Old writings: Myers-Briggs and INTJ
May. 21st, 2023 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pheloniusfriarI keep running across writing assignments I did for an intro to creative writing class (very intro it seems, perhaps a little too intro). Based on the content, I would guess that they were done some time in 2000, shortly after my wife left me and our two children, ages 6 and 3, to go “find herself” after a diagnosis of severe mental illness (the acute phase of the most recent episode had passed with treatment by that point). I am at a point in my existence where I’m trying to rid myself of piles of paper, bits and pieces, projects I’ll never finish or whose “best before” date has passed (e.g. someone’s already totally done it), and these writings don’t get thrown out because of the time they were written, so I’m going to capture them here and finally toss them in the recycling bin.
I am an INTJ, and apparently a representative one. For anyone who does not recognize those four letters, they are my Myers-Briggs personality type. I was first introduced to the concept of a formal personality type categorization scheme in a course I was taking on leadership in the workplace. Everyone in the class was given the materials they needed to determine their own personality type, and we then shared our results with the others in the class. It was an entertaining exercise, but it wasn’t until the facilitator started talking about how the different personality types interacted that I realized the power and utility of this seemingly simple classification scheme. By knowing, or deciphering, another person’s personality type, it would allow you to anticipate how they would react to your actions and reactions and how you were likely going to react to them. Through my readings, I have since discovered that this concept, introduced in its current from in the 1950s by Isabel Myers and Katheryn Briggs, had a history that goes back through Carl Jung all the way to Hippocrates almost twenty-five centuries earlier.
A personality type consists of the orientations Introverted vs. Extroverted, iNtuitive vs. Sensing, Thinking vs. Feeling, and Judging vs. Perceiving. Each characteristic is a continuum between the two extremes for that characteristic, and indicates the mode that a person is most comfortable operating in. For example, an introvert can be extroverted, but it often requires effort on the part of the introvert. Although I love being around people, as an “introvert” I find it draining to interact with others for long periods or even to be in a crowd; whereas an “extrovert” would be energized or even exhilarated by those very same situations. The literature describes people who are “sensing” as thinking of themselves as “practical”, and people who are “intuitive” as thinking of themselves as “innovative”. Apparently the “intuitive” vs. “sensing” categorization offers the greatest divide between people and how they react to each other. To the S type, an N type can appear “flighty, impractical, and unrealistic or a dreamer”; but to an N type, the S type can be “plodding and exasperatingly slow to see possibilities in tomorrow”. The “thinker” bases their decisions on logic and their intellect, and the “feeler” bases theirs on their emotions and how it will impact other people. The “judger” is comfortable when things are settled, and the “perceiver” is comfortable when things are more fluid and their options are all open. Studies show that about 25% of people are introverted, 25% are intuitive, 50% are thinking, and 50% are judging so only around 1% of the population is INTJ.
There are many subtleties in combining all of those characteristics into the description of a personality type, but the resulting composite describes the way I have behaved through my life with frightening accuracy. The descriptions say that INTJs are the most self-confident type, that we live in an “introspective reality, focusing on possibilities”, and that we are natural decision makers. One trait that has consistently landed me in hot water is, for INTJs, “authority based on position, rank, title, or publication has absolutely no force”. If I am not very careful, I can be profoundly annoying to those people with personality types that require an explicit knowledge of their place in the scheme of things. Somewhat less flattering is that we prefer that events and people serve some positive use, and that we interact with the world through our own self-consistent logic systems. That last point is pretty bizarre and can lead to some of the most amazingly interesting or disturbing behaviour, depending on how it is applied. INTJs see reality as “something which is quite arbitrary and made up”, “quite malleable”, and something that “can be changed”. In essence, INTJs create their own personal reality. Several of my very good friends have independently commented that my world view and behaviour can be literally alien. The good news is that my parents laid an excellent foundation of positive morals and ethics that are an integral part of the way that I do things, and that part of my personal world view is that everyone and everything is valuable and should be respected.
As an addendum, since I wrote that I have read many critiques of the Myers-Briggs system; however, I have also become convinced that there is something fundamental in the distribution of the various personality types in human society (whether you use Myers-Briggs or some other measure). In particular, it seems curious to me that the different types seem to be roughly in the right proportions to create and support the sorts of civilizations humans have created since we started forming permanent settlements and developing the technologies needed to support that form of community (to be clear, there are profoundly revolutionary technologies that support non-settled societies). As a fantasy, I’ve sometimes thought about trying to pursue research to find out if there is an actual genetic component to it — whether through predisposition due to inheritance, and/or a “spin of the bottle” at conception to see determine what mix is provided as a starting point. Again, type in this context is a predisposition, not a determinant.
