Thank you a lot for your comments. They are very interesting. I've changed the title of this conversation so that others can comment on it as John at U of Fl already did.
On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 8:40 PM, Bing Ran
<bur12@psu.edu> wrote:
Hello In-Sue,
I feel sorry that you felt somehow offended by my post and I can completely understand your concern (indeed, if every textbook mentions it, it must be the truth! Just like 500 years ago, every text mentioned the earth is flat, and the earth must be flat!).
---> The mainstream knowledge (or paradigm) can change with some important and credible findings! Science is open to modifications and changes. My knowledge and stance on this issue can also change if your comments are convincing and based on compelling scientific evidence. We are talking about "personality traits", not the shape of the earth. So, your comment above is mute. Even Plato (1952, pp. 319-20, Recited from Schneider & Schmitt,1976, p. 7) emphasized the role of personality traits.
However, if you read my post carefully, you will find in my post I was referring to the trait-based personality theories (or personality traits), not personality in general.
--> I am talking about personality "traits", not "types". The MBTI is a personality "type" measure, and the Big Five is a personality "trait" measure. When we talk about personality, we generally mean personality as a trait which is relatively stable over time and consistent across situations.
When I teach OB to my master students, I don't use any textbooks. Instead, I assign about 30 popular OB textbooks in the market / in the library for my students to read together with a lot of extra readings that I selected (they are asked to read at least 2 OB textbooks from the list). Indeed, every OB textbook has a chapter on personality and all cover trait-based approach to personality (together with so-called situational approach to personality etc).
What's wrong with trait-based approach to personality? Well, my students could provide a long list, but here are some that immediately coming to my mind (I really don't want to go into details, so here are just a rough list of issues that are impromptu):
1. conceptual problems:
a. What is the intrinsic difference between traits-based approach to personality & fortunetelling?
They have the same purpose: the purpose of the both is to predict human's behaviors / to define the person.
They have the same approach: by classifying the person based on some property (e.g. Type A / Type B; Blood type O / Blood type A) or position the person along some dimension within a particular category (Reserved-Outgoing; Conjunction-Opposition in Horoscope).
They have the same way of classifying: the categories / dimensions are limited. Myers-Briggs Type Indicators could generate 16 possibilities and the Blood Type Indicator could generate 4 possibilities (blood type A, B, O, AB). Each possibility is given a list of behaviors (so blood type O is open-minded etc.). But there are 6 billion humans on earth, so you do the math. To put the 6 billion people into 16 categories and attach a behavior list to each category telling people that they will all behave based on my behavior list is not the science that I understand.
--> Here, you are clearly talking about personality as a type. Personality research is generally about how to measure personality as a trait. So, people can different in personality in many ways and in numerous subtle ways. Traits are about the "degree" of difference, and types are about the "dichotomy" of difference. So, your score on the trait Extraversion measure can be 4.1 out of 5, and mine could be 4.0 out of 5 (trait). But, you are I are all extroverts (type). As you will agree, science should be about the degree of difference (traits rather than types). John, another commentator of your post said that there are few top tier journal papers on personality types... Further, the Big Five does not mean that there are only five traits. the Big Five is a higher order factors. the NEO-PI-R includes at least 30 traits.
They have the same effects: how accurate these predications are? How accurate these traits could define a person or to predicate someone's behavior? Well, the correlation coefficients between traits and what people actually do is very low – you could dig into literature to find how high these correlation coefficients are – are they higher than the correlation coefficients between Blood types and what people actually do? No.
Low compared to what? The true-score correlations between job satisfaction and job performance is .30 (Judge et al., 2001, Psych Bull). The true-score correlations between Conscientiousness (a personality trait) and job performance is .25 when Conscientiousness is measured using self-reports (see Schmidt, Shaffer, and Oh, 2008, PPsych). But, the true-score correlation between Conscientiousness and job performance goes up to .40 when Conscientiousness is measured using observer ratings of personality (see Oh, Wang, & Mount, in press, JAP).
b. Why is there no intrinsic difference between trait-based approach to personality & fortunetelling?
A LOT! There is no evidence that fortunetelling has some validity comparable to that of Conscientiousness (just one Big Five trait) in predicting job performance, one of the most important outcome variables in OB/HR.
I think there are at least two reasons: one is the confusion of the correlation and causation. People have an implicit or even tacit assumption that traits cause people's behavior, just like Fortunetellers believe when you were born dictates how you will behave or your blood type predicts your behaviors. I understand most of serious academic journal papers used correlations when linking traits to behaviors, but still you could sense that implicit assumption of causality when they use traits to explain / predict human's behavior (indeed, as you mentioned, you are using traits to predict people's job performance).
