[Flow]

One of my friends has refused to take the test on the basis that he doesn't like the idea of categorizing people, and he doesn't want the test to define him as a person. Don't get the idea that I have been bothering him constantly to take the test, I have only asked him once and he refused, so I left it at that.
What are some other arguments against MBTI that people have come across?
(I've asked my friend why he thinks this but he has failed to provide an answer, he says that its just the way he feels)

[Prunesquallor]

People misuse it/take it too seriously/use it as an excuse for their problems/judge people by their types/etc.
-Of course, that's not the fault of mbti itself. People judge me for being a girl - doesn't mean we should do away with gender.
It's soft science
-yes, to an extent. But it's not without research and as long as you understand the claims you're making and where they should stop, there's no problem

[AntoniaDodge]

The two edged sword of typing is that it frequently allows people to crawl into a very comfortable box and stay within as explanation for their actions. There's no change, no growth inherent in the system. With MBTI this is especially true as exhibited in books like Please Understand Me II.

I think that's why the cognitive functions are so invaluable. It turns a static system in one of growth (if a person utilizes it correctly). You realize your areas of strength, but you also have your areas of weakness explained. If a person is interested in personal development it's a matter of not allowing one's strengths to run interference on their weaknesses, and then they become a far less 'defined' self, but one of greater effectiveness.

Yes, it can box one in. But it can also liberated one if they look at it from a perspective of flexibility.

[Storm]

Typing people can be bad when you forget the person behind the type. I think Jung himself said that "Each person is an exception."

You can use the types effectively to help explain and understand your reactions with others, but it shouldn't stop there. It should be the start of your analysis, not the end.

Same with yourself, if you let yourself be defined by the type, it's going to hurt you a lot. It's just a bit of fluff to help give some insight into your own strengths and weaknesses, but you need to look beyond a few paragraphs to really understand yourself.

[Zsych]

I actually find a slightly higher tendency since knowing about MB, to not object to certain idiotic types of behavior(IMO), because the people doing them are a different type and have different inclinations than me :P

I think I should still be as judgemental as I was before! :P

[Synamon]

The test and typing and all that goes with it is self analysis and there are a lot of people in the world who don't want to look too closely at themselves. Others just flat out are not interested in learning anything new.

[Vagrant]

Possible arguments against MBTI:

• You're categorizing personalities and people, one of the hardest things to categorize, especially in only 16 types.
• Discourages people from evolving and adapting because "that's just how they are."
• You may stop looking at people as people, and just as MBTI types.
• It's not useful in a very wide variety of applications.

Arguments for MBTI:

• The types are surprisingly accurate, and they are not set in stone: they can be mixed and matched, and the functions really emphasize this point.
• Encourages people to strengthen their inferior functions.
• It is useful in social situations, where you can use your knowledge of your own type to your advantage, or you can use the knowledge of another person's type to your advantage (IE ENTP's like a challenge).
• It's generally a lot more comprehensive then other "personality indicators".

[Polymath]

	Originally Posted by Flow To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	One of my friends has refused to take the test on the basis that he doesn't like the idea of categorizing people, and he doesn't want the test to define him as a person.

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


Is he worried that he'll read the description and be magically turned into a cookie-cutter person perfectly fitting the description? I think there are a couple of lines in some common INTJ descriptions that don't fit me perfectly, but I'm still exactly the same person...

[LionsPride]

Not wanting to be typed reminds me of the people who keep their health conditions to themselves. I know people who have health issues they don't want to tell people about because after it is mentioned that issue sudden becomes the way other people define and treat them. With mental health issues it's a bigger stigma. It's a double edged sword, if people know, they can help you, but sometimes people can't help treating you differently, as if you are "fragile" or they blame things on the issue "He's just cranky because his knee is acting up again."

With MBTI it's the same thing. It's one of the reasons I don't type the people in my life and I don't go around announcing my INTJness to others. It would be nice to be understood, but I don't need people to start seeing INTJ traits that aren't even there, or attributing behaviours of mine to my INTJness. I don't want to do the same thing to them either. Currently I only use it as a tool to relate to aspects of myself and to other INTJ's.

