Powered by glolg
Display Preferences Most Recent Entries Chatterbox Blog Links Site Statistics Category Tags About Me, Myself and Gilbert XML RSS Feed
Wednesday, Mar 25, 2020 - 22:55 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Psych And The Army

Some pretty unprecedented economic measures have just been unleashed, with the Federal Reserve unleashing Infinite Quantitative Easing upon the world (you can watch the live video feed of furious money-printing from inside the Fed, appropriately accompanied by the soundtrack of GAS GAS GAS, given the simultaneous Oil Dumping War between Saudi Arabia & Russia, but more on that next time). On the fiscal side, a US$2 trillion stimulus package has also just passed, which includes a thousand bucks for every adult, that would seem to vindicate Andrew Yang's UBI (but not really - again, next time). Seeing as interest rates have already been slashed to essentially zero, the American authorities seem to have blown their load of countermeasures against a full-blown recession, less literally dumping bags of money out of helicopters. Well, looking at the charts and the horrendous earnings and jobs reports yet to drop, this ain't over by a long shot.

I mean, let's get it straight here - India's 1.4 billion people have just entered a three-week lockdown, and America's case load appears to have just begun its exponential phase, for all of GEOTUS's much-appreciated cheerleading and emotional support, which has seen his approval ratings soar yet again even among his usual detractors, despite the FAKE NEWS. For the rest of us, the best way to contribute would seem to be just staying home. About this, you guys can totally depend fully on me here; I have trained my entire life for this, just for this eventuality. This is truly my time to shine!


No need to thank us
(Source: tapas.io)


This said, as might have been inferred from the title, the meat of this blog post isn't actually about the financial markets or the coronavirus (for once). Rather, it's inspired by my briefing last week on being phased into the MINDEF Reserve on April 1st (no joke), which with any luck, should be my last National Service experience. Said briefing included a pitch for the ROVERS and Expertise Conversion Scheme for volunteers, which as the officer-in-charge was eager to emphasize, comes with the Captain-equivalent rank of ME4. Of course, it's not really the same thing, but they might get a few bites with that.

My to-be exit from the system did have me recall the psychometric tests from my initial enlistment, and also some reflection on my time in the armed forces. Clearly, some personalities have it better in such environments than others, and while we're probably nowhere as harsh as say South Korea in this regard, the hierarchical, take-orders yes-sir culture can obviously be very hard on some, especially when dysfunctional. For enlisted ranks at least, encouraged behaviour would be akin to the Law of Jante, with the collective - even if misguided - above all.


The MBTI

It would then seem only natural for the system-designers to try and optimize organizational efficiency by slotting people where they best belong, which has been done to some extent through vocational sorting (with personal input beginning to enter consideration, from a few years back) via educational history and abovementioned psychometrics - which, however, would appear to be roughly equivalent to a logical/spatial intelligence test, like the U.S. military's ASVAB or AGCT. Coincidentally, reports have it that these tests will now be supplemented by a personality assessment (TAPAS), for the U.S. Army at least.

Which brings us to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It was quite popular some twenty years ago when I was in high school - we all got typed then - and has by all accounts been humming along just fine, to the disgust of its many critics. But just to provide a brief overview, the MBTI is derived from Jungian cognitive theory, in particular that we operate based on four psychological preferences: Introversion/Extroversion, Sensing/iNtuition, Thinking/Feeling & Judging/Perception. Each individual supposedly prefers one quality from each of these four dichotomies, which gives sixteen distinct types:


[N.B. Percentages and descriptions subject to debate]
(Source: pinterest.com)


There has been general disapproval for the MBTI by more-serious psych junkies due to its supposed lack of validity, poor reliability and forcing into dichotomies, with some sneering at it being no better than astrology, and recommending the Big Five model instead. About this, it could be noted that for all their supposed differences in focus (conscious vs. unconscious), there exist correlations between Big Five traits and MBTI preferences, with nascent research by Nardi on matching EEG scans with MBTI types. Bolder defenders of MBTI have even gone on the attack, by accusing the Big Five model of simply being a bunch of statistical correlations with no theory of mind behind it (which, by the way, can be interpreted as Te vs. Ti)

We're clearly not going to be able to settle the argument of whether MBTI or the Big Five is superior here, or indeed delve into the many other options such as the Enneagram of Personality, Socionics (perhaps summarizable as a Russian variant of the MBTI) and the unavoidable extensions to the MBTI proper itself (one of the more popular of which might be the additional Assertive/Turbulent dichotomy). The main point here is whether the MBTI can be useful without being scientifically accurate, which I suppose it probably is, which is why it continues to be deployed by reputable organizations, including universities. One area in which MBTI surely beats the Big Five, one figures, is that the MBTI tells a story with its type descriptions, and allows fellowship with those of the same type (see dedicated subreddits, for instance). In contrast, with the Big Five, you get something like O - 73%, C - 28%, E - 19%, A - 80%, N - 26%; what the heck is that, some unholy mashup between Ocean's Eleven, SE7EN and a calculator?

It certainly doesn't take much imagination to suppose that the military would be able to wring some value out of the MBTI, imperfect as it may be - consider two recruits whose abilities and intelligence are roughly average (from the ASVAB/AGCT or equivalent), but one is a clear extrovert, and the other a clear introvert. Then, it would suit all involved were the former to be sent to fill up an open slot in an infantry platoon, and the latter be tasked with solitary observational duties. Switch the postings, and you might have a deserter who couldn't stand being cooped up alone in a watchtower for hours at a stroke, and a mass shooter who's heard Jim's recounting of his drinking adventures one time too many. Of course, any leader worth his salt would have taken these personality differences into account, so think of standardized testing as a systematic first cut.

China appears to be ahead of the curve here, having adopted a refined MBTI-G test, although there's also extant literature from the U.S. Marine Corps on how Thinkers and Judgers (TJs) dominate middle-grade to senior officer ranks, comprising 78% of those personnel despite being only about 30% of the general population. But back to the Chinese military, Kamphausen et al. (2008) reports that for the People's Liberation Army, "...the second part of the psychological evaluation involves passing a Chinese equivalent of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test. If the scores are too strongly skewed towards certain personality types, he or she must undergo 'discussions' about the makeup of their character". As it also happens, there also exists a healthy Chinese MBTI community, and facility with the language allowed a far deeper investigation of this quite fascinating tidbit.

First, the actual guidelines were traced:

2007年高考体检及军队公安司法院校招生中规定

第四十二条 按照《中国人格类型量表》实施检测，检测判定ENFP、INTJ、ISTP人格类型，且符合下列情形之一的，应当进行结构性访谈：
  • I 得分大于30分
  • N 得分大于30分
  • F 得分大于28分
  • P 得分大于28分
结构性访谈依据《军队院校招收学员心理访谈评价量表》进行评价，结果大于7分者，不合格。

So there we have our answer, it seems: ENFP, INTJ and ISTP personalities have to go through further screening, and may be outright rejected if certain facets (N/F/P for ENFP, I/N for INTJ and I/P for ISTP, so it seems) are too extreme. The automatic first question must then be: why these three types exactly? On this, there has been much speculation on Chinese forums, such as Doubian and Zhihu, which might be interpreted thus:

  • ENFP: Too dashing and charismatic, too emotionally-oriented, undisciplined and unserious; potential to incite discontent due to being well-liked.

  • INTJ: Too independent, too prone to doing tasks one's own way, steadfast refusal to be brainwashed into following prevailing military culture, resists behavioural modification via peer pressure (N.B. as noted in the USMC paper raised previously, this is actually an overrepresented type further up; it's survival through the ranks to get there that's the problem)

  • ISTP: Too private and self-assured, again limited effectiveness of peer influence. Moreover tends to be mechanically-inclined and a bit of an adrenaline addict... which seems great for a soldier, but only if one can be sure that these tendencies can be kept under control in a base filled with explosives and tanks.

Now, clearly every single type possibly has inclinations that are not best suited for the military; however, since the recruiters can't reject everybody, the point here would be to save the greatest amount of trouble with the least amount of shrinkage in the draftee pool (ENFP: ~10%, ISTP: ~6%, INTJ: ~2%, pulled-out-of-hat average from various sources). While we're at this, the rest of the types might as well be covered, from my accumulated impressions (of course, it's not terribly hard to test as whatever you want if you know what they're looking out for, but let's just say honesty's probably a good policy):

  • ENTJ: One of the TJ types, stereotypical general staff-level visionary head honcho. Share the same functions within their stack (Te/Ni/Se/Fi) with INTJ, though higher Extroverted Thinking and Extroverted Sensing probably makes them better-adapted to the military overall.

  • ESTJ: Probably the baseline military commander type. Naturally highly regimented, lives in the here-and-now, takes and gives orders without resentment, likes to yell a lot. Might as well be born in uniform.

  • ISTJ: Similar to the ESTJ, but yells less.

  • ISFJ: More people-centric than the ISTJ, sounds pretty dependable buddy material and platoon glue to me.

  • INFP: It hasn't been missed by many commentators that the four preferences disfavoured by the MBTI-G assessment are I/N/F/P, which had them wondering why ENFP/INTJ/ISTP got filtered out, but not INFP. The typical line of reasoning seems to be that despite having all these four preferences, the INFP combination is more easily kept in line through emotional guilt etc., and less likely to actively create trouble.

  • INTP: Your standard boffin misfit, kinda like the INTJ, but less intense and more easy-going and simple to get along with, thanks to Extraverted Feeling at the bottom of their functional stack. May get adopted as the company mascot if particularly likeable.

  • INFJ: Perhaps the closest type to INTJ due to shared dominant Introverted Intuition, but auxiliary Extraverted Feeling really helps a ton with camaraderie and fitting in.

  • ENFJ: INFJ with extra big brother vibe.

  • ESFJ: The fatherly sergeant-major upgrade to ENFJ.

  • ENTP: A bit of a troll, but keeps life interesting, can usually get stuff done while he's at it too.

  • ESTP: The yet-more grounded and resourceful variant of ENTP, quite possibly the one running the underground black market in cigarettes and combat rations.

  • ESFP: Tends to be cheerful and willing if nothing else; being extroverted helps quite a bit, since military unit life is largely socially-centered.

  • ISFP: ESFP with less of the boozing and raucous irresponsibility, plus reduced pesky introspection compared to the INFP, what's not to like?


Anyway, that's another chapter of my life done with - regular programming is scheduled to make a return for the next post.



comments (0) - email - share - print - direct link
trackbacks (0) - trackback url


Next: Quis Custodiet


Related Posts:
Excuse Me, Are You A Model?
Understanding Me
You Bet Your Life
Split Vision
Some Work And Some Play
Back to top

Copyright © 2006-2025 GLYS. All Rights Reserved.