SLOAN is a botched self esteem test

[zago]

Here's what I think:

SLOAN was created by an NTJ who was displeased with MBTI's "sugar coatedness." S/he wasn't too concerned with anything beyond that. Ni told them that this was a BS system because it makes people feel warm and fuzzy. Highly suspicious, no?

Now he has to make a system that can give descriptions that don't make readers feel warm and fuzzy. There is an obvious problem with that, because no one can judge what actions are moral and what aren't. So attention shifts from saying "you do immoral things" to "you are highly neurotic and poorly adjusted."

And that's where it gets its accuracy. If you have low Fe, society probably hates you, because most of them either have Fe or get along well with people who have Fe. Society hating you have a pretty negative effect on your self esteem, though, doesn't it? There is something missing here: how you think.

It's easy to see once you realize it. A question asks you if you love giving to charity. You rate yourself low, because you really don't. The test is like, "hey this guy doesn't like giving to charity. People probably look down on him for that. This probably damages his self esteem. This person is more likely to be 'withdrawn, loner, moody, dislikes crowds, avoidant'"

In that sense, the test doesn't actually tell you anything about who you are. It just tells you how you feel, how high your self esteem is.

Of course, the test probably assigns no soaringly positive traits to people who consider themselves thinkers, because it reflects society. Ask people who they think is a better person between a theorist and a missionary, and they'll have all sorts of respect for the missionary. They might think the theorist is an asshole. Shucks!

So how does this affect INTPs? If you are an INTP with decently high self esteem, this test will associate more negative feelings to you than it should.

Whatever. I just think you should know this going into the SLOAN test. The test itself has no respect for your ability to think, for your ability to feel. It is not a "sugar free version of MBTI." MBTI respects the value of every function, understands that society evolved the way it did for a reason. SLOAN tangles itself in misinformed but prevailing social judgements, and predicts how you are likely to see yourself in a world full of those judgements, assuming that you can't separate yourself from them.

So there you go. Fuck off, SLOAN.

[Titania]

That online test is an unflattering presentation of the OCEAN test, itself better studied and more recognized as usefully describing real world behaviors and traits than MBTI.

It really shouldn't be used in the same way as the Jung-based psychology, as it was come up with in an entirely different manner for an entirely different purpose.

[Sojourner]

Wait, why is self esteem necessarily linked to society hating you, or being a loner? Are you saying that those who are introverted (in the common usage, not in type theory usage) or more apathetic toward public opinion must have low self esteem?

[zago]

Wait, why is self esteem necessarily linked to society hating you, or being a loner? Are you saying that those who are introverted (in the common usage, not in type theory usage) or more apathetic toward public opinion must have low self esteem?

I'm just saying that if society hates you, you are more likely to have low self esteem and become a loner. There is also the option that you are a loner with high self esteem. In fact, I am specifically saying that the latter is possible but the SLOAN test hardly acknowledges it.

[LowEnd]

I think the creator of sloan was just bitter that Jung/Myers/Briggs more or less hit the nail on the head before he/she did. This lead to trying to out-do them without regurgitating the same ideas, which inevitably lead to something wide of the mark. Like someone trying to reinvent bread.


wow, that was one hell of an assumption.
Ne and Si working together.

[Titania]

I'm just saying that if society hates you, you are more likely to have low self esteem and become a loner. There is also the option that you are a loner with high self esteem. In fact, I am specifically saying that the latter is possible but the SLOAN test hardly acknowledges it.Yes, the real Big Five is a spectrum, and recognizes sub-categories within its categories.

Extroversion in Five Factor Theory isn't the same as extroversion in any other test. Extroversion in FFT includes optimism, general energy level, assertiveness, willingness / ability to work in a group and be effective, and sociability, all of which sort of coalesce into an enthusiasm and participation in the world around you.

A lot of people who'd be introverts on other tests might be "extraverted" (and vice versa) on the big five, since sociability is only one small factor.

I'll reiterate, I wouldn't take this incarnation as an indication of anything. It is designed a typological test for individual use. It is a trait test, used for research on very large groups of people, and is only predictive in those same large groups of people. Less so in individuals.

[Electric]

Yes, the real Big Five is a spectrum, and recognizes sub-categories within its categories.

Extroversion in Five Factor Theory isn't the same as extroversion in any other test. Extroversion in FFT includes optimism, general energy level, assertiveness, willingness / ability to work in a group and be effective, and sociability, all of which sort of coalesce into an enthusiasm and participation in the world around you.

A lot of people who'd be introverts on other tests might be "extraverted" (and vice versa) on the big five, since sociability is only one small factor.


I think that is a pretty good definition for extroversion for both Jungian and SLOAN. Although the two define it in different words, they infer similar characteristics of the intended trait. Tests that base extroversion off of sociability is one sided IMO. Although extroversion correlates with socializing, it does not cause it. The agreeableness or feeling factor would have a large role in this I would say.

I thought SLOAN was useful in differentiating Limbic/Calm from Neuroticism. Although this trait has the weakest correlation with Jungian, I think it takes a step further in analyzing a type's psychological health. A person could read the negatives and positives of a type more in dept which would depict the level of maturity.

[floyd]

zago, what's your sloan type?

[Titania]

zago, what's your sloan type?You were the guy who made them up. There's no such thing.

[floyd]

sloan is just a notation system for the big 5. among people who know a lot about the big 5 and the mbti (which is anyone who chooses to do a lot of reading and/or research), i don't think you will find many people who prefer the mbti (if you can find anyone at all). the mbti is a good for what it was, an unscientific personality system from the 40s. it's popularity (which seems to be waning) is a function of marketing, right-place-right-time, memorable notation system, it's reasonable similarity to 4 or the eventually verified big five personality dimensions, and the uneducated, unscientific, and/or faith based mindset of the typical person.

i think how selfish or selfless someone is (which you can somewhat infer from mbti scores but only if you know the big 5 to mbti correlations), and how emotionally stable or unstable they are (which the mbti mostly fails to measure) is pretty important metric for evaluating who someone is. i don't think those are 'pretty' labels but the big 5 was just what researchers found when looking for the simplest independent personality dimensions not what someone put together trying to sell a test.

[Titania]

You're talking to someone who has taken two college courses on the psychology of personality, and has the prerequisites for a psych major. I know what the big five is, and you've done a terrible job representing it.

The problem is, your descriptions of the traits are all vastly oversimplified, and some of them are flat out wrong.

No, those who score high on an agreeable scale do not live for other people. At all. They are just charming. Sociopaths usually score absurdly high on this.

No, openness to experience has nothing to do with intellect. There's some correlation, but they are not the same thing by far. SPs are usually very open to experience. Reading a book that challenges one's preconceived notions and going sky diving are both activities which indicate openness to experience. It has nothing to do with intellect.

People who score high in neuroticism aren't necessarily moody. They just report more "negative" emotions. That's it.

Extraversion isn't just being social under this model, it's a willingness to do things in the outside world and a belief in one's efficacy. Being social is less than half that.

Conscientiousness has little to do with focus or orderliness. It's a willingness to set aside impulse, and general regard for authority and rules.

You basically made up the traits, you changed it enough that you've made up a totally unvetted and unresearched system.

Second, the Big Five is not a type test. It is meant to spit out an accurate portrait of what you told it. There'll be no revelations in the results. Any interpretation of the test requires a human to sit down with the raw scores and talk about the subtle interplay of the traits, which will occasionally tell you things the person didn't indicate, but which are almost certainly something the person already knows.

