# MBTI? First off, what do you think of it? Second, what's your type?



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Myers Briggs (personality)type inventory. I hope I'm not embarrassing myself by bringing up my past fixation on this branch of pop psychology. Yeah, I know, people can't really be boxed into sixteen different types. But I had a conversation with someone about it recently and I'm obsessing again... I never was able to "figure out" my type, it seems answer what I want to answer in the tests/quizzes. What do you think of it.

And hang on, this is going to be a poll for the different types. I can also provide a link to a site where you can do a quick test, I don't know if this is the best of free online MBTI tests, but perhaps its a starting point.

Here's a kind of skimpy test http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

Actually it looks like I can't post a poll because there are 16 types. So what's yours? I'm definitely introverted, I can't tell for sure whether I'm sensing or intuitive, judging or perceiving, thinking or feeling. My latest score was INFP and then ISFP. My first score was ISTJ.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

I just took it and got INTJ. Last time I took it (a couple years ago), I got INTP. The T/F part was almost a tie this time. But on nearly half the questions I really couldn't decide whether to choose yes or no; I didn't think one fit me much better than the other. I think part of it is that what I _prefer_ and what I usually _do,_ especially when it comes to social matters, are often different.

The only one that is ever more than "slightly expressed" for me is introversion. But I've definitely become less introverted than I was before college. I like spending time around people, I'm just not terribly socially adept.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Meaghan said:


> I just took it and got INTJ. Last time I took it (a couple years ago), I got INTP. The T/F part was almost a tie this time. But on nearly half the questions I really couldn't decide whether to choose yes or no; I didn't think one fit me much better than the other. I think part of it is that what I _prefer_ and what I usually _do,_ especially when it comes to social matters, are often different.
> 
> The only one that is ever more than "slightly expressed" for me is introversion. But I've definitely become less introverted than I was before college. I like spending time around people, I'm just not terribly socially adept.


I could see INTJ in you. Then again, I can see a lot of things in a lot of people, so I have to step back and remember, human beings first. I think I may be an NFP, as to whether I'm S or N, I don't know, somehow I loathe the thought of being ISTJ, I don't know why, its just a type.


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

green! oh wait, wrong test..


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

I got ENFP, and this description (which I must say fits me quite well):

Like the other Idealists, *Champions* are rather rare, say three or four percent of the population, but even more than the others they consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life. Champions have a wide range and variety of emotions, and a great passion for novelty. They see life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil, and they want to experience all the meaningful events and fascinating people in the world. The most outgoing of the Idealists, Champions often can't wait to tell others of their extraordinary experiences. Champions can be tireless in talking with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out. And usually this is not simple storytelling; Champions often speak (or write) in the hope of revealing some truth about human experience, or of motivating others with their powerful convictions. Their strong drive to speak out on issues and events, along with their boundless enthusiasm and natural talent with language, makes them the most vivacious and inspiring of all the types.  Fiercely individualistic, Champions strive toward a kind of personal authenticity, and this intention always to be themselves is usually quite attractive to others. At the same time, Champions have outstanding intuitive powers and can tell what is going on inside of others, reading hidden emotions and giving special significance to words or actions. In fact, Champions are constantly scanning the social environment, and no intriguing character or silent motive is likely to escape their attention. Far more than the other Idealists, Champions are keen and probing observers of the people around them, and are capable of intense concentration on another individual. Their attention is rarely passive or casual. On the contrary, Champions tend to be extra sensitive and alert, always ready for emergencies, always on the lookout for what's possible.
Champions are good with people and usually have a wide range of personal relationships. They are warm and full of energy with their friends. They are likable and at ease with colleagues, and handle their employees or students with great skill. They are good in public and on the telephone, and are so spontaneous and dramatic that others love to be in their company. Champions are positive, exuberant people, and often their confidence in the goodness of life and of human nature makes good things happen.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Total crap. Just a way for intellectually lazy people put themselves in little boxes and have a false sense of camaraderie about something new, because sports teams and cola preferences were getting old.


