Statistical Bearing
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posted by Vicky Jo at 3:05 AM
Thursday, June 15, 2006
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- Name: Vicky Jo
- Location: Los Angeles, California, United States
I coach people to identify and develop their natural personality strengths in order to maximize their potential.
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8 Comments:
I've been wanting to share this fun little experience with you for a while, and now I have an appropriate outlet to do so. I attend a small liberal arts college in Salt Lake Utah, and in one of my classes they had each of us take a free version of the MBTI on-line. As it turned out, INFJ was the second most common test result in the class. I think this reinforces what you said about sample groups, so I wanted to add it, not that you need reinforcement.
~Sarah
Sarah, bless you! I'll take all the reinforcement I can get! This is one of those urban myths that just won't die.
It's hilarious that people WANT the INFJ preference! I'd kill to be an ESTP or ESFP...who wants to be misunderstood by most of the population? Still, reading about INFJs does help, because I don't feel so much of an "anomaly."
If "natural selection" were a valid theory, there should be 6.25% of each of the 16 types in the world -- an even distribution -- so that no one type is rarer than any other.
I'm confused about how you got this from the theory of natural selection. I could understand someone thinking that natural selection would cause types that have an especially hard time in life to die out, but why would natural selection necessarily cause an even distribution?
The best theory on type distributions that I've heard says that human beings are a specializing species, and that it's advantageous to the population to have a variety of types, in some distribution (think the distributions of types of bees or ants in a colony).
-An INTP
You're right! And I confess: Somebody else made that remark, and I was too lazy to do my own math. "Natural selection" was probably intended to be a different term I suspect. I'll have to ponder that.
Ironically, I agree with you that it's useful *not* to have an equal distribution of types. As a species, we would probably die out if the majority of us preferred iNtuiting. =8-O
No doubt there IS a "rarest type," but so far there is no scientific analysis available that actually proves which type that would be.
I wonder whether you might agree that it defeats the purpose of using type if we get hung up on certain patterns being more "rare" (implying "special") than others.
What are your thoughts....?
As a species, we would probably die out if the majority of us preferred iNtuiting. =8-O
I agree. :)
I wonder whether you might agree that it defeats the purpose of using type if we get hung up on certain patterns being more "rare" (implying "special") than others.
Yes, indeed. This does lead to the ubiquitous S-bashing in type communities - although I also think that a lot of that is in reaction to being a minority and not having one's experience culturally validated (I think that may be a stage that some young N-type people have to go through).
However, I also think that this is an important scientific question; I would love to have more accurate knowledge of what the distribution really is, what roles certain types naturally play in groups, how exactly type is (or isn't) heritable, what selection pressures operate(d) on the distribution, etc. (I'm an INTP, can't you tell?) But I'm afraid that we, as a culture, couldn't handle that knowledge. (That is a huge topic for another time...)
I think that what we in the type community need to do is to consistently promote more enlightened attitudes about this, to facilitate the development of norms that discourage S-bashing and "I'm a rare special snowflake." And that means working through our own stuff.
(I feel all out of place here with my crisp NTish language...) :)
My experience is that crisp, NTish language is often welcomed by those of us Catalysts who strive for eloquence and/or greater accuracy in our thinking. :-)
I personally enjoyed and appreciated your message -- I'm impressed by your finesse with language, and aspire to be that facile with words.
I agree that it would be fascinating to have accurate knowledge of type distribution in the population, broken out by world, country, industry, occupation -- and of course we're *never* going to have that.
My gripe with the *current* figures that are floating around out there (many of them promoted in CAPT publications), is that they rely on approximations and potentially false data, since the MBTI instrument is so inaccurate.
We truly don't know when the ego is taking the assessment, when the culture is taking the assessment, when the work identity is taking the assessment -- AND whether the assessment is even doing a good job of identifying the innate patterns. (There has been an ongoing brouhaha for some time that those with S & P in their code gravitate toward N responses because they are rejecting the S responses that are too S_J. Not all Ss are created equal!)
Thus (and I'm sure I'm not telling you anything), when any data sample is potentially flawed to begin with, any approximations we do by extrapolating that information to the population at large is *highly* fallible. And it's rare for any of those independent studies to agree with one another either. :-(
I once saw a corporate presentation that implied there were *no* Improvisers (SPs) employed at IBM, and that management techniques needed to be adjusted for that lack. Yikes! It seems apparent that it's *not* okay to have SP preferences if you work at IBM, so you'd best make sure your reported type isn't *that*. =8-O
On a slightly different note, you might like to check out my blog located at www.TypeInsights.com. FYI, I have some video of Dr. John Beebe (ENTP) posted there, and I will be adding to that cache in days to come. I daresay you would enjoy the NTP-speak. :-D
I enjoy reading your work. I think (so far), this is my favorite article! Thank goodness there are a few truth-tellers like you out there.
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