeah, especially the turbulent VS whateveristheotherEnglishwordican'tremember.
Condescending of you to use the word 'actually'. You use the word in a confused way. The M-B was invented before the Big Five, and was based on Jung's 1921 work.
@@christophergame7977 You may have misunderstood what I’m saying slightly. I’m sure Sabine would agree that if she made an error (which she did when she said 16personalities is an MBTI test), it is worth pointing out, and ‚actually‘ is quite an appropriate word for correcting someone.
@jeremiahttumanmusik6186: You are saying that the test Sabine took was not the MBTI? Fair enough. You are saying that she took a Big Five test instead? Fair enough. Will you give details to support your statements? Will Sabine be able to confirm or clarify that for us? It is condescending to call the lettering system "pop-culture". (I think that there are substantial flaws in the MBTI. That doesn't entirely demolish it.) I regard it as condescending to use the word 'actually' to "correct someone". Moreover, l think it detracts from your message.
@@christophergame7977 You a bit neurotic?
5:40 - "And that I may struggle to find people who can keep up with my non-stop analysis of everything around me".
So "true" for someone with a million followers on TH-cam :)
Sabine wouldn't get a blogger job for sure, they would dismiss her based on these tests :)
In one of my last jobs (IT) my boss regularly told me "you just keep on talking and no-one understand a thing you're saying". It wasn't meant to be derisive (at least that's my perception but I'm shoddy taking hints, too LOL) but I literally dumbed down my software analysis after that bc I want people to understand what I'm saying. And I also quit that job after a while.
Please do a video about those newer personality tests! I’ve never heard of them and I’m curious to know if they’ve fixed the issues with the older tests.
The reason they constantly need newer ones is because they're total BS, humans are too complex to be devided in a set of different boxes. It does not define who we are. I have attributes of each of those boxes and I refuse to put myself into any of them indefinitely.
Thnx for being so self revealing, Sabine. (FYI - I appreciate most of all your candidness..whether or not I agree with you...that's probably because I sense you mean no personal harm.)
I had to smile at this one, since I’m consistently INTJ. Undergraduate MIT physics (course 8) ’81, but moved on to a different career. It may all be astrology, but still fun. An excellent video as always.
My own experience with having tremendous curiosity is that it leads to procrastination, especially on mundane chores.
i am familiar with the problem...
Same - I spend to much time reading random wikipedia articles when I should be researching for my homework
Yeah. Things that are familiar are not particularly stimulating so one easily sorts to searching for novelty all the time.
My experience with curiousity is totally different. I do not tend to procrastinate learning new things. It also increased my ability to carry out mundane chores efficiently and just in time. It´s not procrastination if the deadline is met.
@@maxlutz3674 : How many of your chores don't have deadlines? And in the case of writing a report, how much quality is sacrificed by "efficiently" writing it at the last minute?
It makes me very glad to know that I share personality traits with Sabine. We have exactly the same Myers-Briggs personality. No wonder I always felt an affinity for her YT channel!
Another excellent addition in the category of the formerly sorely missed, entertaining yet precise and scientific articles. Keep it up!
Very very few people bring me into a state of 'mental resonance and awe' as you do and so the stakes were high when I pressed play. How relieved and happy I was to learn we both share the ways of an INTJ. Sure, it doesn’t hold up to scientific standards but boy o boy what a joy 😊
I would be interested in seeing you analyze MBTI taking the Jungian Functions into account. My experience is that it is a very accurate and reliable system when used properly, but there is so much misinformation about it, and the good information that actually explains all of the problems people have with it can be hard to find
I was looking for a comment like this, thank you!
That is what I was thinking
Do you have a good resources on this?
Thank you for your work. When a potential employer requires one of these as a condition of employment, I respectfully withdraw from consideration.
Something tells me that the firms using these as a screening tool receive a more comprehensive report than the version given to candidates taking such tests.
This is one of my favorite videos, I think because I feel like I know Sabine a little better, and what’s more interesting than getting to know someone who you find interesting. Sabine, I think you are a beautiful person thank you for sharing your knowledge and your self with us.
Nice video about personality tests - as often, thank you for ordering my (very similar) thoughts into a structured, well verbalized, more abstract form :)
Yes, interesting subject--please continue. I'd also like to hear some statistical analysis of longitudinal applications of those one-shot tests with the validity challenges mentioned in the video. Thanks.
I wonder what those test would suggest I should study. Without them I studied physics and never looked back
both
would suggest physics
@@jollyjokress3852 I guess so. Especially if I lead them towards this conclusions by specially crafted answers, like Sabine did. Most of the questions in such tests seem pretty transparent in their intention.
They don't suggest anything, they tell you where you are in a parameter respect to the rest of the population in a normal distribution according the number of people who took the test
Like other person said, they don't "suggest" anything. It's not astrology. It's more like a way to help you examine yourself and give you terms and words to talk about your personality. Your complaint is like saying that if I were to measure you and you were 6 foot 3 inches, that the measurement made you tall. That doesn't even make sense.
Yes, there are people and companies who misunderstand and abuse these tests for stuff they are not intended for (for example, a sales person could be either introverted or extroverted and be successful, just by different methods, so trying to use tests like these to see if you're the "kind of person" who is a salesperson is worthless) BUT that doesn't mean the information is worthless.
Yeah. Basically they tell you what you yourself chose.
It would be cool if you covered ‘Socionics’, aka Russian MBTI, made to add statistical rigour. It has *the most* intense Wikipedia page - would be nice to learn if they had any success
Also @ 8:20 I believe ‘category error’ is the specific philosophical term for what you describe!
