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Please Don't Understand Me

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Please Don't Understand Me
Petunia
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Posted 04/18/07 - 12:06 PM:
Subject: Please Don't Understand Me 		quote post
#1
During my cyber travels over the past year, I have spent considerable time on MBTI personality based forums. It is an interesting system rooted in the work of Carl Jung, but expanded on by Kiersey, Briggs, and others. The thread title is inspired by this book. http://www.amazon.com/Please-Under...-Temperament/dp/0960695400

My knowledge of the system is not comprehensive, but understand there are criticisms of the system.
Carol Robert Todd wrote:
The scientific basis of the MBTI has been questioned. Neither Katharine Cook Briggs nor Isabel Briggs Myers had any scientific qualifications and Carl Jung's theory of psychological type, which the MBTI attempts to operationalize, is not based on any scientific studies. Jung's methods primarily included introspection and anecdote, methods largely rejected by the modern field of cognitive psychology. [14]

1. http://www.du.edu/~psherry/mbti2.html
2. http://www.personalitypathways.com/MBTI_personality.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs#Criticism

This approach to analyzing behavior and temperament is a main proponent of current pop psychology, from my understanding of it. Since this has such a mainstream influence in society, this thread is intended to analyze the system and its critics.
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ying
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Posted 04/18/07 - 12:12 PM:
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#2
OK, let's not criticize Jung, here. In his Psychological Types he stresses time and again that his typology isn't set in stone, and is only there for a general understanding of people. The myers-briggs typology takes it way beyond Jungs actual intentions...

And, about Jungs methods being rejected by modern cognitive psychology... Yeah, well, cognitive psychology is a consciousness psychology, while Jungs typology is a trancendental a priori, thus unconscious. Cognitive psychology talks about the content, while Jungs typology talks about form. So, that criticism is entirely baseless.
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Petunia
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Posted 04/18/07 - 12:27 PM:
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ying wrote:
OK, let's not criticize Jung, here. In his Psychological Types he stresses time and again that his typology isn't set in stone, and is only there for a general understanding of people. The myers-briggs typology takes it way beyond Jungs actual intentions...

And, about Jungs methods being rejected by modern cognitive psychology... Yeah, well, cognitive psychology is a consciousness psychology, while Jungs typology is a trancendental a priori, thus unconscious. Cognitive psychology talks about the content, while Jungs typology talks about form. So, that criticism is entirely baseless.


I realize Jung is different and more credible than some current applications, but we should absolutely criticize Jung here so that his theories may hold up to demonstrate their integrity. That is how credibility is established.
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Posted 04/18/07 - 12:44 PM:
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Petunia wrote:


I realize Jung is different and more credible than some current applications, but we should absolutely criticize Jung here so that his theories may hold up to demonstrate their integrity. That is how credibility is established.


Agreed, but don't just criticise chapter 10 of his Psychological Types, then. He spends roughly 360 pages on preliminary studies (of other studies) before he gives his own typology... A solid criticism would entail a study, and I'm curious to see if someone actually bothered to read the book (+ Jungs source material) like that...
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Machiveli
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Posted 04/18/07 - 04:05 PM:
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#5
I first read 'please understand me' when I was 10.shocked so I have a long term interest in this subject.

The first link makes the following main criticisms: Firstly that the tests for MB types are "manipulable and secondly that the results are misused by recruiters and managers .

These are both correct but are they criticism of Jung's theory of types or just criticisms of the use of pop-psychology in the workplace? (I don't think Jung had either devious job candidates or management consultants in mind when he came up with the idea)

The second link Is pro MB so I make no comment.

The wikipedia reference is slightly more interesting:

For example, it was expected that scores would show a bimodal distribution with peaks near the ends of the scales. However, scores on the individual subscales are actually distributed in a centrally peaked manner similar to a normal distribution.


I don't see why this was expected except that the researchers assumed wrongly that types were binary rather than scales - have always viewed MBTI as simply defining 4 dimensions by which to measure the variance of peoples personalities (I-E,N-S,F-T,J-P) and most questionnaires will indicate how strongly a preference for each type is indicated.

So again I don't see this as a real criticism of his theory of types - a direct problem would be if these 4 dimensions were not the principle components (directions of maximum variance (however we define this)) for personality.


According to surveys performed by the proponents of Myers-Briggs, the highest percentage of people who fell into the same category on the second test is only 47%.


This criticism needs to be clarified: It may be that a single characteristic (letter) which is not strongly indicated changes in which case this is the same straw man argument as the first one about multiple peaks. If on the other hand all letters including strongly indicated types change when people re take the tests this means that people do not have a stable preference on the 4 dimensions. i.e. that there is no such thing as a relative introvert or an extrovert ect in which case this would be very interesting.

The biggest problem with MBTI and most other "personality" tests is the MBTI has no predictive power. It doesn't really tell you anything that you don't provide in the questionaire. (related question: Is there any correlation between dimensions of personality i.e. can the strength and direction of a particular characteristic be used to predict those of others?)






