MBTI - Poll

Teheuti said:

I just checked out a whole bunch of MBTI polls around the internet, and surprise, surprise - in ALL of them the INs came out in the majority! This is totally opposed to the supposed spread of types in the general population.

There are several possibilities for this:
- the tests to determine the US average were totally faked
- the population drawn from was not at all typical
- people who spend time on computer forums and respond to polls in ALL FIELDS are overwhelmingly INs.

What do you think?

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I think the last two are jointly responsible, and they actually overlap. The population drawn from, i.e. computer forum surfers and poll-answerers, are NOT at all typical! And to go further, I believe that the INs, and probably the Fs, are more interested in the subject matter of an MBTI poll than other types. Let's face it, we're introspective; we want to know how minds and personalities work.

That's a very good point, Morwenna.

Maybe we should be encouraging them to all become tarot readers.

Just as long as they're okay with the fact that the Tarot doesn't generally do well with crisp, cut, clear "yes or no" answers.

Newly-minted "touchy-feely" business managers started using the MBTT a long time ago to try to figure out their employees without actually having to talk to them. It was big for a while and then joined the other personal profile data in the employees' Human Resources folders and the managers went back to doing what they always did before. In my business it was the "Three Stooges" American management model: Moe hits Larry but Larry is afraid to hit Moe so he hits Curly instead. I still have my MBTT around somewhere and will try to find it for the poll. (Don't really feel like taking the thing again . . . )

The problem with this and other similar tests, though, which some authors have pointed out, is that many people's responses will be situational. Testers will say that despite one's tendencies to act in different ways depending on the circumstances, there is one "basic" orientation for each person. But they also point out that no one is absolutely one characteristic as opposed to the corresponding one; they're on a continuum. And I think it's most likely that those characteristics that show up as "slight preferences" are more likely to be crossed over when circumstances change. I already made the point about being a J in the office and a P at home, or being a T in the classroom and an F with one's friends, etc. So the 4-letter label is really only an approximation!

But it's still fun.

Howcome i am still the only ESFJ on these boards?

You're brave. A lot of Ss and Js think psychology and divination are a lot of hooey. Your F-ness saved you.

I've taken this test maaany times, both in English and in Italian, and I always come out as an INFP

BTW, we don't seem to be so rare around here! *waves*

I'm an INTJ, scoring 100 on the introvert part. I was a bit hung up on some of the questions... could have gone either way.