# You Are Outside Personality Theory



## Forest Nymph (Aug 25, 2018)

I get that MBTI sets up different personality types in a flattering way and that I've even noticed the personality types in non Western thought via literature, which is the only reason I still follow it. 

But traditional psychiatry only recognizes the Big Five. They don't recognize you, for your racial, social or economic difference. If you aren't a stable ENFJ you're defective. I have never hated a personality theory more than Big Five. It's the source of Personality Disorders. Now if you say your mother hit you and she had a personality disorder I don't disagree with you but honestly, hitting people isn't a guarantee of Personality Disorder nor is screaming. ALWAYS question it. I'm not saying mental illness can't exist it does. But it's a lot less common than white society has created with their own traps.


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## TallGreen (May 6, 2017)

If mental illness is over diagnosed (it could be I don't know) it wont be down to the big five specifically. All personality theories are flawed. Broad generalizations will never fully capture what an individual is. What is more concerning tome though is for people who really need care, there are not many proven long term effective methods. So weather you are diagnosed or not you may not have access to good care. (true for non mental illnesses as well)


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## Forest Nymph (Aug 25, 2018)

Ok so BIG FIVE IS the psychology establishment. Do you not get that? It's not a choice. Idiot.


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## TallGreen (May 6, 2017)

Forest Nymph said:


> Ok so BIG FIVE IS the psychology establishment. Do you not get that? It's not a choice. Idiot.


You cannot use a personality test to diagnose illness. Big five barely scratches the surface of what psychology as a discipline is. What does anxiety, ptsd or depression have to do with your type? Very little, any type no matter which theory you are using to type people, can suffer from these illnesses.


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## Blue Wolf (Feb 8, 2019)

Woah, where did that name calling come from?

I perceive MBTI as not being flattering so much as objective. I prefer to know what is and not have someone else make the jump for me to good or bad. That is why I'm more cynical about Big Five and Enneagram also. They are both based on how we deviate from some norm that is never discussed. I don't accept the premise of one norm for all therefore the deviations mean nothing to me. I'd follow a logic more similar to Keirsey's that different temperaments exist and aren't necessarily good or bad, just what is. For instance, one type may learn one way and another type a different way. Who says there is only one right way to learn?


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## MaysInfectious (May 31, 2018)

Blue Wolf said:


> Woah, where did that name calling come from?
> Who says there is only one right way to learn?


Maybe she's in need of a good shagging, her relationship status says "seeking" :laughing: … The Zionist and Illuminati says there is only one way to do things....Keep your tin foil hat on and keep moving!


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## TallGreen (May 6, 2017)

MaysInfectious said:


> Maybe she's in need of a good shagging, her relationship status says "seeking"


rude


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## MaysInfectious (May 31, 2018)

Lol how so? Maybe distasteful.. Definitely not rude lmao.


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## NipNip (Apr 16, 2015)

Forest Nymph said:


> Ok so BIG FIVE IS the psychology establishment. Do you not get that? It's not a choice. Idiot.


What. Are you saying diagnosed conditions fall under Big Five?
If so, why, how? What do you mean?

I would say the _opposite_: depression, OCD, autism; they are all exceptions to the rules of any personality theory.
E.g. Normally, ENFJ. But overly X because of diagnosed condition Y.

Typology doesn't really bother about that second part or identity - and we can't expect it to include it either.


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## Suntide (Dec 22, 2018)

No personality theory is ever going to be enough to accurately describe all people because they are inherently limiting. It's a good starting point for people who want to do some self-reflection but it is by no means an end goal nor an identity. Unfortunately, MBTI especially has the habit of attracting young people who are desperate for an identity and latch onto a type description to tell them who they are. 

ESFJ may be the closest type to who I am, but I am way more than a type. Ultimately the reason I quit typology forums for a while was because I got absolutely sick of being treated the way people perceive my type. 'You type as an XXXX so you are my idea of an XXXX and I will treat you as such.' The only reason I came to this forum was because typology forums are some of the only forums that are alive nowadays, and because there are other psychology subforums besides typology I can talk in. I've considered taking the type out of my profile many times, but part of me hopes that by keeping it up I can change the stereotypes some people have ingrained in them about SFJs.


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## angelfish (Feb 17, 2011)

I have read the most disappointing misinformation about psychiatry and psychology on this forum over the last two weeks. What's going on? 

"Traditional psychiatry" not only isn't a thing (traditional where? since when?), but psychological _or_ psychiatric analysis of the mind and brain in the developed world at present _typically does_ account for sociocultural influence, the Big 5 isn't a standard formal diagnostic tool in current practice, and everyone doesn't have to be an ENFJ-T to be considered mentally healthy.

_That said_, I do take some issue with the Big 5, mainly that it's used more as an explanatory/predictive tool than a personal development (like MBTI/Enneagram) tool. Here is the full Critique section from the FFM article on Wikipedia and my TLDR list.


