# ET phone home



## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

*DISCLAIMER:* I have no interest in discussing cognitive functions or enneagrams in this thread. My focus is strictly on the MBTI and Big 5 models, as well as any factors which might skewer preferences.

All clear on this? Good, let's get down to business.

I've settled on ENTP as a type for the past year or so, but with some reservation. Switching from the Harold Grant function model to the dichotomies has helped bring clarity to typology. Having taken the official MBTI test and a Big 5 test, I can quite confidently say I'm an NP. E and T are more questionable, though, and I acknowledge that I might lack a particularly strong preference either way. I think I'm more of an ambivert, and the T/F dichotomy is the fuzziest of the four MBTI dichotomies.

Anyway, I'll outline my reasons for typing as E, N, T, and P, and see where it goes from there.

*Extraversion?:* During the past few years, I've wrestled with depression, which would make me more withdrawn than I'd otherwise be in the best of times. As of now, I'm in a better mood, but I don't think my dopamine levels are very high to begin with. There isn't much that I get excited about, and I'm not one for expressivity.
But I think there's an argument to make for extraversion. When I think of the times I've been in my best mood, it's because I experienced something I'd never experienced before, or because I spent an afternoon with a friend. I need that stimulus in order to stay sane, to the point where I'd just throw myself out there and get lost in order to find something. Apart from that, I have a fairly regular habit of chatting with randoms out in public, am fairly assertive, and share opinions openly. By no means am I a shy person.

*Intuition!:* I fixate primarily on the idea of a thing more often than the thing itself. Through abstracting common ideas, I can catch onto comparisons between things. I'd look at a picture, and describe the underlying idea being conveyed through the picture rather than immerse myself in details. I have a penchant for creative, artsy interests, consistently test as an N, and I am high on Openness using the Big 5 model.

*Thinking?:* The last time I took a Big 5 test, my score on Agreeableness was 50%. So it's safe to say that my preference either way isn't going to be all that strong. Still, chances are I still lean at least slightly one way or another. I'm inclined to choose Thinking because of my pragmatic streak and willingness to argue, and because having hopes and ideals is not something specific to Feeling. Below are two arguments for each preference.
T1) I am morally utilitarian, to the point where I would let a thousand people die in order to save a million. T2) When I was discussing a hypothetical deterrent for suicide with a friend (simulating death, basically), I disagreed with the idea because of the lack of practicality; I argued that word would get out, and that the simulation itself would lack the sense of panic from jumping off a building.
F1) I'm a vegetarian because I question whether to bring something into this world just so it can be killed - it helps that I have antinatalist views. F2) Last year, I leant something to someone even though I suspected I shouldn't trust them, and was proven right; although since then, I've become hard nosed about lending things.

*Perceiving:* Any type is capable of procrastination and being late for appointments, but these have been chronic issues for me. In the main, I'm a free spirit content with not having all the answers, desiring a future with open options. I consider myself to be resourceful and good at taking initiative. The problem I have is follow through on projects, which can be difficult at times when I would really just rather do something else.
Sometimes I need to act more J-like in certain situations in order to thrive. That isn't my natural inclination, but if it's necessary, then I can force myself into those habits. Yet in imposing too much routine, I inevitably feel the need to rebel against my own impositions and live a little. I scored fairly low on Conscientiousness using the Big 5.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

@Turi @reckful I'd like to hear your thoughts.


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## Turi (May 9, 2017)

When do you usually apologise to someone, and what do you expect in return?


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

Turi said:


> When do you usually apologise to someone, and what do you expect in return?


Good question. I guess it depends on the situation and what's expected from me. If I accidentally bumped into someone or some other minor inconvenience like that, it's easy enough to just say "oops, sorry", and move on.

If it was more serious than that, it would depend on what level of integrity I had at a given point in time. I didn't take apologies seriously in my youth, to the point where I'd just use cheap apologies to weasel my way out of trouble. As I've gotten older and more mature, I've come to realise not only the importance in integrity, but also that there are some things I cannot expect another person to forgive. I know if I seriously wronged someone in any way, it would be my responsibility not just to give an apology, but an expectation would also come with that not to inconvenience the other person in that way if I could help it, or even to make amends in some way. Even then, the other person may not necessarily accept the apology and just forgive and forget. But sometimes it's worth trying anyway just for my own peace of mind.

