Clues on unknown temperament...your view?

I'm a bit unsure of my type ... hence this thread. I wrote a good number of clues that may shed light more on temperament per se, rather than on some random behaviour from years ago. It must be said that I do not really do this kind of disclosure, but I think some information herein could be helpful to the typing. I have already formed my own conclusion about it, but I would very much like to hear from you all.

Please provide argument to your vote on the most likely type(s) , otherwise I will not be able to consider it.



- In the past, has very willingly refused to perform in a theather play for a class, to dance at the highschool prom and to obey the freshman reception protocol (on the grounds that they were 'worthless and stupid' activities ; the punishment ensued too);

-Tends to despise popular culture, common sense (doesn't have any), the cult of celebrities and (dishonest and perverse) authority figures, as well as other kind of thoughtless and biased attitudes disguised as ideologies ; no political or religious leanings.

- Has been a college dropout enduring a depression spell due to the apparent breakdown of mental self-control and discipline that had until then allowed to pursue an unwanted course (medicine).

- Over the years, next to no social life ; mostly had pets and online correspondence as a substitute for real personal relationships ; only started dating at 22.

- Recurring tendency of engaging and desengaging socially (i.e. friendships), doesn't really warn people when stepping away for long, returning as if nothing had happened ; likewise, may stay away from family for a very long time without really feeling anything amiss. However, may be very obliging (loving?) to family members who show sincere interest in getting together and conversing.

- Gets bored very quickly at social gatherings, despite best attempts to go down drunk ; dislikes small talk and finds flirting either a very funny joke or just very obnoxious ; may keep away and observe discretely from a corner or even flee from the said gathering altogether if feeling crowded.

- Very self-conscious and socially avoidant, in so far as to turn back and change routes if a long-lost acquaintance is spotted down the street.

- History of romantic interests towards supposedly 'taken' or 'unavailable' members of the opposite sex, e.g. age or cultural difference, but has had much trouble openly expressing those interests. Deep down, nurtures an obsession for intimacy, especially the physical kind.

- Cynical, and somewhat paranoid and fearful attitude regarding unknown people, especially in unfamiliar places.

- Not much talent or interest for endeavours in the outer world ; may neglect everyday tasks unless self-forced not to ; however, serious towards intellectual matters, despises people who proudly claim not stimulating themselves intellectually.

- Enjoys a scholarly life, may be intrigued by subjects that many people find too theoretical, abstract and useless ; no desire for a promising career if it means cutting back in personal mind pursuits.

- Keeps individual principles that are strictly followed even when not necessary; tendency to order, list and systematize (mentally, at least) and stress about things with little practical value.

- Private, dislikes drawing attention to self, as well as displays of vanity and narcissism ; does not usually enjoy or give importance to anecdotes and blogs and has no clue what to do with facebook and myspace, try as he might.

- Has gone through a strange spell of being very mindful of public image and demeanour, something that didn't last very long.

- Very head in the clouds and easily distracted when pursuing ideas ; may lose things like keys and mp3 players and just shrug them off instead of earnestly looking for them.

- In group settings, tends to bite the tongue often, witholding opinions in fear that they are still half-baked and illogical or that they may be taken as too cerebral, radical or insulting; may be tempted not speak up against the majority, even in the knowledge of a very obvious error. When given license to opine, may be quite critical, others often finding it harsh, unnecessary and party-pooping.




- Feels stressed when persuaded ( e.g. emotional blackmail) ; 'bonds' with people by taking them under the wing and helping them with their academic projects or swapping books.

- Despite very much enjoying quality artistic works and admiring the creativity behind the elegant ways of expressing feelings and turns of phrase, admits that creativity is not his strongest point ; values precision with words, rather than eloquence and quantity; mental approach is more like a careful connecting of various pieces of information derived from the outside, rather than a passionate presenting of something really original, idiosyncratic and ground-breaking.

- Tends to keep emotions, especially negative ones like anger, under control, with some difficulty in expressing them ; as a result, may be somewhat passive-agressive.

- May be a closet romantic : likes some sensitive singer-songwriter music and writing poetry ; keeps mementos.

- When younger, greatest interests were videogames and the internet ; later on, grew out of them and dabbled with art and literature, among other things.

- Quite interested in knowing what makes other people click.

- When thinking, tends to refer to himself in the third person ( not very surprising).

- Preferred subjects in highschool : math, philosophy , science in general.




