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Types #8X ← ✸ → Types #10X
Anonymous said: Hi, Akhromant!I just checked your list with typings and I am interested to know how you came to the conclusion that Marilyn Monroe and Frank James could be ENFPs rather than INFJs. What are the possible reasons behind INFJ-ENFP mistype(or INJ-ENP in general, because for some reason I see a lot of mistypes happening between these two groups)?
Hi! :) Yes, that’s a good observation. Let’s take a look at the problem first, and then at those two cases.
There’s a particular mistyping tendency inside the STs, NTs, SFs and NFs that goes from the EJ to a supposed “IP”, and from the EP to “IJ”. So apart from ENFPs mistyped as “INFJs” you also have many ESFJs mistyped as “ISFPs”, ESFPs mistyped as “ISFJs”, ENFJs as “INFPs”, ENTPs as “INTJs”, etc. The most important factor here is probably the confusion caused by the auxiliary and tertiary functions of the nonexistent e-i-e-i/i-e-i-e “stacks”, because in reality ENFP is the intuitive type with auxiliary Fe and tertiary Ti (not INFJ), ESFJ is the feeling type that has auxiliary Se and tertiary Ni (not ISFP), ENFJ is the feeling type with Ne2-Si3 (not INFP), ENTP is the intuitive with Te2-Fi3 (not INTJ), etc.
Another reason for many “INFJ”-ENFPs is the additional problem that comes from what I wrote in post #59: mistyping feeling dominants as “perceivers" (FJs as “FPs”, like Myers did herself) which, in turn, makes people mistype FPs as “FJs”. And then there’s the fact that ENFP is probably the most diverse or versatile of the 16 types, so they get mistaken for lots of different things (it’s that Ti3 again, conditioned by the particular unconscious experiences of the person: Si4). The fake stereotypes get repeated over and over (I think that’s part of what James is doing), people start classifying everybody (without checking or questioning), and the codes end up being meaningless.
I’ll try to explain how I got to those typings.
Marilyn Monroe was actually an ESFJ (when I thought she was ENFP I was making the classic error of mistyping a feeling dominant as “perceiver”). Mistaking her for an “INFJ” is a case of Puzzle mistype. She was always saying how everybody and everything was “nice” or “great”, etc. That kind of continuous praise is not Fi1 at all, but very Fe1. The same can be said about her fear of “being a fake, a phony”: not Fi-dominant in the slightest, but perhaps a manifestation of Ti4, a sense that her real identity didn’t belong to her. She was described as “naive” (not very NJ in general), and also “unfocused”, which could be also related to Fe1, with its “succession of contradictory feeling states”.
One of her main traits was a problem with the physical reality of her body (Se2). She talks about it in different ways, but I think it’s all related to gSi2: a kind of disconnection between how she felt inside and what others could see. Speaking of that, INFJ women tend to have a sort of sophistication, some calculated reserve (people like Greta Garbo or Dita Von Teese), while in general it’s easier for EFs to go farther in “self-exposition” (people like Halle Berry, for example).
Marilyn had an obvious sanguine component of temperament that INFJs don’t have, she was more enthusiastic than controlled, more about social correction than internal achievement, clearly more obsequious than forced, and more Citizen than Narrator.
Frank James has the classic ENFP “spatial absent-mindedness”. You need to type a lot of people to recognize it, but after a while you (hopefully) start to “get it”. It’s not always the same, of course (sometimes it’s very subtle), but you can often detect moments in which they seem to be somewhere else in their minds, looking but not really trusting or minding what they are seeing in front of them (and not in the sense of “trying to remember”, it’s not like that). INFJs look more intently, they can be playful or completely quiet but there’s always a directed confidence in them, and their potential “randomness” is 99% of the time deliberate.
One of the main points in his case is that he is too expressive for an INFJ. He is essentially a performer (like many ENFPs), literally doing every identity implies an expression in all those videos he makes. He’s also too open, calm and informatively funny (instead of teasing or evasive), not really worried or seeking any kind of “perfection”. He has that kind of slow laziness that many people associate with “INPs” (in fact it wouldn’t be surprising if he was mistyped as one). All that points to sanguine/· > melancholic/·. He’s popular on Tumblr (and maybe on other sites, too) mostly because there are many [mistyped] ENFPs around here.