On the flip side, I have enough self-respect not to bend over backwards to apologise if I wasn't the one who was the most in the wrong, such as if there were serious debilitating factors I couldn't control, or if the other person was just as much to blame and wasn't taking responsibility for themselves. If I was an hour late for work because of a car crash at an intersection, and a boss was to fire me despite there being proof, then screw them. If someone spread nasty rumours about me because of some misunderstanding between us, then screw them.


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## Turi (May 9, 2017)

Soul Kitchen said:


> Good question. I guess it depends on the situation and what's expected from me. If I accidentally bumped into someone or some other minor inconvenience like that, it's easy enough to just say "oops, sorry", and move on.
> 
> If it was more serious than that, it would depend on what level of integrity I had at a given point in time. I didn't take apologies seriously in my youth, to the point where I'd just use cheap apologies to weasel my way out of trouble. As I've gotten older and more mature, I've come to realise not only the importance in integrity, but also that there are some things I cannot expect another person to forgive. I know if I seriously wronged someone in any way, it would be my responsibility not just to give an apology, but an expectation would also come with that not to inconvenience the other person in that way if I could help it, or even to make amends in some way. Even then, the other person may not necessarily accept the apology and just forgive and forget. But sometimes it's worth trying anyway just for my own peace of mind.
> 
> On the flip side, I have enough self-respect not to bend over backwards to apologise if I wasn't the one who was the most in the wrong, such as if there were serious debilitating factors I couldn't control, or if the other person was just as much to blame and wasn't taking responsibility for themselves. If I was an hour late for work because of a car crash at an intersection, and a boss was to fire me despite there being proof, then screw them. If someone spread nasty rumours about me because of some misunderstanding between us, then screw them.


I believe this leans more towards Thinking.

That question was taken from a post Linda Berens replied to on facebook (author of _Dynamics of Personality Type_ amongst other well-known typology books), here's what she said - note the context, she said she uses that question to separate T from F in a group setting:



> Virtually all Thinking types understand an apology as an admission of being wrong -- being wrong about facts, making an error in a process that screws things up, being mistaken about an assumption, or, as you say, bumping into someone unintentionally. So these types don't apologize if they don't believe they're wrong. High-scoring T types will often say they can't even remember the last time they apologized.
> 
> When they do apologize, they expect the other person to nod and move on, or to say "no problem."
> 
> ...


Your response really leans more towards T, it's funny that you bring up the same situation as the person she was responding to did - bumping into someone - and you would apologise here, as it's an admission of a wrongdoing.

You don't lean more towards the F side, according to what she said there, do you?

I think you're accurately typed - I note you pulled the classic "N" trait and offered both sides of your argument, lol.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

Turi said:


> Your response really leans more towards T, it's funny that you bring up the same situation as the person she was responding to did - bumping into someone - and you would apologise here, as it's an admission of a wrongdoing.
> 
> You don't lean more towards the F side, according to what she said there, do you?
> 
> I think you're accurately typed - I note you pulled the classic "N" trait and offered both sides of your argument, lol.


Funny coincidence, huh? Hahahaha

The only thing I'd disagree with as far as the Thinking answer goes is that I don't expect the other person to move on. Some people can forgive easily, others don't, and there are just some people you cannot settle the score with. Otherwise I identify much more with the Thinking answer, due to a belief that apologies are used "as an admission of being wrong". It's not something I'd do simply to repair a relationship on the verge of collapse; especially if the person who expects the apology doesn't consider that responsibility to be a two way street.

Somehow I get the sense that the more I question being an ENTP, the more of an ENTP I prove myself being, and maybe I should just wave the white flag and stop fighting it. But where would the fun in that be?

For some reason, I get on unusually well with INFJs despite sharing only one letter with them, to the point of relating to them. You yourself have not only questioned your type, but gone as far as to change it three times in a week.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

@WintersFlame I saw your signature about your type dilemma. I too have wrestled over what sort of NP type I am, so I thought I'd tag you to see how you relate to all of this. Maybe this might be of use to you?


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

It sounds like you're not questioning your N and P (so I'm not inclined to, either), and that those reflect not only test results, but a lot of looking into the MBTI on your part.

Just looking at your posts in this thread doesn't give me much of a lean on either E/I or T/F.

