The Personality Thread

[Minvaren]

As I mentioned in the politics forum, one of my main hobbies is studying personality theory and applying it to daily life.  MBTI, Keirsey's Temperaments, and The Enneagram are my primary strengths, but I also know a fair bit about a dozen-ish more.  Each has a distinct focus on general patterns and tendencies of thought, feeling, and action; though none comes close to describing everything about a person.  I got into them due to having a rare personality type and feeling like an ugly duckling in life, and continued studying them for personal development, as well as better understanding of and relating to others and the world in general.  

I also enjoy talking with other people about it in general, being a hobby and all  .  If you have questions about personality typology in general (including statistics), people's actions, your own results, or anything, feel free to ask.

If you'd like to take one of these tests to see where you end up:  a pretty decent link is here. 
(edit : this link will assess you on Enneagram and MBTI at the same time, MBTI is here, Enneagram is here)
Results descriptions: here for MBTI and here for the Enneagram.

Me : MBTI - INFJ, Enneagram - 1w9 sp.

[Minvaren]

A couple of topics already mentioned:

One of my main passions is sustainable energy, and psychology plays a significant role that the technical folks often ignore, in both implementation and utilisation. I'm always trying to learn more.

iNtuitive types (MBTI xNxx) have a general mental orientation to the future, and are the likeliest people to understand the quagmire we are in regarding sustainability.  By most measures of the US (and possibly world) population, only 15 to 25 percent of the population are wired this way.  This presents an inherent challenge when talking about future problems, especially ones that call for solutions that call for wide-sweeping reforms to "the way we've always done things."  Such reforms will generally alienate the 45% of people who are SJs (Keirsey's Guardians), who are hard-wired to generally want to preserve the status quo.

In short, pick your audience carefully.  There is no "converting everyone," unless the crisis is here, in which case the Sensors (MBTI xSxx) will have something tangible to work with as well.

It's been my experience that engineers are far more detached and have a lower empathy capacity than the general population. 

Engineers tend have Te (Extroverted Thinking) as one of their first two functions, which means that their Feeling (Ethical) functions are further down the list.  This means that they are generally not consistently and consciously used until midlife at the earliest, and "never" in some cases.

[trias_e]

I was pretty obsessed with MBTI when I was younger.  I used to post regularly on intpcentral.com and was pretty into that community/MBTI category (specifically NT types, which dominate nerdy internet message boards anyways).  The older I got, the less I cared however.  It did really help me at the time in understanding other people and social situations, but it was basically just a stepping stone in realizing that, hey, other people relate to themselves and the world in a genuinely different manner than you do.  

Yeah, and I still test straight up INTP, basically the same results for the last 6 years.  Pretty funny that when I was 19 I oscillated between INTP/INFP.  Turns out that was just hormones and being an emo teenager :)

[luckton]

If you'd like to take one of these tests to see where you end up:  a pretty decent link is here.

Jebus that's a lot of tests...I took the first link there.  My results:

Popularity (38%) moderately low which suggests you don't have much interest in external attractiveness, power, fame, and/or money.

Sensibility (46%) medium which suggests you have a moderate investment in being true to your own sensibility, i.e. what you think/feel has value (even when you are wrong).

Empiricism (78%) high which suggests you are devoted to making decisions / acting through rational means.

I'd say that's a fairly accurate assessment.  Care to recommend a test to take?

[Strazos]

Interesting - I tend to fip-flop between INTP and INTJ. No idea what that really means, though.

[Minvaren]

Updated the original post with direct links to some specific tests.

On flipping between INTP and INTJ - Keirsey's stuff says this is possible, but according to MBTI it's not.  INTP functions are Ti Ne Si Fe, and INTJs use Ni Te Fi Se - nearly backwards from each other.  In general, are you more about brainstorming or execution?  You can also check the link I posted above about the MBTI results descriptions and see which one fits you better.

[MisterNoisy]

I first took an MBTI about 8-9 years ago and take one on occasion for shits and grins - always comes back INTJ, though.

[murdoc]

MBTI says that I am ENFP with intuitive and sensing almost 50/50 and everything else being pretty much a 65/35 split.

Seems about right to me. Over the last 10 years or so, that result would have varied quite wildly.

