Personality

[LORD_RED_DRAGON]

i saw the test and (i think) it's one of the (ridiculously huge number of) personality tests that i had to take in high school

 

[Kenneth R.]

You still fit into one of the 16 categories

I disagree with this statement. As Darwin attempted with his classification of species, one must continually invent categories in which to classify newly discovered entries. Further, categorical requirements evolve as one comprehends more of the intended items to be classified. That is, categories themselves change to suit the sample set, or should, if the categorization is done accurately.

So your assertion, without any prior knowledge of my person, my tendencies or habits; that I must somehow fit into one of 16 predefined categories, is falsifiable if I do not meet these categorical requirements, of which I am already skeptical of. In my opinion, it is downright asinine to believe that six billion people's minds fit into 16 neat and tidy categories for which you simply choose a correspondence.

Taking the analogy to colors, if you prescribe a 16 color set in which to paint all of humanity, I am afraid you will find your work rather bland, as much blending remains to be desired in accurately depicting a vast number of people. No four letters, no quick and dirty description, will I ever accept as a portrait of my mental or social status. I feel pity towards those who do.

 

[speed]

I disagree with this statement. As Darwin attempted with his classification of species, one must continually invent categories in which to classify newly discovered entries. Further, categorical requirements evolve as one comprehends more of the intended items to be classified. That is, categories themselves change to suit the sample set, or should, if the categorization is done accurately.

So your assertion, without any prior knowledge of my person, my tendencies or habits; that I must somehow fit into one of 16 predefined categories, is falsifiable if I do not meet these categorical requirements, of which I am already skeptical of. In my opinion, it is downright asinine to believe that six billion people's minds fit into 16 neat and tidy categories for which you simply choose a correspondence.

Taking the analogy to colors, if you prescribe a 16 color set in which to paint all of humanity, I am afraid you will find your work rather bland, as much blending remains to be desired in accurately depicting a vast number of people. No four letters, no quick and dirty description, will I ever accept as a portrait of my mental or social status. I feel pity towards those who do.

I agree with you here. I perfectly fit into both the INTP and INTJ categories. Still, I find it interesting to see what everyone comes up with it--some perverse need to know.

 

[judas69]

You don't have to agree with me, but in answering these questoins honestly you would be revealing your personality, as your personality is but an expression of how you feel, react and approach certain situations.

Also, if you've noticed, there are percentages given to how strongly you fit into each of the four categories, which would make your "16 colour" interpretation now, millions of colours. But let me ask you this, can you think of another colour that does not already exist? ...that does not fall into the colour wheel?

And to speed, I'm not sure how you consistantly fall into INTJ and INTP ..unless you are pretty much in the middle, as each category covers the extremes.

Just remember, you are essentially telling the test what you are.

 

[Kenneth R.]

your statement STILL does not hold. a mix of any 2 of the millions of "colours" will create a new one. we have 6+ billion people on this planet, and you still maintain that I must adhere to a current category?

please don't claim to be a scientist.

 

[derek]

I'm still unsure as to whether anyone can really comment on the person they truly are, I think that requires being disconnected from the self to objectively observe...which is impossible.

 

[judas69]

Kenneth, all of the colours you see on your screen right now are but the product of just 3 (Red, Green, Blue) to varying degrees (16 Million +). If those are the categories one has to work with for instance, could you indentify a colour that a mixture of those 3 could not produce? The reality is, if they did define the categories of personality well, there is no reason in theory why they couldn't map out the thinking, feeling and behaving patterns associated with a person ..because in the end, that's all you are, a mixture of tendancies.

I will agree that a short test like this will make it difficult to come up with the "exact shade" to match your personality, and granted, over time people change and during extreme situations personality may be inconsistant, though I really can't see any way you can disagree with the test in theory .. unless you take issue with the 4 categories themselves, and that's acceptable to me. If you do, however, please be specific about it ..

please don't claim to be a scientist.

Not sure why you'd say this, but I do have an honours degree in computer science so ..technically, I am a scientist of sorts ..and isn't it rather interesting that I scored INTJ - "the scientist / analyist"? Hmm.

I think if you would ask the majority of people who took the test if they felt their personality was adequately mapped, at least 80% or better would agree. But again, disagreeing with the test and it's method on the basis of "there's too many people on the planet" does not make for a convincing arguement against the test itself, especially when the assumption is that each human is radically different from then next.