What some have said about me , for better and for worse (in quotations):


- Tendency of rationalizing things, i.e. 'I think' instead of just 'I feel'

-Deep-seated fear of close relationships

- Shy, withdrawn, on-looking, talks to himself ( and therefore weird and crazy)

- Serious, stiff-upper lip, kind of intimidating ; when listening in to another person's opinion, the facial expression seems to say ' What the fuck is this person on about?...'

- A difficult and stubborn character sometimes

- Seems to be a slow, belaboring thinker who has a hard time learning like everyone else (conventionally / by route)

- Intelligent but bookish, with little social and pratical skills

- Rather odd, subtle, deadpan sense of humour ; bad jokes.

-Arrogant, has an attitude problem

-May shift between uptight and individualistic to laidback and helpful

-Too caught up with his ideas to really notice the needs of others

- Sometimes asks pointless and/or disturbing questions and almost forces people to follow through their arguments with annoying 'why' questions

I would suggest iNTP. This is going off the letters. If you want a cognitive explanation for it then that'll take some time. I because it seems as thought you are not too keen on hoarding many acquaintances or even keeping up with them since it requires a lot of maintenance work. N because you expressed your answers through concepts and ideas as opposed to sensory details such as "I hate going to gatherings because the loud noise and stench of alcohol is a real turn-off for me." T because you mentioned you liked to introspect and analyze along with having trouble expressing your emotions and coming across as cold/calculating to others. Lastly, J/P was giving a slight problem. Went with P because through your answers, you seemed to lean towards amassing and tweaking ideas/concepts (INTP) rather than inventing and implementing efficient processes (INTJ). Let me know what you think.

You sound like an INTP.

Originally Posted by StraightCrushin

I would suggest iNTP. This is going off the letters. If you want a cognitive explanation for it then that'll take some time. I because it seems as thought you are not too keen on hoarding many acquaintances or even keeping up with them since it requires a lot of maintenance work. N because you expressed your answers through concepts and ideas as opposed to sensory details such as "I hate going to gatherings because the loud noise and stench of alcohol is a real turn-off for me." T because you mentioned you liked to introspect and analyze along with having trouble expressing your emotions and coming across as cold/calculating to others. Lastly, J/P was giving a slight problem. Went with P because through your answers, you seemed to lean towards amassing and tweaking ideas/concepts (INTP) rather than inventing and implementing efficient processes (INTJ). Let me know what you think.

Why not an INFJ? How would an INFJ differ from the description? As an INFJ, how does your Fe manifest? Can you draw out an example of the amassing and tweaking of ideas, please?

Originally Posted by Dark Romantic

You sound like an INTP.

Why is this? Why not some other introverted iNtuitive type?

Originally Posted by Ludi

Why is this? Why not some other introverted iNtuitive type?

Because of this..... LOL

My hunch says INFJ. Based on what you wrote, you could be my clone, and I'm quite confident I'm an INFJ. However, you seem to be a bit more objective, so as a "general type" I'd classify you as INXJ.

I think Ni is evident in how look at yourself. Everything you wrote there is from a birds-eye view, which is Ni characteristic. Ni is also stubborn, minimalistic/perfectionistic, which is also evident.

When it comes to Te vs Ti, it's a bit harder. Based on your writing style, I could go with both, but I lean more towards Ti because of the mental organization your writing shows. To offer my point of view of how I know I don't have auxiliary Te: I tend to make giants leap in everything I do instead of highly organized step-by-steps, which is Te characteristic.

Fe vs Fi isn't clear either. It can be that high thinking dominance is just clouding your Fe, like it is in my case. My Fe comes out as using a lot smilies in instant messaging, and sometimes mirroring the mood/personality of the person I talk to. You mentioned bonding with someone in one your examples, which suggest at least partial Fe. As for Fi, well all of us have our values and inner emotions.

Don't see iNFJ because you mentioned you’re motivated by and prefer to pursue a scholarly lifestyle along with personal mind pursuits. An iNFJ description would differ in the sense its be a little less focused on intellectual stimulation and moreso on assisting others and finding a meaningful way of providing support to whomever/whatever they hold dear. Also, thered be hints of Introversion vs. Fe where they'd have to tendancy to fly a little bit solo but at the same time yearn for deep interpersonal connections.

My Fe annoyingly manifests itself as a slight tightening of my heart whenever I look directly into someone's face. This happens because Fe can't help but read their mood like a book. If they're happy, great! It spreads to me and I seem to match their same intensity of joy. But here is a possible mark of Fe within the iNFJ. When it notices someone is sad; if you're not careful; Ni will abruptly grab the reins and give you an in-depth picture of why they are unhappy. It's here that it gets uncomfortable because it feels like you're seeing/feeling so personal and private to that individual that it feels like tresspassing.