Typing can be very difficult, and certain cases don’t seem to leave the speculative phase, but I think these two are clear. INFJs are more internally intense, the marked ones are usually described as “moody”, not random in the “open to anything” sense, but more like deviously capricious and/or stubborn, and even dangerous. They have a way of playing with other people’s strings that’s difficult to see and explain, but it’s surely not what ENFPs do. ENFPs don’t have what I call Fi1’s private magnetism, instead they are (“work”) better in group settings, or just in public (because they are extraverts, and they have Fe, not Fi).
Anonymous said: Can you make a list of the most and least emotionalliy sensitive personality types? Additionally to the question about emotional sensitivity. Is there a connection between being highly sensitive and having the most internal, subjective functions such as Introverted Intuition and Introverted Feeling as your dominant and/or auxiliary functions?
Additionally to the question about emotional sensitivity. Is there a connection between being highly sensitive and having the most internal, subjective functions such as Introverted Intuition and Introverted Feeling as your dominant and/or auxiliary functions?
There’s another message related to this:
Anonymous said: Hey! Can you please explain why Introverted Intuitives are so sensitive to sensory stimuli? Extraverted sensing is supposed to be about the physical. But Se users I’ve known were quite comfortable with pain and even self damaging which is strange to me. Ni is about the abstract but I’m hypersensitive to physical pain. Why?
The subject of sensitivity is an extremely complex question. The main reason is that people have wildly different definitions for it, they don’t necessarily cover every possibility, and they get confused and mistaken for one another, all the time. Take “emotional sensitivity”, for example.
1. EMOTIONAL SENSITIVITY
What is it? Some look at visible behavior and apply that to dramatic or over-reactive people. Others say it’s about “experiencing intense emotions more frequently and for longer periods of time”. And then there’s a simple “being aware of your own feelings and the feelings of others”.
✸ The first definition is actually expressivity. I talked about this here. In broad terms, expressivity is an E>I thing, and emotionality is S>N, so you could say emotional expressivity is ES>EN>IS>IN. There’s also something related to that in EF>ET>IT>IF (which is conscious Fe > conscious Te > conscious Ti > conscious Fi). But you can find exceptions, of course.
✸ The second one is a different matter. What does “intense emotions” mean? And how do you identify them? Because now it seems we are talking about the internal aspect, or at least about some connection, and if you ask the person for any kind of self-report (on a “scale”, for example) it becomes (remains) an external thing. I guess you could measure involuntary biological variations, but I think you’ll end up with a very similar problem to the one the “lie detectors” have. I don’t think you can arrive at any fixed correlation between observable manifestations and “emotional intensity”. I mean, you can, but I wouldn’t trust it.
In fact, from this perspective I don’t think you can answer the question. And what’s more: you shouldn’t. The whole proposition is prone to end up with some kind of “emotional hierarchy”, in which someone’s “feelings” are “more important” than other’s. And that in itself is wrong. The correct approach to emotions is individual, not comparative, and it’s based on this question: how true is the reason for what you’re feeling? That line of thought can lead you to some interesting places, but just as a clear example, you know that one stupid prank can make a person angry for something that didn’t happen, so that anger is not based on reality. (The next paragraph includes more things to check).
✸ The third idea seems to be about emotional awareness, right? But again: what is that? Because some people project their own evaluations (of people/things) on others, unconsciously, or imagine them, sometimes in a kind of paranoid way, or get carried away and think everybody shares their views or emotional state, so you have to be really careful here because certain versions of “awareness” can be actually about illusions and mistakes coming from that sort of confusion.
People make up lots of myths around this (for example throwing the “empath” label everywhere), but I think its reliable form is mostly a question of experience. That is: the more you know yourself or other people, the easier it is for you to recognize what/how you/they are feeling. This explains why some couples know each other’s emotional condition just by the sound they make coming up the stairs, for example. It’s not some kind of “gift”, it’s just [unconscious] knowledge gathered through time (which includes a very strange and unusual process that some people know as “growing up”).