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

INTJ or INTP. but i'm just glad that i'm the same personalty type as arnold schwarzenegger and tiger woods - i've always enjoyed fitness, sport, and cheating on my wife.


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Total crap. Just a way for intellectually lazy people put themselves in little boxes and have a false sense of camaraderie about something new, because sports teams and cola preferences were getting old.


intellectually active people with a true sense of camaraderie are overrated


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I realize that so far the statistics are quite small, but we have way too many INTJs. That was my score as well as Meaghan's and 50% of Philip's. That makes 2.5 out of 5 scores are INTJ. Supposedly only 1-2% of people are INTJ. Well I do think that fits me rather well so I'm not overly skeptical yet.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I started doing the survey, but realised that some of the questions were contradictory. Eg. #20 "You are a person somewhat reserved and distant in communication." To answer this, yes I am reserved, but no I'm not distant. I am engaged in conversations fully, but I don't always say something straight away. I may be somewhat reserved, but I'm not distant or cold.

So I'm going to pass doing this, at least for now, because I think it's kind of confusing with these kinds of double barrelled questions...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Well, that's a slightly embarrassing response, I see the legitimacy/seriousness of the test went over like a fart in church. That's okay.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Chalk me up for another INTJ. I'm highly I and overwhelmingly T, N and J are more borderline.



> I realize that so far the statistics are quite small, but we have way too many INTJs. That was my score as well as Meaghan's and 50% of Philip's. That makes 2.5 out of 5 scores are INTJ. Supposedly only 1-2% of people are INTJ. Well I do think that fits me rather well so I'm not overly skeptical yet.


Probably because classical music fans are a fairly eclectic bunch and make for a very poor representative sample of the population at large, indeed it implies that the person has a penchant for listening to lengthy musical works in their lonesome, and therefore likely to be introverted (which I think we established in a poll a while ago). Perhaps there's a second trend in opera lovers such as Almaviva, seemingly drawn to highly emotional larger-than-life human interaction, who would be more prone to E and F-ness.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Total crap. Just a way for intellectually lazy people put themselves in little boxes and have a false sense of camaraderie about something new, because sports teams and cola preferences were getting old.


I don't know what it is about some people who must insist that they are unique and defy any "little box" classification, but I don't this can be called "total crap" unless your result totally fails to describe you. Myself, like Almaviva, I thought my description described me quite well, it suggested my current profession to me, and identified several people I admire as being my type.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Total crap. Just a way for intellectually lazy people put themselves in little boxes and have a false sense of camaraderie about something new, because sports teams and cola preferences were getting old.


 You know, the website and the shorter version of the test, and the way they write up the profiles, have the sort of popular appeal you'd expect of such things. But actually the science behind them is not bad at all, and these personality types are solidly validated and stem from the work of respected psychologists and psychoanalysts.


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## sabrina (Apr 26, 2011)

I'm ENFJ-teacher...whatever. This is not a very good test, but it can get pretty close by statistics. 
We are too complex psychologically, to be described by such algorithms.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I don't know which one I am - whichever the best one is.

Some of the questions were rather dumb:



> Often you prefer to read a book than go to a party - yes or no


Don't beat about the bush! I _always_ prefer to read a book! I'd rather cut myself than go to a party!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

"whichever the best one is" 

I understand you perfectly.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Don't beat about the bush! I _always_ prefer to read a book! I'd rather cut myself than go to a party!


I always thought of piggy as a party animal. What was he like on the show?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> I always thought of piggy as a party animal. What was he like on the show?


On the show, although he never bites anyone, he's very intimidating, sarcastic, and mocks people around him, and whenever things get a bit loud or otherwise not to his liking, he just leaves everyone else to the mess and disappears. See the similarity?


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Polednice said:


> On the show, although he never bites anyone, he's very intimidating, sarcastic, and mocks people around him, and whenever things get a bit loud or otherwise not to his liking, he just leaves everyone else to the mess and disappears. See the similarity?


Yes.

