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From: dsn@tove.UUCP (Dana S. Nau)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: the Personality Test
Message-ID: <179@tove.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Apr-85 20:09:42 EST
Article-I.D.: tove.179
Posted: Fri Apr  5 20:09:42 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Apr-85 10:32:05 EST
References: <8379@watarts.UUCP>
Reply-To: dsn@tove.UUCP (Dana S. Nau)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 51

In article <8379@watarts.UUCP> kevyn@watarts.UUCP writes:
> 
> I originally MAILed this to Dana thru private e-mail but I decided
> that it should "go public" to this newsgroup as well.

I never received your mail--are you sure you sent it?

> How can you say that some person is either A) an extrovert or B) an introvert
> or has an A) analytic or B) synthetic mind?  Can you take these judgements
> seriously if this decision is made from data gathered solely from one TEST?

(1) I'm not sure what you mean by "analytic" and "synthetic".  The test
doesn't measure these.  (2) As far as I know, the test has undergone
extensive psychological validation, and has been found to be pretty
accurate.  I've even seen it used in published research on human/computer
interaction.

> There is never such a black/white distinction between people. ...

That's quite true--and in keeping with that, the test does not classify
people as either/or.  One is measured along four different spectra, and the
test results give an indication of where you fall on each spectrum.  It is
possible, for example, for someone's score on the Introversion/Extroversion
scale to be half-way between the two extremes.

> People are so FASCINATING and so COMPLEX for many, many, many reasons.
> They CHANGE with time, and their "properties" and abilities can never be
> made Absolute.

Well, if you really DO change, then your test score will change.  But
according to what I've been told, one of the more interesting features of
the Meyers-Briggs test is its repeatability.  Apparently, for the things
that it measures, people tend not to change very much.

> How much can this one little pompous test say about you,
> in particular, when you write it?

"Pompous"????  Speak for yourself!

> whom?  Your mother?  Your best friend?  The "average" person?  It will do
> more harm than good if people believe what something or someone else
> tells THEM about WHO THEY ARE.  You are much more interesting and flexible
> than the people who made up the test would have you think!

Well, maybe yes and maybe no.  The test is based on Jung's theory of
psychological types.  Whatever else I might say about Jung, I'd REALLY
hesitate to say that he thought of people as uninteresting and inflexible!
-- 
Dana S. Nau,  Computer Science Dept.,  U. of Maryland,  College Park, MD 20742
ARPA:  dsn@maryland				CSNet:  dsn@umcp-cs
UUCP:  {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!dsn	Phone:  (301) 454-7932