Is there a type that does this faster or “better”? I’m not sure. I wouldn’t put ETs (Te1/Te2) very high on the list, though. All else the same, they are very likely the worst at caring about or recognizing these intricacies. Conversely, the most perceptive in this sense are probably IFs (Fi1/Fi2). So, I don’t know. How about IF>EF>IT>ET? All this knowing that just because you are aware of something doesn’t mean you automatically attend to it or try to help it. Some people might use that knowledge for other purposes.
Note: sometimes they are difficult to disentangle, because emotions can obviously be based on values, but we have to remember that they are not the same as the Feeling functions. In Jung’s words: “Feeling as I mean it is a judgment without any of the obvious bodily reactions that characterize an emotion”. What might happen, for example with the self-reporting thing, is that some marked IFJs (Fi1) can describe themselves as more or less sensitive because they want to distance themselves from others, from the image that people have of them (perhaps to generate a different one), because they want to assert their individuality, etc. Some EFJs (Fe1) might do the same for different reasons, for example to match what’s currently expected of a person like him/her, what’s popular, etc.
2. HSP
With the second question I think you’re referring to “HSP” or “highly sensitive person”, so it’s similar to the one in post #88. What you mention might have some kind of “correct scientific usage”, but my approach is not like that, so I can’t answer from that point of view. After reading about it, my impression is that HSP is a rather broad term that combines several (sub-)traits together, and sometimes it looks too much like a buzzword.
Even though I’m not sure how they make the distinction, they say “30% of HSPs are extroverts”, and their lists do include extraverted people with cFe and/or cNe (EFs/ENs), so there seems to be no absolute correlation between having cFi/cNi (IFs/INs) and being HSP. Are those with cFi or cNi more prone to be HSP on average? I don’t know. But I think the psychological resolution offered by the cognitive functions is way greater than the “highly sensitive” thing. So part of your question might be better answered in the other points of the post.
I don’t know what else to say. To me, there is a clear disconnect between supposed “famous HSP people” and the description of the trait in itself. I mean, if people like Glenn Close, Steve Martin and Elton John are HSPs just like Nicole Kidman or Princess Diana, I’m not really sure it’s a meaningful category. I don’t get it.
Also (and this is slightly off-topic), I don’t like that kind of perspective where the author identifies a “special but ignored” class of people but then the focus is on making those people read/think/do certain things. The overall impression it’s as if the problem was always on the individual, never on the environment (society). The books are always “self-help”, which is actually a contradiction (if you need a book for it, it’s not self-help). They might talk about “big problems”, yes, but the focus, the “target audience”, is the “undervalued” person, so now [s]he not only has a disadvantage, but [s]he needs to buy books (or attend lectures, or “workshops”, or whatever) that other people don’t need. The “gift” becomes another problem.
Anyway. The general idea would be that different types can be sensitive in different ways and, inside each one, in different degrees. And in many cases it wouldn’t make sense to compare people outside of their own type: the only potentially meaningful observation would be about an ESTP who is somehow “more sensitive” than other ESTP, for example. You’d still have a lot of problems defining that (and you’d need to avoid hierarchies just the same), but at least you’d be aware of an additional dimension giving variety to each type.
Now the third question. Again, not a straightforward concept at all.
3. SENSORY SENSITIVITY
Probably all types can say they are “hypersensitive” to something, but mean completely different things. I’ll try to give you a few ideas about Se/Si.
- The sensitivity of Se-types (ESs and INs) is objective, like that of a very precise mechanical receptor.
- The sensitivity of Si-types (ENs and ISs) is subjective, more like that of a connoisseur or a sybarite.
As extremes, Se can be plain, crude or “too realistic”, and Si can be unreal, imaginary or hallucinatory. Both can be simple or detailed, beautiful or repugnant, etc. But these are just some very broad indications, of course. Depending on the location and differentiation of the functions in a particular case (among other factors), the sources of different manifestations and effects can be really difficult to discern (what is proper, what is only a ghost, etc), especially if you take the person’s own descriptions at face value.
Ok. Back to your question. I’ll talk a bit about all the types to see some differences.
✸ Apart from undifferentiated (=mixed together), one of the characteristics of how the function in X4 is brought to consciousness (G4) is “all at once”, and/or “from all sides”. If we apply that to the objective physical reality (Se) of a flash of light or a loud noise, for example, we can see that for marked INPs (Se4) the “effect” of that perception (gSi4) can be greater than expected: the flash feels brighter and the noise louder. That’s what Jung meant with “hypersensibility of the sense organs”.