What makes the Big Five interesting isn't what it tells the individual (what it tells individuals should be and is rather boring), but what certain traits correlate with real-life consequence over large populations.

For instance, people who score high on Agreeableness usually make a lot more money than the general population. Does that mean you'd make more money if you score high on that trait? No, not even close.

Yes, people who are Open to experience usually score a little higher on IQ tests. Does that mean someone who has a high score on that has a high IQ? Nope, there are crystal-waving rock climbers who fit the bill without being very bright.

The big five is a great research tool, and a terrible test to apply to individuals or to use as a type test. Worse, you didn't even make a big five test. You made a broke man's version, not even useful on a large scale.

[johnjuan]

I still won't believe in the validity of any of these tests until we get a fucking lot of s's on here and see how they really think. Until then this is just a way to make me feel gifted. oooh! I'm gifted

[floyd]

titania (regardless of whether you agree with 'my' descriptions), do you score low on agreeableness (i.e. high on selfishness/egocentric behavior) and low on emotional stability (i.e. high on moodiness)? your board behavior would suggest you do.

many big five tests are for personal discovery. people take them for themselves. while sociopaths can 'play' nice selectively with certain people for desired ends (and can certainly lie on a company personality profile), they won't say they are selfless on a personality inventory for their own consumption (or one taken anonymously for research).

most people who know selfish people know they are selfish (save maybe the romantically blind masochist)... they wouldn't call these people agreeable.

low agreeableness people think they are better than other people. in this case, that means it's against their nature, regardless of the evidence, to admit an inferior position. add emotional instability to the mix and you bring in fight or flight desperation. this is probably not the ideal formula for constructive debate.

lets cite some evidence from a published academic meta-study/article which discusses the Agreeableness trait.
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wC6bNZiFq5MC&oi=fnd&pg=PA231&dq=big+five+job+performance&ots=xCisyElE3e&sig=labdx6l3TbDvN2XYDuyHwYZXnKM#PPA234,M1
on page 234. "Traits associated with this dimension include being courteous, flexible, trusting, good-natured, cooperative, forgiving, soft-hearted, and tolerant." Doesn't sound like the description of a sociopath. Here's your chance to admit you were mistaken or wrong Titania. (Let's see if you take it. Your personality profile says you probably won't... because you are not good-natured, courteous, or flexible... even when you are in the wrong.)

lets talke the conscientiousness dimension.
you say "Conscientiousness has little to do with focus or orderliness."
page 235 of the aforementioned academic article says Conscientiousness
"assesses personal characteristics such as persistent, planful, careful, responsible, and hardworking"

being intellectual or curious does not correlate very strongly to iq, true. where did i ever say it did? nonetheless i prefer curious people of moderate or high intelligence over non curious ones of moderate or high intelligence, hence the value of this dimension (and why most people here find Ns more interesting than Ss).

in the aforementioned article the authors refer to "The last dimension has been the most difficult to identify. It has been interpreted most frequently as Intellect or Intellectence"

That's three Big 5 trait descriptions (from academics with slightly more than community college undergrad psych pre reqs) which aproximately match mine. Did the authors of this academic article make up their traits as well?

the mbti is a quasi-big 4 (according to correlational research), so if the big 5 is a bad type test, then the mbti must be truly horrible.

please cite the research evidence that people that score higher on agreebleness make 'more' money, much less 'a lot' more money?

there's some freely available big five inventories anyone can find in research articles on scholar.google.com. i think you will find they measure the traits as i describe them and not as titania has. if you're curious (regardless of your iq) i think you'll find that's the best approach to making up your own mind.

[Hustler]

There are still, to this day, people who go on and on about how much better Beta is than VHS.

[zago]

On a good day, I'm SCUAI, on a bad day, RLUAI (?), although a lot of them sound exactly the same.

[floyd]

There are still, to this day, people who go on and on about how much better Beta is than VHS.

and people who think creation is more compelling than evolution.

and even some people who prefer the theory that the earth is flat.

[floyd]

On a good day, I'm SCUAI, on a bad day, RLUAI (?), although a lot of them sound exactly the same.

on my tests and most other ones, you should answer how you generally are, on average, not how you are that particular day.

[Titania]

titania (regardless of whether you agree with 'my' descriptions), do you score low on agreeableness (i.e. high on selfishness/egocentric behavior) and low on emotional stability (i.e. high on moodiness)? your board behavior would suggest you do. You're very off. :)


many big five tests are for personal discovery. people take them for themselves. while sociopaths can 'play' nice selectively with certain people for desired ends (and can certainly lie on a company personality profile), they won't say they are selfless on a personality inventory for their own consumption (or one taken anonymously for research).The Big Five is not a type test. It doesn't assess motivation at all, it assesses behavior. Therefore, it is completely wrong to say that someone who acts agreeable, but is a selfish person really isn't agreeable. On the contrary, that person is just as agreeable as someone with the same behavior with a more altruistic motivation.

Being agreeable doesn't assess whether someone wants good or bad things, or whether what they do is motivated by noble ideas or selfish ones. It asks what methods they use, and that is it. Agreeable people use a method that is more useful in some instances, and the disagreeable use a method that is more useful in others.

In any case, I am not going to argue every wrongheaded piece of information you decide to spit out. I've written academic papers on this, I know this back to front, and you run a pop-psychology website with a cosmo-level of academic integrity, and cherry-pick from ten year old sources to back up your un-nuanced, unscientific representation.

[pangolin]

I have to say to Floyd, that everyone is in fact selfish. People just get their jollies in different ways. That's what MBTI is about, the different ways people get their 'hap-hits'. Someone who is warm and over emotional and invading my personal space while trying be 'friendly' or 'selfless' is either doing it because it is satisfactory for them to behave that way (regardless of the fact that I am often offended by it) or someone has suggested to them that that is so, and they have not yet figured out otherwise, in which case they are just not in tune with themselves.

[floyd]

Being agreeable doesn't assess whether someone wants good or bad things, or whether what they do is motivated by noble ideas or selfish ones. It asks what methods they use, and that is it. Agreeable people use a method that is more useful in some instances, and the disagreeable use a method that is more useful in others.

In any case, I am not going to argue every wrongheaded piece of information you decide to spit out. I've written academic papers on this, I know this back to front, and you run a pop-psychology website with a cosmo-level of academic integrity, and cherry-pick from ten year old sources to back up your un-nuanced, unscientific representation.

wow, i'm shocked you gave the expected response of a selfish inflexible person who scores low on agreeableness (again the big five proves useful and predictive). i use the term academic paper to refer to articles published in peer reviewed academic journals like the one i referenced (not community college homework assignments). or if i'm mistaken, could you post a link to one of your academic papers?

if you know this stuff back to front, then it should be easy for you to cite academic papers which affirm your view. i already know you think you know everything. i would just actually like to see you produce some evidence or face up to your uneducated posturing. the fact is you can't even cherry pick papers to defend your views because i've yet to find any academic personality researcher who would back the mbti over the big 5.

on average agreeable people are considerate and care about other people whereas disagreeable people tend towards the opposite. they, in fact, tend to be motivated by "selfish ideas". that's quite an important facet of personality in my opinion to be conscious of.

[Titania]

I don't particularly feel like telling you my name just so I can prove to you my credentials. I am quite satisfied that others with the same credentials or higher know who knows their shit. :)

Nor do I particularly feel like spending an hour or so explaining the basics of personality theory to a hostile student who hasn't shown any promise in the subject, nor grasp of the basic terminology. I suggest you find a community college and take a course on psychology of personality if you want a cheap primer. But I assure you, you'd fail out of any basic course worth the money if you didn't refine and correct your definitions.