Repeated observations can be a good proxy of causation. Do you mean we do not have any theory in astrology? Personality is partly determined by genes... Theoretically, the causal order should be personality to performance, not vice versa.
The second is related to the logic of the trait based approach / fortunetelling. The logic of these thoughts goes like this: Behaviors could be attributed to certain stable properties (the major premise); It seems inherent properties (genetic predisposition) is relative stable (the minor premise); So behaviors were caused by inherent properties (the conclusion). Indeed, your blood type / MBTI type are relatively stable, so your behavior must be caused by your blood type or your MBTI type!
I am afraid your logic is completely wrong. We want to know which traits (inherent properties) are more predictive of job performance. We know that cognitive ability (another trait) is more predictive of job performance than is personality. Further, we know that blood types are "a lot less" predictive of job performance than is personality.
Well, the issue of this logic lies in the major premise: Could we really attribute behaviors to certain stable properties?
Yes... do you think your behavior is completely driven by your situation? We also believe that our behavior is determined by traits and situations or their interactions.
c. The characteristics of "traits": are they really stable and inherent? What are the meanings of those general traits/tendencies independent of specific situations? How many traits are there? (Historically, hundreds are suggested and apparently more will be proposed – is there an underlying theory indicating why these many traits?). What are the relationship between traits and concrete behaviors? Could those fuzzy / high level / vague linguistic labels scientifically describe the human psychological properties? Do we have the implicit assumption that traits being measured are consistent in subjects and does not change in different situations? etc. etc.
Our current measurement and conceptualization of personality traits may not be perfect, which does not mean that they are meaningless. As science advances, we will have a better answer. What about situations? There are millions or billions of different situations. Maybe, every moment is a different situation. How do (can) you classify them? What is the validity of some situation? How will you measure situation? Any good measure or tool? Please let us know!
2. measurement problems:
Many scholars have raised many measurement problems in trait-based approach to personality, such as the noise in data, socially desirable answers, vagueness of the questions, gender / cultural biases, value-laden dimensions when using it in (e.g.) job recruitment and performance evaluations, questionable assumptions that we (subject) possess information to accurately assess ourselves (themselves), etc. etc.
See the above.
Let me use Kurt Lewin's analogy to end this rather long post. Kurt Lewin compared the trait approach to the approach used by Aristotle to explain the motion of physical objects in ancient Greece. In Aristotelian physics, some objects (e.g., "smoke") were classified as "heavenly objects" because they rose towards the heavens. Other objects (e.g., rocks) were classified as "earthly objects" because they fell towards the earth. So 'heavenly' or 'earthly' were treated as 'traits' of objects that were considered as the enduring characteristics that describes an object's behavior. By contrast, Galilean physics explains the motion of objects in terms of the sum total of all physical forces acting on the object (referred to as a "field theory"). He felt it was nonsense to predict human behavior independent of the consideration of the situation in which the person acted. Thus, he made an attempt to develop a field theory of human behavior called the dynamic theory on personality. In his theory he viewed behavior as the resultant of the properties and dynamics of one's psychological field "here and now," as a product of totality of the psychological situation. Every psychological event depends upon the state of the person and at the same time on the environment.
Kurt Lewin said our behavior is a function of traits and situations and their interactions. Ask others about it. Again, what about situations? There are millions or billions of different situations. Maybe, every moment is a different situation. How do (can) you classify them? How do (can) you classify them? What is the validity of some situation? How will you measure situation? Any good measure or tool? Please let us know!
In-Sue, Personality is really not what I specialized and I'm sure in this long post, I could be very biased and incorrect, and I sincerely welcome your critiques. However, I do suggest you to read:
It is clear that you are not specialized in personality. Ask some personality researchers at your school. They will not say differently about personality (again, personality traits). Please read the above papers I cited above if you have some time. If you want to challenge others' research in a strong manner, you should be well knowledgeable. Would you be happy if someone told you that your research topic is like fortunetelling without strong evidence? If you need full references, let me know. Again, I was talking about personality traits and not types at all. Thanks for your comments though!
Best wishes,
In-Sue
Lewin, K., (1935). A Dynamic Theory of Personality. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lewin, K., (1936). Principles of topological psychology (F. Heider and G.M. Heider, trans.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lewin, K., (1951). Field theory in social science; selected theoretical papers. (D. Cartwright, ed.). New York: Harper & Row.
Best wishes,
Bing
--------------------------------------------
Bing Ran, PhD
Assistant Professor of Public Administration
School of Public Affairs
Penn State Harrisburg
777 W. Harrisburg Pike
Middletown, PA 17057
Office: W160 A Olmsted Bldg.
