Neuroscience of Personality | Dario Nardi | Talks at Google
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it in MBTI threads as an attempt to link personality types to measurable brain activity patterns.
What it is
UCLA professor Dario Nardi presents brain-imaging research suggesting that different Myers-Briggs personality types use their brains in different ways. He discusses how each type can reach a state of creative flow. It is aimed at a general audience.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2012 to 2016.
What Hacker News said
Recommends oblique63 · 2013-10 · on “Poll: Are you an Introvert, Extrovert or do you have Aspergers?”
Except that MBTI is only a superficial shorthand for the more complex Jungian cognitive function theory[1], which is more nuanced and has functions interacting in more complex ways than just the 4 dimensions represented by the MBTI system. More interestingly, is that these cognitive functions are actually starting to have some connections to neurological phenomena[2]. So while on the superficial level MBTI is kind of just a bunch of sugar coating, it actually is founded in more well-reasoned psychology. It could still be highly inaccurate, but it is unusually consistent (once you accept that the tests for it are generally terrible). [1] Here are some good resources on their basic definitions
Recommends oblique63 · 2014-01 · on “Your most important skill: Empathy”
Since there's bound to be some discussion about MBTI's validity now that you brought it up, I'd like to point out that there's some interesting research emerging that seems to reliably correlate MBTI type with observed brain activity patterns: [this video] [LINK] [LINK]
Cites wamatt · 2012-12 · on “Myers-Briggs: Does it pay to know your type?”
tl;dr - The issue of the MBTI and psychometrics in general is nuanced, and strongly held opinions of either pseudoscience, or devoted metaphysical truthiness, are equally problematic. The MBTI test as it currently stands, deserves the reputation as flawed empirical instrument, yet at the same time it's utility is undeniable. Unlike horoscopes, individual descriptions do differ rather significantly. The biggest issue in my view is not a fundamental one, but rather a flawed set of assumptions. The principle being that the test taker, possesses intimate self knowledge and presents an accurate and unchanging self portrait. In addition to the wonderful qualities humans have, there remains a numbe
Cites ymse · 2016-06 · on “Is your personality fixed, or can you change who you are?”
The tests are wildly inaccurate, and MBTI itself is not the full story of cognition and personality, but I think there is enough evidence suggesting that the cognitive functions as described by Jung[0] are very real. The article you linked to uses lack of MBTI in psychology journals as an argument against its validity, but its applications in the field are very limited. You're more likely to find MBTI references in neuroscience journals as there are appears to be clear correlations between type preferences and brain activity patterns[1]. Even so, knowledge of a persons cognitive preferences just isn't very useful. So the main application of MBTI is indeed "just for fun". 0: [LINK] 1: [this video]