Do people really take this stuff so seriously?

amother

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 11:41 am

Just reading through the recent threads about personality types (myers briggs, enneagram etc) and I'm totally blown away.
The way people talk about them, as if they're a religion. and the way they talk about their type, as if it Defines Their Destiny and Shapes Their Life.
So anti Torah values...
Craziness

amother

Natural

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:18 pm

I will just repost what I wrote on another thread:

I personally find them useful. I don't take anything as toras Moshe miSinai or set in stone. I also am familiar with a lot of different personality typing systems, there's some overlap and some measure completely different traits.

In chassidus we have personality typing based on the ten sefiros or the four elements (Eish, ruach, mayim and afar).

I think it's silly when people are rigid and start arguing over the meaning of a personality type, or start insisting that because someone is a certain type that means that they think this and feel this. Your personality type doesn't determine your life or relationships, but it can be helpful when you want to understand why you struggle with certain things, or why you click with certain people and not with others. It helps you understand that other people aren't necessarily being stupid or obstinate, they just think differently than you do or value other things than you do.

If you're very opposed to the idea of personality types, you probably are an S. You just can't connect with the idea of there being fluid categories that can help enlighten but aren't necessarily black and white. Whereas an N has a more intuitive sense of the types and doesn't think that people are locked in to one type or another.

amother

Seashell

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:25 pm

What type am I if I don't get it no matter how many times I read it or it's explained to me?

If for ten years I act a certain way but then I change and do the opposite then how can I be a type? No one is the same their entire life.

amother

Natural

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:30 pm

amother [ Olive ] wrote:

I think it's relatively harmless nuts, but still nuts. It reminds me of horoscopes or the Seventeen magazine quizzes my friends and I would take back in the day, but no one ever pretended those had any sort of scientific validity.

You know what I think is nuts?

When people can't read a personality type and think to themselves, "Hm, interesting, I can see how this applies in this situation. I wonder how it would apply in a different situation."

When people can't relate to the IDEA of a personality type and be able to assimilate that idea and extrapolate it.

Yes, I know not everyone can do that. Not everyone's mind works that way. The typing helps me to understand why other people are blind to something that makes so much sense and seems so intuitive to me.

amother

Smokey

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:32 pm

There are a mix of comments on those threads. Some people take it as a be-all and end-all, whereas others take it as a piece that helps explain part of their personality and motivations.

Personally, I found that determining my personality type helped me realize that I am not as alone as I thought, but that there's a reason I've always felt that there are so few people who are like me. It also helped me understand my motivations for doing things (or not doing things). It doesn't define me, but I take the helpful things and leave the rest.

I don't judge or define my ability to succeed in life by my personality type, certainly.

amother

Natural

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:35 pm

amother [ Seashell ] wrote:

You are probably an S.
It's harder for S's to grasp theories or "big picture."
Things have to be broken down and spelled out very clearly.

If you always struggled with a certain middah and finally worked on yourself to overcome it, that means that you've grown. We can always "do" the opposite of a natural middah temporarily, but generally we revert to type unless we put in a lot of effort.

This is something discussed in Chassidus. With a lot of avodah we can change a bad middah and it becomes a "teva sheni," a second nature. But it takes a lot of work. You don't just wake up one day and the middah you struggled with all your life is gone.

Like, I struggle a lot with seder. With a lot of effort, I can keep my house clean and orderly but it's a lot of work and never really feels natural. Maybe if I was very, very consistent I'd eventually develop that middah and come to be an orderly person. But I'm not there yet (very far from it).

LovesHashem

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:36 pm

I posted on the thread that my friend is a certain personality - that's not my assessment. It's hers. She loves discussing it and understanding how her brain works and personality works. I would never categorize others. I really only have done it for myself and DH.

amother

Olive

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:37 pm

amother [ Natural ] wrote:

I've got two graduate degrees in psychology and am fully aware of how useless and non-scientific the majority of the academic community views this stuff. Thanks anyway.

Here's a Vox explainer on how meaningless Myers-Briggs is. Very little predictive power, inconsistent in results, etc.

https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/.....gless

amother

Natural

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:40 pm

amother [ Olive ] wrote:

I do not at all question your scientific qualifications.

I read the article and I'm very well aware of the lack of scientific validation for Myers-Briggs.

But the fact is, we don't need a scientific study to understand that people have different personalities and think in different ways. It's like looking to a scientific study to tell you how to appreciate a piece of music or work of art. I can look at it or listen to it and develop whatever interpretation I want, and incorporate it into the way I think and relate to people.

If it doesn't work for you, fine. Some people get it and some don't. Just like certain people appreciate a certain type of poetry and others don't. It doesn't reflect negatively on you.

amother

Bisque

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:44 pm

It's kinda like the SATs. Started as a way to predict how well people would do in college (that's why a lot of scholarships were given based on scores) but truthfully unless someone is a brilliant genius and gets a perfect score without studying it doesn't mean much. Certainly it is not a predictor of whether a person will go on to have a successful life or not. There is so much else that goes in to the mix.
Whatever personality type you are doesn't really have much to do with how successful your life is.

amother

Natural

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:47 pm

amother [ Bisque ] wrote:

Right. It has nothing to do with predicting how successful you'll be in life.

But it can be helpful in understanding why you struggle with certain tasks and not others, and why you're drawn to certain types of people and not others.

When there's somebody that I just can't see eye to eye with no matter what, understanding their personality type helps me to realize that there's nothing wrong with them and nothing wrong with me. We just have different ways of perceiving the world. And when you meet someone with a similar type, we just "get" each other. It's such a relief and joy.

Fellow INFP's on this thread can relate to the feeling.

amother

Seashell

Tue, Dec 29 2020, 12:53 pm

amother [ Natural ] wrote:

Thank you for explaining.
I don't understand it because our personality can be either our nature or from how we were nurtured.
Since my parent had a short temper, I learned to be angry and impatient. But it is not my nature.
I also used to be a perfectionist for most of my life. Not anymore.

What does S stand for btw?
I'm more familiar with the enneagram but the test results gave me a choice of 3 likely numbers almost equally.