Bad Theories that Track Robust Regularities

by Will Wilkinson on November 20, 2004

This interesting (as always [that is, I want to have millions of Malcolm Gladwell's babies]) Malcolm Gladwell essay on personality tests comes down hard on the Myers-Briggs. Now, I think he’s right about everything he’s saying about personality. Yet it remains that the Myers-Briggs does tend to track some fairly deep and important regularities. For instance, almost everyone I know is an NT. (Indeed, almost all libertarians are NTs, which is helpful for understanding why we do such a terrible job communicating to non-NTs.) So Gladwell’s right, but I sort of believe Myers-Briggs anyway. What’s going on?

Similarly, I think the mind is pretty modular, if not massively so. Thus, I don’t think there is anything like a general reasoning capacity. There are various cognitive subroutines that are elicited by different environmental cues, and it is possible to reason effectively in one domain while it is possible to make systematic errors in other domains. So, in terms of foundational theory, I shouldn’t believe in G, general intelligence. Yet I’m rather impressed by the data on G, and how it predicts quite a number of things. So what is G tracking if there is no general reasoning capacity? And what is Myers-Briggs capturing if personality is more continuous and labile that the test seems to assume?

(Bonus conjecture: If you have taken the M-B test, put your personality type in the comments. I bet that over 70% of The Fly Bottle readers are NTs of some sort. I am, FYI, an xNTP.)

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Glenn Bridgman 4 years ago 1 point
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INTP, with the I and P weakly expressed and the N *very* strongly expressed.

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jam 4 years ago 1 point
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INTP when I was young. INTJ now.

Gladwell makes fun of it, but MBTI does work.

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http://www.jroller.com/page/jam

Jason Kuznicki 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ and have been since high school.

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http://www.positiveliberty.com

J. Goard 4 years ago 1 point
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I'm an ENxP, or perhaps more accurately, an young-twenties ENTP shifting gradually but unmistakably toward late-twenties F. For what it's worth, during this time my libertarianism has undergone some foundational changes. First, I've become far more of an ethical consequentialist. Second, I now tend to argue from (what is known about) the complexities of real human beings and social systems, rather than the highly idealized model where our socially relevant actions can pretty much be classified into three classes: production, consumption, force. Third, I have a great deal more respect for existentialist and otherwise spirtual concerns in evaluating the state of a person or of a society.

It strikes me that Gladwell has missed a critical flaw in most applications of the MBTI: obviously the test does not measure personality traits directly, but rather *self-conceptions* of such traits. While self-perception is certainly interesting in its own right, it is likely to be less variable than actual personality traits, and to (in the best case scenario) trail changes by a significant period of time as the psyche comes to acknowledge its own development.

In the worst case, self-perception can be a negative image of the mind's workings. Take Ayn Rand, who gladly accepted the moniker "Ms. Logic", shouted about "reason" all the time, and is always classified as an NTJ. Her revealed personality profile was emotional, intuitive, holistic, and hence far more compatible with F. (One site lists as a characteristic of T: "Accept conflict as a natural, normal part of relationships with people.") And yet it's easier to imagine a 5-dimensional cube than Rand anwsering a typical T/F question on the F side.

It might very well be that most libertarians test as NTs because much of the traditional ethical/political argumentation has been explicitly or implicitly premised on a society made up by such people.

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http://www.ladisparation.com

John 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ. Occasionally ISTJ. Well, well, well...

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http://notyourtv.blogspot.com

Richard 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ (borderline J/P)

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1 /people/pixnaps/ /people/pixnaps/following/ http://www.philosophyetc.net

treefroggy 4 years ago 1 point
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Personally, I'm a Quiet Quixotic Questioning Quantifier. For Herr Doctor Jung, that's 4Q !!

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razib 4 years ago 1 point
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So what is G tracking if there is no general reasoning capacity?

well, what is "G" is an emergent property of transdomain interactions? let me elaborate, if you read the number sense by stanislaus dehaene you will note he reports that some patients with brain damage have lost the capacity for algebra by not geometry or vice versa. obviousy there is no "math module," but various nodes or domains in the brain that work together to give on a capacity for mathematics. G, like mathematical ability, is distributed normally on a bell curve, this suggests that there are various independent factors that contribute to the full expression of the phentoype. these factors in the genetic sense are various genes who come in allelic flavors. in a neurological sense they are cognitive domains.

so yes, the mind is modular, we do have an analog number sense (infants to rats have a conception of bigger and smaller). but the digital mathematical capacity is an emergent property of the number sense being grafted on to language and visuospatial thinking (to name a few factors). the normal distribution is the result of the fact that people have various levels of fluency in the various module capacities.

anyway, that's my theory.

