MBTI = Bible?

[thesmileybunny]

Does anyone else treat the MBTI like it's the Bible?

I personally sort of do because I love typing people but then again I'm not entirely sure about generalising people.

It's like saying, "Oh all female drivers are bad." and "All Asians are good at math.".

What do you guys think of the MBTI?

 

[nanook]

mbti=psychosis
but that's okay, because:
human condition=psychosis

i just sometimes wonder: do we really need a guide to/rules about beeing psychotic?

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I think using it too much, as in having familiarity with it, can lead to taking its premises and concepts for granted, causing typology to seem more certain than it is.

 

[The Gopher]

No

 

[Moocow]

i just sometimes wonder: do we really need a guide to/rules about beeing psychotic?

I believe a mutually agreed upon and thus controlled psychosis could describe human society, so yes. Very much so.

I think of MBTI as a structure for personal organization of info and in itself there's nothing wrong with that. It's just as well to speak of the same things in different terms: with cognitive functions, thinking and feeling inhibit each other which is in agreement with observations in neuroscience that the frontal lobe, which gives us complex rational thought, inhibits the amygdala, the part responsible for emotional reactions, and vice versa.

So I could go about thinking "That person shows evidence of a neurological structure expressing amygdala-dominant prioritization." or I could call them a feeler.
Fun fact: patients with damaged amygdalas thought analytically non-stop and took greater risks, to a detriment. People like Phineas Gage who had damaged frontal lobes developed emotional volatility and poor rational restraint.

It'll be exciting if we can find neural correlates for the other functions as well though.

 

[Melllvar]

"Bullshit, but fun to think about."

^Still my favorite quote regarding MBTI.

Among other things, I think:
a) MBTI is more of a paradigm than a theory.
b) I've still yet to see any real substantiating evidence for the whole cognitive functions hierarchy thing. It seems like something someone just made up and fit with people's preconceived prejudices/worldviews, and so everyone assumed "If it makes sense to me it must be true" and it gained popularity.
c) Some people fit the stereotype of a certain type, and some people don't fit any of the stereotypes. But it's easy just to ignore these people or say they're "hard to type" rather than blame it on the failure of the paradigm itself.

Among other things... that's just the beginning (of why I don't take it much more seriously than astrology or numerology). It can be useful as a paradigm, e.g. understanding that some people are highly extroverted while others are highly introverted, or recognizing commonalities in human experiences/behavior, but overall I think the more seriously people take it, the worse off they are.

 

[Moocow]

overall I think the more seriously people take it, the worse off they are.

Correlation doesn't imply causation.

 

[Dimensional Transition]

You should definitely not treat MBTI like the bible.

It makes sense, explains a couple of things yeah, but the complexity of people goes far beyond simple typing.

 

[Moocow]

An afterthought, you should treat MBTI like the Bible- both with equal basic skepticism.
Nay, treat it with a shade more respect than the Bible. The point is, if you have a Bible you should treat it to a dousing of gasoline and a lit match.

 

[Dimensional Transition]

Ah yes, Moocow. I just realized how stupid my last post was.

I'm a freakin' agnostic/atheist... I don't give a fuck about the Bible. Eh. Correction to my last post:

"You should definitely not treat MBTI the same way as (fundamentalist) Christians treat the Bible."

There.

 

[scorpiomover]

An afterthought, you should treat MBTI like the Bible- both with equal basic skepticism.
Nay, treat it with a shade more respect than the Bible. The point is, if you have a Bible you should treat it to a dousing of gasoline and a lit match.

The word "Bible" is just Latin for "book". It refers to whatever book you take as your default point of reference. For instance, amongst psychologists, the DSM is often referred to as "the Bible", because it's what their "book" for whenever they want to look something up when they are doing their job, diagnosing mental disorders. I can recall that I heard plenty of other books being called "the Bible", in different contexts. So the original title and Opening Post was spot on.

But, if you go to the extent that if people talk about "the Bible", then they are always talking about the Xian Bible, then you are saying that your every point of reference is Xianity. Even the most extreme of Xian fundamentalists don't look it up in the Bible when their car breaks down. But you would be saying you would, and for everything. So effectively, if you need to make such a distinction, you are saying that you follow Xianity even more than the most extreme Xian fundamentalist.