✸ Some ISPs (Si1) can have experiences with descriptions that might sound similar, but in their case it’s about conscious subjective perception, so it can be something completely unrelated to any objective source. That’s why you can’t really predict what would have an effect and what not, and many of them can reach some kind of control over those perceptions, unlike those previous INPs. Part of that control is the ability to differentiate their components and nuances, of course (that’s what consciousness does).
✸ For ENPs (Si4) it’s their own “processing” that can get amalgamated, amplified, etc. That’s how you get things like synaesthesia and, from your question, you can easily imagine, for example, how some of them can’t distinguish pain from pleasure (just the opposite of ISPs). That’s probably what happens with people like the Marquis De Sade (ENTP). If you were to ask him he might have said he was “hypersensitive”, right? Notice that I’m not talking about liking or disliking anything here, and also that the topic of imagination is something apart from this.
✸ Some ESPs (Se1) fit your description because they have gSi1, that is: Si is their non-function, so they might ignore completely the personal side of perception, taking everything as some kind of impersonal circumstance. In ESP’s function arrangement gSi1 is “eclipsed” by Ni4, and the subsequent phrase “Ni is the only Si” can manifest in some of them as a kind of “spiritual” or “religious” interpretation of the internal side of sensation. I think that’s what happens with certain… “understandings” of drug effects, and also with people like Mel Gibson (ESTP) when they make or think about some of the things included in Braveheart or The Passion Of The Christ, for example.
Those were just a few comments about the Perceivers. Judgers can be “hypersensitive” too, but their perception is always conditioned by judgment, so what they notice is often inside some kind of purpose, intention or mission, and might serve as tool, specimen, proof, or something to be determined or managed, somehow. It can also be described or interpreted as “part of a vision”, for example, because Js always see a link between sensation and intuition, so they don’t just “perceive” a thing, what’s perceived has a meaning, it implies something else [that has been/is going to be done or happen].
If the intuition of a J is strong enough it can pull/bring certain sensations with it, make them “jump” to the foreground, so that the person is more prone to “find” [only] that which best accompanies, reinforces or supports them (this could be/lead to a kind of “confirmation bias” in certain cases). Then someone could analyze the situation and say that the subject is “hypersensitive” to those things.
There might be many other examples, of course, but I think it’s enough for now.
I hope this is useful to you. It’s long but at the same time it’s only a start.
Anonymous said: What personality type do you think follows their head/heart the most?
Without reading too much into it, I’d say that, as general ideas, TJs (=T1) follow their “head” (concepts, limits, tasks), and FJs (=F1) follow their “heart” (loyalties, values, people). This is obviously more evident the more marked the person’s type is, and it can get overturned in cases of identification with the unconscious (an ETJ would be carried away by his/her heart, etc). TPs (=T2) and FPs (=F2) would be in between, so “head > heart” would be TJ > TP > FP > FJ.
Anonymous said: It was very interesting to read about head/heart. Can you please try to do the same with the most masculine/feminine functions and/or personality types?
Again as classic ideas, extraversion is more masculine than introversion. The same with thinking (>feeling), and then more slightly with sensation (>intuition). M-F is primarily a judgment dimension, so masculine>feminine with the functions would be like this:
Te > Ti > Se > Si > Ne > Ni > Fe > Fi
And the types would be those with the corresponding dominant function:
ETJ > ITJ > ESP > ISP > ENP > INP > EFJ > IFJ
Anonymous said: Why are the extraverted functions associated with masculinity if studies show that women are generally more extraverted than men?
Anonymous said: I realize that women are generally more extroverted than men.
Anonymous said: E is male and I is female but E is more emotional. doubt
If you have doubts about such a simple and straightforward aspect as this, that’s a sign you won’t get anything right about the functions. In order to understand these things you need a kind of universal awareness that’s at the core of everything here. You have to focus on archetypal properties, not on manifestations. Those who start looking outside (searching for “cases” and “studies”), and those who want to complicate everything, are obviously lacking it.