[shiznitz]

I used to be INTJ, but in the last few years I have moved to ISTJ.  I think being married with kids has expanded my sensitivity to others quite a lot.

[Salamok]

Don't you feel that for most people these tests more accurately describe what a person wants to be perceived as instead of what they actually are?

edit - This goes double or triple when they are used as a part of the hiring process.

edit2 - INTP for me, odd that it lists school teaching as a disfavored career, the older I get the more I seem to enjoy teaching/mentoring.  Then again a bit of teaching and mentoring is not the same as having to be on stage 6-8 hours a day, that might require some hermit level down time for me to recharge.

[Nebu]

Don't you feel that for most people these tests more accurately describe what a person wants to be perceived as instead of what they actually are?

Yes.  Most intelligent people know immediately what a question is looking for and will answer to match their perceived expectation. 

Very VERY few people have enough self esteem to be 100% honest, 100% of the time. 

[schild]

Completely honest with my answers. I suppose that comes as no surprise to anyone that knows me.

[Salamok]

Completely honest with my answers.

That is what they all say!  A major part of being deluded is not realizing it, as Nebu says most of us are somewhat full of shit most of the time w/o even realizing it.

[Margalis]

I don't think the MBTI stuff has any scientific validity. The history of it is pretty interesting - in short it's a product.

[Ard]

I always find discussions about this somewhat interesting, because it almost always seems to be someone who tested as an INFJ that brings it up.  I've never been able to tell if this is some sort of wish fulfillment sort of thing or pseudo bragging for being in the 1% or under club, or self validation that they really are special.  I say this as someone that came up INFJ on the full test over a decade ago in a class in college, and that still bounces between that and INFP on the short form online tests with really vaguely scoped questions.

[ghost]

INTJ, the same as when I started dental school 15 years ago. 

[WayAbvPar]

ISTP. I hate people and think most of them are wrong until proven otherwise 

[Hawkbit]

I did this for my intro back to college class recently.  I'm an INTJ (Mastermind, ha!) and a type 5 sp.

I realize that we can't read too much into it, but the results defined me perfectly.   My wife is very extroverted and she gives me shit all the time about not wanting to do things with people.  After taking all these tests I just pointed at them and told her that it explains a lot.  I think it helped her understand me a little better, too.  

Another good test we took was a Learning Styles test, which helped to explain lots about the way I learn (tactile/kinesthetic).  I was always bored as hell with reading material or lecture, but get me some tools and put my hands on the work... and I'll go to town.  

[Rasix]

Odd.  This is the first time I've taken this test and gotten ISTP.  Usually INTJ, I think or INTP. 

Adventuresome is not something I'd use to describe myself. The introverted, loyal, emotionally stunted part mostly fits, however.

[Minvaren]

Don't you feel that for most people these tests more accurately describe what a person wants to be perceived as instead of what they actually are?

There's a schism within some typology communities about this.

MBTI is a tool of self-validation - you make the call as to what your type is.  Empiricists, such as David Keirsey, believe that one's actions better determine one's true personality, and so neutral observers are a better guide.  In either case, test-retest reliability is only about 67% on MBTI and related tests, several types will consistently mistype themselves (SJs - again, they're nearly 1 in 2, so that's a lot of people), and as mentioned, if you know the system you can tailor your answers to get the result that you want.

These days I almost never hand someone a test to take, I observe them in-person interacting with others and maybe ask them a few obscure questions to see how they respond.  Can't really do that here, hence the exception.  In any case, the test is a starting point, your best-fit type is the ending point.

[ghost]

I find it interesting that a bunch of INxx people are socializing on a internet forum.  That's a form of extroversion. 

[Murgos]

I find it interesting that a bunch of INxx people are socializing on a internet forum.  That's a form of extroversion. 

Not really because none of you actually exist.

[ghost]

I had this odd dream the other night where most of the people on this board were actually just one guy, with lots of different alternate personalities. 

[Nebu]

I find it interesting that a bunch of INxx people are socializing on a internet forum.  That's a form of extroversion. 

If several folks on these forums talked to me in person like they do here, I'd seriously have to hold back from punching them in the face.  Murgos has it right.  

[Samwise]

Took that first test.