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http://www.gnxp.com

Matt McIntosh 4 years ago 1 point
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INTP. Strong Introversion, medium Intuitive Thinking, weak Percieving.

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http://godco.net/matt/

Evan McElravy 4 years ago 1 point
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INFP

I've never been able to conclusively decide, though, whether I am actually a libertarian or just incredibly paranoid....

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http://evanmc.blogspot.com/

brock 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ/INTP depending on the test. I don't think I've ever had an office test, but a lot of those less-than official ones done by psych grad students in their spare time.

New reader, BTW, I think was referred from GapingVoid but that was so many hours ago I've already forgotten.

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http://brocktice.com

Bob McGrew 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ

Now possibly an ENTJ...

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http://www.cardinalcollective.com

Wowbagger 4 years ago 1 point
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INTx.

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Dan Glick 4 years ago 1 point
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INFJ. I will never forget the first time I encountered the MBTI. I was a geeky 16-year-old, and it was scary to find myself described so acurately; but it was also liberating to find that there were other people out there like me, that I wasn't the oddball I thought I was.

The big mistake that Gladwell makes is to assume that MBTI is dichotomous. Anyone who's studied it realizes that people have strong preferences in some areas, and weak in others; some people have well-developed auxiliary functions, and some don't. The 16 types aren't points; they're regions in a four-dimensional space defined by a full spectrum of possibilities for each preference.

Also, there's a reason they're called "preferences." Everyone is spontaneous sometimes; everyone plans sometimes. Most everyone can be extroverted at least on occasion, and most everyone has moments of introversion. Etc. A person's Myers-Briggs type only represents their most common mode of action. So to point out that there are exceptions, as Gladwell does, is to miss the point.

Finally, I also think that the deeper truths of Myers-Briggs types are separable from the MBTI, which is a very crude device. Ranked preference questions or degrees of agreement would be much better methods of determining type, IMHO.

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http://www.danielglick.com

Scotty B 4 years ago 1 point
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ESTJ

Woohoo!

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Jason Soon 4 years ago 1 point
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INTP - strong in I, N and T. particularly extreme on the N and T.

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http://badanalysis.com/catallaxy/

Matthew Yglesias 4 years ago 1 point
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INTx and, yes, though NT types are allegedly rare, the vast majority of my friends are NT as well.

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http://yglesias.typepad.com

Tim 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ.

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http://www.binarybits.org/

Dilys 4 years ago 1 point
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ENTP, husband very compatible INTJ. We can only really settle down and talk with NT's, without a big speed-bump CLANG happening somewhere early in the journey.

Goard above not only claims but displays his F. For my money the differences between T and F are the BIG political determinants, God help us when systems are run by F and HR is administered by T.

For practical cooperation, the big split is P and J. Extremes are typical odd-couple stuff, Oscar and Felix, impulsive and anal, EP off the chart on intuition and initiative, IJ dutiful on follow-thru.

This is good stuff, but has to be danced with (now if that's not an ENTP offhand indicator of a statement!)

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Rachel 4 years ago 1 point
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ENTJ.

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nobody 4 years ago 1 point
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INTP. Crazy; a bunch of people who read a weblog devoted to philosophy and libertarian thought, and most of us are 'NT's? :)

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Keelay 4 years ago 1 point
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You know me dogg. ENTP. All the way.

Myers Briggs increases my predictive capabilities when dealing with others. As far as I am concerned, that means, "Check yer premises."

Before Myers-Briggs, it was all straight-up projecting. Which, of course, had the effect of filtering all but those who shared my pathologies. . . er . . .type.

I know some libertarian S's. Not a pretty sight.

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Mike 4 years ago 1 point
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INTP

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Bernard 4 years ago 1 point
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I came out INFP, and agree'd with most of the points made in the description after. Myers-Briggs I treat in the same way that I approach most of psychology - An interesting source of ideas which one ought not to treat as gospel.

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Andrew 4 years ago 1 point
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To quote an earlier commenter: "INTP, with the I and P weakly expressed and the N *very* strongly expressed." That fits me to a T.

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Fred Boness 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ with J winning out slightly over P.

