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[liv]

staranise made a post recently which led me to get a bit more of a clue what's going on with MBTI types. In particular, I understood about MBTI dividing people into 16 "types" based on four pairs of preferences, but I never really got my head round the meaning of four special pairs within each type called "cognitive functions". And staranise explains it! Amazing!

So I have known for a long time I'm ESTJ. I've done enough online personality quizzes and read enough around the subject that I can pick out the ones that are as close as they dare to get to the "real" MBTI instrument without violating anybody's commercial interests. Similarly it's hard to find a more rigorous description of the personality types than Wikipedia because the information is commercially protected.

staranise also says it's totally accepted to reverse engineer the quizzes based on which type description actually fits you. Which kind of aligns with my view that the point of MBTI is to give you back a terse description of how you already see yourself. That's not a criticism; I think it's a valid and often useful thing to do, ask people a bunch of questions about what sort of person they are and then give them a diagnosis based on what they actually say about themselves. As long as you don't pretend that doing that is some kind of magical insight beyond reflecting back what you've been told, and I think genuine MBTI stuff doesn't try to do that.

So to drill down: I am ridiculously Extroverted and hardly Introverted at all, except when I'm already extremely exhausted and stressed. I am also very solidly more Judgement than Perception. I tend to be more Thinking than Feeling, but I do tend to some F type approaches sometimes. I think I have aspects of both iNtuition and Sensing; which result I get depends on the phrasing of the questions (I do try to give the first answer that comes to mind rather than over-thinking, but I'm hyperlexic and tend to be rather literal and pedantic, so I find it difficult to "just answer"). I think that I am more likely to come up S on quizzes that are well-written and close to the real MBTI, as opposed to internet memes based on a very superficial understanding of the system or that ask ambiguous or leading questions. Also the ESTJ descriptions fit my personality way better than the ENTJ ones.

Knowing I'm ESTJ doesn't get me all that far, though the Wikipedia summary of the Keirsey description of ESTJs is almost absurdly good as a fit for my personality:

ESTJs are civic-minded individuals who dedicate themselves to maintaining the institutions behind a smooth-running society. They are defenders of the status quo and strong believers in rules and procedures. ESTJs are outgoing and do not hesitate to communicate their opinions and expectations to others.

But now I am starting to get a feel for what the cognitive functions are there for, maybe that gives me some more insight. Conveniently, I'm exactly the opposite of staranise's MBTI type, so she gives people like me as an example:

their dominant function would be extroverted thinking, and their fallback would be introverted sensing. So most of the time, they look at the world in terms of facts and realities around them, and then privately think about their lived experiences and specific examples.

So, my Dominant function is Extroverted Thinking Te. And that is so very true; I have very often noted that I think by talking things through with anyone who will listen. I understand myself and the world by keeping a public blog and engaging in discussion as much as I can. I'm happiest when I'm having deep conversations about things I care about. Indeed, what am I doing right now if not trying to understand my own personality by initiating a conversation with hundreds of people!

My Fallback function is Introverted Sensing Si. This explains something else about me that I never really knew was connected with my MBTI type. In my private thoughts I spend a lot of time going over memories and creating stories about my experiences, and yes, I like routines, procedures and the status quo.

My Tertiary function is Extroverted Intuition Ne. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but based on Wikipedia it's about imagination of various coexisting possibilities, less strictly logical than Te. I can see how this is something I do, and if this is my Tertiary function I can see how that makes me come out somewhat N-ish on some tests.

And my Inferior function is Introverted Feeling Fi. I do tend to have some difficulty with making explicit value judgements about things, I'm inclined to see all sides. And even though I think of myself as a rational, logical person, I do sometimes surprise myself with a somewhat intuitive people-sense. It's also true that when I am not coping, I can be uncharacteristically introverted, feeling overwhelming emotions that I can't handle and pushing people away because even someone expressing sympathy and comforting me feels like it's putting a big demand on me, draining my energy.

Some people cynically say that MBTI is just astrology for skeptics. I don't think it's method of fortune-telling, for sure, and I know it can be very much misused, such as in businesses where they make all their employees take a quiz and assume that once they've put people into one of 16 boxes then they know everything about them. Obviously people have other aspects to their personality beyond their MBTI type; you can't just divide the whole world into 16 groups. I also strongly disapprove of the kind of career counselling which tries to treat your MBTI as if it were your inescapable fate; I don't believe that there's any job that can't be done by people of any given type. Most jobs after all need a variety of different strengths and skills.

I think what MBTI and similar systems is most useful for is that it gives you a kind of shorthand way to explain what sort of person you are to others. Of course, if you want to have any sort of ongoing relationship, you want to add in other aspects of your personality, your life experiences, your background etc. But it gives a kind of starting point of, this is what to expect from this person, this is what they're likely to feel comfortable with, this is an area where they may have difficulties.

Poll #13987 MBTI

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 40

View Respondents

Ticky box time!

View Answers

I have a good idea of my MBTI type
31 (77.5%)

My MBTI type is a good fit for my personality
25 (62.5%)

MBTI is a useful way of understanding how people work
17 (42.5%)

MBTI is meaningless
4 (10.0%)

Personality tests killed my grandmother, you insensitive clod
1 (2.5%)

I have opinions which don't fit in your tickyboxes!
17 (42.5%)

Ticky (aka I have filled in your poll)
13 (32.5%)

Comments

[jae]

My non-conforming opinions:

I'm dubious of all personality tests that aren't based on the actual current state of personality research done by trained academics. As I understand it from people who know much more about this sort of thing than I do, the only distinction in the MBTI test that's based on a current understanding of personality research is the extroversion/introversion one. (Caveat: I'm not a psychologist, but I am a social scientist, and I know many psychologists. So I'm not a professional or even a knowledgeable amateur--my knowledge about this is all second-hand--but I do trust those sources)

On the other hand, I have rarely felt more eerily comprehended than when I've read descriptions of my MBTI type. So there's that.

-J

[siderea]

I don't see why you shouldn't be dubious about personality tests that are based on the actual current state of personality research done by trained academics.

As a mental health professional, from my cursory investigation, the signal difference of the current state-of-the-art personality typology (OCEAN, aka Big-5) and the MBTI, is that the former has a fifth axis, and was developed by men.

[liv]

Well, OCEAN, aka Big-5 at least gives me some search terms. My guess would be that MBTI may be more useful as a self-knowledge tool than a research tool, but that doesn't make it not useful.

[liv]

That seems pretty fair. I think the MBTI stuff was originally evidence-based to some extent, but it may well have been superseded by now.

I am fairly skeptical of the feeling of "omg that description sounds exactly like me!", because I've seen examples of supposed types which are just vague enough that they apply to nearly everybody but just specific enough that people feel they're uniquely understood, eg there's a "universal horoscope" quoted in Hofstadter somewhere. And I think it's a fairly common bias for people to read descriptions of groups and feel convinced that they belong to the group depicted.