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Personality Types (Myer-Briggs)

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That's a pretty big change. If I'm not mistaken, ESTP is the "I am charming, witty, popular, and want to experience all things!" type. I can see changing one letter or two, but if people can go almost completely the opposite direction this may not be a "type" at all but rather a chosen form of expression which can be changed fairly easily with a level of self-awareness.

Personality stikes me as a complex psychological question, but I think it's safe to say your personality type will depend heavily on your ideas and experiences. At the time I last took the test I was in what I think of as my "Machiavellian Period" where I generally considered most people to be irrational suckers provided by the universe for my amusement. I retained a lot of respect for reason, i.e. working hard in my engineering classes, but had a kind of Gail Wynard understanding of people. My readings at the time tended towards Machiavelli, Robert Greene, Nietzsche, et. al.

Since that time I took philosophy classes, witnessed "new left" rallies, went through several relationships, completed college, attended a lot of military training, and watched peoples' ideas in action in the real world. Most importantly I read "The Fountainhead", re-read "Atlas Shrugged", and read basically the rest of Rand's fiction and non-fiction. This along with Piekoff's "Ominous Parallels" and "OPAR" had a huge impact on me. In short, my ideas evolved significantly.

Not that I think that myers-briggs is the most accurate of tests, but saying I went from an ESTP "Promoter Artisan" with an adept ability to manipulate others to an INTJ "Mastermind Rational" adept at achieving clearly envisioned goals is a pretty fair assessment.

Edited by SkyTrooper
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For the information of this forum regarding Myers and Briggs typology, there is an alternative personality theory that is also based on Carl Jung's work. In my opinion, it is much better. It is called socionics, and here is a forum you can visit to learn more about it:

http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin/

Most other sites are in Russian

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Personality stikes me as a complex psychological question, but I think it's safe to say your personality type will depend heavily on your ideas and experiences.

<snip>

Not that I think that myers-briggs is the most accurate of tests, but saying I went from an ESTP "Promoter Artisan" with an adept ability to manipulate others to an INTJ "Mastermind Rational" adept at achieving clearly envisioned goals is a pretty fair assessment.

Absolutely right. A properly administered MTBI should include a discussion that the test is descriptive, not proscriptive. It describes your current tendencies only. You are always free to choose your actions, and may easily diverge from the predictions of the test.

What's important is that you recognize yourself in the description of your type. If the results don't seem right to you, they probably aren't. (As a side note to the person who mentioned the universally-applicable astrology reading, MTBI type descriptions are not that generic. I've read descriptions of other types and thought "that's really not me", and the same is true for my ESFP spouse reading non-ESFP descriptions.)

Personality types do change over time, as you've noted. Most people develop their inferior functions as they mature, making them less decisively one type or the other. Congratulations on discovering other principles to live by! (I'm not saying INTJ is "better" than ESTP, but rather that it's good to have developed functions on both sides of the lines.)

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I remember reading a profile of the four major groups (xSxJ, xSxP, xNTx, and xNFx in that order) and thinking I saw a bit of myself in the SJs and SPs both. The NT was dead nuts on. The NF description made little sense to me at all. Sure enough when I took the test I scored a perfect T, and was about halfway between the P and the J. I was strongly (but not perfectly) N. Which would explain why I saw some S tendencies (i.e., seeing a bit of myself in SJ and SP), split between the two categories, and saw absolutely *no* NF in my personality.

A lot of pop psychology tells people there are two types of people (which one are you?), and I've generally found I don't fit either of their two proposed buckets all that well. I suspect the two buckets are often basically SP and SJ--together they form 3/4 (or more!) of the population and the NTs and NFs are a distinct minority, generally considered oddballs by the rest.

(Of course the simple truth is that NTs in fact ought to be put in charge. :) )

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NTs for the win! Gotta love us NTs.

I remember reading a profile of the four major groups (xSxJ, xSxP, xNTx, and xNFx in that order) and thinking I saw a bit of myself in the SJs and SPs both. The NT was dead nuts on. The NF description made little sense to me at all. Sure enough when I took the test I scored a perfect T, and was about halfway between the P and the J. I was strongly (but not perfectly) N. Which would explain why I saw some S tendencies (i.e., seeing a bit of myself in SJ and SP), split between the two categories, and saw absolutely *no* NF in my personality.

A lot of pop psychology tells people there are two types of people (which one are you?), and I've generally found I don't fit either of their two proposed buckets all that well. I suspect the two buckets are often basically SP and SJ--together they form 3/4 (or more!) of the population and the NTs and NFs are a distinct minority, generally considered oddballs by the rest.

(Of course the simple truth is that NTs in fact ought to be put in charge. :) )

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I have done Mayers-briggs test several times over the years and have always scored INTJ or INTP.

Last time I took the test was through my old job. They had come up with the "great" idea of having team-building sessions where everyone took personality tests. It was quite interesting to see how everyone scored.

The first thing I noticed was that the one person I respected the most and the one person I despised the most(and oh goodness how I despised that man!), scored the same on the test. Then there was also another INTJ, this guy was a former priest and socialist historian.

Very interesting how so different people can get the same result from the test.

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I got Guardian. I think that's good. But I doubt it makes up 40-45% of the population. Seems like most people act a lot more on emotion.

http://www.keirsey.com/handler.aspx?s=keir...&c=overview

Nick, Guardian is roughly equivalent to the _S_J MBTI type, so it can accomodate both thinkers and feelers. There are a lot of feeler guardians out there. In your particular case though, you seem to me like an ISTP. Look it up, and tell me if you think I'm right.

