People on the internet are always dunking on the Meyers-Briggs quiz, calling it pseudoscience and meaningless and laughing at anyone that believes in it. Typically, people propose to use the Big-5 test instead. Thing is, those two tests are almost the same thing. The main difference is if/how you discretize the axes. Thus, I proposed a new system to give Myers-Briggs results with a finer discretization.
- To underline this point, I went so far as to create a no-nonsense MBTI quiz. Beyond giving a finer discretization, I think this might be the fastest MBTI quiz on the internet, just due to the interface.
I’m also interested in the relative advantages of different personalities. I naively assumed that all personalities are equally “good”, just in different ways. To my surprise, the data suggests that one particular personality is better in almost every way.
I’ve done a couple of obsessive investigations of topics related to psychology:
- Is the “general factor” of intelligence a real thing?
- Is the “gender-equality paradox” a real thing?
(In both cases, the answer is “probably, but it’s not as consequential as some people think”).
A particular interest is the impact of evolution on explaining the world around us. Given this, I’ve tried to understand two different seeming contradictions:
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Why would genetic evolution favor the existence of homosexuality while cultural evolution favors social norms against homosexuality? My answer is that I think those trends actually reinforce each other.
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Why is it that you’re super motivated to marry someone hot, while your parents care so much less about this? My answer is that there’s many possible explanations. (See also this update/correction.)