[Hustler]

and people who think creation is more compelling than evolution.

and even some people who prefer the theory that the earth is flat.

And even some who think personality theory is as much of a science as biology or physics. (Who also completely miss the point of the Beta/VHS analogy)

[Titania]

And even some who think personality theory is as much of a science as biology or physics.It's not, but the Big Five's a great step in the right direction. There's really no better predictive (for large populations) model out there, and it was formed, and continues to be redefined, by research.

It's got a lot of promise for eventually being a useful metric which can be used to describe the behavioral results of biological events, and how those form a cohesive personality. MBTI doesn't come close to that.

[AcidGoethe]

Floyd, you're a smart guy and intellectually honest. Your arguments are sound. I think people are reacting to you from an "emotional" standpoint. It's a waste of time to argue.

[floyd]

i know that which is why i only do it on occassion (and when i do i try to press for actual evidence instead of opinion)... even then it's probably a waste of time. i think titania is meshou who if i recall is/was a community college student which does not in itself undermine her entirely but it just makes it odd that she is passing herself off as someone who's published academic papers and has 'credentials'.

[AcidGoethe]

i know that which is why i only do it on occassion (and when i do i try to press for actual evidence instead of opinion)... even then it's probably a waste of time. i think titania is meshou who if i recall is/was a community college student which does not in itself undermine her entirely but it just makes it odd that she is passing herself off as someone who's published academic papers and has 'credentials'.

Regardless of the veracity of those claims, someone who really has credentials shouldn't feel the need to bring that up to support their argumentation. They could just cite relevant papers supporting their stance.

[Chaselation]

I don't particularly feel like telling you my name just so I can prove to you my credentials. I am quite satisfied that others with the same credentials or higher know who knows their shit. :)

Nor do I particularly feel like spending an hour or so explaining the basics of personality theory to a hostile student who hasn't shown any promise in the subject, nor grasp of the basic terminology. I suggest you find a community college and take a course on psychology of personality if you want a cheap primer. But I assure you, you'd fail out of any basic course worth the money if you didn't refine and correct your definitions.


I have no particular opinion on the subject.

You are making statements any academic should have readily bookmarked and at her disposal. Not to provide references reeks of not having them. Ad hominem attacks only makes that appear to be more so the case.

[Titania]

You are making statements any academic should have readily bookmarked and at her disposal.1) I moved on to other subjects more than a year ago. No, I don't keep notes from old projects around.

2) Floyd has basically shown to me he's willing to cherry-pick quotes and isn't really able to determine quality source material, or doesn't really get the material and is kind of belligerent about it. There's no discussion to be had with someone who does that.

3) In order to talk about this in detail, everyone really needs a primer in what the terms mean. For that, I can write you a book, point you at a book, or suggest a course, but it really doesn't come in shorter form.

You're basically asking me to explain senior to graduate level coursework in a way someone who hasn't taken the intro class should understand. You aren't paying me enough to spend that sort of time. Yeah, I'll teach you calculus before you have your multiplication tables straight, buddy, sure thing.

Buy or check out This book (http://www.amazon.com/Big-Five-Assessment-Boele-Raad/dp/088937242X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204969158&sr=1-1) at the library, then maybe I'll talk studies with you.

4) Community college students can't publish papers in academic journals, apparently! Or take at-large classes! Who fucking knew!

You idiot.

[floyd]

ha ha ha. more posturing and insults. still no substantive evidence. shocking. maybe this thread can at least become a study on the behavior of an insecure egocentric. meshou maybe you can write an amusing memoir called 'better than everyone: confessions of a community college student'

as to quality source material... the book you reference is not even academic source material. it's maybe appropriate for a psychologist's bookshelf but not a personality researcher.

here's a list of books (pro and con big 5) by academics with considerable work in personality research - http://www.personalityresearch.org/readings.html#bigfive (the whole site is actually a great place for info on the big 5 and personality research in general - http://www.personalityresearch.org/bigfive.html - http://www.personalityresearch.org)

meshou you are being asked to defend your weak position. i think you don't even know enough to try. i know it's not in your nature to do anything but be defensive and hysterical but i'm always curious to see how that manifests. it's like a big five real life primer at work ('observe, this is how an egocentric emotionally unstable person acts').

as for myself, i don't have a phd but i've read a lot on the big five and have a lot of empirical experience. i was not really a big five fan at first. the mbti and enneagram were the first personality systems i was interested in. i spent over six years looking at what correlates to what in millions of personality test responses. among other things, i kept finding the big five personality structure in almost every personality system i created a test for - enneagram, mbti, cattell 16pf. so, for me, the data converted me to a strong belief in the big 5. meshou is not entirely wrong to say the big 5 is 'descriptive', not inherently 'motivational'. unfortunately, if you look at the research data, people who self rate as disagreeable, tend to show a clear behavioral pattern of egocentric motivation. there are exceptions, but expressed behaviors tend to correlate to a similar underlying motivation. the mbti inventory reflects that truism which is why extroversion mbti test items are very similar to big 5 extroversion test items.

my sloan descriptions are just a reflection of what each sloan type scored higher on according to the test data of my site (there was no additional editorial spin). i can imagine some mbti heads who are used to positive type descriptions taking issue with mine but my descriptions directly reflect the data.

as i've said, sloan is just a big 5 notation system. i think it's better than the mbti just because the big 5 is more descriptive than the mbti. i'm actually working on something better right now because i don't think the sloan labels are as transparent / understandable as they could be. for example, i don't think the average person readily understands what 'accommodating' means in terms of personality.

[mgb]

titania (regardless of whether you agree with 'my' descriptions), do you score low on agreeableness (i.e. high on selfishness/egocentric behavior) and low on emotional stability (i.e. high on moodiness)? your board behavior would suggest you do.




wow, i'm shocked you gave the expected response of a selfish inflexible person who scores low on agreeableness (again the big five proves useful and predictive).


i know that which is why i only do it on occassion (and when i do i try to press for actual evidence instead of opinion)... even then it's probably a waste of time.


ha ha ha. more posturing and insults. still no substantive evidence. shocking. maybe this thread can at least become a study on the behavior of an insecure egocentric.

meshou you are being asked to defend your weak position. i think you don't even know enough to try. i know it's not in your nature to do anything but be defensive and hysterical but i'm always curious to see how that manifests. it's like a big five real life primer at work ('observe, this is how an egocentric emotionally unstable person acts').

as for myself, i don't have a phd but i've read a lot on the big five and have a lot of empirical experience.

floyd, why should anyone take you seriously? I mean, you're a self-admitted hack that's declaring himself an expert in a particular field and backing up an MBTI+1 theory by trying to scream louder than it's doubters on an MBTI based board.



Also, Anonymous is really going to appreciate what I've done here.

[floyd]

i would like people to take the scientific method seriously, to read up on their own and make up their own mind.

since you want to make this about personality, why should anyone take meshou seriously? do you know her? why should her hysterical, absurd-superior, evidence devoid opinion matter? what do you find compelling about it/her?

does not having a phd make someone a hack? explain?

i think mbti = flawed big 4, that's pretty different from saying big 5 = mbti + 1. i think of this as an intp board, full of people who score as intp on the mbti inventory (which i do). i don't think of it as an mbti evangelical board. am i mistaken in that? should people who score as intp but think the mbti is unscientific avoid this board?

[mgb]

i would like people to take the scientific method seriously, to read up on their own and make up their own mind.

