MBTI at work

[cellio]

Not long ago someone at my company listed his Meyers-Briggs type on his wiki page. And then someone else did, and, well, once three people do it it's a movement, so while I was on vacation someone created a page listing people by type (when known).

Of 35 people currently listed, 8 are INTJs -- seven software developers (including one of my favorite colleagues) and a hard-core designer. Yeah, these are my people. :-) According to Wikipedia, INTJs are about 2% of the general (US) population.

Granted, most of these types are being obtained by test toys found on the internet, but I don't imagine that would bias the results in a particular way, especially as people are using different tests. A few people have had more real tests in the past.

(Next-biggest group is ISTJ at 6, but that's a big group in the general population so not surprising. Ours apparently took some flack for alphabetizing the names within each section of the page; it's an ISTJ thing to do, apparently. :-) )

I just noticed something odd in the groupings. There are 16 types, grouped into four groups: NT, NF, SJ, and SP. Given the first two, I expected the other two to be ST and SF, but they're not. (That is, the first two suggested the pattern of "middle letters dominate".) I wonder what that means. (The I/E dimension gets no primary grouping at all?)

Comments

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, it goes like this:

I/E is irrelevant as a major grouping, all that letter means is whether you conceal your true nature (I) or not (E). If you are iNtuitive, then your primary method of decision is from the inside, based on either your Thoughts or your Feelings. If you are Sensing, then your primary method of decision is from the outside, based on either Judging or Perceiving. Or to put it another way, for Ns the T/F is dominant over the J/P and for Ss the J/P is dominant over the T/F.

[cellio]

Yeah, I/E is about where you draw your strength from verses direct behavior. I does not necessarily mean shy and E does not necessarily mean show-off, for instance. As an introvert, I place a lot of value on "me time" -- time to reflect, write, think, analyze, etc. I'm very introspective, and if I don't get a chance to "discharge" that every day I get fidgetty and unhappy.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

That sounds more like an N thing rather than an I thing. I definitely remember from whatever source I read it from that E means your appearance and inner self are the same, but I means that they're opposite, I think on the J/P axis.

Of course, I suspsect there are several possible interpretations.

[kayre]

The four groups reflect how one processes information. The difference is supposedly that if one is an S, the J/P spectrum becomes the secondary influence on processing rather than the F/T. And the I/E demension has more effect on how one acts, rather than on how one takes in and processes information.

Incidentally, they can change over one's lifetime, based on both evolving personality and outward influences. I'm an extreme example of that-- grew up in a family of ISTJs, and as an 18 year old tested as an INTJ. Ten years later, after lots of life experience and a more relaxed home environment, I tested as an ENFP, and have stayed there ever since. This in spite of living with an INTJ as my major contact (hubby)!

[cellio]

I've seen minor changes over time, but nothing like your total change. Doesn't surprise me, though; different aspects can develop at different rates, I would think. My T has always pegged the meter (completely at one end) and my J is pretty close to that; I has moved around in strength (always I, though), and I've had everything from moderate S to moderate N on the S/N scale (N more recently). This might say more about test construction or administration than about me, though, as the INTJ profile is pretty darn close.

[kayre]

Oh, I was Repressed, big time. Youngest in a household full of strong people with very different personalities, I had to learn to make decisions that they would accept. I used the N part of me to do that, but I answered all those questions based on how I had to react to survive, not on my true preferences, which I hardly know. And why would I react like an extravert while living with a bunch of incompatible people? I'm lucky I stayed sane, and somehow managed to maintain amicable relationships with most of them.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

I know a lot of people hold stock in MBTI. To me, it's generally the equivalent of astrology, or cold reading. I'm not Jungian by any stretch of the imagination (MBTI is directly from Jungian beliefs in typologies), and the general point that we look at the world and react to it in different ways is, shall we say, dramatically undermined by the attempt to pigeonhole everyone?

Fundamentally, there are two kinds of people: those who think everyone's alike, those who try to pigeonhole their fellow human beings, and those who mess with your notion of categories.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think it's a little more useful than you give it credit for. It's a heuristic, not a caliper, but it's given me insights into other people's thought processes that I might not have gotten otherwise -- or only after much frustration for both them and me.

For that matter, realizing just how rare my "type" is was actually rather liberating -- knowing that very few people are going to "get" me no matter what I do meant I could put the same effort into "getting" them instead.

You don't have to be a Jungian to consider MBTI a sometimes useful shorthand. Sure, it can be abused ("I'm sorry, we're only hiring ESTJs for sales positions"), but so can any psych tool.

[siderea]

Those four groups are the Keirseyan Temperaments. Keirsey's big contribution to Type theory is that if you slice the pie that particularly odd way, you get four groups the existence of which explains so much at both a micro and a macro level.

[cellio]

Ah, thanks! Now I remember. (My first encounter with this was Keirsey, but it's been a while.)