Although these tests don't work, I have taken it. I am ISTJ; Very much I, moderately STJ.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Klavierspieler said:


> Yes.
> 
> Although these tests don't work, I have taken it. I am ISTJ; Very much I, moderately STJ.


I also am very much I , moderately N, and somewhat F and J. There must be more to the I/E thing than I know about.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

A useful take on Jung's personality types is to consider that people process information in four ways: thinking (rational), feeling (emotional), 'knowing' (intuitive), and sensing (kinaesthetic) (TFKS). _The key thing is that everybody does all four_, all the time, but most people have a preference for one over the others.

You can seperately classify people as introvert or extravert (and many other metaprograms, as NLPers would call them), but again eveyone is both of these to a greater or lesser extent.

Myers Briggs is therefore a 'thinking' technique which fails to address in feeling, knowing or sensing ways the rich complexity of people. So it is, at best, incomplete.

By insisting that everybody is only one of 16 types it then chucks out all the richness, subtlety and variation that real people possess. It is hardly surprising therefore we can get different results on different days taking the same MBTI tests.

I daresay it has its uses as one of a number of tools used together to make a first pass over a large number of applicants for a small number of jobs, but I don't think it goes any further than that. To use it in coaching, for example, seems to be more about the coach not wanting to enter the emotional domain with his/her client and therefore hiding in a thinking model.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> A useful take on Jung's personality types is to consider that people process information in four ways: thinking (rational), feeling (emotional), 'knowing' (intuitive), and sensing (kinaesthetic) (TFKS). _The key thing is that everybody does all four_, all the time, but most people have a preference for one over the others.
> 
> You can seperately classify people as introvert or extravert (and many other metaprograms, as NLPers would call them), but again eveyone is both of these to a greater or lesser extent.
> 
> ...


All such tools have limitations and advantages. It's a matter of how to use them (knowing the limitations is essential).


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## Timotheus (Jun 30, 2011)

Almaviva said:


> You know, the website and the shorter version of the test, and the way they write up the profiles, have the sort of popular appeal you'd expect of such things. But actually the science behind them is not bad at all, and these personality types are solidly validated and stem from the work of respected psychologists and psychoanalysts.


They aren't solidly validated and whether respected psychologists work on them is irrelevant. There's a lot of bad psychology research. The big 5 is a far more respected test by researchers anyway if that's what you want to go by. The MBTI is just big business.

The MBTI claims that there are types, so that an INTJ is different from an ENTJ in more ways than just being more introverted. They are said to be a different type with different characteristics. But introversion/extroversion is a trait with a normal curve. Instead of most people being solidly in either the introvert or the extrovert group most people are in the middle (this is what leads to so many people getting different results when they take the test again).

The test has some value in that you can actually get some basic information just by making a cutoff for introverted/extroverted. But it's far better to call it a trait and and give a percentile comparison to the other people who took the test...like the trait psychological tests do...those are of limited value too mind you.



> I don't know what it is about some people who must insist that they are unique and defy any "little box" classification


In this case, they know what they are talking about :devil:


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Timotheus said:


> They aren't solidly validated and whether respected psychologists work on them is irrelevant. There's a lot of bad psychology research. The big 5 is a far more respected test by researchers anyway if that's what you want to go by. The MBTI is just big business.
> 
> The MBTI claims that there are types, so that an INTJ is different from an ENTJ in more ways than just being more introverted. They are said to be a different type with different characteristics. But introversion/extroversion is a trait with a normal curve. Instead of most people being solidly in either the introvert or the extrovert group most people are in the middle (this is what leads to so many people getting different results when they take the test again).
> 
> ...


are you saying that 60 questions aren't enough to analyze the depths of my character???


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Timotheus said:


> They aren't solidly validated and whether respected psychologists work on them is irrelevant. There's a lot of bad psychology research. The big 5 is a far more respected test by researchers anyway if that's what you want to go by. The MBTI is just big business.
> 
> The MBTI claims that there are types, so that an INTJ is different from an ENTJ in more ways than just being more introverted. They are said to be a different type with different characteristics. But introversion/extroversion is a trait with a normal curve. Instead of most people being solidly in either the introvert or the extrovert group most people are in the middle (this is what leads to so many people getting different results when they take the test again).
> 
> ...