So you're saying that we should take your theory seriously, but not you?


since you want to make this about personality, why should anyone take meshou seriously? do you know her? why should her hysterical, absurd-superior, evidence devoid opinion matter? what do you find compelling about it/her?

See, if I wanted to ask that question, I would have. You're just deflecting my question onto her.

I don't know her really at all. And we've probably had bigger fights on the board than I'll ever have you, so I don't think we really owe each other anything and I'm not here defending her at all.

I did notice that you were employing a great deal of rather grandiose rhetoric and I'm here calling you on it. When you spend a whole thread flaming someone and then get all huffy when they do it back, something seems kind of amiss. And since you are so quick to turn my questions back on meshou, even more so when you found out who Titania really was, I'd suggest this is more of a personal thing than anything else. And given you've ruined your reputation on this board more than once with these kinds of things, this weighs heavily against you and it's really up to you to prove this isn't happening again, which I think you are failing miserably at doing.



does not having a phd make someone a hack? explain?

I think when someone's academic background on a subject amounts to: "I stayed in a Holiday Express last night." Then yeah, it kind of makes them a hack.



i think mbti = flawed big 4, that's pretty different from saying big 5 = mbti + 1. i think of this as an intp board, full of people who score as intp on the mbti inventory (which i do). i don't think of it as an mbti evangelical board. am i mistaken in that? should people who score as intp but think the mbti is unscientific avoid this board?

This reminds of the workout races in the '80s and '90s. 10 minutes biceps. 9 minute Glutes. 7 Minute abs. I can't wait for someone to come along with a 6 or 7 variable type theory that's even more accurate.

It's the same shit with a different shovel. You coming back and being more evangelical about whatever other theory isn't going to win over followers or magically change the world. You've gone beyond clearing up information right to being a zealot with your responses in this thread.

[Hustler]

I have no particular opinion on the subject.

You and the most of the rest of us. This is what floyd cannot seem to grasp. We just don't care and he has never made a convincing argument on how greatly our lives would be improved if we did start caring about the Big Five. Probably because such an argument cannot be made. This is the impetus for the VHS/Beta analogy. Maybe Beta really was better; I don't know, and I don't care, but I'm pretty sure being a hardcore Beta advocate would have been a colossal waste of time, especially within a group of VHS enthusiasts. What's more, they eventually both became obsolete and the entire argument was rendered moot. So, too, I'm sure with MBTI vs. Big Five, both of which are a mishmash of speculation and pseudo-science and, as such, will be rendered obsolete (scientifically, if not also popularly) as the brain becomes better understood.

[floyd]

i didn't start this thread, i just responded to some ridiculous claims. the big five is not my theory. if you think my description of the big 5 is inaccurate, post some actual evidence. also, comparing the big 5 to the speculation/psuedo-science of the mbti is bogus. one's a product of scientific method (and can be verified with the scientific method), the other one is not (and when personality researchers look at the mbti scientifically they find it flawed, specifically it's not measuring unidimensional traits as advertised).

i really can't rationalize responding to someone who is absurdly egocentric and emotionally unstable without referencing it (especially as it validates predictive aspects of the big 5).

as to academic background. the creators of the mbti had no formal psychology education. isabel briggs myers had a political science degree. katherine cook briggs, i believe, had no degree. i think lack of academic credentials is a rather pedestrian argument (especially as i'm the only one who is pushing that this debate center on peer reviewed academic evidence)... but you're free to make it.

[Hustler]

i didn't start this thread, i just responded to some ridiculous claims. the big five is not my theory. if you think my description of the big 5 is inaccurate, post some actual evidence. also, comparing the big 5 to the speculation/psuedo-science of the mbti is bogus. one's a product of scientific method (and can be verified with the scientific method), the other one is not (and when personality researchers look at the mbti scientifically they find it flawed, specifically it's not measuring unidimensional traits as advertised).
Actually, it isn't any more scientific than the MBTI. It's still non-falsifiable, just like the MBTI, because it is based on self-reporting. It has further flaws in that its dimensions are measurably non-orthogonal. Finally, just like MBTI, it is a product of factor analysis, with no discernible scientific basis for factor selection and, in fact, has obvious flaws in the factor selection, what with the redundancy in factors (the aforementioned non-orthogonality) You might as well make a Giant Six or Great Eight or Phenomenal Fifty. All these are are different flavors of the same thing. One problem with the MBTI is its popularity. Its popularity makes it a target for all sorts of quack analysis. The Big Five doesn't have this problem, because nobody gives a shit about the Big Five. The underlying theory for both -- that certain personality traits correlate to certain factors -- is the same. In other words, people who answer the same on the tests will have an increased probability of having similar traits that weren't directly tested for. Wow, that's some cutting edge science right there. When people go beyond that, that is when the science (what little amount there really is) starts to break down. This need not be inherent to one's usage of MBTI just because there is a tradition of people doing so.


as to academic background. the creators of the mbti had no formal psychology education. isabel briggs myers had a political science degree. katherine cook briggs, i believe, had no degree. i think lack of academic credentials is a rather pedestrian argument (especially as i'm the only one who is pushing that this debate center on peer reviewed academic evidence)... but you're free to make it.
This is just a form of ad hominem and appeal to authority. It does nothing to advance your claims of superior science underlying the Big Five.

[floyd]

the big five factor analysis produces five distinct unidimensional factors.

the mbti factor analysis does not produce four distinct unidimensional factors. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9F-41NTC0M-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a37f5ca3fdee2bbb0e8123f3a76aaaff)

beyond self reports, the big five factor structure has been verified in peer-reporting studies (basically people who know you filling out a big five inventory; when researchers pool that data and have performed factor analysis, the five OCEAN factors have been found).

as to the non-orthagonal claim... could you cite the evidence you are referring to? there are numerous research articles which have found the big five to be orthagonal. the current academic consensus is that the big five traits are orthagonal. i have seen research articles that found some of the big five traits to be non orthagonal but not all big five inventories are identical and these were older big five inventories. the early big five inventories (as one would imagine 'beta' things are) tended to be less orthogonal in some of the dimensions compared to more recent big five inventories.

the following is an article from lewis goldberg of the university of oregon.


Cattell has repeatedly claimed to have identified at least a
dozen oblique factors. However, when Cattell's variables were
analyzed by orthogonal rotational methods, only five factors
proved to be replieable (e.g, Digman & Takemoto-Chock, 1981;
Fiske, 1949; Norman, 1963; Tupes & Christal, 1961). Similar
five-factor structures based on other sets of variables have been
reported by Borgatta (1964), Digman and Inouye (1986), and
McCrae and Costa (1985, 1987).
These "Big-Five" factors have traditionally been numbered
and labeled as follows: (I) Surgency (or Extraversion), (II)
Agreeableness, (III) Conscientiousness (or Dependability), (IV)
Emotional Stability (vs. Neuroticism), and (V) Culture. Alternatively,
Factor V has been interpreted as Intellect (e.g, Digman &
Takemoto-Chock, 1981; Peabody & Goldberg, 1989) and as
Openness (e$, McCrae & Costa, 1987).

http://imagesrvr.epnet.com/embimages/pdh2/psp/psp5961216.pdf

[mgb]

the big five factor analysis produces five distinct unidimensional factors.

the mbti factor analysis does not produce four distinct unidimensional factors. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9F-41NTC0M-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a37f5ca3fdee2bbb0e8123f3a76aaaff)

beyond self reports, the big five factor structure has been verified in peer-reporting studies (basically people who know you filling out a big five inventory; when researchers pool that data and have performed factor analysis, the five OCEAN factors have been found).

as to the non-orthagonal claim... could you cite the evidence you are referring to? there are numerous research articles which have found the big five to be orthagonal. the current academic consensus is that the big five traits are orthagonal. i have seen research articles that found some of the big five traits to be non orthagonal but not all big five inventories are identical and these were older big five inventories. the early big five inventories (as one would imagine 'beta' things are) tended to be less orthogonal in some of the dimensions compared to more recent big five inventories.

the following is an article from lewis goldberg of the university of oregon.



http://imagesrvr.epnet.com/embimages/pdh2/psp/psp5961216.pdf

OMG!!! This is the post that I've been waiting for!! How could I have ever been so wrong!!?!!?

