Ah, now that might make a difference, @jazzabel. I wasn't aware that I could skip questions if I wanted to. I might go back, just for fun, and re-take the test. I'll skip the questions to which I don't have a clear response to give, and see what comes up. I was thinking about the 'do you freely and easily express your emotions and feelings' question, and realised that the problem is simple. It's the way the questions are phrased, I'm afraid, and the context in which the subject is applied. It has nothing to do with any reluctance on my part to answer the question—or to reveal my feelings. It's simply that I want to say 'I don't know what you mean.' In my mind, there is a lot of difference between 'freely and easily' expressing my emotions and feelings when a good friend asks me 'what's wrong?'—and going on the Jeremy Kyle/Jerry Springer show. I also find I'm less likely to freely and easily express my emotions and feelings here in the UK than I was back in the States (where I found it quite easy), because, in general, British people are not comfortable RECEIVING this information. So this reluctance on my part has to do with my ability to adapt to my surroundings, rather than my reluctance to reveal truth about myself. You see what I mean about context? ....................... HA. Well, that IS interesting, and I stand corrected. I went through the test again, and skipped 16 questions (which the test did allow.) And guess what? My result was the same! INFJ it is, then. I confess that when I read the 'results' the first time, I skipped over the deep personality analysis (due to time constraints) and skipped to the 'career' portion - which did not really reflect me, or what I would have chosen as a career, etc. However, I just took the time to read the deep personal analysis portion of the response, and it is actually quite accurate. So ...here's me revealing my feelings to all and sundry. I feel foolish! The test did actually work, after all!
For what it's worth, in the OP link test, I went back and tried applying, "don't need to answer all the questions". It gives you percentages but tells you the results are unreliable unless you answer the questions you skipped. It didn't recognize I answered in a BS pattern, every other question, no, for the first half and every other question, yes, for the second. Tests like the MMPI would have detected an attempt to fake the answers by those questions that are supposed to validate the answers. Giving the science the benefit of the doubt, I'll blame the failure to pick up on fake answers on the unreliable test web site.
Yeah, @GingerCoffee, I did the same. And got the same results. I stand corrected, and amended my post above. Cool.
@jannert: Haha, Jeremy Kyle and Jerry Springer I know what you mean about that and a few other questions, i had the same thoughts. I'm just used to answering questions on a test, even if I'm only guessing, lol.
I scored as an ISTJ twice when I took the actual MB back in college. This test scored me as an INTJ. I don't know whether that's because I've come to rely more on intuition as I've aged, or whether the difference is from the actual test versus this truncated version.
I took my first test maybe two years back and subsequently took a couple more tests (i am unsure of the amount of period in between though). Currently, i get an INFJ. However, I realise that my personality report keeps changing, although i can't exactly remember to what extend. I guess this could be a mixture of factors for example my inconsistency trait, mood/emotion, situational factors, etc. Or perhaps it could be because i am still in my years where I am still finding myself. Whatever it is, i think INFJ is a good reflector of who i am currently.
Just a quick observation about the results, there's evidence here the results from the forum membership are reflecting selection bias. Those that find the questions too ambiguous to answer are self selecting out of the sample.
Along with that, I have to wonder if there are not "personality types" listed in the possible outcomes who are naturally predisposed not to take such tests, be the questions ambiguous or not. They too would be self-selecting themselves out of the sample.
And of course there's always self delusion ...people who truly believe they like to help people without expecting something in return, but in actual fact get peeved if they aren't rewarded in some minor way. Or people who want to believe they make decisions in a rational, linear manner, but in fact couldn't get from A to B without a detour to K. This test measures only what you think you do, which might be a far cry from what you actually do. Having said that, I do feel my results are pretty accurate. But maybe I'm just fooling myself...
Of course. The test is purely emic data. Anyone involved in the collection of sociological and/or anthropological data knows that emic data on its own suffers from social lying.