 

[Moocow]

The word "Bible" is just Latin for "book". It refers to whatever book you take as your default point of reference. For instance, amongst psychologists, the DSM is often referred to as "the Bible", because it's what their "book" for whenever they want to look something up when they are doing their job, diagnosing mental disorders. I can recall that I heard plenty of other books being called "the Bible", in different contexts. So the original title and Opening Post was spot on.

But, if you go to the extent that if people talk about "the Bible", then they are always talking about the Xian Bible, then you are saying that your every point of reference is Xianity. Even the most extreme of Xian fundamentalists don't look it up in the Bible when their car breaks down. But you would be saying you would, and for everything. So effectively, if you need to make such a distinction, you are saying that you follow Xianity even more than the most extreme Xian fundamentalist.

What..?
I'm quite aware of nature of the word "bible." I assume Bible with a capital B means the Christian Bible. THE Bible, the most notorious book in all of history to be called a bible.
My point of reference is that simple fact of history. Past that comment I'm not entirely sure what you're saying or how any of this, including my suggestion to burn it, suggests I'm an extreme Christian fundamentalist.

 

[scorpiomover]

What..?
I'm quite aware of nature of the word "bible." I assume Bible with a capital B means the Christian Bible. THE Bible, the most notorious book in all of history to be called a bible.

Only Xians and ex-Xians say that, because they still think the way they were raised. As the saying goes "You can take the child out of the home, but you can't take the home out of the child."

My point of reference is that simple fact of history. Past that comment I'm not entirely sure what you're saying or how any of this, including my suggestion to burn it, suggests I'm an extreme Christian fundamentalist.

My point of reference is that I'm a Jew, and if I say "the Bible", or any Jew says "the Bible", he means the Jewish Bible, what Xians call "the Old Testament", and nothing else.

Your point of reference SHOULD be your current beliefs, not the ones you were raised with. So start acting like it.

 

[Moocow]

Oh my God- oops, I mean Oh your god, (I wouldn't want to be a massive hypocrite now) but that seems like a slight overreaction!
After reading your last post about 10 times I guess I see where you're coming from. Were you offended that I suggested burning a bible, that I assumed bible refers primarily to the inclusion of the new testament, or both?
But most importantly,how does it make a gosh-darn difference in the context of this thread? You can suppose I was suggesting he burn either bible if you like... it should at least be obvious that I wasn't talking about the C++ Programmer's Bible.
Jesus Christ almighty!

 

[blarg]

Could be an INTP thing. MBTI = MBTi?

I don't treat it like the Bible at all. It's a (far from perfect) tool that I use just to get a basic idea of people's personalities and try to understand them systematically, almost always as just a hobby. It's relatively good in terms of general patterns but other than that its usefulness and applicability seem overrated.

 

[Cognisant]

MBTI is a gross oversimplification of human psychology but a useful system of classification for when you need "fast & dirty" insight (not dirty in that way) into someone else's mind, in that way knowing someone's type doesn’t tell you anything about them but enables you to use what you do know about them better.

 

[scorpiomover]

Oh my God- oops, I mean Oh your god, (I wouldn't want to be a massive hypocrite now) but that seems like a slight overreaction!
After reading your last post about 10 times I guess I see where you're coming from. Were you offended that I suggested burning a bible, that I assumed bible refers primarily to the inclusion of the new testament, or both?
But most importantly,how does it make a gosh-darn difference in the context of this thread? You can suppose I was suggesting he burn either bible if you like... it should at least be obvious that I wasn't talking about the C++ Programmer's Bible.
Jesus Christ almighty!

I didn't even notice that you suggested burning the Bible.

People pointed out to me long ago about women I liked: If she's indifferent to you, THEN she doesn't like you, and you stand no chance, so it's time to move on. But if she insults you, she really likes you.

I found that it's just as true about everything people have or don't strong feelings about.

 

[Cognisant]

I dunno, I really hate god, and if a woman really hates you I think that just means she hates you.

 

[scorpiomover]

I dunno, I really hate god, and if a woman really hates you I think that just means she hates you.

Life would be soooo much easier if that was the case. At least then they wouldn't be flirting with me left, right and centre, every time I ignore them and talk to other women.

 

[thesmileybunny]

You should definitely not treat MBTI like the bible.

It makes sense, explains a couple of things yeah, but the complexity of people goes far beyond simple typing.

yeah I suppose you can't possibly generalise a person completely.