Take a hike floyd.

[floyd]

thanks for your intelligent contribution to the thread mgb... you can go back to watching the spike network now.

[mgb]

thanks for your intelligent contribution to the debate mgb... you can go back to watching the spike network now.

What debate?

[Ferrus]

The first post was a wonderful example of how Solitary Walker would write, were he illiterate.

[Hustler]

the big five factor analysis produces five distinct unidimensional factors.

Then why is there a negative correlation between neuroticism and extraversion? I'll tell you why, because, like I said before, MBTI and Big Five are in the same boat. No test with so few factors can have completely uncorrelated axes when it comes to testing for human personality traits. These are both just approximations of what is really going on. If you want a source, google "Big Five" personality criticism and you will get about 80,000 responses. Many of those go into this and other flaws in the Big Five. Like this one (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9F-3T2P490-4&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=80c8f9e48a8873294ae62d8e3920eea7), which concludes there is no independent "openness-to-experience" factor.

This aside, any test like the Big Five or the MBTI is problematic from a scientific standpoint strictly because of self-reporting bias. Thus, non-falsifiability cannot be completely ruled out.

This stuff is not science. It's pop-science, pseudo-science, or whatever you want to call it. You don't actually make any arguments, floyd. You just repeat the same BS ad nauseum. Until you can (a) explain away correlations between axes in the Big Five, (b) completely dispel all problems with self-reporting tests, and (c) tell me why science should all of a sudden reject the notion of falsifiability as a cornerstone of the scientific method, then you can't actually make a case for this theory being scientific. Futhermore, until you can show me that the Big Five is markedly superior to MBTI, despite sharing ALL OF THE SAME FLAWS, and that my life will be improved for making the switch from MBTI to Big Five, then you're really just wasting your time with your proselytizing.

These models are both good for the same thing, a little bit of general predictive power. That's why it's not just mumbo-jumbo, and at least gets the title of psuedo-science. One of my favorite links on this topic is this study (http://www.sengifted.org/articles_social/Sak_SynthesisOfResearchOnPsychologicalTypes.shtml), which correlates academic giftedness to MBTI type. Clearly, there is something to MBTI if this type of phenomenon can be observed in such a large sample of people. The question, when it comes to personality typology, is what, exactly, is being measured. Both the Big Five and MBTI fail in being explicit on what is being measured, as their factors are correlated and fraught with other flaws. But both theories are useful in that the types can be correlated to other elements of personality that are not directly tested for.

The solution to this isn't to go around trumpeting one theory over the other or to get bogged down in reading abstracts of psychologist vs. psychologist personality theory wars. The solution will arrive through technology, through the increased understanding and mapping of the brain, and through superior understanding of genetics. This is the fundamental science that will ultimately be able to describe personality, not self-reporting, unfalsifiable tests that test for some arbitrary number of arbitrary factors.

[Madrigal]

I got Rc|U|xI :nerd:



more random than controlled, likes to look wierd, more in the clouds than grounded, more comfortable when things are imperfect, does not like the security of working for a company, does not feel best when working, likes to go to concerts, untraditional, more abstract than logical, impulsive, more likely to enjoy drinking and smoking, underachiever, prone to wanting a tattoo, bad with money, prone to petty theft, likes night life and crowds, more artistic than articulate, prefers the unfamiliar, can't do anything when they don't feel good, has love/hate relationship with most things, does not value organized religion, likes to be different, more likely to have been hyperactive as a child, prone to add or adhd, flakey, prone to missing appointements, finds ordinary tasks draining

Haha! The bastards. :D

[A Schnitzel]

"more abstract than logical"

Isn't an INTP supposed to be logical and abstract. Does this means that under SLOAN you can't be logical and abstract at the same time?

[floyd]

i appreciate you citing evidence. the study you cite uses the 16pf inventory to come to it's conclusions. i already said that the inventory matters. the 16pf was developed before Cattell (the original author) even knew of the big five. it's not a big five inventory so i'm not suprised by the results. some of the early actual big five inventories show similar issues/problems. the two seperate big five inventories developed by lewis goldberg (oregon) and oliver john (berkeley) show five distinct unidimensional orthagonal factors (there are others but those are the two i know from memory).

how are statistics not science? if you are saying that anything that relies on user response can't be science, i don't agree. it is a valid argument to a degree, but not so far as to invalidate user response validity. in emergency rooms they've developed 'user-response' symptom inventories which have proven to make diagnosis/treatment far more effective (specifically mortality rates are much lower with this system) than the old method (relying on the individual judgement of the doctor). if user response was statistically worthless then mortality rates would not have dropped.

i do think brain mapping should be a far superior, more accurate model. (one that i also think will validate big five theory). however, accessible consumer brain mapping is not a reality (and they have not even come close to a complete personality brain map in the lab yet). until then, i think, statistical analysis of self and peer reports provide the best aproximation of human personality architecture. right now, that analysis points to the big five as the best model. there isn't even a viable second best model in the academic community currently.

i don't think the mbti is worthless, i just think it's an inferior model based on empirical evidence. people can prefer it, but if anyone is going to debate that the mbti is better than the big five, i might choose to counter. i'm not interested in the big five exclusively. i'm simply interested in the best explanatory personality model. right now, i think it's the big five, in the future, who knows.

if you think the mbti is better or as good as the big five, why do researchers (people that spend their lives day in and day out examing personality) universally prefer the big five?

[floyd]

"more abstract than logical"

Isn't an INTP supposed to be logical and abstract. Does this means that under SLOAN you can't be logical and abstract at the same time?

abstract / logic dichotomy correlates to the unstructured / orderly personality dimension (on the mbti it's the J/P dimension) INTJs are more logical, INTPs are more abstact. which does not mean that an INTP is not logical, just that they self report as 'more abstract than logical' compared to other types.

[Hustler]

if you think the mbti is better or as good as the big five, why do researchers (people that spend their lives day in and day out examing personality) universally prefer the big five?

Because they want to feel superior, obviously. So they create something nobody uses and insist it's better than other personality models.

[floyd]

haha, you really believe that? or is that purely sarcasm?

i think the big five isn't popular because academics get rewarded if their research is sound and reproducible by other academics. there really is no reward pellets for convincing the general public. this is probably productive from an advancement of knowledge perspective because if academia was held hostage by public opinion, intellectual progress might be a lot slower.

another big five deterrent, is it's lack of capitalist potential. i think it would be hard to make a lot of money off an accurate personality system because accurate personality systems paint some personalities negatively. emotional instability and egocentrism are significant dimensions of human personality, and i don't think they can be spun positively (although i could be wrong). mbti and disc are safer, more sellable products. they affirm everyone to a certain degree. with the mbti, everyone 'feels' like a winner.