I am an INTJ, and apparently a representative one. For anyone who does not recognize those four letters, they are my Myers-Briggs personality type. I was first introduced to the concept of a formal personality type categorization scheme in a course I was taking on leadership in the workplace. Everyone in the class was given the materials they needed to determine their own personality type, and we then shared our results with the others in the class. It was an entertaining exercise, but it wasn’t until the facilitator started talking about how the different personality types interacted that I realized the power and utility of this seemingly simple classification scheme. By knowing, or deciphering, another person’s personality type, it would allow you to anticipate how they would react to your actions and reactions and how you were likely going to react to them. Through my readings, I have since discovered that this concept, introduced in its current from in the 1950s by Isabel Myers and Katheryn Briggs, had a history that goes back through Carl Jung all the way to Hippocrates almost twenty-five centuries earlier.
A personality type consists of the orientations Introverted vs. Extroverted, iNtuitive vs. Sensing, Thinking vs. Feeling, and Judging vs. Perceiving. Each characteristic is a continuum between the two extremes for that characteristic, and indicates the mode that a person is most comfortable operating in. For example, an introvert can be extroverted, but it often requires effort on the part of the introvert. Although I love being around people, as an “introvert” I find it draining to interact with others for long periods or even to be in a crowd; whereas an “extrovert” would be energized or even exhilarated by those very same situations. The literature describes people who are “sensing” as thinking of themselves as “practical”, and people who are “intuitive” as thinking of themselves as “innovative”. Apparently the “intuitive” vs. “sensing” categorization offers the greatest divide between people and how they react to each other. To the S type, an N type can appear “flighty, impractical, and unrealistic or a dreamer”; but to an N type, the S type can be “plodding and exasperatingly slow to see possibilities in tomorrow”. The “thinker” bases their decisions on logic and their intellect, and the “feeler” bases theirs on their emotions and how it will impact other people. The “judger” is comfortable when things are settled, and the “perceiver” is comfortable when things are more fluid and their options are all open. Studies show that about 25% of people are introverted, 25% are intuitive, 50% are thinking, and 50% are judging so only around 1% of the population is INTJ.
There are many subtleties in combining all of those characteristics into the description of a personality type, but the resulting composite describes the way I have behaved through my life with frightening accuracy. The descriptions say that INTJs are the most self-confident type, that we live in an “introspective reality, focusing on possibilities”, and that we are natural decision makers. One trait that has consistently landed me in hot water is, for INTJs, “authority based on position, rank, title, or publication has absolutely no force”. If I am not very careful, I can be profoundly annoying to those people with personality types that require an explicit knowledge of their place in the scheme of things. Somewhat less flattering is that we prefer that events and people serve some positive use, and that we interact with the world through our own self-consistent logic systems. That last point is pretty bizarre and can lead to some of the most amazingly interesting or disturbing behaviour, depending on how it is applied. INTJs see reality as “something which is quite arbitrary and made up”, “quite malleable”, and something that “can be changed”. In essence, INTJs create their own personal reality. Several of my very good friends have independently commented that my world view and behaviour can be literally alien. The good news is that my parents laid an excellent foundation of positive morals and ethics that are an integral part of the way that I do things, and that part of my personal world view is that everyone and everything is valuable and should be respected.
As an addendum, since I wrote that I have read many critiques of the Myers-Briggs system; however, I have also become convinced that there is something fundamental in the distribution of the various personality types in human society (whether you use Myers-Briggs or some other measure). In particular, it seems curious to me that the different types seem to be roughly in the right proportions to create and support the sorts of civilizations humans have created since we started forming permanent settlements and developing the technologies needed to support that form of community (to be clear, there are profoundly revolutionary technologies that support non-settled societies). As a fantasy, I’ve sometimes thought about trying to pursue research to find out if there is an actual genetic component to it — whether through predisposition due to inheritance, and/or a “spin of the bottle” at conception to see determine what mix is provided as a starting point. Again, type in this context is a predisposition, not a determinant.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-22 10:46 pm (UTC)I share the urge to recognize that some of my potential options will never be pursued, and I might as well get rid of the st0ff involved. But I suspect I'm far less efficient about acting on these impulses.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-23 09:19 pm (UTC)