I can’t recall for certain what I got when I did the personality test but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t INTJ. But I’m too lazy to do it again. So shoot me.
There is a small problem with that data, at least if it is uniformly distributed among those who took the poll, and the people who took the poll are representative of all bronies.
Why? Well, there are roughly 10 million bronies in the US. According to the poll, ~40% of those are ages 16-19. Therefore, we’d have 4 million US bronies age 16-19. The US has ~320 inhabitants, of which ~6% are in that age group, i.e. roughly 20 million.
The normal frequency of INTJ is 2-3%, let’s assume 3% for now. Then we’d have 600K INTJs in that age group. Among the US bronies, ~25% are INTJs, so we’d have 1 million INTJ US bronies in that age group, 1.5 times more than the 600K of INTJs that age group in the US. And we haven’t even accounted for the fact that bronies are mostly white and male, which would make the numbers even more screwed up (720K bronies out of 280K US residents).
There are a number of solutions for the apparent paradox:
INTJs are not uniformly distributed among bronies, i.e. the percentage of INTJs among bronies outside that age range or the US is far higher (50+), while it is significantly lower inside it (>15).
The poll is not representative among bronies, i.e. 16-19-aged INTJs were, for some reason, much more likely to take that poll than other bronies.
The 2-3% figure (or 1-4%, doesn’t change much) of INTJs among the general population is wrong, and should rather be significantly higher (6%+).
Any combination of the above :P
However, saying that the type indicators aren’t indicative is of no issue here. In fact, this poll is a strong argument in favor of the validity of the personality types, as it, for some reason, had an abnormal amount of INTJs (and generally Ixxx and INxx). If the Jungian types were indeed non-indicative, the expected type distribution of this (and any other poll among any other group) should be identical to the distribution among the general population, after all.
@AaronMk
i’m aware of that, i guess i should’ve made my comment a bit clearer. i was addressing the user who added in the tag after the fact. looks like you already reversed the edit though, so it seems that all is well in the universe for now.
For an informal census on a fandom I’d imagine requesting access and information that’d otherwise lead to someone checking on your employment history and criminal record would be more invasive than is necessary and probably more trouble than is worth.
Unless we go random sample… But how many people would willingly give information like that away? I don’t know what’s on my record per-say, but I’d imagine that there’s some mighty important information that could get me in trouble if it were used wrong.
Though, I got to give the group credit. They at least tried with the house-hold income thing. But most of the fandom seems too young to really have access to or appropriately gauge their parent’s income. Between myself and my Mother I’m not even personally sure.
“Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ’s Achilles heel … Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJ’s really want people to make sense.”
Given the current rate of divorce, short-term cohabitation, and the overwhelming wealth of other evidence – as far as relationships go, I’d say that the only thing INTJ’s lack that other people seem to have is a blinding illusion of competence.
Myers-Briggs, producing no useful results since 1921.
For more information on why these tests are not helpful, I direct your attention to the following concept: False Dilemma, also called Fallacy of the False Alternative or False Dichotomy. A type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, where in fact there is at least one additional option. The options may be positions that are between two extremes, or may be completely different.
False dilemma can arise intentionally, when fallacy is used to force a choice, such as “You are either with us or against us.”
I agree with @Background Pony and his statements. The Myers-Briggs personality test, while fun to take, has an extremely shaky scientific foundation - to put it mildly.
@Whatevs
As I noted, I’m not sure how exactly accurate the pony chart is (that was a late S1/early S2 creation, IIRC), and trying to classify one pony for each of the 16 slots.
It’s a difficult thing to do but generally gathering pertinent data about a social set is more valuable than asking those within it to give opinion.
For example: Checking the criminal records and average payrates of a subset of people is a more accurate indicator of behavior than asking those within the set to document how much they value money or how often they feel compelled to commit crimes.
Gathering large swaths of data about groups of people is ALWAYS (NO MATTER WHAT) arbitrary and forced by leaving it up to interpretation and personal reflection is not useful as an aggregate for determining social constructs.
At least, so far as I know. I’m not a psychologist or sociologist. So… I’m no genius on such matters.
>pseudoscience tag
frigo, dude, i’m not one to cavil others for their opinions, but tags aren’t really an ideal place to vent your views on psychology. it’s best to save that kind of rhetoric for the comments section.
From a psychological perspective though, what’d be a good way to get a general profile of “The Herd”? Even if it’s arbitrary in a sense, I imagine it would be a good research starting point if such a measure could be used.
TO be fair it is no more arbitrary than so called “Type a” and “Type b” personalities or whatever. But truthfully Jung was kind of a psuedoscientist in many ways and any time of sort of relegating people into personality groups will ALWAYS be arbitrary because it relies on identifying certain traits and responses over others.
@Background Pony
I’m not aware of any alternate tests, but for the sake of posterity I would be interested if this was done again on another test to see if similar results are met, if there is such a thing.