Even Freud would get this. Man = E, Woman = I. Who is the one that has the externally-oriented thing, and who the internal one? I mean, it can’t be more obvious. Which one goes outside (in more than one sense), and which one stays at home/inside? Which one is initiating, which one is receiving? Etc, etc. This is not about studies. It’s not about what a given population is, but about the symbol and the timeless idea. If you don’t get it, well, I’m sorry. Because in fact, the cognitive functions are pretty much about that, and if you know how to use it, that post is actually one of the most efficient tools for typing, in the sense of low cost + large yield.
Three more notes, one for each question:
1. I didn’t say that all the extraverted functions were M>F, only that extraversion is more masculine than introversion. The functions in that line are not separated following E↔I, the most important dimension there is T↔F.
2. Even if we look at it from the statistics angle, that “generally” means only a slight deviation from 50/50. A difference of around 6% is what I’ve seen in several places, not significant at all (and there are probably other factors at play). In any case, I repeat: there’s what’s literally there, in X numbers, and then there’s the universal principle behind it. That’s what the functions are about.
3. You are implying that women are more emotional than men, but that’s confusing Feeling with emotion. Both Introversion and Feeling are female>male, but emotionality is a different matter. What’s E>I is expressivity. Yes, we often use both terms interchangeably, I know, and this kind of distinctions get blurry, but you can feel emotions and be inexpressive. The thing is: being outspoken, direct, frank, open, grandiloquent and loud is male>female. That’s the point here. There is no contradiction. (And remember: if you’re searching for an example against that, you are doing it wrong).
Anonymous said: Which types are most/least likely to be sociable/“extraverted”? I know that there are other factors in play here regarding this question, and that even people with the same type could differ in levels of outgoingness(especially when they are younger) , but what tends to be the case on average? Which types are most likely to be mistaken for “introverts” even though they are extroverts and vice versa.
First of all, obvious disclaimer: any answer to your question is going to be a big generalization. Like you said, there are lots of variables that can keep someone “in the shadows” or put the person in the spotlight, independently of type. Personal history and circumstances, talents and physical qualities, the people they meet and have around (not only the numbers but also the affinities, the contacts, etc), culture and education, and lots of other things. In fact, what follows are just a couple of related comments, you can’t really get a specific answer.
From the point of view of the “official MBTI people” it seems half of the individuals who type themselves as “introverts” are actually extraverts. Apart from that, I don’t have any other statistic or average, only my own impressions. And my impression is that it’s much more than half.
From what I’ve seen, the only types that people are somewhat able to recognize as extraverts are the dramatic and hyperactive versions of the ESFs: ESFJ (Fe-Se-Ni-Ti) and ESFP (Se-Fe-Ti-Ni). Whether they type them correctly or not is another matter, of course (in fact those two are usually switched, how fun is that). The rest are many times mistaken for “introverts”.
So the common concept of “extravert” applies only to the most extreme performers, party-goers, etc. It’s like having a car alarm that only goes off if the car blows up. And even then, you’re always going to find someone that sees those people as “introverts”, too, with phrases like “they are just overcompensating, they need to recharge afterwards”, or some nonsense like that (there are quite a lot of “ISFP”-ESFJs here on Tumblr, for example).
You can find all sorts of E→I combinations, but if we’d just take a few at random, we could get that in the mind of many “typologists” lots of ESTJs are “INTJs”, ESTPs are “INFJs”, ENTJs are “ISTJs”, ENTPs are “INFPs” or “INTJs”, and ENFPs are… any “introvert” that you want.
ENFP (Ne-Fe-Ti-Si) is probably the extravert that’s most mistyped as “introvert”, yes (happens all the time). The “most extraverted introvert” is probably INTJ, or one of the ISTs. Some of them appear as “extraverts” in a few places, but the I→E direction of mistype is much more uncommon.
I think that, in general, having a phlegmatic component of temperament can make Es look like Is, and not having it can do the opposite (but more rarely) for introverts.
Anyway, the reality is that people don’t even know what E/I means. It’s a complete disaster. They don’t understand the most basic concepts, they don’t know what S/N, T/F or J/P is, but they are dismissing all that because it’s “too basic” (yeah, right), and if they are not squaring the circle with umpteen “functions” and the intersection of five different systems they are not “cool” or “expert” enough.