Edited by Machiveli on 04/18/07 - 04:15 PM
Petunia
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Posted 04/20/07 - 06:25 AM:
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#6
ying wrote:
And, about Jungs methods being rejected by modern cognitive psychology... Yeah, well, cognitive psychology is a consciousness psychology, while Jungs typology is a trancendental a priori, thus unconscious. Cognitive psychology talks about the content, while Jungs typology talks about form. So, that criticism is entirely baseless.

Could you elaborate more on this? I actually didn't realize Jung was not accepted in the field of psychology. I would very much like to hear those arguments.

Machiveli wrote:
These are both correct but are they criticism of Jung's theory of types or just criticisms of the use of pop-psychology in the workplace? (I don't think Jung had either devious job candidates or management consultants in mind when he came up with the idea)

Agreed. I suspect he would be rather appalled by the reckless and ignorant use of the system.

Machiveli wrote:
So again I don't see this as a real criticism of his theory of types - a direct problem would be if these 4 dimensions were not the principle components (directions of maximum variance (however we define this)) for personality.

My question is how were these four dimensions determined to be principle components? This link explains some of it. http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/learning/MBTI.htm
Is it still basically hypothesis or has it been subjected to the scientific method? Empirical research? What research is available? The desire for it to be true by an individual or group of individuals is rather useless in determining the truth of it. So far that is all I have been presented with. How is the system validated in completely objective terms?

Machiveli wrote:
The biggest problem with MBTI and most other "personality" tests is the MBTI has no predictive power. It doesn't really tell you anything that you don't provide in the questionaire. (related question: Is there any correlation between dimensions of personality i.e. can the strength and direction of a particular characteristic be used to predict those of others?)

Having taken the test about five times, it is clear that many of these questionnaires are not well designed assessment tools. Here's an example:

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

4. You feel involved when watching TV soaps
YES NO
Poorly designed question. It requires the assumption that TV soaps are relevant to everyone. A person could be highly emotional and completely turned off by soaps. The reason soaps are irritating to me is because the emotional communication is completely inane and overstated. It would be like a mathematician trying to enjoy someone shouting out arithmetic. The exact reason I despise soaps is because I understand emotion.

Objective criticism is always useful in any activity
YES NO
Overly simplistic and therefore less meaningful.
Compare with this more effectively designed question:

You think that almost everything can be analyzed
YES NO
Better question.

You readily help people while asking nothing in return
YES NO
Can anyone answer such a question objectively? This question is going to be greatly influenced by culture and religious orientation, moreso than personality in some cases.

Often you prefer to read a book than go to a party
YES NO
These are too specific. An extrovert can hate parties and love to read.

You consider the scientific approach to be the best
YES NO
Once again... context? A truly analytical person would need to answer NO because of the way the question is designed.

You get pleasure from solitary walks
YES NO
Assumes the individual enjoys walking which is irrelevant to temperament. These types of specific questions would be more meaningful on an extensively long questionnaire that provides many specific examples of solitary activities in a more comprehensive manner. The isolating of single, specific activities to represent the whole of a solitary temperament is what I take issue with here.

Here is a brief test which requires you to place yourself immediately into categories based on lists which you must determine generally apply to you. This will only produce how the person sees himself w/o any real analysis at all.

http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

Here is a Jung based questionnaire. Overall I am more impressed with it, but have questions about some of the following test questions.

http://similarminds.com/cgi-bin/newmb.pl
I am weird.
This is very depended on the way a person is conditioned to use that word. A person could love being 'eccentric' but despise being 'weird' for example.

I am extremely sentimental.
Once again, the interpretations of the word has different connotations. Which interpretation is intended here?

Dictionary wrote:
sentimental.
1. expressive of or appealing to sentiment, esp. the tender emotions and feelings, as love, pity, or nostalgia
2. weakly emotional; mawkishly susceptible or tender


There are more, but do you see my point?
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Posted 04/20/07 - 10:37 AM:
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#7
This is the real state of the case: Jung made a typology system, not a personality system. Type is what is immanent within our psyche. Personality is how we interact with the world. Type can manifest through personality, yet there is no reason to suppose that the same type will manifest in the same fashion through different personalities even in most cases. This assumption is not warranted.



Accordingly, questions like "Am I outgoing, Am I sentimenal, Am I imaginative' have nothing to do with Jung's typology. Those are all personality traits, not temperamental ones. Though the unfortunate fact here is that we need to examine one's personality first before we can understand their type. Hence personality is the land that we first must march through in order to cease the fortress.

It is only due to the apparent crudity of the present-day writers of pop-psyche, these two notions have been confused, in fact they have been so foolhardy as to commit the unforgivable sin of merging personality and temperament into a single concept.

Jung's theory has been rejected not because it lacked merit, but because it was not falsifiable, and because it was not falsifiable, it was not scientific. What this means is: in order for your theory to get out to the scientific market, you must first make sure that it is possible for it to be proved wrong by means of empirical evidence.

Accordingly Jung's types are immanent within our psyche for which there is no empirical evidence, hence it is not that his theory has been refuted in psychology, it never arrived at the market to begin with because it did not pass the entrance examination of falsifiability.