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I got Artisan. Makes sense for me I guess, but I agree that this test has a lot of false alternatives... a good amount of questions really are more situational, and I could have a different answer depending on the given context. I tried to generalize as much as I could.

edit: And for what its worth, I just took the Jung test and got an ENTJ with the following percentages:

1% extraverted

50% intuitive

62% thinking

11% judging

See, the questions are situational. Depending on the type of questions I could answer in such a way as to be called an Artisan, and from an entirely different set of questions I got a Rational ENTJ.

Edited by BlackInMind
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*** Mod's note: Merged topic. - sN ***

I have found this very useful to know when it comes to honing in on my value hierarchy. There is plenty of room for variation within it, but it continually amazes me how accurately it can predict a person's primary values. One of my favorite forms of entertainment is to figure out what type my friends are. And in fact, my type, ENFP, predicts that understanding my values is one of my primary values!

There is a test here http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp. (I find that the way you interpret the questions can impact your score, though the pattern I see is that stray interpretations are usually in only one parameter. For example, an INTP might choose responses that come out as an INTJ. But examining the type descriptions can help iron out those differences.)

Here are some good places to find descriptions of the types:

http://keirsey.com/handler.aspx?s=keirsey&...&c=overview

http://typelogic.com/

http://www.personalitypage.com/portraits.html

So what is your type?

Edited by softwareNerd
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I have found this very useful to know when it comes to honing in on my value hierarchy. There is plenty of room for variation within it, but it continually amazes me how accurately it can predict a person's primary values. One of my favorite forms of entertainment is to figure out what type my friends are. And in fact, my type, ENFP, predicts that understanding my values is one of my primary values!

There is a test here http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp. (I find that the way you interpret the questions can impact your score, though the pattern I see is that stray interpretations are usually in only one parameter. For example, an INTP might choose responses that come out as an INTJ. But examining the type descriptions can help iron out those differences.)

So what is your type?

Very interesting.

My type is INTJ

Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging

Strength of the preferences %

56 75 62 33

... as seems to be the type of the 99% of the board...

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Used to be INTJ, this newer test puts me as INTP---the Architect :) though. Cool I guess. Don't know what else to say.

It is difficult for an Architect to listen to nonsense, even in a casual conversation, without pointing out the speaker's error... Architects regard all discussions as a search for understanding, and believe their function is to eliminate inconsistencies, which can make communication with them an uncomfortable experience for many.

If the INTP doesn't realize the value of attending to other people's feelings, he or she may become overly critical and sarcastic with others.

Sounds a little like me... lol

Edited by EC
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That's interesting. I once took the test for kicks around early high school and got INFP, then retook it a couple years later and then got INTP. That it changed was what I found interesting more than so much being convinced the information in the test was particularly useful or the test itself was well made. It might be interesting though if somebody, as mentioned earlier in the thread, made a version of the test with better formed questions.

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INTP here. Perhaps I am less attached to definitions, more interested in 'directions' then a J? Directions, meaning, given a set of definitions what are the implications - where I am concerned with the implications and could care less about what the definition may or may not be? I don't know (see).

I think Myers-Briggs is super useful for management - particularly in government. It's hard to fire people in government, so the sort of people who just can't get along because they are so stubbornly aligned to a personality type - those people can be managed by catering explicitly to their types. This is as mundane as - say two empolyees are struggling to work together - telling one person precisely factually what they are doing wrong then asking them to correct it, and telling the other how sorry you feel for their struggle and how well you think of them. In such situations these methods are very successful (I speak anecdotally from family members who are in government management positions).

Other then that I wonder two things about it. First, can't your personality change, isn't there a certain amount of choice involved? Second, to what extent do these tests select your idealized version of yourself, rather than what you really are? I suppose sometimes they have coworkers answer for coworkers during workshops and things.

Finally, I understand the I/E breakdown to be between those who self-validate and those who require external validation - not on sociability. Isn't then 'E' rather undesired, a weakness more than a personality? No offense to 'E's, I only mean that as an example. As in, by taking the quality of say, feelings over rational thought, as a personality trait rather than a weakness, aren't you legitimizing that weakness. This is the 'gist' of my discomfort with MB.

On a final note, one thing about Objectivism I like is that it doesn't require everyone to be an Objectivist. The intellectual leaders are objectivists. An individual is perfectly permitted to base his/her life on feelings/external validation/tradition/fixed thinking, and on and on so long as they obey the law and are willing to work for whatever values they hope to obtain. That is, if a person's objective values are understood by them through a subjective prism, they are permitted this so long as they understand that the objective values they hope to obtain must be gained objectively. I think of gift-givers for example, who derive immense satisfaction from having their virtues affirmed by other humans. So long as they are rewarding virtues in their giving, and have properly obtained what they give, then is it not their perogative to be a giver? This is in contrast to those who give gifts to obtain validation from zeroes, whose very lack of virtue makes them easy targets for giving.

I'm saying that I can see how some personality types might be more susceptible to subjectivism, mysticism, value-destruction, nihilism etc. However, I think that in the right context, any personality type can operate objectively. Which is why the sanction of the INTJ in particular, but any NT is such a vitally important issue. INTJ's are maybe guardians of value in society? The 'Masterminds' right? Well, I'm not being deterministic, just speculating on how personality types might play into the big picture. I'm feeling very P right now, self-fulfilling prophecy?

Edited by ZSorenson
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http://www.advisorteam.com/temperament_sor...er.asp?partid=1

the above link is for those who've never taken it. I've taken it a few times over the last year to see if i've progressed into something new, especially having read atlas shrugged, but found that i'm the same INTJ i always was. Upon further research, I found that Ayn Rand was also an INTJ, too. Was curious if there are others of this personality type on the board. My initial thoughts are that most people on this board will probably be either entj's or intj's. Anyways....thanks for the input.

I'm an INTJ.

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