[Hustler]

haha, you really believe that? or is that purely sarcasm?
That's the level of response you're going to get when you start posting things like "how are statistics not science" in the context of this discussion. Statistics is a tool, just like a calculator. Neither are science in and of themselves, but they can be used for scientific purposes. In the case of statistics, it gives you a way to measure and validate data, a method to test hypotheses via the logic of probability theory. Incidentally, it can also be used non-scientifically. After all, statistics show that 90% of statistics are wrong. When talking about self-reporting studies, it is the methodology, not the statistics, that is in question. There is no good way to check if people are answering honestly or accurately, and there is no way to rule out systematic biases that alter large data sets. This is the problem with non-falsifiable methods of "science;" you don't always know what, exactly, is being measured.


i think the big five isn't popular because academics get rewarded if their research is sound and reproducible by other academics. there really is no reward pellets for convincing the general public. this is probably productive from an advancement of knowledge perspective because if academia was held hostage by public opinion, intellectual progress might be a lot slower.
There is plenty of reward for convincing the general public of something. First, there's a sense of accomplishment and meaning when you're a psychologist who influences the psychological understanding possessed by the general public. This has appeal whether you're egocentric or accomodating. Beyond that, there's the money-making opportunity, because what you say here is flat out wrong:


another big five deterrent, is it's lack of capitalist potential. i think it would be hard to make a lot of money off an accurate personality system because accurate personality systems paint some personalities negatively. emotional instability and egocentrism are significant dimensions of human personality, and i don't think they can be spun positively (although i could be wrong). mbti and disc are safer, more sellable products. they affirm everyone to a certain degree. with the mbti, everyone 'feels' like a winner.
Scientology makes more money than the Big Five or the MBTI. It uses a personality test in which EVERYONE comes out flawed and needing improvement. The road to improvement? Scientology. The Big Five used in conjunction with coping or self-improvement programs could be very successful and, in fact, if it were done responsibly, it could actually be useful. In fact, it is the notion of telling people they have a problem and claiming or implying your product can fix it that is the cornerstone of modern marketing.

[floyd]

there are statistical methods of determining whether a test measures what it claims to measure. beyond that, there are lie scales. you also can compare observed behavior with self reporting and then peer reporting data. there are many methods a researcher can employ to ensure higher quality data. further, people don't generally mis-report in the same direction. comparing different cultures also helps.

academics get ahead by publishing, not middle america popularity. just because it's conceivable that popular success is rewarding does not change the reality that academics don't generally cater to those rewards. if you know any academics, they tend to be rather cynical of the public. if i'm wrong, explain why academics spend all their time writing books and journal articles that the are basically unavailable to the public.

i don't think the scientology argument works. scientology isn't really popular, and their financial success is not related in any way to that test.

the big five is already used in the assessment field. if you ever apply for a job which requires a lot of vetting, you will likely get a big five based personality inventory (not an mbti one).

[Hustler]

there are statistical methods of determining whether a test measures what it claims to measure. beyond that, there are lie scales. you also can compare observed behavior with self reporting and then peer reporting data. there are many methods a researcher can employ to ensure higher quality data. further, people don't generally mis-report in the same direction. comparing different cultures also helps.
Yeah, and when these many different methods are used to interpret the data culled from the Big Five, many flaws emerge. You can go read through the thousands of links in the aforementioned google search to see for yourself. The anti-correlation of neuroticism and extraversion, for instance, becomes apparent.


academics get ahead by publishing, not middle america popularity. just because it's conceivable that popular success is rewarding does not change the reality that academics don't generally cater to those rewards. if you know any academics, they tend to be rather cynical of the public. if i'm wrong, explain why academics spend all their time writing books and journal articles that the are basically unavailable to the public.
Right, because I've never heard of the following academics, because they never wrote anything intended for popular appeal and I never read these non-existent books that they didn't write:

Stephen Hawking
Michio Kaku
Steven Pinker
Richard Dawkins
Bertrand Russell
Jared Diamond
Douglas Hofstadter
Carl Sagan
Charles Murray
Roger Penrose
Philip Ball
Brian Greene
Richard Feynman
Steven Levitt
Noam Chomsky
Stephen Jay Gould
Steven Landsburg

Do I need to continue? I could go on forever listing off academics who have spent considerable time publishing mainstream texts. So, yes, you're wrong. I'm not going to explain why academics spend "all their time" writing books and journal articles that are "basically unavailable to the public" because your assumption that this is what academics do is wrong.


i don't think the scientology argument works. scientology isn't really popular, and their financial success is not related in any way to that test.
Huh. Really?

Results 1 - 10 of about 10,800,000 for scientology.
Results 1 - 10 of about 203,000 for "big five" personality.
Google doesn't think your argument works. Neither do I. You also offer no evidence -- not even the tiniest hint of a logical argument -- to support your claim that their financial success is unrelated to the test. I say it is, because it is what first gets people interested in the idea that scientology can benefit them. They take a test, they see their problems in black and white, and they are told how scientology can help them get past these problems. This is the first step toward them opening up their wallets to scientology; if it weren't effective, I doubt such a ruthlessly efficient organization would keep it around. There's no reason the Big Five couldn't be marketed in a similar way.


the big five is already used in the assessment field. if you ever apply for a job which requires a lot of vetting, you will likely get a big five based personality inventory (not an mbti one).

Well, that's never going to happen, and I doubt your claims. Please cite a source that tells the Big Five is more popular in the assessment of applicants for "jobs which require a lot of vetting" than the MBTI is.

For a guy who jumps on people for bullshitting, you're doing an awful lot of it yourself. Either start citing sources for all of this wild speculation you're engaging in, or quit trying to introduce your opinion as fact.

If your next post contains as many logical errors, bogus claims, unfounded statements, insulting and inaccurate generalizations, and so forth as your last few have had, I'm going to be forced to go back to considering you a pseudo-intellectual who probably likes Good Will Hunting and disregard your posts as largely unworthy of my time. I'm just letting you know this in advance in case you don't hear from me again.

[floyd]

ok, you repeated the correlation issue which i already responded to. oliver john and lewis goldberg have peer reviewed big five inventories which do not exhibit the aforementioned correlation (i.e. non orthogonality).

do you think it's possible any of your positions in this thread are wrong?

[Hustler]

ok, you repeated the correlation issue which i already responded to. oliver john and lewis goldberg have peer reviewed big five inventories which do not exhibit the aforementioned correlation (i.e. non orthogonality).

do you think it's possible any of your positions in this thread are wrong?

It's possible you are just a figment of my imagination. It's also possible you just engaged in another bogus argument. If B is the set of all Big Five inventories and N is the set of all peer reviewed inventories which do not exhibit non-orthogonality, it does not then follow that the complement of N within B is the empty set. And, finally, it's possible when you "responded to" what I pointed out earlier, it was with something that was completely incorrect and didn't actually address the point, sort of like how you just did that again.

[floyd]

your point regarded an orthogonality problem with the big five. i named two peer reviewed big five inventories that are orthogonal.
http://biculturalism.ucr.edu/pdfs/Cinco%20Grandes.pdf - oliver john's big five inventory
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/5/j5j/papers/EJPA2005.pdf - lewis goldberg's big five inventory

[Hustler]

your point regarded an orthogonality problem with the big five.
Yeah, other studies have contradicted this. You have failed to sell me on the Big Five with your arguments. I'm going to just stick with MBTI for now.