It just seems like an overcomplicated MBTI rip-off with plenty of arbitrary vodoo and esoterical bs
@@yuriy5376 Basically, yeah but it's actually more helpful than MBTI imo. The point anyways is to help, identify types and put them into some use through some means
MBTI and Socionics are both based on personality theories of Carl Gustav Jung
I'd say Socionics is successful; it is taught in universities across eastern europe. It's pretty useful learning how different types of people can unintentionally engage your mind or set you off.
Just took a personality test and surprise here is a video from sabine 🤣
Thank you , this is what I appreciated about your channel when I first subscribed.
Thanks for reprting on this. My gut told me this was the truth about these tests, but given their popularity, i realized years ago I'd get no insights about them by asking
Sabine is not impressed with personality tests accuracy and reliability. Classic INTJ!
Personally I found the Myers-Briggs accurate to almost an unsettling degree. Even negative stereotypes associated with my personality (INFJ) like believing in conspiracy theories, being a devil's advocate to an annoying degree, having terrible fashion sense, having a bit of an ego when it comes to interpersonal relationships and becoming the "unlicensed therapist" of the friend group, and many others, are very relatable to me.
Scary how such a simple test explains basically 80% of my personality.
As she says in the video it's not surprising that a summary based on your own thoughts about yourself agrees with your own thoughts about yourself. Perhaps it's surprising that it can do that with only 16 buckets? But then for everyone like you there is probably someone else that doesn't think the bucket fits them well at all
You could say that about many people, though.
Don't get me wrong, I think people are prone to certain behaviours, and there are certain people I meet and I think "oh brother, he's one of those types" where it feels like you have them pegged as a type, but I think this is more a case of us human beings trying to find patterns because it would be much easier if everyone just fit one of the molds we've already made in our heads.
For me the INT part is stable, but the last letter is variable. It depends on my mood, or what I've last done. I don't think I have a strong preference, the exact situation determines which way I fall.
ENTP here.
Glad that Sabine is touching this topic.
I agree that people don't want to become someone they despise which is their true self.
It takes a lot of time, reflection, and realization to truly accept who are are and what we are naturally capable of, especially our limits.
Personality type isn't something we should be proud of, it's something to reflect and improve on things we are naturally weak and underdeveloped.
Two things:
1) I went in “open general”, (meaning, they get to pick my career. I know, crazy), into the USAF, and I’ll be damned…they picked the right one for me. Computer operator. I made that into a 30 year career as a programmer.
2) I took a personality test in my job, TDF (thinker, decision maker, feeler). Out of 50, 15were “feelers”, 2 were Thinkers (me), the rest all “decisions makers”. I answered my questions honestly, but the later group, some of those people were wanna-be leaders, so I suspect there was dishonest self assessment going.
PS: I was very embarrassed to be sectioned off with another introvert. We both would rather not be there.
I think it would have been important to point out that MBTI is based on Jung's typologies which were inspired from Tarot major arcana cards.
Interesting. Is this a plus or a minus for you?
@@Penfold497 Depends:
- for my opinion of the video, a slight minus
- for my opinion of the validity of the test, a minus
-for my opinion of the social effect, also a minus
-for my opinion of the usefulness of the test as a starting point for self reflection or debate, a plus
I agree with the end of the video. The existence itself of these tests or of astrology or of tarot is not the issue. The issue is what people do with them.
If they are an ice breaker for introspection, good. If they are a simptom of magical thinking, they are varying degrees of bad depending on how much they influence decision making.
If you read the horoscope to choose whether you will have tea or coffee today, that is harmless, maybe even a way to introduce some whimsy into your routine. If you base some important personal decisions on it, it's bad. If you are in a position of power and base a decision that affects many people on it, it's very very bad.
Would love to get more videos like this! Though I think you should reflect over how people answer when doing a test. There are many reasons for a person to make different Choices when retaking a test, their true personality, the person thier friends tell them they are and who they want to be, for example.
11:37
All tests are usefull for the ones that make you take the tests.
All tests are made in a precise way, to understand a precise caracteristic.
The bigFive was created by the military to help them choose the right candidates for the job.
I'm interested in these newer tests. I haven't taken them myself so I wonder what they're like.
Personality tests help me describe myself more easily. Sure, I know they're just doing the hard work for me, but at least it's easy to look up the results if someone wants to know about my personality. I'm a fan of MBTI precisely because it does the best job of simplifying the process. I'm an INTP.
amazing -)
8:15 "it's like trying to describe a book with it's weight and electrical resistance .... does it tell you anything about the book that matters?"
At our secondhand bookstore we would weigh every book that was worth over £2.50 online, we had a scale on the front desk. This was important when buying and posting books due to the Royal Mail charges for various weights and sizes of book. We often made losses due to forgetting to add the weight of the padded envelope, forgetting the Amazon sales charge, people assuming postage was only £2.80, the spring in the scale being broken (it was replaced). So there was a reference table I made in excel to capture all these factors and ensure we made at least 50p on each listing else it wasn't worth our time. We should have charged more as the business ultimately failed but a lot of people bought books off us on amazon, and weighing them was essential to the process.
Perhaps in the future, an AI based system will be able to observe and track your traits, and make a conclusion from OBSERVATION ( like your family and friends might do), rather than self-reporting. These might be more accurate.
As far as entering into a relationship where you are often told you're an ignorant jerk, many people do this all the time. It's called marriage.
Now that you say it, that actually sounds plausible.
You are correct! from my personal experience with unholy matrimony, I MUST concur!
As an INTJ, I found your insights very interesting and informative, delivered with a unique style across both video and the written word. No wonder; apparently we have a similar outlook and approach to information.
I wish I’d had you on PBS when I was a kid. I love hearing intelligent people critique things that are held above other people. Judging the Judgers .