What's your personality type?
By grandpa_lash
@grandpa_lash (5225)
Australia
November 3, 2008 7:06pm CST
Sorry for the long post, but if I don't explain properly, it will be meaningless, and this is the shortest explanation I can devise. There's a lot left out lol.
I've studied personality type extensivley over the past 25 years, and I find it a fascinating subject. The most useful system for working out your personality, to my mind, is the Jungian based MBTI (you can find free on-line tests, which are not as good as the full thing but in most cases will get it right), and I'll try to explain it briefly.
Jung said there are two functions we all have to master: Perceiving, which is how we gather information, and Judging, which is how we use that information to make our decisions and judgments. He also said there are two attitudes to life, and this area is one that most people will be aware of, Extraversion and Introversion.
Extraverts focus on the outer world of things and people; Introverts focus on the inner world of thoughts and emotions. Not all intoverts are shy, and mot all extraverts are outgoing, but most are, and so we tend to see those things as meaning that.
We Perceive (gather information) through either Sensation (S) - concrete facts gathered through the five senses, or through iNtuition (N) - abstract intuitive contemplation. We Judge (make decisions and judgements either through Thinking (T) - rational logical analysis, or Feeling (F) - based on a set of values, usually societies values for the Extraverts and personal idiosyncratic values for the Introverts.
Jung was very clear that these are not either/or propositions. but that we have a PREFERENCE for one of each pair while still being able to use the opposite function/attitude as well. Under pressure, whatever our conditioning or our conscious persona, we will revert to our preferred function/attitude.
I am INF - introverted intuitive feeling. But I have been an entertainer most of my adult life, so clearly I can handle extraversion; I spent a decade of my early working life as an accountant, so clearly I can handle concrete facts and figures; and I have an advanced university degree, so clearly I can handle rational logic. But I PREFER to be internally involved, to think in abstract, intuitive ways, and to base my actions of my very idiosyncratic set of values. One form of the MBTI test calls my type the Idealist.
Where do you fit in this? You can probably work it out roughly from what I have said here, but the on-line MBTI test doesn't take long to do. It will give you a fourth pairing, developed by Myers and Briggs-Myers (after whom the MBTI is named), which tells you whether you are stronger in Perception or Judging, but you don't need to know that to get an idea of your type.
Lash
1 person likes this
3 responses
@xParanoiax (6987)
• United States
6 Nov 08
The test online, that I just took says I'm an INFJ.
Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging.
"# moderately expressed introvert
# distinctively expressed intuitive personality
# moderately expressed feeling personality
# slightly expressed judging personality"
*shrugs*
I'm most outgoing in dangerous or horrible situations where I'm not required to confront others' expectations or thoughts of me. Since this is often enough, I'm inclined to think that I'm more toward a balance of extroverted and introverted behavior. It's no secret that I'm not a people-person, though...and I instinctively avoid people as a rule.
I also like to think that my intuition is tempered by logic. I place alot of importance in logic, even though intuition dominates my entire process of thought in life. And my "values" are most of a frame work for my mind, rather than the bottom line.
Not sure what my result says about decisions, althought again I think all of what I said above makes it plenty clear about how I make decisions anyway.
1 person likes this
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
6 Nov 08
INFJ - driven by their inner vision of the possibilities, determined to the point of stubbornness, intensely individualistic, stimulated by difficulties and ingenious in beating them, disinterested in the beaten path, inspired, hate routine.
Any bells?
Lash
1 person likes this
@xParanoiax (6987)
• United States
6 Nov 08
Soundest bells I've ever heard, actually. =)
1 person likes this
@sharra1 (6340)
• Australia
4 Nov 08
Well I have done this test and I came out an INFJ I think but some of the areas such as feeling thinking were so close that feeling won by a 1 or 2 point margin and the intuition sensation were much the same. I was close to being a ISTJ or an INSJ. It is hard to remember now and if I did the test now it might come out slightly differently. I think it was always J not P but I am not sure. Still that makes sense to me and the Sensation of intuitive varies as well.
I think and I feel and they are so close as to have almost no difference. It has been a while since I took the test and I am probably more sensate now than I once was. I used to trust intuition more than the world now I no longer know what I trust.
We can change. But I have always been internal. I have always been an introvert.