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From: long@oliveb.UUCP (A Panther Modern)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: the Personality Test
Message-ID: <380@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Apr-85 01:49:27 EST
Article-I.D.: oliveb.380
Posted: Sun Apr  7 01:49:27 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Apr-85 06:35:27 EST
Reply-To: long@oliveb.UUCP (A Panther Modern)
Distribution: net
Organization: the Sprawl
Lines: 41
Summary: 

kevyn@watarts.UUCP (KCT) writes:
| 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?
| There is never such a black/white distinction between people.
| 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.  How much can this one little pompous test say about you,
| in particular, when you write it?   You are "introverted" in relation to
| 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!

    Obviously you have never seen a test like this.  The scales are not A or B,
but are sliding, with A or B being the dominant choice over a series of que-
stions.  Since people change over time, just take the test several times.  It
makes no claim to state what you are, just what you are like at that particular
time.  Finally, it is *you* who judges what type of person you are from your an-
swers to the questions.
    You might be suffering from type-centricism.  On these tests, I am an E/I
(halfway between either extroversion or introversion), N (intuition), T (think-
ing), P (perceiving).  While I would not like to be a ISFJ, if you were one, you
would consider it the best type to be.  Unless you are schizoid, whatever you
score on a Meyer-Briggs type test is going to be what *you* consider right.

    I recommend buying or borrowing the book [Please Understand Me], by Keirsey
and Bates.  It includes a small Meyer-Briggs type test, explains the various
scales, how people behave according to their Meyer-Briggs type, and points out
four super-classes composed of types that have basically the same behaviour.
The chapters are: Different Drums and Different Drummers, The Four Temperaments,
Mating and Temperament, Temperament in Children, Temperament in Leading, an App-
endix: The Sixteen Types, and the bibliography.  About the only part of the book
I disagree with is the section on Mating and Temperament, but that is probably
because I am of a different personality type from the authors.

						Dave Long
-- 
	gnoL evaD						Beware of
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