If you had read my post with more attention you'd have noticed that I said the personality TYPES have been validated and stem from the work or serious psychologists. I didn't say that the test has been widely validated. If you don't consider Jung a serious psychologist, I don't know who else is serious.


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

INTP. Description seems pretty accurate, although it doesn't commit itself that much. Absolutely nailed the parts about having a strong desire to correct others, placing importance on subtle distinctions in shades of meaning and liking maths a lot. Also very close to home about remaining easy-going until core principles are violated, but then returning to ambiance after arguing rather than holding a grudge.

However, despite second guessing my actions a lot I don't have any fear of 'impending failure' that I am aware of.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I got INTJ, which is evidently "mastermind." So I think this is a very valid test.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

We have a bit better statistics now, and we still have a problem with the INTJ that is supposed to represent roughly 1-2% of all people. In our scientific assessment so far TC is 41% INTJ (4.5 out of 11 assuming Hilltroll actually took the test). Apparently we're a bunch of (evil?) masterminds.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Makes sense. Anyone trying to take over the world should listen to classical music. Can't imagine any other kind would even bother to try. 

Also, now you know why classical music is catching on so strongly in China....


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I got INTJ too just now. I've known about this test for many years, I did it back in Middle School and I was INTJ then too. Only now, I'm more moderate when it comes to the Thinking/Feeling section. I'm still a thinker, but music (and, more likely, my faith) have opened my heart up more and more. Music needs emotion and explicit expression. However, I'm definitely an Analyzer at heart. That's what I do with music: I analyze it, not just feel it!


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

http://keirsey.com/4temps/performer.asp

That's preposterous!!!  I'm the complete opposite personality of a "Performer" in _their _book. But where am I now? I'm actually studying flute in college as a BM! I just broke their whole stereotype.

I like the test, but I wouldn't follow those labels. Ick!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

All us internet classical music nerds must have scored INTJ at least a couple of times, when I took a very detailed test once, I came out INTJ. The first time I ever took it, I scored ISTJ, but I modified my result because I didn't like it, into ISTP! INTP is my most common score, lately I've been scoring F but I'm a pretty analytical person, I just don't know, so this is where I stop searching for myself in this box. I was inspired to post this topic because I recently had an outing with a girl who had been into this system as much as I had been, she claimed she was ENFP and she was trying to "type" me for the fun of it. She claimed she didn't know me well enough and was more into Enneagrams anyway. But for Enneagrams, she claimed that she was certain I was a 9 wing 1, if that means anything to anyone here.

Like it has been said here already, I think that the functions themselves are very interesting. But succinctly summed up, how they all possibly build into specific preference combinations that can only mean 16 possibly archetypes is another matter. 

I'm back on TC after a weekend break. It was healthy.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I'd actually be more interested to see any correlation between what people would classify themselves as pre-test, and how the test actually turns out...


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Philip said:


> green! oh wait, wrong test..


:chuckling knowingly:

On a related note, my wife took the "color-based" test, and later, I took the same test, taking special care to NOT look at my wife's answers. The result...

We didn't answer every question the same way, but we got EXACTLY the same score, with precisely the same number result in each of the four categories.

"I guess you're like one of those 'e-harmony' couples," quipped one of my friends at my workplace.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Polednice said:


> I'd actually be more interested to see any correlation between what people would classify themselves as pre-test, and how the test actually turns out...


I wanted to do this, but couldn't find info like that on the site.

One thing I get a kick out of now and then is to read the horoscopes, then choose which one is most appropriate for me, and see whether it matches my actual sign.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

^Oh! My! God! Science, you must have a lot of time in your hands.:lol:


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I was officially typed by an expert recently as ESTP with well developed INFJ functions.


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