Marckos hit it right on the head lol. Because you like to refine ideas. You not only asked why we felt you were an iNTP but also why you couldn't be another introverted intuitive type. That seems like the type labeled the Thinker(iNTP). Plus the fact that your avatar is a thinking monkey helps the case quite nicely. =).

For amassing and tweaking ideas, I'll. Use my iNTP brother. He prefers a scholarly lifestyle himself. He reads and studies about numerous different subjects to gain a global picture on everything. But also because of his preference to all parts of the big picture. He wants to know the opinions of others, how they got their opinions, are their opinions biased, and if that individual's pathway to that idea was flawed. That's why iNTPs can make great debaters and do well in thinktanks. This also makes them walking repositiories of information. The kind of people that do well on Jeopardy and other quiz shows (Like my brother). Through the many talks we've had about life, ive noticed he has a well thought out idea and roadmap to gaining success. He thought through and fleshed out every piece of this roadmap to success. I couldn't find any disconnects; the idea was sound. For wisdom and fullproof ideas, iNTPs are the ones to go to.

For them, implementing these ideas though.....is a whole different story.

To the OP: could you answer to 2 extra questions?

How do you achieve a goal?

What is true?

Originally Posted by Remcy

To the OP: could you answer to 2 extra questions?

How do you achieve a goal?

Goal? What goal? Outside ones? Well, going by a personal scheme with personal principles, even if just a fleeting, mental one. Lists help me be less scattered. There's one quote that says it better for me:

« There cannot be a distinction between cultivated and non-cultivated people, the wise and the lewd; there are just those who cultivate themselves, and those who don't.» - Ferdinand Foch


What is true?

By default, I think nothing is ; truth is a convention, a distinction awarded to the most probable or most evident, to what is most able to produce certainty within the mind. Certainty defines truth, not the other way around. In philosophy, truth should be the aim, but then again the method of philosophy, I think, consists of rejecting assurance and irresistible truths, to remain always in doubt.

Also:

- Use of poetry and brainstorming with self to tweak ideas and explore shades of meaning and ambivalence
- Rather poor fluency / reticence in speech ; prefers writing as a way to consider options
- Excessive second-guessing, hypercorrecting, skepticism regarding outside statements and belabored scrutiny
- Thinking in images, patterns, metaphors and analogies, instead of signs (words and numbers)
- Difficulty translating words into a well-defined notion, e.g. when reading descriptions, difficulty learning from literal instructions, learns theory better by means of videos or drawings, for instance
- Deriving meaning of words by analysis of its etymology for sake of transparency, so to depict it in terms of motion


Is most of this characteristic of P, in contrast to J? INP (Ne) or INJ (Ni)?


This is a writing based on Leanor Thompson's Personality types:

Js do better in school because conventional educational system clearly separates the observer and the observed and takes a symbolical approach to ideas. Ps gain knowledge by experiencing ideas, by becoming one with the observed. SJs are good at memorizing facts because they literally believe that words have ideas stored in them, and the more words they know the more they know. NJs also go along with this. There was one very eminent 20th century INFJ philosopher--Ludwig Wittgenstein who believed that reality depends on words for its existence. This is why Js tend to believe in certain knowledges and Ps, dont-they are language oriented thinkers and believe that ideas can be perceived as finite and closed entities and that they are entirely immanent within symbols. Ps are more image oriented than idea oriented and don't believe that ideas can be clearly defined or that they are finite or even less they are commensurable to anything that we understand, or that there is such a thing as closure anyways. She put it perfectly, Ps are image oriented and Js idea and symbol oriented. This is why ENTP philosophers always loved chaos theory, and the greatest skeptic himself, David Hume, was, I think an ENTP. He was so skeptical not because he was a strong Thinker, but because of his radical P qualities that did not believe in coherent ideas that could be immanet within anything that we consider solid knowledge. Another good allegory for the way Ps think is Hume's concept of the self--a bundle of perception, just small part of the bigger picture of nature. In short Ps perceive everything at the same time and do not seek closure and think in terms of pictures and patters and not symbols and this is why they tend not to believe in the existence of finite entities, like absolute knowledge packed within a symbol, a physical self that has a beginning and an end. They, like Hume tend to think that they are part of the big picture that is happening at the same time and we are all moving along for the ride. (Another excellent depiction of how Extroverted Intuition thinks---you, or your ideas are not clearly defined, neither is what is on the outside, you may not even have a coherent, existing self, you are just part of what is out there existing and always moving along. Also, Einstein's discovery of relativity where time does not exist in the ultimate reality may be another way to look at how Extroverted Intuition thinks. It perceives everything at the same time, as if the universe is infinite)


NPs respond the best to metaphors and analogies and are the masters of analogies.