In case you're interested — and _only_ if you're interested — in a boatload of type-me-related input from me, you'll find it in a 10-post series at Typology Central that starts here. Those posts include a separate section on each of the four MBTI dimensions, roundups of online profiles for each of the 16 types, and a brief intro to Neuroticism.

One of the issues discussed in the T/F posts is the fact that I think T/F is the messiest of the four MBTI dimensions, and that I'm forever noting, based on eight years of forum typing experience, that it's not uncommon for INFs to test as INTs, at least partly because many of the F choices on typical MBTI tests (including the official test) are choices that are more likely to appeal to SFs and EFs than INFs. And although I think the T-ward skew tends to be somewhat greater for INFJs than INFPs, the fact that you consider yourself middlish on T/F gives me a little bit of an F lean in the context of your IN (or xN). Emphasis on "little bit," tho.

And I also think that it's possible for someone to be sufficiently middlish on one or more of the MBTI dimensions that "x" is at least arguably the best designation for that dimension.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

reckful said:


> It sounds like you're not questioning your N and P (so I'm not inclined to, either), and that those reflect not only test results, but a lot of looking into the MBTI on your part.
> 
> Just looking at your posts in this thread doesn't give me much of a lean on either E/I or T/F.
> 
> ...


I had read through your "type yourself" kit before I started this thread. It's very useful, so thank you for sharing that. I'll admit to being Limbic, and although the list of adjectives used to describe my type was overly negative, I can see how it can skewer preferences in various ways.

That's interesting. So if I was to have any sort of E/I or T/F skewer at all, you're suggesting that it'd be just a little more likely to be in the IF direction than anything else.

The main reason I don't relate to IF types is because those types strike me as being too... phlegmatic, to borrow a Four Temperaments term (I don't put any stock in that ancient proto-typology, though). They're often not very competitive or assertive, and are also generally described as being too wishy washy in their sentiments. I don't feel any hang up about needing to justify any values I have on a rational basis through debate, and even relish the opportunity to take values to the battleground of ideas. It's very easy for me to challenge others.

I also don't feel as lost or in over my head with this type dilemma as a lot of the INFs who take to the forums. Many of them just don't even seem to know where to start on any of the dichotomies, and let themselves get pulled around by functionists who suggest they're not actually an N, among other things.

But I guess I could just be an NP after all, and I don't have to choose a preference for anything, which is fine.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Soul Kitchen said:


> I had read through your "type yourself" kit before I started this thread. It's very useful, so thank you for sharing that. I'll admit to being Limbic, and although the list of adjectives used to describe my type was overly negative, I can see how it can skewer preferences in various ways.
> 
> That's interesting. So if I was to have any sort of E/I or T/F skewer at all, you're suggesting that it'd be just a little more likely to be in the IF direction than anything else.
> 
> ...


I don't think "wishy washy in their sentiments" is a good characterization of either INF type.

And INFJs can be plenty competitive, not to mention assertive (when it comes to issues they care about) and not particularly shy about "challenging others." I'd say there's quite a big difference between ISFJs and INFJs in the self-assertive departments. But assuming you're an NP rather than an NJ, then IF would make you an INFP, obviously, and INFPs, all other things being equal, are notably less assertive/challenging than INFJs in contexts where that could mean rubbing someone else the wrong way (with INFJs in turn tending to be quite a bit more diplomatic than INTJs), and less "competitive" in contexts where that means winning _at someone else's expense_. (But INFPs and INFJs can both be "competitive" in the sense of being really jazzed — moreso than INTs — by getting the highest grade in the class, say, or being singled out for prizes or honors.)

But E/I can also be a big factor in the assertive/aggressive department, so if you're a mild E or an ambivert (or even a very mild I), then it's reasonable to expect you'd be more assertive/aggressive than an introvert who's a significant distance from you on the E/I spectrum.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I wrote the above, and then I started reading some of your post history. I expect to be back by the weekend with some more follow-up, but I'll be surprised if I don't come down INF.

In the meantime, can you describe/explain why you consider yourself a definite P?


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

reckful said:


> I wrote the above, and then I started reading some of your post history. I expect to be back by the weekend with some more follow-up, but I'll be surprised if I don't come down INF.
> 
> In the meantime, can you describe/explain why you consider yourself a definite P?