 

[Kenneth R.]

I'm saying that such tests as this are rather unscientific in method, and that their results are about as trivial as monthly astrology, in my opinion.

 

[Dushan S]

I have to disagree.

Self evaluation, although a requisite part of the analytical process, is neither conclusive nor reliable.

Expecting a person to correctly evaluate themselves is like relying on a diagnostic program to correctly evaluate whether it itself is running properly. A malfunctioning system can incorrectly evaluate said system and return a conclusion of working properly.

***

Perfect diagnostic program is all about just that: to being able to recognize his own fault. In humans world it is called self-consioussnes, and is a product of millions of years of evolution. If someone wants to improve himself he HAS to work on ability to recognize faults on himself, and it is actually only way to improve. THERE IS NO CHANCE that someone or something else can do that, except to be catalyst in process. All outer "Evaluations" are made according to certain standards and expectations, that are made by society and science, that is far from perfect. I know some people that couldn-t be avaluated by standard tests because "functioning of their programs was not according to standards used to made system of evaluation"... I am using your "program" comparation here. So what should we say, that society, or someone else "objective" can know better about our innerself than we do? I cannot really agree with that, if that is what you want to say. Someone that is trained, guru or psychoanalist can have some kind of picture, and act on it, but at least really good guru knows that he is just there to help people deal with themselves, again as a catalyst in inner process of a other human being


Psych testing of anything relies on its operational definitions.

All A are B
All B are C
---
All A are C

This is always true, but if the definition of A, B or C is inaccurate, then the conlcusions are also inaccurate - to this extent, "personality tests" can be flawed...but your idea of "one day spent in usual situations, but self aware, analysing what happens, and the way you feel and react" is not only subject to misconstrued defines, but also to a mishappen method of evaluation.

Why? You are stating this like there is something very obvious confirming this fact, and I don't see it here. And I hope you understand that this "one day" was not literary... Hardly anything can be achieved in one day.

Trend analysis is done for a reason: When in the middle of a trend, evaluation of that trend is impossible. Reliance on your own, whimsical interpretations of particular occurances is too subject to too many faulty conclusions to provide usable information.

You see, I am my own favorite Guinea Pig. I have spent considerable amounts of time so I can be just that, aware of a trend while it is happening. And it is not that rare, for instance, usual "anger management" people work on and are telling themselvs "Hey I am angry again, this thing is coming again, my usual stuff, but I will not let it control me this time".
Most of people are not too much selfaware and are not working on being anything more than preprogrammed robots, auto pilot on 24h a day, so if you want to say that most of people are like that, I agree, so they can be properly tested and evaluated by usual methods. But still, everyone here including you and me is free to be above that, if that is what he/she wants to work on.

 

[Dushan S]

Agreed - the caution here is to not assume that subjective interpretations of self are necessarily accurate...the same should be said of obljective testing methods as well, though.

Agree, and I was not saying that they are always accurate. A lot of people are self dilusional by nature. But on the other hand, people that are like that were being like that even before trying to know themselves better, so it raises a question if this person is in process of becoming self aware at all, or is this just another psychological game.

It could be said that this process starts with peeling our false ideas about ourselves first. There is a lot of very beautiful and very ugly to be discovered.

Btw, it seems that everyone is talking about personality like it is something that is really "Something" in a sense of ONE. In reality we have a lot of "Ourselves" that are mixing between themselves and changing control. Sense of a body and memories are doing more for keeping the sense of existence and continuity than something that could be desribed as "I". This is why (few people mentioned that) some character traits are coming out only sometimes.
This can be compared with a senate. Every part of a "self" is a member of senate, completely specific and different. They are organised in parties of different strenght, agenda and profile. Members are changing parties from time to time, and party that is strongest is ruling with his own agenda, with support of other parties that are similar, supressing other "unwanted" parties, at least those that are with very different agenda. Some members of a ruling coalition are speaking so often in senate that they are considered "character traits" and they are know and accepted as "part of personality". But more extreme stimulus, unusual or different situation can make other parties take charge, and some newer seen before that members can take ruling places... And then we may end talking about someone "He changed after *this or that* happened to him", or be surprised with our own thoughts and actions.