NJs, on the other hand, perceive abstract theories as direct pipelines to the truth and can easily imagine how they symbolize what inevitably must be there. This is why INJs almost effortlessly perceive what is written in the textbook and can easily accept an abstract idea as a notion they currently perceive as the truth, whereas Ps would have qualms about that as they can not accept the existence of such a finite entity or a coherent notion of the truth that has a beginning and an end, and wouldn't be able to absorb such a notion right off the bat.



The 'Left-brained' functions tend to perceive one thing at a time and are sequential, and tend to look at not everything that is there, but at just what they need, and what is consistent. This is why Ni and Si are not concerned with having a vision of the whole world, just a personal vision, a vision of what we need to do, and knowledge of thereof subjects. The down-side of this, however, is that even NJs, may have a difficult time picking up on what is not said and working with unfamiliar ideas right off the bat as their left-brained nature may deem them unnecessary and leave the NJ without the motivation to pursue them. This is also why all Js, even NJs need a set environment to work around their routine in. Introverted Perceiving functions (Si/Ni) are primarily concerned not with knowing about everything that may be, but with just knowing what needs to be known to the individual according to a set agenda. They also have difficulty adapting because they expect for the world to line up with their symbolic conception of it, and information needs to be processed first in order to be placed into symbols ( or on more concrete basis, into their plans and visions), hence no wonder the Ni vision is oftenly divorced from reality. From this we could also infer that the reason why SJs are often seriously bruised by verbal insults and people behaving properly is because they tend to see words and direct actions as clear-cut representations of reality that could never be doubted. Whereas Ps do not believe in such clear-cut notions of reality and tend to think that everything can be doubted. And philosophers with Introverted Intuition are more easily disturbed by the criticisms of their ideas because they believe that their ideas are literally fundamental to their vision as those ideas are comprised of words only, and when they are attacked, they are almost directly and literally being bruised. Since having a vision is fundamental to their thought, they deem it imperative to have one underlying set of structures that guides everything that they think about. Hence for this reason, unlike the NPs (and even ENTPs who may not need a system at all, David Hume, Bertrand Russell, Machiavelli, Voltaire and John Dewey are case in point) who weave large webs of ideas, have a one solid theory on which everything is based on. And very oftenly end up having just one fundament to all of their philosophizing whereas NPs have various which are often switched. Hence, for this reason we could say that the INFJ Schopenhauer was a one book man, whereas the rest of his writings were merely supplemental material to the World as Will and Representation. Much of the same could be said about the INTJ Kant, whose three Critiques comprised the one big system that his thought hinged on, and the rest stemmed from there. Also, since Js take their perceptions of how the world is for granted, they should, just like SJs be as easily offended by erratic behavior, but they do not, because unlike the Introverted Sensors who expect immediate concrete results in their assessments, Nis are slower to judge because they spend more time looking for far-reaching symbols. But after they have found them, their reaction will be just as, if not more intense than that of the SJs, and unlike the NPs, they clearly will perceive for it to be a reality. This is why SPs tend to believe in drinking or drugging away their problems, they do not take their perceptions of the world for granted (much like one could say that since Introverted functions speak of what the individual needs, hence Ni/Si are about our knowledge, and Se/Ne about just knowledge out there that has no relationship to us, hence the SP may think that there is something wrong with their excessive drinking, yet treat it as an idea just out there, not something that has to be taken care of immediately). And hence for this reason, I intuit, ENTPs report the lowest level of stress because they can easily detach from their problems and use their Intuition to work out an ingenious solution, and only reattach when they are ready with their plan. ISFJs and INFJ the highest because they are always attached to their perceptions of how the world works, and INFJs are ahead of the ISFJ in the regard that they are probably more shocked by what they have perceived as hurtful while putting forth their far-reaching assessments of the situation. So in short, ISFJs feel immediate pain from their negative perceptions of the world that they take for granted, INFJs do not, not untill they find their far-reaching signs, but they will experience them to the full after they have done so.