I don't have anything to say about being a P type that I haven't already said before, but maybe I might have a misconstrued sense of P and J.

So I could be an INFJ after all?


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## Turi (May 9, 2017)

This is getting exciting, boys.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Soul Kitchen said:


> I don't have anything to say about being a P type that I haven't already said before, but maybe I might have a misconstrued sense of P and J.
> 
> So I could be an INFJ after all?


I've just looked at a handful of your posts so far, and didn't end up with a _J lean_, really. Just somewhat mixed-signalsy on J/P. Buuut I hadn't focused on the J/P stuff at the end of this thread's OP because you said at the start that you were "quite confident" you're an NP. If I'd remembered you addressed all four dichotomies in the OP, I wouldn't have asked for the P reasoning.

Again, I'll be back after I've found the time to do some additional post-stalking.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

reckful said:


> I've just looked at a handful of your posts so far, and didn't end up with a _J lean_, really. Just somewhat mixed-signalsy on J/P. Buuut I hadn't focused on the J/P stuff at the end of this thread's OP because you said at the start that you were "quite confident" you're an NP. If I'd remembered you addressed all four dichotomies in the OP, I wouldn't have asked for the P reasoning.
> 
> Again, I'll be back after I've found the time to do some additional post-stalking.


You're welcome to browse my post history, although I only ask that you take any opinions and insights about myself and others with a grain of salt. I've developed a lot as a person, and things that I've said or views that I've held may not reflect on where I am now.

Anyway, I await your reply with anticipation.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

Having thought about the T/F dichotomy more, I am - at this point in time - still convinced that I have a preference for T.

1. When I deconverted from Christianity, I didn't do so because I "felt betrayed", or because I "resented the church". In fact, my faith was actually quite good to me. Instead, I simply discovered an inconsistency in Biblical teachings one day, and it took off from there. I cannot in good reason put faith into teachings which are both contradictory and inconsistent with the facts. I saw how each religious person takes away whatever things from their religion they want to believe, and saw religion had no authority to claim for itself.
2. When I've weighed up my career options, I've thought largely about where the demand is, what sort of salary I could make, and what level of difficulty is involved in entering that field. That's not to say I disregard my own personal satisfaction, but I like to think I have a grounded approach towards such things. It would be unrealistic of me to expect a career satisfaction of 10, so as far as I'm concerned, a 6 or 7 would suffice. That's why I'm not just going to throw everything into the wind to try and make it as an artist.
3. Even though I do hold certain values, I can easily make compromises on them out of pragmatism. So I'm a vegetarian, but not a vegan because I want to save up on extra dough, so I still consume dairy milk and caged eggs. For me, values are a flexible thing that depend at least partly on circumstance.
4. I distrust knee jerk reactions towards issues and things. When I approach conflicts, I make it a point to be impartial, and not instinctually support someone because "they're the underdog" or "they've had a hard life" or stuff like that. When my views and values are challenged, I don't allow myself to go "how dare you disagree", but make it a point to listen to and weigh up the other's point of view dispassionately. There's this Oatmeal comic http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe that illustrates how I respond to things which challenge my views.
5. Again, I should reiterate that the further back you go in my post history, the less my posts would reflect on where I am now as a person. Since I was wrestling with depression on and off until recently, I believe that's another factor in why I might seem to be more of an F at the time, as I was wrestling with a lot of unresolved angst. As of now, I'm more "collected" as a person, and with a clearer focus in how I approach things through weighing them on a pair of figurative scales. I also don't believe preferences for each dichtotomy are fixed.
6. Perhaps it's possible for someone who is a "hardcore T" to consider me an F type out of bias? Maybe I simply happen to have a smaller T lean, and will seem like an F in comparison? A lot of self-identified F types who know me consider me a T.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

@Ocean Helm I've read your thoughts on MBTI across various discussions, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on my type if you're willing to type me.

I stand by most of the comments I've made in this thread, save for my preference for E. I now consider myself an introvert who had repressed their need to connect with the wider world.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

[1 of 5]

I'm ba-a-a-a-a-ck!

I think you're most likely an INFP, but I've already noted (earlier in the thread) that I think T/F is the messiest of the four MBTI dimensions.

And in fact, and in case you've never seen it, there's a long post that I often link to that I call my T/F's a mess post.

