A previous company used Real Colors, an MBTI knock-off, and it was striking how attached people got to those results. People openly stereotyped whole groups of people because they appeared to cluster in one sector (e.g., SDEs must be Green). They disregarded all counter-examples because they conflicted with these biases. It was weird.
People like boxes because it gives them an easy and reassuring way to approach complexity they are not equipped to grapple with. You see it all the time in the professional world: people who have to deal with others but are poorly trained and unconfident in their ability to handle human psychology relish these kinds of crutches. You see it even in this discussion: this type must be suited to this kind of job is simpler than thinking holistically about prerequisites.
Kinda tangential to your actual comment, but you might be interested in this recent episode of the Rational Reminder podcast on "Shared Identities and Decision Making".[1] Even groups more arbitrary than these influence our decision-making, problem-solving, cooperation, etc. It goes beyond who's suited for what job to who's suited to be right about what kind of topic. Wild stuff.
Anytime they start by rewinding to millennia ago, that's temperament theory. Keirsey's temperament theory that they mention is fundamentally different from typical MBTI in lots of ways. In fact they can both be used to complement each other.
So it's different, or not, depending on whether you want to be accurate, and true to details, or not. (Also someone should correct the way the Wikipedia article is written regarding MBTI)
Thank you for sharing this. That is so weird. Having been part of an MBA program meant that my profile was reviewed through multiple similar tests, but I have not heard of that one.
The thing that jumped at me is that it is not some small companies that are using these. US Banks apparently used it with its private capital customers[1] ( I am almost curious as to how it was applied ).
yw. There is a general shortage of this kind of exploratory activity-theory, so there are common usage patterns.
I'd imagine that in capital markets it's used to help keep things more objective, to lower the personal stakes for all parties, and demonstrate an interest in constructive partnership. One of the best relationship techniques is helping the other feel understood, and that is also where tools like this one will always stand out. If you can't connect with someone via the normal methods, it's usually worth trying to connect through their self-identified objective preferences.
Those are opt-in communities, though, so there's selection bias. AFAIK, there wasn't anything in the company's hiring practices that self-selected for folks who would embrace this kind of stuff.
