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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3538 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 25, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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INTP. You are aware that MB is a load of shit, so if you want horoscopes but actually rigorous (standing up to a factor analysis), then OCEAN is the one for you.

One use I have for MBTI (InTx btw) is safely demonstrating diversity. Not on a forum like ours, where INTJ/P are dominant, but in a more normie company it can be eye-opening how different people are. Like, a guy you are buddies with tells you he's an ESFJ and you're like "woah, he should be the complete opposite of me, he has answered every question on this quiz wrong and yet he's still a human being I enjoy working/studying/hanging out with".

I think this is too harsh, MBTI has value if you understand its limitations. For example managers can use it as a shortcut to understand management styles until you get to know your staff on an individual level.

In a healthcare context you can use it to understand a little bit about what interventions, therapy, explanations and so on will work for a patient until you get to know them better.

Most patients won't know that they prefer a logical style of consenting over an emotional one, but if they tell you they are an INTJ you can be pretty sure, etc.

I don't think I've ever seen it applied, certainly not in a healthcare setup. If someone's getting utility out of it, it's not happening where I could see them. Which isn't the same as saying it has no utility, it just doesn't seem to come up.

I think that's mostly a skill issue lol. Most managers are bad, most conversations with patients are low skill and meant to check a box before moving to the next thing. If it's not a tool in your toolbox it isn't necessarily worth making it one, but I have seen MBTI used to great effect in a way that you can't with say the Big 5.

I've heard of the Big 5 being used in management, but mostly as a hiring screen, to try not to hire people who are too low in conscientiousness. Which is of course a zero sum game, so not useful for society at large.

Sorting the people best at some trait into the jobs that most benefit from that trait is useful for society at large, even if every job would show some benefit.

Just because good engineers must communicate well and good journalists must understand math doesn't mean we could swap them around with no problems; the priority order differs from job to job.

And conscientious isn't quite a trait with no downsides like communication and math skills are. I've seen many a conscientious person buckle down to spend hundreds of hours brute forcing the implementation of a poorly conceived idea that a less diligent person would have pushed back on.

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