[floyd]

other studies have not contradicted the orthogonality of the two specific big five tests i mentioned. since the big five is an open source idea, any researcher can create a big five inventory. not all of them have proven to be orthagonal in studies (which i think is to be expected). that discredits the specific test not the big five theory. if the big five theory was wrong, you could not create an orthogonal big five inventory at all.

anyway, i'm not trying to sell anyone on the big five. i'm just trying to represent it accurately for people to decide on their own. actually, while i think the big five system is solid (based on the current research at least), it's just one tool. once understood, i think it works better than the mbti for analyzing oneself and others. but, like the mbti it's a 'big picture' tool. i think one still needs a multi-faceted test (i.e. more than five factors) to get a more detailed individual picture of a person. how many facets (aka sub factors) is enough to give a detailed description of a person is still a mystery even in the academic community.

[MiasmaResonance]

I happen to be RLUEI, which according to the description, has no good qualities.

:sadbanana:

[StarNips]

My RCUEI is not much better unless you prize being a callous asshole.

[MiasmaResonance]

My RCUEI is not much better unless you prize being a callous asshole.

I'd rather callous asshole than the ultimate emo kid. ;)

[floyd]

http://blog.similarminds.com/similarminds-personality-descriptions-are-too-negative

[YHWH]

http://blog.similarminds.com/similarminds-personality-descriptions-are-too-negative

SLOAN is ridiculously simplistic. The descriptions they give are literally the questions you just responded to in the quiz. MBTI quizzes on the other hand make connections and interpret your answers to give a holistic description based on them -- rather than paraphrasing your exact same responses.

[floyd]

who's making those connections? what's their rational? how do they account for the forer effect? tell me more about this magical mbti architecture you speak of? it's basis? it's proof?

i'll take empirical data based on large sample sizes over subjective descriptions written by people who make a living selling a flawed personality system. it's easy to make things sound cool and complex and valid if you don't need to worry about proof or an intelligent scientifically astute consumer base.

if you go by actual research data (and not personal opinion), the mbti is just an inferior big 5 test minus emotional stability. that's pretty good for an upper middle class housewife and her daughter trying to decipher jungs ideas (and according to jung failing at it) when you think about it. consequently, any valid mbti theory/connection would exist / be applicable in the big five system.

the question is which of those 'connections' and 'holistic' descriptions has any actual empirical validity? the one's that do, carry over to the big five. the one's that don't are meaningless unless you can give me an argument for how anything in the mbti system is incapable of being scientifically tested. i'd like to know and i'm in the position where i can actually test most any hypothesis. i'm only interested in figuring out what's most accurate. by all means, give me evidence of a more valid personality architecture or a testable hypothesis that would prove the mbti (or any other system) is more valid.

if the big five system is horribly simplistic, then the mbti is even more horribly simplistic unless you want to argue emotional stability is not a significant aspect of who people are. in any case, simplicity is often the result of some of the most impressive scientific discoveries. so, i don't think of simplicity as a bad thing.

MBTI to BIG 5 correlations

S N A O L
E-I -.74 .03 -.03 .08 .16
S-N .10 .72 .04 -.15 -.06
T-F .19 .02 .44 -.15 .06
J-P .15 .30 -.06 -.49 .11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

[qualia]

SLOAN is ridiculously simplistic. The descriptions they give are literally the questions you just responded to in the quiz. MBTI quizzes on the other hand make connections and interpret your answers to give a holistic description based on them -- rather than paraphrasing your exact same responses.SLOAN is something floyd made up for his website, shamelessly ripped off of the Big Five. The Big Five (or the sixteen traits, or the 32, depending on the researcher...) is not meant to give you a coherent type. It's a trait test, not a type test, there is no insight beyond what you tell it. Type tests are nice for introspection, but trait tests are good for research over large populations.

It was meant to correlate certain behaviors to others in large populations. That last bit is important. To draw an analogy BMI doesn't always tell you if an individual is likelier to have a heart attack, just that, when large populations of people with high BMIs are studied, there are more heart attacks in that population.

Back to the big five, it was derived by having hundreds of words which could describe someone, and then having them pick the ones that described them, then trying to boil down what traits tended to "clump" together after studying thousands of people.

It does not follow logically that people who enjoy socializing also enjoy energetic activities like hiking more than their introverted counterparts, or are more optimistic, but on average, the Big Five research shows it's likely they are. Nothing says that someone willing to listen to new ideas is also more likely to try drugs or sky dive. Nothing says that someone who won't turn right on a red where a sign says not to and it's four in the goddamn morning is more likely to be driven to master new skills. That is something new.

Interestingly, big five extraversion is NOT MBTI extraversion. Big five extraversion takes into account optimism and a more dynamic, aggressive approach to things, and less whether you're comfortable socially. I'm slightly extroverted according to the big five. I'm strongly introverted according to MBTI.

Second, they study what sort of lives people with varying scores have. The formula for someone who makes a shitton of money is extraverted, very affable, mildly neurotic, open to experience, and is contentious.

You also find that it's pretty when studying the psychology of a culture, like so:

http://nikolasschiller.com/images/geography_of_personality.jpg

tl;dr: the SLOAN test was made up by someone on the internet who didn't know the difference between a type and a trait test, and tried to make one out of the other. The Big Five is research-based and useful for studying large populations. The MBTI is neither, but is interesting for self-discovery purposes.

[YHWH]

who's making those connections? what's their rational? how do they account for the forer effect? tell me more about this magical mbti architecture you speak of? it's basis? it's proof?

i'll take empirical data based on large sample sizes over subjective descriptions written by people who make a living selling a flawed personality system. it's easy to make things sound cool and complex and valid if you don't need to worry about proof or an intelligent scientifically astute consumer base.

if you go by actual research data (and not personal opinion), the mbti is just an inferior big 5 test minus emotional stability. that's pretty good for an upper middle class housewife and her daughter trying to decipher jungs ideas (and according to jung failing at it) when you think about it. consequently, any valid mbti theory/connection would exist / be applicable in the big five system.

the question is which of those 'connections' and 'holistic' descriptions has any actual empirical validity? the one's that do, carry over to the big five. the one's that don't are meaningless unless you can give me an argument for how anything in the mbti system is incapable of being scientifically tested. i'd like to know and i'm in the position where i can actually test most any hypothesis. i'm only interested in figuring out what's most accurate. by all means, give me evidence of a more valid personality architecture or a testable hypothesis that would prove the mbti (or any other system) is more valid.

if the big five system is horribly simplistic, then the mbti is even more horribly simplistic unless you want to argue emotional stability is not a significant aspect of who people are. in any case, simplicity is often the result of some of the most impressive scientific discoveries. so, i don't think of simplicity as a bad thing.

MBTI to BIG 5 correlations

S N A O L
E-I -.74 .03 -.03 .08 .16
S-N .10 .72 .04 -.15 -.06
T-F .19 .02 .44 -.15 .06
J-P .15 .30 -.06 -.49 .11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

You're either extremely dense or you missed my point and the purpose of SLOAN and MBTI completely.

qualia pretty much connected all the dots.

[floyd]

The Big Five is an empirically observable phenomenon in personality orientation. No one invented it. Countless researchers have replicated these findings.

I started off as a fan of the Enneagram and the MBTI, the first tests I developed were based on those formats. But the more I learned and the more I crunched the data (from countless tests based on different personality theories and millions of test taker data) the more I kept ending up with the big five structure.

The MBTI is just an early more primitive version of four of the five big five traits.

SLOAN is just a notation system I came up with to make it more useful to lay people. I developed several of my own Big Five tests (influenced by research like any one else who does research), but again the Big Five is an observable phenomena.

I encourage reading over the wikipedia pages on this topic. You'll find more than enough sourced info to make up your own mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_five
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

The MBTI isn't useless, it's just an imperfect older relic of a personality system that no one that puts the time into reading up on the topic would likely waste time defending... much less defining aspects of their life with.