Jung was a big fan of Astrology and based alot of his psychological profiling mechanisms on symbolism and myth. This is an arbitrary system of categorizing people based upon a simple set of questions.
2013 State of the Herd census results. This year they threw in a question for personality test results as an optional question. This is the results of that test.
Why? Well, there are roughly 10 million bronies in the US. According to the poll, ~40% of those are ages 16-19. Therefore, we’d have 4 million US bronies age 16-19. The US has ~320 inhabitants, of which ~6% are in that age group, i.e. roughly 20 million.
The normal frequency of INTJ is 2-3%, let’s assume 3% for now. Then we’d have 600K INTJs in that age group. Among the US bronies, ~25% are INTJs, so we’d have 1 million INTJ US bronies in that age group, 1.5 times more than the 600K of INTJs that age group in the US. And we haven’t even accounted for the fact that bronies are mostly white and male, which would make the numbers even more screwed up (720K bronies out of 280K US residents).
There are a number of solutions for the apparent paradox:
However, saying that the type indicators aren’t indicative is of no issue here. In fact, this poll is a strong argument in favor of the validity of the personality types, as it, for some reason, had an abnormal amount of INTJs (and generally Ixxx and INxx). If the Jungian types were indeed non-indicative, the expected type distribution of this (and any other poll among any other group) should be identical to the distribution among the general population, after all.
i’m aware of that, i guess i should’ve made my comment a bit clearer. i was addressing the user who added in the tag after the fact. looks like you already reversed the edit though, so it seems that all is well in the universe for now.
For an informal census on a fandom I’d imagine requesting access and information that’d otherwise lead to someone checking on your employment history and criminal record would be more invasive than is necessary and probably more trouble than is worth.
Unless we go random sample… But how many people would willingly give information like that away? I don’t know what’s on my record per-say, but I’d imagine that there’s some mighty important information that could get me in trouble if it were used wrong.
Though, I got to give the group credit. They at least tried with the house-hold income thing. But most of the fandom seems too young to really have access to or appropriately gauge their parent’s income. Between myself and my Mother I’m not even personally sure.
Ain’t me who put it there.
Given the current rate of divorce, short-term cohabitation, and the overwhelming wealth of other evidence – as far as relationships go, I’d say that the only thing INTJ’s lack that other people seem to have is a blinding illusion of competence.
For more information on why these tests are not helpful, I direct your attention to the following concept: False Dilemma, also called Fallacy of the False Alternative or False Dichotomy. A type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, where in fact there is at least one additional option. The options may be positions that are between two extremes, or may be completely different.
False dilemma can arise intentionally, when fallacy is used to force a choice, such as “You are either with us or against us.”
As I noted, I’m not sure how exactly accurate the pony chart is (that was a late S1/early S2 creation, IIRC), and trying to classify one pony for each of the 16 slots.
Sociology is a politically stifled science, so dont feel bad
Applebloom is an ENTP? How?
It’s a difficult thing to do but generally gathering pertinent data about a social set is more valuable than asking those within it to give opinion.
For example: Checking the criminal records and average payrates of a subset of people is a more accurate indicator of behavior than asking those within the set to document how much they value money or how often they feel compelled to commit crimes.
Gathering large swaths of data about groups of people is ALWAYS (NO MATTER WHAT) arbitrary and forced by leaving it up to interpretation and personal reflection is not useful as an aggregate for determining social constructs.
At least, so far as I know. I’m not a psychologist or sociologist. So… I’m no genius on such matters.
(Granted this is not purely a scientific assessment of the personality types)
vs
There’s at least some interesting correlations (I’s and N’s generally outweigh respective E’s and S’s).
frigo, dude, i’m not one to cavil others for their opinions, but tags aren’t really an ideal place to vent your views on psychology. it’s best to save that kind of rhetoric for the comments section.
From a psychological perspective though, what’d be a good way to get a general profile of “The Herd”? Even if it’s arbitrary in a sense, I imagine it would be a good research starting point if such a measure could be used.
TO be fair it is no more arbitrary than so called “Type a” and “Type b” personalities or whatever. But truthfully Jung was kind of a psuedoscientist in many ways and any time of sort of relegating people into personality groups will ALWAYS be arbitrary because it relies on identifying certain traits and responses over others.
Don’t get me started on you if you arent a gemini
My inability to read graphs has come back to haunt me from my high-school years…
I’m not aware of any alternate tests, but for the sake of posterity I would be interested if this was done again on another test to see if similar results are met, if there is such a thing.
Jung was a big fan of Astrology and based alot of his psychological profiling mechanisms on symbolism and myth. This is an arbitrary system of categorizing people based upon a simple set of questions.
2013 State of the Herd census results. This year they threw in a question for personality test results as an optional question. This is the results of that test.