I think Craig has a point: as the wise Bruce Lee said in his film "Enter 
the Dragon", sometimes we must use the art of 'fighting without fighting'.

Its nevertheless worth having ammunition about the MBTI, if only to talk 
to your colleagues about.

One of the issues with the MBTI is that it falsely dichtomises people by 
virtue of its scoring procedure. Scores are calculated by agreeing or 
disagreeing with the items, and numbers are simply totted up. Then, 
scores below a mid-range cut-off point are subtracted from 100, scores 
above it are added to 100. In this way a bi-modal distribution is 
artifically created that places people into dichotomous categories 
(introvert or extrovert, thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving, and 
so on). The categories are draw from Jung's theory, but their 
reproduction by the MBTI depends on this arbitrary scoring procedure. 
Without it, the MBTI would not reproduce the theory it pretends to be 
based upon.

Another more general critiques of the possibility of using 
questionnaires to say something meaningful about persons, and indeed of 
the entire notion of personality as a fixed essence, appears in Potter & 
Wetherell's 'Discourse and Social Psychology'.

Maybe others can speak on this but I think I'm right to say that the 
purveyors of the MBTI say that it should only be used for career 
guidance, never for selection/recruitment purposes. If this is right it 
might be further useful ammunition.

Finally, if you do submit, its relatively easy - as with many other 
psychometric tests - to present yourself within it as whatever kind of 
person you think your management team would like you to be. Have a read 
of the categories online and as you read the items you'll mostly see how 
they map on: you can then decide which ones to endorse. There'll be some 
where it isn't obvious but the majority are obvious enough that you'll 
be able to present much as you think they would like you to.

Good luck!
J.



Matthew Horrocks wrote:
> Dear list 
> 
>  
> 
> I am turning to you for some clarity of thinking, (as regards this
> assessment). 
> 
>  
> 
> My team at work is asking that we complete this assessment for 'fun team
> building'. We are being encouraged to participate in this. It has been
> sold as teambuilding, but there is an implicit pressure to participate,
> & management have not said anything about how they really want to use
> the data, (other than the very vague notion of 'teambuilding').
> 
>  
> 
> This is not a comfortable position to be in and I am finding it hard to
> put my unease about this in coherent terms to management. 
> 
>  
> 
> I suspect there is a some guidance (?from professional bodies) about the
> ethical use of psychometric assessments: who/how/when/why should be
> used. Can anyone point me towards such guidance? Furthermore the Myers
> Briggs tool I gather is not a well validated tool (?).  Can anyone point
> me towards solid criticisms of it?
> 
>  
> 
> So I wonder of anyone on the list can share some ideas to help me think
> about how I might form a coherent, sensible objection to taking part in
> this assessment..... and I thought this whole process unsettling, but
> interesting when in this increasingly anxiety provoking economic
> climate, employers are turning to elements of the psy-complex, and
> management guru stuff, to continue to make life unpredictable for
> employees !
> 
>  
> 
> Cheers, Matt.
> 
> This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment
> may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system:
> you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the
> University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation.
> ___________________________________
> The Community Psychology List has a new website/blog at:
> http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/
> There is a threaded discussion forum:
> http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi
> There is a twitter feed:
> http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK
> To post on the website blog, forum or twitter feed, contact Grant or David at the email addresses below.
> David Fryer ([log in to unmask]) or Grant Jeffrey ([log in to unmask])
> To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website:
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK
> 

___________________________________
The Community Psychology List has a new website/blog at:
http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/
There is a threaded discussion forum:
http://www.communitypsychology.co.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi
There is a twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK
To post on the website blog, forum or twitter feed, contact Grant or David at the email addresses below.
David Fryer ([log in to unmask]) or Grant Jeffrey ([log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK