The MBTI test has become a stepping stone for young people to socialize, and the personality division of "i person" and "e person" gives everyone a sense of psychological belonging.
"I'm INFJ, looking for a polite ENFP online to make friends"
"INTP wants more human observation samples"
“ENTP来讲地狱笑话啦”
Unlike other personality tests, the MBTI is easy to use, the test results are more intuitive, and often do not require further interpretation and thinking, and what you see is what you get. But is the MBTI test reliable? Can people really summarize their complete personality through dozens of questions?
The MBTI test is based on Jung's personality theory and is a very widely used tool in personality testing, but there has been controversy among researchers in personality psychology. For example, whether personality and psychological characteristics can be divided into 16 types, some scholars believe that such a psychological test classification method is very simple and crude.
The origin of psychometric testing
Psychometric testing was created in the 19th century and is the basis for the creation of applied psychology, etc. Psychometric tests were not originally invented for the purpose of scientific research, but to serve public education.
A French minister of education said: "We must not accept that the education of the people becomes a private industry". Education will continue to be monopolized by the state, with resistance to privatization schemes such as vouchers. As children enter new schools, it becomes common practice to establish achievement standards, to evaluate students according to these standards, and to measure differences in children's mental abilities.
Experimental psychology studies the minds of ordinary people, arguing that individual differences are caused by errors and need to be reduced through careful experimental control. Psychometric tests, on the other hand, focus directly on and carefully measure individual differences. For psychometric tests, there is no standard psychology, only average data exists.
Some of the early psychometric tests were based on phrenology, which inherited from Gal the goal of determining differences in mental and individual abilities. The popularity of phrenology heralded the development of psychological testing in the future, from personnel selection to premarital counseling, especially in the United States, where phrenological experts sought to use their methods to promote educational reform. However, phrenology eventually fell out of favor due to ineffectiveness.
Psychometric testing provides a concrete approach that allows psychology to be applied in a variety of fields, starting with education and soon moving on to areas such as personnel management and personality assessment. Psychometric testing has become an important social force, and people's education and career paths are affected by psychometric test scores, and sometimes this influence is even decisive.
Humans are not machines and cannot be fully measured
If the psychological and personality traits of a human being can be completely measured with just a dozen questions, then what is the difference between it and a machine?
Some online MBTI tests, in order to allow test takers to get the assessment results in a short period of time, will even greatly reduce the number of assessment questions, which will also increase the error of the assessment results.
If you can talk to a machine and can't even tell if it's a machine or not, can you think that the machine is thinking?
Should humans be seen as robots, or as agents with purpose, value, hope, fear, and love?
Thomas Hardy Liehey, in his book 3000 Years of the Human Psyche, writes that several essays advocating behaviorism have a notable connection between the past of behaviorism in functionalism and the future in cognitive science, as exemplified by James's "automatic lover."
In contrasting behaviorism with humanism, Lasiri points out that "one of the most fundamental objections to behaviorism is that it fails to account for the extremely important experience of personal qualities", an objection that is "very evident in James's argument about the automatic lover."
Hunter (1923) similarly considered James' possible objection to behaviorism: behaviorism claimed that one's lover was an automaton, and would one truly fall in love with a machine? Descriptions of experiences, Lasiri said, "belong to art, not science." Hunt dismisses concerns about whether or not people can fall in love with or be loved by a machine, arguing that this concern is only about "aesthetic satisfaction" related to faith, and has nothing to do with scientific truth.
In conclusion, the MBTI test can help us better understand a person's personality traits, but it cannot infer a person's psychological characteristics from a single test result. If you want to really examine a person, you must use a variety of methods and angles to investigate, and then use psychological test results to assist analysis, so that it is possible to get a more reliable and objective result.
Article source: "3000 Years of Human Psychology: From Homer's Epic to Artificial Intelligence"
3000 Years of the Human Psyche: From Homer's Epics to Artificial Intelligence
What is the nature of the mind? How do human beings perceive the world and the self? What is a happy life? What is the relationship between reason and emotion, between consciousness and behavior, and what is the motivation behind different behaviors?
From the distant ancient Greek era to the current era of artificial intelligence, human beings have never stopped exploring the spiritual world. As a "rational study of the mind", psychology not only inherits the philosophical curiosity about the unknown field of the mind and the pursuit of human nature, but also embarks on the road of modern scientific development in the integration of physiology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience.
With precise and smooth brushstrokes and profound insights, Li Hei narrates the journey of human spiritual exploration over thousands of years, skillfully connecting the thoughts of thousands of years ago with the important issues of current psychology. At the same time, the book also integrates the development of psychological thought into the historical context of social, economic, and political changes such as the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, the discovery of evolution, and the rise of cognitive science, and explores how this discipline has shaped and influenced each other with cultures and societies in different eras.
This all-encompassing and encyclopedic history of the exploration of the human mind will lead us to the brilliant ideas of 3,000 years of history, follow the great minds of mankind, and uncover the mysteries and truths of the soul step by step.
The article originated from the People's Posts and Telecommunications Publishing House