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Critique[edit]
The proposed Big Five model has been subjected to considerable critical scrutiny[204][205][206][207][208][209][60][210][77][excessive citations] and defense for the model.[211]

Subsequent critical replies by Jack Block at the University of California, Berkeley followed.[212][213][214] It has been argued that there are limitations to the scope of the Big Five model as an explanatory or predictive theory.[60][210] It has also been argued that measures of the Big Five account for only 56% of the normal personality trait sphere alone (not even considering the abnormal personality trait sphere).[60] Also, the static Big Five[215] is not theory-driven, it is merely a statistically-driven investigation of certain descriptors that tend to cluster together often based on less than optimal factor analytic procedures.[60]:431–433[77] Measures of the Big Five constructs appear to show some consistency in interviews, self-descriptions and observations, and this static five-factor structure seems to be found across a wide range of participants of different ages and cultures.[216] However, while genotypic temperament trait dimensions might appear across different cultures, the phenotypic expression of personality traits differs profoundly across different cultures as a function of the different socio-cultural conditioning and experiential learning that takes place within different cultural settings.[217]

Moreover, the fact that the Big Five model was based on lexical hypothesis, (i.e. on the verbal descriptors of individual differences) indicated strong methodological flaws in this model, especially related to its main factors, Extraversion and Neuroticism. First, there is a natural pro-social bias of language in people's verbal evaluations. After all, language is an invention of group dynamics that was developed to facilitate socialization, the exchange of information and to synchronize group activity. This social function of language therefore creates a sociability bias in verbal descriptors of human behaviour: there are more words related to social than physical or even mental aspects of behavior. The sheer number of such descriptors will cause them to group into a largest factor in any language, and such grouping has nothing to do with the way that core systems of individual differences are set up. Second, there is also a negativity bias in emotionality (i.e. most emotions have negative affectivity), and there are more words in language to describe negative rather than positive emotions. Such asymmetry in emotional valence creates another bias in language. Experiments using the lexical hypothesis approach indeed demonstrated that the use of lexical material skews the resulting dimensionality according to a sociability bias of language and a negativity bias of emotionality, grouping all evaluations around these two dimensions.[208] This means that the two largest dimensions in the Big Five model might be just an artifact of the lexical approach that this model employed.

Limited scope[edit]
One common criticism is that the Big Five does not explain all of human personality. Some psychologists have dissented from the model precisely because they feel it neglects other domains of personality, such as religiosity, manipulativeness/machiavellianism, honesty, sexiness/seductiveness, thriftiness, conservativeness, masculinity/femininity, snobbishness/egotism, sense of humour, and risk-taking/thrill-seeking.[209][218] Dan P. McAdams has called the Big Five a "psychology of the stranger", because they refer to traits that are relatively easy to observe in a stranger; other aspects of personality that are more privately held or more context-dependent are excluded from the Big Five.[219]

In many studies, the five factors are not fully orthogonal to one another; that is, the five factors are not independent.[220][221] Orthogonality is viewed as desirable by some researchers because it minimizes redundancy between the dimensions. This is particularly important when the goal of a study is to provide a comprehensive description of personality with as few variables as possible.

Methodological issues[edit]
Factor analysis, the statistical method used to identify the dimensional structure of observed variables, lacks a universally recognized basis for choosing among solutions with different numbers of factors.[222] A five factor solution depends on some degree of interpretation by the analyst. A larger number of factors may underlie these five factors. This has led to disputes about the "true" number of factors. Big Five proponents have responded that although other solutions may be viable in a single dataset, only the five factor structure consistently replicates across different studies.[223]

Moreover, the factor analysis that this model is based on is a linear method incapable of capturing nonlinear, feedback and contingent relationships between core systems of individual differences.[208]

Theoretical status[edit]
A frequent criticism is that the Big Five is not based on any underlying theory; it is merely an empirical finding that certain descriptors cluster together under factor analysis.[222] Although this does not mean that these five factors do not exist, the underlying causes behind them are unknown.

Jack Block's final published work before his death in January 2010 drew together his lifetime perspective on the five-factor model.[224]

He summarized his critique of the model in terms of:

the atheoretical nature of the five-factors.
their "cloudy" measurement.
the model's inappropriateness for studying early childhood.
the use of factor analysis as the exclusive paradigm for conceptualizing personality.
the continuing non-consensual understandings of the five-factors.
the existence of unrecognized but successful efforts to specify aspects of character not subsumed by the five-factors.
He went on to suggest that repeatedly observed higher order factors hierarchically above the proclaimed Big Five personality traits may promise deeper biological understanding of the origins and implications of these superfactors.

Evidence for six factors rather than five[edit]
It has been noted that even though early lexical studies in the English language indicated five large groups of personality traits, more recent, and more comprehensive, cross-language studies have provided evidence for six large groups rather than five.[225] These six groups forms the basis of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Based on these findings it has been suggested that the Big Five system should be replaced by HEXACO, or revised to better align with lexical evidence.[226]

- Wikipedia




TLDR:
- The Big Five model may not capture all aspects of normal personality, much less abnormal. It has been noted that most Big 5 measures are easily observed, and the model may miss more reserved/private dimensions of personality.
- Its structure is based on gathered statistics rather than theory. It operates off observed clusters of traits. While the clusters/factors are not invalidated by this, it doesn't explain why they exist.
- The same fundamental personality traits may be expressed differently in different cultures, which the Big 5 might misinterpret.
- The Big 5 is based off analysis of language, and language is inherently biased towards sociability. Also, because the Big 5 is based off analysis of language, and there are more words to describe negative rather than positive affect, emotional analysis will tend to be imbalanced. This may render Extraversion and Neuroticism fundamentally skewed.
- A number of studies have evidenced that the five factors are not completely independent, so scores on one factor may skew others.
- Factor analysis is linear and cannot capture more sophisticated relationships in individual difference like feedback and contingency.
- The model is not workable with young children.
- More recent studies have suggested 6 clusters rather than 5, hence HEXACO.


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## JosephZavala (Oct 1, 2019)

Literature is really interesting to study from this point of view.


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