And since making that post, I've done a long supplement to it at another forum that I haven't posted at PerC, so Imma use you as an excuse to post it here. And the upshot of those two posts is that at the end of the day, and for quite a few people, I suspect it may not really make sense to do too much agonizing over the "am I a T or an F?" issue, because that question presupposes that T/F is appropriately viewed as a _single spectrum_ on which a particular person occupies something like a _single position_ which is either _on the T side_ or _on the F side_.

On top of the middleness complication, and as you know, both the Big Five and the Step II MBTI incorporate the idea that their dimensions may in fact be made up of multiple _facets_, and that it may be possible for someone to be, e.g., a T with respect to some T/F facets and an F with respect to others. And as I note in that linked post, I don't know that either the Big Five or the MBTI have really done a bang-up job of identifying what the separable components of T/F may be, but I suspect they're right in terms of the _general idea_ that there's some kind of multifaceted mix going on (at least in many cases).

So in saying I think you're most likely an F, what I'm really saying is that, if _forced to choose_, I'm inclined to choose F over T, and that's basically because I type people using what it's fair to call a _points_ system, and I ended up reading quite a bit more stuff in your posts that got you INFP>INTP points than stuff that got you INTP>INFP points. But that's not to say (1) that there weren't also some T-indicative things in your posts, or (maybe more importantly) (2) that it necessarily even makes sense (in your case) to view you as _one or the other_, rather than as some kind of messier mix.

In any case, and on top of the _messiness_ issue, your posts exhibit a few personality characteristics that I associate with T/F issues, and where I've posted some stuff at other forums that I haven't posted here (or not in a long time), so again, Imma use you as an excuse to recycle some of that stuff as it relates to a few quoted posts of yours. And because it's possible that a woman or two or three may end up reading these posts at some point (including if I link to any of them in the future), I've left in (in a few cases) some T/F discussion that's arguably (at least) more relevant to female F's or T's than male F's or T's.

As a last introductory note, and as I'm often pointing out before waxing long-winded in type-me threads, I'm both an MBTI dweeb and a hardcore T, and I don't do type analyses as selfless, other-oriented "acts of service" — so please don't feel the slightest obligation to read any of my posts beyond what you're motivated to do for your own selfish reasons.

*T/F's a mess, Part 2*

Here's a mildly tweaked version of that long supplement to my (already linked) T/F's a mess post — which has _some_ overlap (because I assumed some of the readers of the second post wouldn't have read the first), but both posts are mostly non-overlap.


* *




The first section of my T/F's-a-mess post gives Jung a lot of credit for pointing, back in 1921, to many of the two-kinds-of-people-in-the-world aspects of personality that have ended up being more or less included in one or more of the MBTI (and corresponding Big Five) dimensions of personality — but it also notes that Jung did a far-from-perfect job of sorting those personality characteristics into type categories. Jung's original writings on type (starting a number of years before Psychological Types) were basically just about (his version of) the E/I duality, but as time passed, he came to see that the aspects of personality he was focusing on were more complicated than that.

But Jung still wanted the whole ball of wax to be a single, interconnected _system_. Rather than viewing (his versions of) E/I, S/N, T/F and J/P as four essentially separate dimensions of personality, he decided that a huge percentage of human "cognition" was divided into _perceiving_ things, on the one hand, and coming to various kinds of _judgments_ about things, on the other. And he further decided that there were two cognitive "functions" by which we "perceive" things, which he called sensing and intuition — although much of what the MBTI considers "intuition" (and the Big Five considers Openness to Experience) was really part of Jung's "introversion" — and two cognitive "functions" by which we "judge" things, which he called "thinking" and "feeling."

But as further discussed in the _Decision-making function or people/relationship orientation?_ section of my "intro to T/F" post, it's a big mistake, IMO, to think about T and F simply (or even _primarily_) as "decision-making functions" (or S and N as "perceiving functions"). And if you read Jung's descriptions of the effect of S/N and T/F preferences on people's personalities, you'll find that not even Jung himself really limited the scope of S/N to "perception" and T/F to "making judgments."

