[boogerbetty]

I'm curious as to how all of you INFPs (and others as well) think you came to be who you are. Was it pre-wired in the brain? Did you experience a life-altering event that heavily impacted your personality? Did your parents give you too much leeway with the fairy costumes and alone time? What are your theories?



As an INFP who recently discovered her mother to be the same MB type, I wonder how much or me is, well, me, and how much of me is her.

[Alextllz]

I think it has to do with the soul... :D

[PeaTea]

I think you're born the way you are. So more nature than nurture. Your nurturing determines whether you exhibit the healthy aspects of your personality type or the unhealthy ones.

Another question to ask is, do specific personality types occur when a specific pairing of parents' personality types happens?

[Alediran]

As others said, we are born INFP and life only determines if we end up well or not. I have a close example, one of my wife's sisters is an INFP, but her life, coupled with being Sagitarian (drama queens all of them :P) has made her very unhealthy most of the time and only now she is starting to recover a little. She is lesbian and always bonked heads with her father who is a very strong ESTJ and Aries (so, besides the usual clash between INFP and ESTJ personalities, you had to add two very headstrong Fire signs in the mix). And it wasn't pretty at all.

[Adriana]

How should I know? I don't have a twin sister who grew up somewhere else to compare it with. I don't have a control person.

INTJ dad, ISFJ mum, INTJ brother and ENFP sister, by the way, but I couldn't say if my Ne was developed through my upbringing or not.

[LittleHawk]

I don't think we are born INFP. As a child I had several qualities that distinguish an INFP child, but I was also very loud, outgoing and confident. That changed as my family life did and I became more introverted and less optimistic than I had been.

My mother also happens to be an INFP though. I don't think you can say you were born a certain way or that your parents make you who you are. So many people grow up to spite their parents, because they're on totally different pages. I think too many circumstances come into play to pin it one any one of those, and I think it also differs for individuals.

[boogerbetty]

Great question. I'd love to know what type my dad is to ponder on this some more, but he is definitely the type that would never sit down to take a MB test.

[Elwin]

Studies of identical twins raised separately under different circumstances/environments show that personality traits, mannerisms, tendencies and so are on strikingly innate, quite eerily so in fact. There are cases where development can be altered and have profound effects on behavior though, such as with epigenetics or severe neglect/abuse that disrupts early attachment and ruins the ability to form a strong theory of mind, sense of self, empathy etc.

[Humilis Curator]

I believe it is a combination of both. There is a specific term for it that I cannot remember or find at this specific time which makes me sad lol.

Seriously though, I grew up in a house full of sensors and much of my family is also sensors. A series of events changed me drastically, I do not think I am anywhere near where the path that I was on when I was younger. This makes me feel that it was "nurture" or lack of nurture so to say. Environmental impacts have changed me considerably. However, I do not think that the nature/determinism can be completely ruled out. I see a lot of my parents within me only changed and altered. My feeling on the subject is that we cannot rule out either of the two viewpoints and that in many ways, it is both of them.

I think with this, as with many things, we rush to jump onto one side of the fence. For reasons I am unsure of, people greatly desire to have a specific viewpoint before seeing a situation fully and taking in all perspectives and also rising above perspectives to observe truth.

[Belovodia]

I always sensed that it was innate and I felt, from a very young age, like a very Fi focused person.

All anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt but my infp and enfp daughters have the same traits now
that they did as babies - the little dreamer and the fiesty little champion of causes! I didn't know about
MBTI then, but now it all makes sense.