Anonymous said: I don’t get the opposites thing. Who is the real opposite of a certain personality type, for example INFP (Ni-Fi-Te-Se)? Is it an ESTP (Se-Te-Fi-Ni) with reversed functions or an ESTJ with completely opposite letters? If they were both opposites in what way their opposition would differ?
Right, that’s the thing: in the context of psychological types the word “opposite” can be equally applied to several elements (functions or types), for different reasons. By learning about this subject you also learn the different ways in which two things can be “opposites”, because the word by itself ends up being insufficient.
I have a static page about type relations (it’s only a sketch, the important things are the table and the circles). If you go there you’ll see that I actually don’t use the word “opposite” for any of them. The ones that you mention are called Mirror (INFP-ESTP) and Contrary (INFP-ESTJ). You could also consider ENFP, INFJ and even ISTP as the “opposite” of INFP, right? It depends on what you’re looking at (those are Ghost, Crossed and Polar). You could probably do it with almost every other type (the main exceptions would be the 4 asymmetric relations, because opposition implies symmetry).
There’s actually no “real opposite”. The Mirror is the “opposite” because it has the same functions in reverse. The Contrary is the “opposite” because it has all the letters in reverse. The Ghost is the “opposite” because it has all the attitudes in reverse. The Crossed is the “opposite” because it has the opposite rhythm. And the Polar is the “opposite” because it’s always at the other side of the circles.
So, if you consider all that, you’d see that you need to learn quite a lot about the real MBTI types, the dichotomies, the functions, and then type quite a lot of people correctly, and observe them, to understand how the opposition between Mirrors is different from the one between Contraries, for example. It’s a difficult topic but, at the same time, it’s quite meaningless. It gets too general, insubstantial, and removed from what can be useful.
Some people get caught up in those things, and that’s part of the reason why I stopped posting about relations (this answer is an exception): the absolute most important focus should always be not being mistyped. That’s the key to everything here, including the way a single mistype makes anything about relations useless, confusing, and counterproductive.
Even in the fantasy-land chance that everybody is correctly typed, your relationship is with the other person, not with a type. That’s also why I don’t write in that page often: it doesn’t matter what I might find or deduce about a few Mirror relations, a real case is always way more complicated and unpredictable.
I guess your question would be answered there if the page was somewhat complete, but at this point I’m thinking more about deleting some descriptions than about filling the blank ones. The few that I have seem too superficial and/or too particular, and they might be incorrect for many people.
So my recommendation is to go back and understand the different reasons behind the different “opposites”. What changes when you take the conscious functions and put them as unconscious and vice versa, what changes when you invert the four dichotomies, what changes when you turn all the extraverted functions introverted and vice versa, what changes when you reverse the dominant-auxiliary relationship, etc.
That’s the important stuff, what really needs to be understood. The relations are merely a consequence.
Anonymous said: Hi. Can i be an INFP (Ni-Fi-Te-Se) but at the same prefer (and find More Meaning in) knowledge, truth and information more than art (drawing, singing etc.)?
Hi :) Any type can be interested in knowing things. If you are [very] young you might still be simply immersed in school, and if you are curious/studious that might be enough for you. Maybe later you find that you like to do something artistic, who knows, right? Ok, that’s a kind of disclaimer. I’ll try to expand a little for a supposed mostly-adult general context.
It’s not a sure-fire determination, but INFPs are not interested in knowledge for knowledge’s sake. In fact, they tend to be quite wary of it. This is something more P than J, in general, and the way you express it seems more J than P. It feels like you are referring to how you derive motivation, something to do/apply or change/expect (Sensation or Intuition), from some kind of Thinking (facts, concepts, etc), and that’s a judging characteristic.
I talked recently about INPs, here and here. The idea with the focus of an INFP that’s no longer occupied with the artistic side is not really about an intellectual element like “information”, but about something more vague and, at the same time, more demanding: a moral consequence. Your description seems to be pointing at something different. In any case, you need to take other typing factors into account.