"So what's T/F about?" you may wonder, and I think the appropriate perspective (for now, anyway) on that question is that T/F is going to turn out to be about whatever it turns out to be about — and that may well be a relatively untidy cluster of personality characteristics that are related to each other only in the sense that they're each things that can end up contributing to evolutionary success as part of one or more social _niche strategies_, rather than being a cluster of things that are related because they're all basically second-order effects of some one essential thing (i.e., a relatively discrete "cognitive function" that F's "use" to make decisions).

For Jung, as I've already noted (and even after he'd expanded his typology to include the "functions"), _extraversion and introversion_ were the most important components behind the differences between his types, and he spent more of Psychological Types talking about the many things he thought extraverts had in common and introverts had in common than he spent talking about all eight of the functions put together. And as Myers discovered when she put his categories to the test, Jung was substantially overinclusive in terms of the attributes of personality that he thought belonged in the E and I clusters.

But on the other hand, one of the things that Jung probably got right — and that function-centric MBTI forumites (especially) have a tendency to lose sight of — is the notion that type differences are presumably a product of evolution, and that they evolved to cause people of different types to engage in different _behavioral strategies_.

I noted in my J/P sorter that J's are more likely than P's to be worrywarts, but I also think that's a good example of a personality characteristic (and there are many) that more than one of the MBTI dimensions can contribute to, each in its own way. I'd say how much of a risk-averse worrier someone tends to be is something that being Limbic — i.e., above-average in neuroticism (the Big Five dimension that lacks a corresponding MBTI dimension) — is likely to contribute to, and that introversion can also contribute to. A June 2011 OpEd piece by Susan Cain in the _New York Times_ described an experiment involving impulsive and cautious fish ("rovers" and "sitters"), and here's a bit of it:

We even find "introverts" in the animal kingdom, where 15 percent to 20 percent of many species are watchful, slow-to-warm-up types who stick to the sidelines (sometimes called "sitters") while the other 80 percent are "rovers" who sally forth without paying much attention to their surroundings. Sitters and rovers favor different survival strategies, which could be summed up as the sitter's "Look before you leap" versus the rover's inclination to "Just do it!" ...

In an illustrative experiment, David Sloan Wilson, a Binghamton evolutionary biologist, dropped metal traps into a pond of pumpkinseed sunfish. The "rover" fish couldn't help but investigate — and were immediately caught. But the "sitter" fish stayed back, making it impossible for Professor Wilson to capture them. Had Professor Wilson's traps posed a real threat, only the sitters would have survived. ...

Next, Professor Wilson used fishing nets to catch both types of fish; when he carried them back to his lab, he noted that the rovers quickly acclimated to their new environment and started eating a full five days earlier than their sitter brethren. In this situation, the rovers were the likely survivors. "There is no single best ... [animal] personality," Professor Wilson concludes, ... "but rather a diversity of personalities maintained by natural selection."​
Cain, as you may know, is the author of the best-selling Quiet: The Power of Introverts, and I'd say she errs in framing the rover/sitter duality exclusively in E/I terms. The most well-established Big Five test (McCrae & Costa's NEO-PI-R) breaks Conscientiousness — i.e., J/P — down into six "facets," and one of those facets is called _Deliberation_. As McCrae and Costa explain: "Deliberation is the tendency to think carefully before acting. High scorers on this facet are cautious and deliberate. Low scorers are hasty and often speak or act without considering the consequences. At best, low scorers are spontaneous and able to make snap decisions when necessary." And decades of both MBTI and Big Five data have pretty clearly established that E/I and J/P are essentially independent dimensions of personality.

So again, I'm inclined to say that the J/P dimension and the neuroticism dimension (which includes anxiety-proneness) are also meaningful contributors to the rover/sitter duality — in people, at least — but I'd also say that viewing E/I as a contributor is consistent with most MBTI sources and, in any case, I think it's probably fair to say that the most impulsive, bold, plunge-right-in types are the Calm EPs and the most cautious, look-before-you-leap, think-before-you-speak, worry-prone types are the Limbic IJs (like me).