It put me as an INTJ, which is what I usually get these days.  I used to test as INTP, and still tend to hover between the two to some extent; this test had me at 58.82% Judging vs 41.18% Perceiving, which is the closest split for any of the axes(?).

I don't think I've done the Enneagram thing before.  It said I'm a "3 so/sx/sp"?  I was confused by being labeled an "image-aware achiever," since that conjures a mental image of someone in a suit (not me at all), until I read "this comes at the price of having a personal identity" and thought "oh hey, this is what my shrink keeps warning me about."  

[Ingmar]

I find it interesting that a bunch of INxx people are socializing on a internet forum.  That's a form of extroversion. 

If several folks on these forums talked to me in person like they do here, I'd seriously have to hold back from punching them in the face.  Murgos has it right.  

What a primitive social response! We should analyze this. 

[Ard]

I find it interesting that a bunch of INxx people are socializing on a internet forum.  That's a form of extroversion. 

It's a form of extroversion that doesn't have any of the baggage of actually having to deal with someone's visual cues, for me.  For some reason it helps me distance myself from the mental backlash of dealing with people.

[Tebonas]

INTP/INTJ (50/50), in former tests I went firmly into INTP.

And the fact that INxx people socialize here is not really strange. Its the control you have over the conversations that makes this possible. You choose when to interact and to what extent.

The second test ist equal parts 2 and 5 (70%/17), which is also odd. I buy the 5 (totally), but I'm wary about the 2.

Edit: Well, the combined test puts me squarely in the INTJ (55% vs 45%) area with a solid 5 (60%/18) with a 9 at second place (53%/16)


As always, I am wary of these tests.

Edit: Because weary is something entirely different than wary.

[Minvaren]

People are actually doing the Enneagram test, awesome.   

Enneagram 3s are about what they achieve rather than who they are, and get uncomfortable showing anything past that.  Enneagram 5s are the stereotypical INTJ - withdrawn types who are perfectly comfortable not interacting with others regularly, building up expertise in one subject area.

My Enneagram type is 1 - the Perfectionist.  I edit and re-edit posts for proper wording, spell-check everything, and generally will not espouse an opinion unless I can fully back it up.  I'm not as rigid about it as I used to be, though, but still have very high standards for myself.

[Rasix]

Heh, I'm a 6 on that.  Which seems to fit, except for the reason they give is contradictory for with the rest of my results, in my opinion.  Interesting take on me at the very least.

[Mosesandstick]

Thanks for starting the thread minvaren. I got a ISTJ - is that weird for someone with a Physics and Engineering background? Got a 2 on my first test then a 5 on the next one.

[Minvaren]

ISTJ is Si (Introverted Sensing) and Te (Extroverted Thinking) up first - meaning you form a database of physical experiences to compare new things to, interact with the world in a detail-oriented fashion, and do things step-by-step.  Sounds like an Engineer to me.   

Heh, I'm a 6 on that.  Which seems to fit, except for the reason they give is contradictory for with the rest of my results, in my opinion.  Interesting take on me at the very least.

Try this link for a better description of how/why you're a certain Enneagram type.  You seem responsive in general to me, so half of that seems to fit already.  It certainly nailed my childhood, in any case.

[Arrrgh]

INTP

[Strazos]

Updated the original post with direct links to some specific tests.

On flipping between INTP and INTJ - Keirsey's stuff says this is possible, but according to MBTI it's not.  INTP functions are Ti Ne Si Fe, and INTJs use Ni Te Fi Se - nearly backwards from each other.  In general, are you more about brainstorming or execution?  You can also check the link I posted above about the MBTI results descriptions and see which one fits you better.

I say flip-flop because for some of the categories, I score dead-center on the spectrum, and recognize that how I might answer some of the questions could change day to day, depending on mood and such. Regardless, they both sound pretty accurate for me.

Well, except for the introvert - I scored max on that one. Though oddly, a ton of people IRL didn't believe me when it came out. I should talk to my counselor at work, and see where she thinks I score generally.

[Trippy]

ISTP
"Engineer". Values freedom of action and following interests and impulses. Independent, concise in speech, master of tools. 5.4% of total population.

I am, in fact, an engineer. How did it know?