Heh, thanks. I need to mail that to a few people now
The funny thing is that I was convinced I was some sort of a rarity in this sense, and it was only until i stumbled on writing such as this, and the descriptions of the introverted MB types, that I realised it's way more common than people let on.
I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts.
Yeah, I'm plenty introverted, most of the crowd round these parts is (see K5 myers briggs articles & polls) but whats the point? I think this is the description somebody made of the INTP I found a few years ago, and yeah, it's fun to read, fits me pretty fairly. Not terribly productive though.
I took it more as subtle irony than wanking. The whole point of the article, to me, was to point out that extroverts aren't better, just different, but since they're more visible they set the social norms for what people consider to be "better."
In the meantime, it depresses me greatly that I had to add the word 'wanking' to the OSX spelling dictionary.
I think the correct term is "contemplative" not "introvert" and the connotations that brings with it (like anti-social) there's a huge difference. I find "introverts" to be far more moral/ethical than "extroverts" who seem to have to act out their thoughts and feelings to figure out if they're "right" or not.
Reading the original Jung on the subject of personality is illuminating. Introversion/Extroversion is just one of three axes, all of which are in some sense external versus internal. (Meyers-Briggs added a fourth axis.)
"Contemplative" would be on a different axis, probably "intuitive" in the Meyers-Briggs sense. In other words, someone who prefers internal thought to external senses.
INT? is the most internal of the Meyers-Briggs personalities. ESF? is the most external of the personalities.
I means introvert, which is how you deal with people. N means "iNtuitive", which is how you prefer to generate information. (From inside, versus "Sensing" personalities, who perfer to take information from external sources.) T means "Thinking, which is how you prefer to process information. (As opposed to "Feeling" types, who prefer to process based on feelings, external to the concious mind.)
?NT? types tend to go for software, because they like rational thought and abstraction. ?ST? types are more the electrical engineer types, liking concrete rational thoughts. ?NF? types are more artistic, liking internal abstractions and feelings. ?SF? types are more manager types
On each of these, the external variant outnumbers the internal variant by around three to one in the general population, which is why INTPs are so rare.
(P vs. J has to do with how organized you like things. IIRC, P types kinda take things as they go while J types like everything rigidly planned. They are about equal in the general population. This axis is the biggest change to Jung's original thoughts on personality.
(BTW: real psychologiest don't claim people are strictly pigeonhold by these metrics and instead talk about tendencies. No one scores perfectly INTP or anything else. I tend to score INTP, but am almost exactly at the midpoint on the P-J axis.)
I just retested myself on one of those internet personality tests and came up with INFJ: "They are, in fact, sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing and are so genuinely interested in people -- a product of the Feeling function they most readily show to the world. On the contrary, INFJs are true introverts," So I guess I really have no room to talk.
A lot of times, I feel guilty for not acting as sociable as other "normal" people do. It's easy to forget you're an introvert in a world full of extroverts
I've tested INTP before. But I've had to spend a week with the parents (Fluf-meister can probably relate) plus I've been reevaluating my personal priorities so I suspect it's having an effect on how I was answering the questions.
I'm not a big believer in personality tests for just those reasons. While there's some truth in the modeling of the personality processes I find them about as accurate as horoscopes sometimes. (Because I'm a Gemini so I'm always bouncing around switching viewpoints! )
We don't. But we're gemini's y'see, so we change our minds often. Sorry, it's the way the metaverse works!
(I've always wondered how Astrology deals with premature births. I was born a month early, so does that make me a Gemini or a Cancer? And does it really matter?)
#417301/07/2005 06:39 amWell, I've always thought that there's some truth in it.
There's truth in astrology as far as being born in the middle of winter means that your early experiences are substantially different to someone born in summer. That's about how far I'd go.
Comments
The funny thing is that I was convinced I was some sort of a rarity in this sense, and it was only until i stumbled on writing such as this, and the descriptions of the introverted MB types, that I realised it's way more common than people let on.
Yeah, I'm plenty introverted, most of the crowd round these parts is (see K5 myers briggs articles & polls) but whats the point? I think this is the description somebody made of the INTP I found a few years ago, and yeah, it's fun to read, fits me pretty fairly. Not terribly productive though.
In the meantime, it depresses me greatly that I had to add the word 'wanking' to the OSX spelling dictionary.
It's always amazed me how clueless most extraverts are about it.
"Contemplative" would be on a different axis, probably "intuitive" in the Meyers-Briggs sense. In other words, someone who prefers internal thought to external senses.
INT? is the most internal of the Meyers-Briggs personalities. ESF? is the most external of the personalities.
?NT? types tend to go for software, because they like rational thought and abstraction. ?ST? types are more the electrical engineer types, liking concrete rational thoughts. ?NF? types are more artistic, liking internal abstractions and feelings. ?SF? types are more manager types
On each of these, the external variant outnumbers the internal variant by around three to one in the general population, which is why INTPs are so rare.
(P vs. J has to do with how organized you like things. IIRC, P types kinda take things as they go while J types like everything rigidly planned. They are about equal in the general population. This axis is the biggest change to Jung's original thoughts on personality.
(BTW: real psychologiest don't claim people are strictly pigeonhold by these metrics and instead talk about tendencies. No one scores perfectly INTP or anything else. I tend to score INTP, but am almost exactly at the midpoint on the P-J axis.)
FWIW, I usually test with pretty firm I, N, and P, with near-borderline T.
I assumed you were pretty close to an INTP. Isn't everybody?
I'm not a big believer in personality tests for just those reasons. While there's some truth in the modeling of the personality processes I find them about as accurate as horoscopes sometimes. (Because I'm a Gemini so I'm always bouncing around switching viewpoints!
(I've always wondered how Astrology deals with premature births. I was born a month early, so does that make me a Gemini or a Cancer? And does it really matter?)