What would you ask?

[Agent Intellect]

what would you ask if you were making an MBTI test? what sort of questions would you come up with, possibly ones you have never seen on any personality type test you have ever taken? if you were going to try and type someone in a conversation, what sort of questions would you ask the person to get a feel for what personality type they are?

i'm interested in making my own MBTI type test, something i can administer to people offline. what sorts of specefic questions seem important, not only for finding the broad answers, like whether someone is "N" or "S" but whether they are "Ne" or "Ni" etc? most online tests seem very broad and generic, asking questions like "do you prefer theories or facts?". these sorts of question are why a lot of people new to MBTI think that "P" and "J" are functions. i'd be more interested in questions that focus more on the individual functions (Ne, Ni, Se, Si, Te, Ti, Fe, Fi), perhaps something more like "does hearing a new theory open up new avenues of exploration, or is it more of a means to an end?" (just off the top of my head).

if people can think of some good, specefic, and possibly new questions, and then explain how they might interpret different answers, i think we could probably come up with a much better MBTI test then any of the ones on the web. questions could be story problems. for example, something like "if X situation happened, would you do A, B, C, or D?" (the more possible answers the better; one thing i hate about most of the online tests is having only two multiple choice answers for the questions and neither of them would be something i'd do).

they could also be preferences. things like "do you prefer X or Y" and can even come with follow up questions. if they chose X, then a follow up question might be "do you prefer to use X to explain the world, or to interact with it?". making the test more adaptive to the person taking it seems like a good way to go.

what i'm mainly looking for are specefic questions that have to do with the functions themselves (Ne, Ni, Se, Si, Te, Ti, Fe, Fi), and not simply figuring out if someone is "P" or "J" or any of those broad things (although questions about that could lead into more precise follow up questions). i'm also looking for things that aren't frequently used in all of the online tests.

 

[Toad]

Dude I was totally going to make a thread called "Revising the MBTI test" I was planning on it for weeks now.

I think the test asks horrible questions. It's too black and white. Some questions are too obvious and other questions make one answer look more appealing than the other. I think mainly the T and F questions. Let's take one of the tests and go through each question!

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

(although questions about that could lead into more precise follow up questions).

I think a reactive test would be perfect! A following question based on your answer to the previous main question.

Example:

Would you rather attend a party or stay home? (I/E)

If you answer attend a party the next question could be something along the lines of "Do you like there to be loud music or lots of conversation at this party?" (Si/Se perhaps?)

If you answer stay home the next question could be something along the lines of "Do you prefer to read a book or watch sports?" (Ni/Ne???)

I'm not good at picking what questions help determine functions as my understanding of them are weaker than wet toilet paper but I do think the idea of follow up questions based on the answers to broad questions would be key.

 

[Auburn]

This is actually something on my never ending list of things I'll probably never get around to but really want to do. I agree that using questions that determine what fuctions are used would be more accurate.

I was thinking that the test could be set up like a tree, where answering certain questions a certain way will redirect you to different questions to narrow down your type even more. For instance:

Questions 1-24 = Determining their judging and perceptive functions.
Questions 25-48 = Determining the orientation (i/e) of the two.
Questions 49 - 64 = Determining which is the Dominant and which is Auxiliary.

Depending on their answers for 1-24, the following questions will be tailored to narrow down their type further, and the questions following that will do the same.

Part 1 - This would be divided into two sets of questions, ones to determine their preference for F or T, and the others to determine S or N. The result will narrow it down to either NF, NT, ST, or SF.

Part 2 - From the results of part 1, the test will split into 4 different categories of questions. Now we would ask questions to determine which of the two is the "i" function and which is the "e" function. This part is tricky because the question builder would have to have a lot of knowledge into how each pair of fuctions works together. (Hm, on second thought maybe NP, SP, NF, NT would be better categories.)

Part 3 - Then once part 2 is complete it narrows it down to 2 personality types -the "I" version and the "E" version of them. From there it should be quite simple.

 

[Ermine]

I really like the concept of a reactive test, narrowing down to specifics rather than answering the same questions over and over.

And they could do to be more specific, especially with I/E, and S/N.

For an I/E question: For a week, would you rather be...

a. totally alone
b. with a couple friends
c. with a large group of friends

Having the middle ground option would make things more specific because while I'm very introverted, I would still prefer a couple friends to being alone. In general, the MBTI would be more helpful if it had 3 or more answer choices instead of 2. It's often very hard to decide between only two answers, and the answer I pick wouldn't be totally accurate.