As for big five extraversion not being mbti extraversion, that's simply not true (as you can see below). Pretending the mbti is not highly related to the big five is just willful ignorance. If one person's experience doesn't mesh with that, that doesn't make it true.

MBTI to BIG 5 correlations

S N A O L
E-I -.74 .03 -.03 .08 .16
S-N .10 .72 .04 -.15 -.06
T-F .19 .02 .44 -.15 .06
J-P .15 .30 -.06 -.49 .11

As to this argument that the Big Five is just for studying large populations of people. That's ridiculous. Most of the personality tests employers use are based on the Big Five - NEO-PI, the 16PF, and the OPQ to name just a few.

As to the argument for a preference vs. actual behavior model... you can structure an MBTI or a BIG 5 test/system both ways. I have. The underlying reproducible Big Five architecture shows up whether you ask people about preference OR about what they actually do. So the whole argument that the MBTI is about preference and therefore uniquely still useful is moot.

[qualia]

The Big Five is an empirically observable phenomenon in personality orientation. No one invented it. Countless researchers have replicated these findings.Your test is a badly designed Big Five test because it misses the research and large population aspects of the big five, as well as the interplay of traits.

I've taken the real live big 5 and a big 16 test for coursework, I had it interpreted. There is SOME interpretation a human can do for you, but for the most part, if you take the test they're writing down your demographic information for a larger study.

I suggest you take a course on the subject rather than relying on wikipedia.

As for the employer tests-- you're telling me that people who embrace "synergy" as useful buy tests which have misapplied psychology in them? Noooo. They're heavily criticized and not considered valid tools.

But what do I know, I've studied this shit outside of Wikipedia!

[floyd]

So private companies spend lots of money on big five tests so they can send the data to researchers. Is that your argument?

http://www3.parinc.com/products/product.aspx?Productid=NEO-PI-R

The NEO PI-R is based on decades of factor analytic research with both clinical and normal adult populations. The five domains measured by the instrument provide a clear and concise description summarizing an individual's emotional, interpersonal, experiential, attitudinal, and motivational styles.

I posted the wikipedia links as a nice very readable and accurate overview on this subject which is actually sourced versus some of the opinions on this thread. If your opinion is somehow more reliable than a well sourced wikipedia page, please explain why that is.

I can post links to research articles if you have a specific area of the Big Five you think I'm wrong about or want to learn about. If you want to make this an education off I can post research articles published by respected PHD academics which support what I've said (if that would appeal to your need for authority). I don't think you are really interested in a constructive debate or learning though.

[Eric B]

The Big Five is an empirically observable phenomenon in personality orientation. No one invented it. Countless researchers have replicated these findings.

I started off as a fan of the Enneagram and the MBTI, the first tests I developed were based on those formats. But the more I learned and the more I crunched the data (from countless tests based on different personality theories and millions of test taker data) the more I kept ending up with the big five structure.

The MBTI is just an early more primitive version of four of the five big five traits.

SLOAN is just a notation system I came up with to make it more useful to lay people. I developed several of my own Big Five tests (influenced by research like any one else who does research), but again the Big Five is an observable phenomena.

I encourage reading over the wikipedia pages on this topic. You'll find more than enough sourced info to make up your own mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_five
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

The MBTI isn't useless, it's just an imperfect older relic of a personality system that no one that puts the time into reading up on the topic would likely waste time defending... much less defining aspects of their life with.

As for big five extraversion not being mbti extraversion, that's simply not true (as you can see below). Pretending the mbti is not highly related to the big five is just willful ignorance. If one person's experience doesn't mesh with that, that doesn't make it true.

MBTI to BIG 5 correlations

S N A O L
E-I -.74 .03 -.03 .08 .16
S-N .10 .72 .04 -.15 -.06
T-F .19 .02 .44 -.15 .06
J-P .15 .30 -.06 -.49 .11

As to this argument that the Big Five is just for studying large populations of people. That's ridiculous. Most of the personality tests employers use are based on the Big Five - NEO-PI, the 16PF, and the OPQ to name just a few.

As to the argument for a preference vs. actual behavior model... you can structure an MBTI or a BIG 5 test/system both ways. I have. The underlying reproducible Big Five architecture shows up whether you ask people about preference OR about what they actually do. So the whole argument that the MBTI is about preference and therefore uniquely still useful is moot.

So you're the creator of SLOAN?

Actually, a fifth factor of Comfort-Discomfort was supposedly included in the factor analysis of Myers, along with subscales, but was left out because it was perceived as to negative. So it was revived in the Type Differention Indicator, and the subscales in both that and Step II.

[qualia]

So you're the creator of SLOAN?In the same way Two Buck Chuck invented wine. He's claiming to have a big 5, or OCEAN test, and re-named it. It's not one. The descriptions of the factors aren't even right.

[Hustler]

This shit again? Really?

[floyd]

The descriptions and titles for the factors vary a bit from one academic to the next. Goldberg uses the term Surgency instead of Extraversion, Costa and McCrae use the term Openness instead of Intellect. OCEAN may be the most academically cited, but not all researchers have used it historically. I was going for something easier to remember. This is another good overview - http://www.personalityresearch.org/bigfive.html Anyway, names/descriptions are a semantic / style issue. The MBTI to Big 5 correlations are well documented which is why most people's SLOAN type predicts their MBTI type.

I had heard there was a version of the MBTI which included basically a big five analysis section but I've yet to see one. The MBTI site still lists Form J, but they don't show a sample report of it. The sample reports (linked below) do show the kind of facet results (within the MBTI framework) that some people on this thread don't seem to feel is associated with the MBTI. But, I'm not seeing any Emotional Stability facets in any of the Type 2 MBTI test results. The commercial Big Five tests tend to be for employer's eyes only (so they don't have to worry about the test takers' feelings), whereas the MBTI tests are more for individuals or training groups where happiness means return customers (and may be necessary to keep people's minds open to the information the MBTI does contain).

MBTI Type 2 results
https://www.cpp.com/Pdfs/smp268142.pdf
https://www.cpp.com/Pdfs/smp268143.pdf

Commercial Big 5 test results
http://www3.parinc.com/uploads/samplerpts/NEO_PIR_IR.pdf

[Eric B]

I had heard there was a version of the MBTI which included basically a big five analysis section but I've yet to see one. The MBTI site still lists Form J, but they don't show a sample report of it. The sample reports (linked below) do show the kind of facet results (within the MBTI framework) that some people on this thread don't seem to feel is associated with the MBTI. But, I'm not seeing any Emotional Stability facets in any of the Type 2 MBTI test results. The commercial Big Five tests tend to be for employer's eyes only (so they don't have to worry about the test takers' feelings), whereas the MBTI tests are more for individuals or training groups where happiness means return customers (and may be necessary to keep people's minds open to the information the MBTI does contain).

MBTI Type 2 results
https://www.cpp.com/Pdfs/smp268142.pdf
https://www.cpp.com/Pdfs/smp268143.pdf

Commercial Big 5 test results
http://www3.parinc.com/uploads/samplerpts/NEO_PIR_IR.pdf

Step II does not have the fifth factor facets; just the other four. I don't think I've ever seen a sample report for Form J either, and it still doesn't seem to be on the CPP site, but you can see the factor analysis for it here:
http://harvey.psyc.vt.edu/Documents/BessHarveySwartzSIOP2003.pdf

From what I've heard, it's a specialized instrument used mainly in institutions; so that is perhaps why there is no sample report. Not really commercially offered. (I've always wanted to see that, and if it changes the type code in anyway).