The test says I am an INTJ and to summarize this, I'm basically a perfectionist that wants everything explained and working fine. I'm also supposed to don't understand social rituals which is true. (Small talk in relationships). I remember one time I watched the news about a serial killer that killed people for some un-explainable reason. But I was just sitting there trying to impose logic on the killer's action, but the killer obviously did something illogical. It's like I would freak out if something illogical happens.
It's pretty certain one's personality changes over time due to life experiences and such. Some people are just inconsistent with themselves though so they would get multiple results doing the MB test.
Hahaha. "disregard for authority". I'm actually a bit fond of authority. But I do have that "Rebellion" attitude now and then. Imagination? Does it work? Yep that's me!'
You know, I can say the same thing. I loved the order and structure of the military when I was in the service. Many people are like, "How do you deal with all that?" to which my response is, "You don't deal with it. You come to love it." Maybe it's not authority at which we rankle, but instead ineffective authority? I think this answers to our "Does it work?" need. We see things that work well and smoothly and this attracts us. An elegant and effective chain of command doesn't look like authority to us; it looks like an elegant system that runs well. Maybe this also explains my love of Macs.
Yeah, now I know what you're saying regarding authority. If it doesn't work, then your authority sucks ineffectively. Personally I don't like macs, I prefer Windows based PC's, but that's because it works for me.
I got around to reading my personality description. It says I'm "The Mechanic." It has me about half right. I am a logical thinker, analyzer, problem solver. But it also says I'm a person of action, always wanting to be doing something instead of sitting behind a desk thinking. It couldn't be more wrong there. I'm much happier behind a desk, planning things for others to do, than I am doing them myself. Many times I've thought that I shouldn't have studied engineering in school; I should have been in applied math, because it's more theoretical and nobody would expect me to actually, you know, build anything. I don't much like building things. I haven't read all the personality descriptions, but I bet they're all written so as to stroke the fragile egos of everybody. No matter what personality type you are, it will say nice things about you, even though we all know that some personalities are just poisonous and rotten. No psychologist is going to say, "I've done a complete personality profile of you, and it turns out you're a piece of shit. Sorry." They'd have more credibility if they did, though...
Yeah, I know. After reading all those descriptions, I started looking around wondering where all the superheroes were.
Actually the MBTI is scientifically a terrible test. http://www.indiana.edu/~jobtalk/HRMWebsite/hrm/articles/develop/mbti.pdf
Hmmm, looks like a lot of INFJ and INTPs. I'd love to get some more votes to see if writers tend to be in a few types like these or not (obviously the sample size is far to small). For those of you who think some of these questions are unanswerable, keep in mind this is an online questionnaire and not the official test; it's meant to replicate it. There's definitely some over-thinking going on too. I agree though, some questions I'll side both ways, but I ended up answering on the side that I lean towards. If you consider logic to be rational (which it is), then I'd say yes. I've known plenty of people who, when told something's illogically, admit that it is, say they don't care, etc. Such people are usually ruled by emotions or are extremely selfish. I think a finite range on with a continuum is likely the case. It makes sense that we have limits, commonalities, and that we all wouldn't fit exactly, concretely into sixteen types. I'm gonna venture a guess - ESFJ I think it's intentional, but not as loaded language to influence the answer. I think repeating but rephrasing certain questions is to get a larger sample of how you think or behavior in certain lights. If you ask a specific type of question about cognition once, it's possible it might not apply and it could be incorrectly answered; if you ask the same or similar questions five or six times an average can be formed and the results will be more reliable. True. As an INTP (assuming the MBTI is at least loosely based on truth), we have the same personality type, so we likely think very similarly. I was highly critical of the MBTI myself until I did a lot more research on the MBTI. I suspect that if you do further research, perhaps reading the personality profile of other types and contrasting it to yours (I recommend on Wikipedia or a MBTI community; check out INTPCentral), you'll ultimately see some truth in the MBTI.
Then you might consider your sample self selected out the ESFJs. I could not answer the questions, even trying to pick the way I might lean was impossible for me.