 

[Agent Intellect]

it also seems like, in order to make a test with answers tailored for the different functions, there would have to be a standard for the different functions. for instance, a lot of people still seem confused about the difference between Fi and Fe, and what Ni and Si are (judging from other forums, too). a good description i've heard for the difference between Ne and Ni is from the INTJ forum, where the concept seems to be that Ne is divergent and Ni is convergent. Ne takes one thing and runs with it, seeing how many connections with other random things it can make, while Ni takes a lot of random things and compiles it into a cohesive theory. the problem is, there are probably some people that disagree with this, or have some other way of thinking about it.

i suppose what i want to know is, what kind of questions could be used to judge someones 'Si' development? or 'Ni' development? or whether their "F" is 'Fe' or 'Fi'? i know some people claim that they have stronger introverted functions then extroverted (ie someone might be an I-'Ni-Ti'-P instead of I-'Ne-Ti'-P); what sort of questions could be asked to make a distinction in instances like that?

combination questions would be nice, too. something like "when you come up with ideas, do you generally see whether they make logical sense or not, or would you rather they held some intrinsic value?" (differentiating between INTP and INFP).

i think auburns idea is good, dividing it up into sections. start broad and narrow it down.

but the problem with the middle ground decisions is that they don't give much data. perhaps specify it even more:
If you had to choose, would you rather be-
A. alone. most people don't understand me. (Fi answer maybe?)
B. alone. a lot of people seem so shallow/uninteresting. (Ti answer maybe?)
C. with a few close friends that understand me. (an Fi or auxilary Fe answer maybe?)
D. with a few close friends that challenge me. (an Ne and/or Ti answer maybe?)
E. with a lot of people that i know or that share similar interests with me. (an auxilary Fe answer maybe?)
F. with a lot of new people that i can become acquainted with. (a dominant Fe answer maybe?)

anyway, the point is, i like the idea of having many answers, trying to cover all the bases (like Ermine said, most people don't prefer just being alone or with a lot of people, theres more to it then that) and get as much information as possible.

 

[Sapphire Harp]

While not having not read the above responses too deeply... I'm going to suggest some very different things.

I think part of the problem with the mbti tests available is the nature of questions they offer... I don't think either true or false or multiple choice questions are really going to advance these kind of tests. I'd recommend asking questions that would be answered 1-10...

For example, you could ask "What do you like to do with your free-time?" and give a lengthy list of options. The person taking the test is asked to rate each of them for 1-10 on from low appeal to high appeal. The trick would be including 'pure' options, which only indicate a single preference...

I also think situational / story problems would be very interesting... Involving interpersonal dynamics that could definitely trigger an emotional reaction in some types... The questions allowing them to make judgement on who's right or wrong... Or judgements over what kind of actions to take.

One of the most important details about these tests, I think, is to make sure it isn't completely clear what the question is extrapolating from your answer... Toad mentioned it, but I don't think it can be said enough...
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[Tyria]

I would consider making a test that includes MBTI and several other things as well (such as strong interest inventory, etc). MBTI only gives you a piece of a person's personality; it doesn't get too deeply into other things that are just as important to know what a person is like.

One thing that I can think about that I do not like about MBTI is that you can get different results based on how you take the test: the questions can be read in terms of the MBTI axis of I/E, S/N, F/T, J/P (and answers chosen accordingly). I can't remember what the test is called, but there is one test that tries to measure whether a person is genuine in their responses or not. That would be an INTP's dream evaluation since INTP's value authenticity so much

 

[Auburn]

@ A.I. - Mm, so perhaps we could take an approach where a scenario is presented and there are 8 miltiple choice answers (the 8 functions) based on how they would react to said scenario?

For instance:
Q. Your family buys a puppy without your knowledge and surprises you with it when you come home from school/work. How do you react?

A. "OMG! Puppy! ^.^" ((Fe))

B. You immediately start to make a list of rules that must be added to the home in order to accomodate this new addition. ((Te))

C. You start to imagine all of the different tricks you could teach it, wondering if you could teach it to play not only fetch but maybe even soccer and basketball. ((Ne))

D. You wonder why they didn't ask you about it first, rather dissapointed. You recall all the experiences you've had with previous pets and know how much of a hassle this will be. ((Si?))


...and I can't think of anything else for the rest. ^^; I'm not very good at this.
I just wanted to kinda give the general idea. If this format is used, the top 2 scored upon could be the dominant and auxiliary?

On second thought this presents a problem if somebody scores, say, Fe + Ti (two judging functions and no perceiving funciton). So perhaps there could be two different sets of questions, one set with all 4 perceiving functions and one set with all four judging fuctions? Then the separate scores from this can be paired together at the end?

 

[Rain]

Most likely I would have a trained and hired staff that were well educated and worked hard with good people skills to go through the tests with people, analyzing their reactions and helping explain questions. (Because I have noticed a lot of people are too stupid to understand the questions and thus cannot answer accurately. I know. *shudders*)