I’m going to add an important warning/reminder here, because I think it’s pertinent and most people really need to read it. It’s about INFPs, but you could make basically the same thing with INTPs, and something very similar with both INJs. (wait, where did I leave the microphone?) (yeah, you know, the one from…) (oh, here it is) *plug in* (ok) *click* (one, two) *static*
ALL THE INFPs THAT YOU KNOW ARE ACTUALLY NOT INFPs
99,9% of the people that you see out there in lists of “famous INFPs” are not INFPs (Ni-Fi-Te-Se), and the most common situation, by far, is that the list doesn’t include a single real INFP. Not even one. And the same with “INFP” users in sites like Tumblr, of course. (In the lists, only Luna Lovegood could be considered a famous name that’s somewhat close to what some INFPs can be, but she’s not even real, and she’s not in many lists as INFP, either). Most people have absolutely no idea what an INFP actually is. Followed very closely by INTP, and then both INJs, it’s clearly the most overtyped (and unknown) of the 16 types. In reality most “INFPs” are ISFPs or EN(F)Ps, but there are also lots of FJs and even some TJs in there. So, yeah, it’s a total disaster. The next paragraph is just a tiny sample of the problem.
Tolkien is not an INFP. C. S. Lewis is not an INFP. George Orwell is not an INFP. Virginia Woolf is not an INFP. J. K. Rowling is not an INFP. Isabel Briggs-Myers is not an INFP. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is not an INFP. Bill Watterson is not an INFP. Franz Kafka is not an INFP. Edgar Allan Poe is not an INFP. Vincent Van Gogh is not an INFP. William Shakespeare is not an INFP. George R. R. Martin is not an INFP. Ian Curtis is not an INFP. Kurt Cobain is not an INFP. John Lennon is not an INFP. Jim Morrison is not an INFP. Björk is not an INFP. Robert Smith is not an INFP. Tim Burton is not an INFP. Johnny Depp is not an INFP. Heath Ledger is not an INFP. Terrence Malick is not an INFP. Andy Warhol is not an INFP. All those other famous actors and comedians and performers and celebrities and characters are not INFPs. So it’s etc, etc, etc, etc. For ten hours.
What is it that those people have in common? I mean, what are the “experts” thinking? Because it’s not a psychological type, that’s for sure (there are 9 different not-INFP types up there, it’s almost funny). Is it that they “feel” like the image of an “INFP”? That distorted fairy-tale comic-book cottage-core sad-song constructed-from-fantasy and snowballed-into-an-unreal-absurdity image? That one? Then they are just playing a really superficial game. They are definitely not typing. Everybody knows what the image of a type is, that’s just too easy, but what is the type in reality? Who are the real INFPs or INTPs or whatever? Most “typologists” don’t look like they want to know.
The real INFPs are a completely different kind of people. I hope that’s clear. They don’t tend to be classically famous like the names above. A real INFP (Ni-Fi-Te-Se) is someone like M. C. Escher, Shaun Tan, Liz Harris, or Jiddu Krishnamurti.
Anonymous said: Is this: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound”? A statement of an SiNe type of perception? It seems rather questionable
From a certain perspective you are right, yes, it seems about not recognizing anything outside the speaker’s own sensory experience. But it might be about something deeper. It might be one of those limited examples, questioning whether things in general exist/happen without a subject (a mind, a person). In that case it wouldn’t be only about Si-Ne, but about I-E in general. I-E imply one another, so in that context the answer would also be ‘no’: without the existence of someone there is no sound, because there is no fall, because there is no tree, because there is no forest.
This is because the subject is everything. You are everything. There is no difference between your existence and the existence of life, or the world, or the universe. You are literally the universe.
Anonymous said: Do you think there is a good typology system or personality theory other than MBTI?
If by “MBTI” you mean the correct functions+letters (together with the temperament correlation) then no, there isn’t. I have been interested in this topic all my life, and the correct MBTI is the best way to divide/group people, mostly because it’s real, not a “theory”. Being real, it’s not some kind of [random] “invention”, and it doesn’t imply prejudices or stigmas. It’s not even a “system”, it just is.
Also, many ideas found in other “systems” are already in the real MBTI, somewhere, for example the four temperaments, the four classic elements, the court cards with all their associations, etc. Others might be there as well, because the dichotomies and components that Jung described were present in all sorts of previous works, so you could say that he merely explained the psychological foundation behind many classifications, not only those before him, but also after.
