An empirical investigation of Jung's psychological types and personality disorder

[arbygil]

From the Journal of Psychological Type: http://www.uccs.edu/~faculty/dsegal...igation-Jungs-types-and-PD-features-JPT-2.pdf

It's an interesting article, and it's only four pages or so. The gist of it states that out of 14 personality disorders tested, certain MBTI groups had a higher significance towards certain disorders. Obviously this should be taken with a grain of salt since it's a test sample of 332 people, but it's a good read, regardless.

 

[endersgone]

I know that introverts are often times misclassified as schizoids/avoident personality types... I personally think there's lot of wiggle room in the diagnosis, treatment, and interpretation of "personality disorders", but an interesting read nontheless.

 

[arbygil]

I know that introverts are often times misclassified as schizoids/avoident personality types... I personally think there's lot of wiggle room in the diagnosis, treatment, and interpretation of "personality disorders", but an interesting read nontheless.

Oh, absolutely - there are degrees of diagnosis and treatment possibilities, and I think the authors mentioned this as well. I also think an unhealthy individual could mistype themselves, and it could be tough to differentiate between disorder and actual type. But it is interesting to see that there can be a preference for certain types (histrionic being a dominantly Extraverted condition, avoidant being typically introverted, schizotypal being more of an _NTP condition, and so forth). I do think the sample size is too small and you can't be sure of everyone's MBTI. But if people have complications with certain disorders and they're still unsure of their type, this could help them in their search.

 

[Norton]

What makes this study particularly suspect is the third to last paragraph noting the limitations of the study. Using a "nonclinical sample of convenience" is a major problem and belies any clinical conclusions one might make. Sampling criteria are critical to any clinical study and sloppy sampling dooms a study to a lack of rigor determined by the large uncertainty introduced by the "sloppiness." Also, with respect to MBTI, maybe I've missed it, but I don't see any consideration of the degree of introversion, intuition, etc. That is, one person could be a strong introvert and another a weak introvert, yet they are both labeled simply as introverts. If this is not accounted for, it introduces significant error into the study. Poor methodology is a waste of time and money, and it adds suspect information to the literature. Critical reading of the literature is something that needs to be taught to all students of the sciences and social sciences.

 

[bickelz]

What makes this study particularly suspect is the third to last paragraph noting the limitations of the study. Using a "nonclinical sample of convenience" is a major problem and belies any clinical conclusions one might make. Sampling criteria are critical to any clinical study and sloppy sampling dooms a study to a lack of rigor determined by the large uncertainty introduced by the "sloppiness." Also, with respect to MBTI, maybe I've missed it, but I don't see any consideration of the degree of introversion, intuition, etc. That is, one person could be a strong introvert and another a weak introvert, yet they are both labeled simply as introverts. If this is not accounted for, it introduces significant error into the study. Poor methodology is a waste of time and money, and it adds suspect information to the literature. Critical reading of the literature is something that needs to be taught to all students of the sciences and social sciences.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly why the Big 5 is used in clinical research.

 

[arbygil]

I agree - it's a weak study; it needs more data. Really if it comes down to it, it needs third-party conclusive proof of each individual's MBTI...but that still isn't enough. MBTI isn't a hard science - it's mostly observant data. Jung is a little closer to hard science, if one uses brain wave patterns to determine a person's type. But that's still a bit timey-wimey.

To be honest, I don't think you can truly use MBTI for any empirical study. What you get will almost always be subject to change depending on the individuals. What *might* help is trying the experiment several different times in several regions of the world, with a bigger population. But meh. There's only so much you can do.