Phone: +1 717 948 6057
Fax: +1 717 948 6320
Email: bingran@psu.edu
From: In-Sue Oh [mailto:insue.oh@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 6:14 PM
To: Organizational Behavior Division Listserv
Cc: Bing Ran
Subject: Re: [OB-LIST] MBTI classroom exercises
Hi Bing, I am studying personality as an antecedent of many important variables like job performance, leadership emergence and effectiveness, and work attitudes. Do you have any evidence for your strong argument below? What OB textbook are you using? Many OB textbooks include one chapter on personality (and values)... If personality is meaningless, why do you have a chapter on it? Simply to say that this is meaningless...?????
On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Bing Ran <bur12@psu.edu> wrote:
Good points John. I am also surprised that people with scientific training are still buying into these trait-based personality approaches such as MBTI or Big 5. The predictability and correlation of these traits with concrete behaviors are no more than the correlation between your blood-types / palm-lines / horoscope with the concrete behaviors. Without discussing specific situations, these value-laden traits expressed by fuzzy categories using such vague linguistic labels are meaningless and invalid (don't mention the measurement problems etc.). When I teach OB, I always asked my students to distinguish between trait based approach and fortune-telling and students found that these two have the same purpose, the same approach, the same way of classifying, and the same effects in terms of predicting human behavior.
Best,
Bing
From: Organizational Behavior Division Listserv [mailto:OB@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of John Antonakis
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 11:56 AM
To: OB@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: [OB-LIST] MBTI classroom exercises
Hi:
This is a note about the MBTI and not the exercise. Although the MBTI model is used a lot in practice and by tons of consultants (as well as educators) the model and the supposed "types" have been severely criticized in the psychometrics literature. See:
McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1989). Reinterpreting the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator from the Perspective of the 5-Factor Model of Personality. Journal of Personality, 57(1), 17-40.
Pittenger, D. J. (1993). The Utility of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Review of Educational Research, 63(4), 467-488.
Stricker, L. J., & Ross, J. (1964). An Assessment of Some Structural-Properties of the Jungian Personality Typology. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 68(1), 62-71.
Zaccaro, S. J., & Horn, Z. N. J. (2003). Leadership theory and practice: Fostering an effective symbiosis. The Leadership Quarterly, 14(6), 769-806.
FYI, I used the Web of Science to search for "mbti" or "myers-briggs" in three top OB journals ("journal of applied psychology" or "personnel psychology" or "organizational behavior and human decision processes") and in "academy of management journal" and did not find a single hit.
Anyone wanting to demonstrate evidence for the validity of the types nowadays would have to show some kind of latent class analysis (or finite mixture modeling) predicting some kind of outcome (e.g., teamwork, leadership, etc.); I don't think that anyone has published such evidence though I might be mistaken. Perhaps I need a reality check. Does anyone know of a top-notch psychology journal that regularly publishes papers that uses the MBTI using the MBTI "types" as predictors (and having found evidence, using latent class analysis or something similar, that the types exist)?
HTH,
John.
__________________________________________
Prof. John Antonakis
Faculty of Business and Economics
Department of Organizational Behavior
University of Lausanne
Internef #618
CH-1015 Lausanne-Dorigny
Switzerland
Tel ++41 (0)21 692-3438
Fax ++41 (0)21 692-3305
http://www.hec.unil.ch/people/jantonakis
Associate Editor
The Leadership Quarterly
__________________________________________
On 04.02.2011 17:07, Andreas Richter wrote:
Dear colleagues,
Apologies for cross-posting.
I am looking for classroom exercises for an Executive MBA OB course (average age: 36 years) on the MBTI. Students hold middle to high level management positions in their organizations. Students will have completed the MBTI prior to the class on "teamwork", and I am looking for a group exercise where I can split the class into breakout groups based on their profiles. This exercise should provide students with insights on how their MBTI profile affects the way they work in teams, or handle conflict in teams, or how team composition based on MBTI profiles affects teamwork.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated (will provide a summary of suggestions and post them back).
Many thanks in advance, and kind regards,
Andreas
Andreas Richter, Ph.D.
Judge Business School
University of Cambridge
Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1AG, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 339639
Fax: +44 (0) 1223 339701
Email: a.richter@jbs.cam.ac.uk
Web: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/research/faculty/richtera.html
--
In-Sue Oh, PhD
Assistant Professor | Department of Management | School of Business
Virginia Commonwealth University
301 W. Main Street, Box 844000
Richmond, VA 23284
Office: (804) 828-8410 | Email: isoh@vcu.edu
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~isoh/