You can do all kinds of interesting things with MBTI. You can study and think for years simply about E/I. You can do it with S/N, T/F and J/P. You can combine all those. You can look and wonder at the function pairs, they are everywhere. You can look at conscious and unconscious, it’s just amazing what happens there. You can observe the interrelations, inside and outside. You can recognize how other psychological dimensions (and other external factors) give variety to each MBTI type, so you can see that it’s not “rigid” in the sense that many people think, because your type is only about the general coordinates of the particular orientation of your mind. So it’s not “everything” even if everything is somehow in it. I mean, it’s great.
They don’t even deserve a comparison, but all the different “zodiacs” and numeric systems are just random. That is: they are invented, not found. Fictional categorizations are often imaginary, too, and they are rarely about psychology (if they were remotely or potentially psychological the author would write non-fiction, at least, right?) (not that non-fiction can’t be unreal, too, of course, but, you know). They seem to have some kind of extraverted point of view or reference (to better serve the story, I suppose), usually reflecting some variation of social categories: rich/poor, urban/rural, nomad/sedentary, old/new, study/action, leader/follower, crime/law, etc.
What else. Oh, right. Sometimes I see some of those “moral alignment” memes (“lawful good”, “neutral evil”, etc), and they can be very funny, but that’s it. When you start digging it gets very inconsistent and, apart from the problem of defining what “good” and “evil” are, it basically assumes (or gives the impression) that people are inherently good or bad, and that’s not how it goes. There is good and bad, yes. But it’s not that easy. (See also this post).
sk8723 said: How do you think MBTI types or functions relate to the DnD alignment chart? Like on a scale from good to evil and lawful chaotic (if you’d like, I generally use the “revised chart” so it doesn’t have negative connotations such as evil and chaotic; the revised chart goes from humane to determined and principled to independent)
I mentioned the basic chart in the last paragraph here.
Now, the revised one. People seem to associate honorable ↔ independent with J↔P, and humane ↔ determined with F↔T. Both have quite a few problems, even if we take them only as very general ideas. For the first one you have for example the fact that I(F)Js can be very “independent”. The second one looks good in the sense that it could be interpreted as people↔task oriented, but FJs can be cruel, and TJs can really help people, so it’s not that simple. In any case, a slightly more polished version could be made using temperament in this way:
melancholic ↔ sanguine = honorable ↔ independent
phlegmatic ↔ choleric = humane ↔ determined
The concepts are not the same, of course, but the result looks quite harmless.
ESTJ: determined > honorable
ENTJ: determined
ESFJ: independent > honorable
ENFJ: determined > humane
ESTP: determined > independent
ESFP: independent
ENTP: independent > determined
ENFP: independent > humane
ISTJ: honorable
INTJ: honorable > determined
ISFJ: humane > honorable
INFJ: honorable > humane
ISTP: honorable > independent
ISFP: humane > independent
INTP: humane > determined
INFP: humane
Apart from that, I don’t think there’s a clear correlation there, mostly because alignment is a schematic system that seems to rely too much on an external point of view. That is: its definitions point mainly to narrative and game-mechanics, not to psychology. It’s all about how people behave in relation to each other and the supposed “laws” that some share, and about giving variety to game interactions. In the end, RPGs are about a group in a story, while the types and the functions are about the individual in reality.
I explained the basis for this in post #12, post #44, post #60 and post #88, but I guess it can be stated more explicitly.
If your ask includes, suggests or implies a correlation between cognitive functions, types or temperaments and a particular academic/scientific category of so-called “personality disorders” or “mental illnesses” (including “-phobias”, “-manias” and “spectrums”), it won’t get a response. The same with typing suggestions of people or characters whose main [supposed] characteristic is having that kind of “mental problem”.
The functions are not problems, and the types are not a catalog of flawed versions of people. Anything that assumes or points to that idea is the real problem. Many of you don’t seem to understand this. I see a lot of people thinking like that all day, sending questions like that, and it’s really sad. You keep trying to find flaws in others and/or yourself, sometimes with the added delusion that it makes you “special”. It doesn’t. You are just being an idiot. You don’t know what you’re doing. You are trying to stigmatize people for being what they are. That perspective is the only “disorder” here.
Types #8X ← ✸ → Types #10X