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Eric 4 years ago 1 point
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ENTJ, though borderline INTJ

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Jacob T. Levy 4 years ago 1 point
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Another INTJ, borderline P

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Jacob T. Levy 4 years ago 1 point
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(And, now that I've read the article, I'll also note: very little fluctuation in my test outcome over time-- a long-term trend toward the J-P borderline from a strong J, but I've never come out anything other than INT, and strongly all those.)

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Ben Bargagliotti 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ I like the M-B

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Nicholas Weininger 4 years ago 1 point
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Yet another INTJ here.

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Kenny Easwaran 4 years ago 1 point
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For a long time I was INTP, but in recent tests I've come out ENTP, which I suppose makes sense with my personality changes in college. I believe the first time I took it I was actually INTJ, but now I think the P may even be stronger than my N and T.

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http://www.cardinalcollective.com

BC 4 years ago 1 point
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INTP

I was struck by how easily it depened on the situation for a lot of the questions, mainly the ones about introverted/extroverted. It mainly has to do with how secure I feel. I'm extremely extroverted in certain interesting class discussions and more introverted in personal relationships. I also do a lot of internal analyzing. So which one am I? Who knows. It isn't that easy.

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http://samethoughts.blogspot.com

belle waring 4 years ago 1 point
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ENFJ, people. I'm crazy like that. Of course, I'm not actually a libertarian...

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Frank McGahon 4 years ago 1 point
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eNTj sometimes iNTj

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Will Wilkinson 4 years ago 1 point
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BC, Yes about the variability. The reason I'm on the fence E/I-wise is that I'm an extremely gregarious extrovert around other NTs but can be pretty wallflower otherwise.

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http://willwilkinson.net/flybottle

Amanda 4 years ago 1 point
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INTP. I think my I is trending towards E, maybe for the same reason as Will. And the N is surprisingly weak.

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http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/

Amber 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ

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http://bamber.blogspot.com

Mark Madsen 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ as well. I agree completely that the mind is massively modular; different personalities are likely built out of a standard set of components, likely with different weightings arising out of a combination of pure inheritance and an Edelman-like neuronal selection process driven by early experience.

"G" is very likely just a way of the overall or coarse-grained interaction of all the modules -- in other words, any general intelligence measurement is looking at the emergent effects and overall efficiency of the cooperating and competing modular subunits.

This perspective is influenced greatly by Marvin Minsky's "society of mind" theories, and more recent elaborations of a modular perspective, but I've seen little that would suggest that a monolithic rather than a modular approach to cognition is called for.

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http://blog.mmadsen.org

Jason 4 years ago 1 point
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xNTP here, too. I during high school (surprise surprise), E as I've grown a little older and moved around a lot. The line between T and F is also a very blurry one, which I think is why I tend more toward fiction in my writing interests.

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http://spacemansabode.jasonkirk.net

Will Wilkinson 4 years ago 1 point
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I've seen things that suggest that G may have something to do with conditions that affect the environment of information processing. If I remember, brighter people have lower levels of electrical activity in their brains, and lower levels of glucose, or something like that.

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http://willwilkinson.net/flybottle

Lee 4 years ago 1 point
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Hard to believe Yglesias is an NT, he always seemed more an FU.

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Edward O'Connor 4 years ago 1 point
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ISTP.

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http://edward.oconnor.cx/

Jen 4 years ago 1 point
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I'm not a typical reader, so don't count me for purposes of your unscientific poll, but just in case you are curious, I am an ISTJ.

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Bill 4 years ago 1 point
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INTP

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Jay 4 years ago 1 point
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INTJ. I seem to recall in an undergrad psych class I was the only one out of almost 50 students who fit this, so it's pretty amazing to see how common it is here, but then again it was a NorCal school and they were probably almost all feelers...

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GU 7 months ago 1 point
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INTJ

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Megan McArdle 7 months ago 1 point
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xNTP, though I usually show up as a weak extrovert. Everything else very, very strongly expressed.

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http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com

webgrrl 7 months ago 1 point
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INFJ.

Like others here, since I learned a little more about the MBTI, I've found usefully predicatively, so I keep it in my pocket, always mindful of its limitations.

As for g, WW, I can't follow you there, sorry.

No one can describe it - or agree on a description - no one can accurately measure it or duplicate another's measurement, no one can offer a prediction based on it, no one can tie it in any meaningful way to anatomy or brain function - it's clearly phlogiston, a ghost. It doesn't exist.

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GilM 7 months ago 1 point
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INTJ

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4 /people/GilM/ /people/GilM/following/ http://AReasonableman.com

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Bad Theories that Track Robust Regularities

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