[eternaltriangle]

I could see not wanting to be typed given the attitudes of many people on this site to feelers, extroverts and sensers - because many here have typing ass-backwards. We have stereotypes of what somebody of a given type might look like (stereotypes that often existed before we were familiar with MBTI), and we fit an MBTI to that stereotype. We also often mistake people's preferences for their abilities. Being an NT does not make somebody smart, nor does being SF make somebody dumb (one of the smartest people I know is an ISFJ).

[PHS Philip]

I use MBTI because I think the terminology is helpful, but I think it's definitely got major problems and I think that the types are really much more broad umbrellas than it accounts for. So I don't type people both based on not wanting to place them in a category that isn't really accurate anyway, and also because I think that typing people accurately is much, much harder than just getting to know them a little bit because so much of it is about the inner world, not the outer expression of it (even for extroverts).

[ezri89]

I've never met someone that had a strong stance on whether or not it was a good or a bad thing. That just seems silly. Most people will just take it out of curiousity, and saying that it groups people and defines them seems very extreme to me. After reading quite a bit through the forums on here anyone can see that while a lot of us are INTJ we're also still a lot different. I look at the whole test as more of something that can help you in understanding how other's solve problems and as a way to show others how you're problem solving skills are different so that conflict resolution is easier when working together or when in a relationship of some sort.

[cobrajoe99]

	Originally Posted by Flow To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	One of my friends has refused to take the test on the basis that he doesn't like the idea of categorizing people, and he doesn't want the test to define him as a person. )

I have a friend that had almost the same reaction. Except she stated she could not fit into a type. I think in her case she has convinced her self that she is special, and that there can not be anyone else like her.

[Eleven]

I hold reservations because I doubt that the cognitive processes are ontologically distinct kinds (or that the axes themselves are). I think cognition generally is far more complex, and integrated to a far higher degree, than the MBTI - or any practically manageable system (in the day-to-day sense of practically manageable) - could capture.

This doesn't mean that the MBTI doesn't pick up on some behavioural or cognitive patterns, understood as very general tendencies, although I think we should always be prepared to acknowledge exceptions.

Ultimately, this objection to MBTI can be seen as the claim that while the MBTI may have useful categories for sufficiently general purposes, we should perhaps be careful not to forget about the importance of ontological categories, and the more precise characterisations of personality they might some day be able to offer.

[Terian]

It's a flawed system, especially for more balanced types. My oldest brother and I exhibit traits of at least four different types, and will identify with and test as such depending on which day it is.

[More Tea]

Sometimes I really wonder how much of the MBTI really boils down to extrovert v. introvert differences. Supposedly, there is a biological basis underlying introversion (I'm thinking of "The Introvert Advantage" here... not my favorite book, as it more or less makes introversion out to be a disability, but it did have some interesting information). We've certainly had other threads going into the Forer effect and so on.

Still, I'm reminded of people who pointedly object to remembering or investigating their own dreams. Maybe it comes down to fear of the unknown--including the unknown within. What harm will one test do? What harm will come from understanding why you keep dreaming you're back in high school?

[Lolie]

The label is just a descriptor of certain clusters of behaviour. What I dislike about any system of classifying human behaviour is that they often come to be regarded as definitive rather than descriptive.

Normative behaviour is not a static thing. What's regarded as socially desirable behaviour can change and often does - sometimes quite quickly. One of my pet hates about the DSM is that a behaviour cluster can be classified as a "disorder" in one edition and removed in the next. If all that has changed is the perception of whether that behaviour cluster is "functional" or "dysfunctional", then we're on very dodgy ground suggesting that people should change their behaviour, let alone mandating compulsory medical "treatment" for such "disorders".

Knowing how someone perceives and relates to the world can certainly be useful (whether it's MBTI, NLP, or the 5 "love languages"), just as long as we remember that they are only models we're using and that they are only one tool among many.