Karl Popper, a philosopher of science who has first come up with the method of falsification would comment on Jung's typology in the same fashion as he did on Freud's work "I am not saying that Freud does not have valid insights, I am only saying that his theories are not scientific because they are not falsifiable, or refutable."


It is true that Jung's theory is based on anecdotes and other insights that can only be reached through non-scientific methodology, yet this does nothing to show that it is without merit.


Science can not answer some of the biggest questions in life, among them would be the questions of ethics. Science can tackle epistemology, but at the same time it has to follow through on premises that have been established through non-scientific means. For example, this is how you first make a hypothesis. Your hypothesis is not scientific because at the time when it was born within your mind it was not falsifiable. Therefore in order for science to be established in the first place, it must entertain some very unscientific ideas to begin with as later on only some of them will evolve into a scientific guise. To all of this we should add that there are many valid ideas outside of the empire of science, and these were the ideas that actually gave rise to science in the first place.

Things of this world are always susceptible to change, as we have observed, nearly everything if not everything that exists in this world changes. And accordingly science is only interested in variables, in what can change, not with what is constant. Yet things of the 'heavens', much like Plato's Forms are immitigable. Analogously, personality is a thing of this world and is testable by science, temperament is not as it is immutable. So indeed we have another case of what is not a variable falling outside of the province of scientific inquiry.

Edited by Morosephantom010 on 04/21/07 - 01:31 PM
Machiveli
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Posted 04/20/07 - 11:13 AM:
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Petunia wrote:

My question is how were these four dimensions determined to be principle components? This link explains some of it. http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/learning/MBTI.htm
Is it still basically hypothesis or has it been subjected to the scientific method? Empirical research? What research is available? The desire for it to be true by an individual or group of individuals is rather useless in determining the truth of it. So far that is all I have been presented with. How is the system validated in completely objective terms?

...[..]...

There are more, but do you see my point?


I agree with your point on questionaires but again I'm not sure whether this is a critism of the 16 types unless the types are defined in such a way that it is impossible to design an accurate test.

For me the most intestesting quesionn is the other one: "what are the key dimensions of temperament" and indeed what is included and excluded in the definition of temperament.

Clearly temprement must

1)Be a psycological attribute with behavioural consequences.
2)Be determined either geneticaly or in very early childhood and essentialy fixed from then onward.
3)Excludes other determinants of behaviour e.g. Inteligence, sexuality, phyical characterisics.
4)Define characteristics for which there is high variance between individuals in the population.


In the end we will probably end up with a neuroscience definition based on objectively measurable things e.g. relative levels of different neurotrasmitters and their receptors or balance between grey and white matter or something like which correlate with behviour but until then to be honest I haven't a clue how to answer it.
ying
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Posted 04/22/07 - 05:14 PM:
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Petunia wrote:

Could you elaborate more on this? I actually didn't realize Jung was not accepted in the field of psychology. I would very much like to hear those arguments.


Straw man. Didn't say that. Jung was a psychiatrist, and his work has a lot of relevance in the field of psychopathology. Freud and Jung aren't used by everyone, but most psychiatrists use a mix of existential, behavioristic, cognitive and various psychoanalytical schools. It takes hands-on experience to actually see the unconscious in it's full pathological sense, something academics tend to disregard... And I regard everyone who says psychoanalysis is outdated as simply unexperienced.
Various psychoanalytical schools focus on the unconscious, while cognitive psychology focusses on the conscious mind; they are mutually exclusive for the time being, seeing as no-one actually has created one big, overarching theory wich synthesises both... At least, not that I'm aware of.

And, I'm sorry to say, Popper has no authority in the field of psychology, since he apparently never read Franz Brentano. Psychology is indeed testable, though not in the way Popper liked to see. Psychology is testable within the phenomenological field, and in more recent times, through analogous neurological states; Poppers critisism, as aimed at Adlers theories (see Conjectures and Refutations for his ramblings on this), is trying to demand something wich isn't there... He reminds me of someone who is looking for his car on the wrong deck of the parkinglot.
Introspection (or phenomenology, whatever floats your boat) has become more validated in recent times... Even Merleau-Ponty is getting neurological backing, these days.

Sidenote: Falsification seems to be a philosophical invention, seeing as science itself doesn't work that way... That's why I'm putting my money on the term 'testable', wich mirrors the actual investigations of those folks much more closely... Actual 'falsification' works more like Kuhn described...
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Tobias
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Posted 04/26/07 - 02:19 AM:
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Cognitive psychology talks about the content, while Jungs typology talks about form.


Too easy distinction. What I don't see is how the form content distinction is valid. I also don't see how a conscous / subconscous divide is valid. To know we have a subconscous we have to be conscous of it, which in effect is contary to the whole definition of subconscous. Sure there are things that I don't realise myself, but to call these 'subconscous' ... It is like calling phenomena in the world which we haven't experienced yet 'inexperiencable'.

Phenomenology can only be valid if we have access to our subconscious, in othrer words, when we do away with the term entirely.
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