And the reason I've quoted the rover/sitter fish thing is to help make the point that, if evolution wants a fish to logically weigh the pros and cons of a given situation and _do the balanced, sensible thing_, it arguably doesn't need (and shouldn't want) that fish to have anything in the nature of a strong, hard-wired gut bias in any particular direction. Buuut if an important reason (if not the main, or sole, reason) behind the evolution of _personality variation_ (in fish and people both) is so that, faced with the same set of circumstances, some of the fish will be substantially more likely to do one thing, and some of the fish will be substantially more likely to do the opposite thing, then it stands to reason that the personality types that result are going to involve underlying tugs that, to a significant degree, can fairly be characterized as _irrational biases_ — or even, depending on the particular results, mild _crazinesses_. The rover fish somewhat recklessly swim into the trap (a shiny novelty) without giving enough thought (apparently) to potential dangers, and the sitter fish sit there _starving_ in the strange, new environment rather than risk eating the unfamiliar food.

It's also worth noting — speaking of rovers and sitters — that Jung believed that the ultimate reason there were extraverts and introverts in the first place was that extraversion and introversion represented two competing evolutionary strategies, each successful in its own way. Here's how he described them:

There are in nature two fundamentally different modes of adaptation which ensure the continued existence of the living organism. The one consists of a high rate of fertility, with low powers of defense and short duration of life for the single individual; the other consists in equipping the individual with numerous means of self-preservation plus a low fertility rate. This biological difference, it seems to me, is not merely analogous to, but the actual foundation of, our two psychological modes of adaptation. I must content myself with this broad hint. It is sufficient to note that the peculiar nature of the extravert constantly urges him to expend and propagate himself in every way, while the tendency of the introvert is to defend himself against all demands from outside, to conserve his energy by withdrawing it from objects, thereby consolidating his own position. Blake's intuition did not err when he described the two classes of men as "prolific" and "devouring." Just as, biologically, the two modes of adaptation work equally well and are successful in their own way, so too with the typical attitudes. The one achieves its end by a multiplicity of relationships, the other by a monopoly.​
And the result of the corresponding genetic machinations was that, as Jung saw it, introverts tend to be "reserved, ... rather shy people," with "a hesitant, reflective, retiring nature that keeps itself to itself, shrinks from objects, is always slightly on the defensive and prefers to hide behind mistrustful scrutiny"; while extraverts tend to be "open" and "sociable," with "an outgoing, candid, and accommodating nature that adapts easily to a given situation, quickly forms attachments, and ... will often venture forth with careless confidence into unknown situations."

So... assuming you buy into the idea that the T/F dimension was somehow favored by evolution, and you understand that evolutionary forces can only select for personality characteristics to the extent that they somewhat reliably result in particular kinds of _behaviors_ (that ultimately lead to reproductive success), then that suggests that the way lots of MBTI followers are led to think about the MBTI dimensions is arguably somewhat inside-out. Assume that the relevant clusters of personality characteristics that correspond to T/F involve eight T characteristics, on the one side, and ten F characteristics, on the other. If your way of thinking about T/F involves assuming that there's basically some single underlying psychological _essence_ involved (or pair of essences) — and that's certainly a fair characterization of Jung's framing — then you're going to expect that those eight T characteristics and ten F characteristics are all in the nature of _second-order effects_ of that essential defining pair of components.

Buuut on the other hand, suppose your perspective on the MBTI dimensions is that each dimension is a collection of personality characteristics that evolved as a cluster because each characteristic in that cluster made a positive contribution from the standpoint of somebody who was pursuing a particular behavioral strategy — like a bold, devil-may-care, novelty-loving rover fish or an anxious, cautious, novelty-averse sitter fish, or like people pursuing alternative social-niche strategies during humanity's thousands of tribal hunter-gatherer years. In that case, there'd be little reason to expect that any particular cluster would necessarily end up boiling down to a set of, in effect, personality _corollaries_ of a single underlying psychological _postulate_. Instead, to the extent that there was a unifying thread that tied the clustered characteristics together, it would arguably make more sense to look for it _externally_, and to expect that, from an _internal nature_ standpoint, those characteristics might turn out be a somewhat disparate collection of _tools_ (if you will) that were all appropriate for someone occupying whatever the relevant social niche was.

And at this point, just speaking for myself, I'm pretty much content to leave trying to figure out what those various _niche strategies_ might have been — and the extent to which the relevant personality evolution took place as part of human history, or ape history, or fish history, or whatever — to future psychologists, and anthropologists, and biologists, and zoologists. So my point is not that people who want the "What's T/F about?" question answered in a _pair of mental functions_ kind of way should switch over to wanting the question answered in a _what's the niche strategy_ kind of way — but still wanting the question _answered_, please, dammit! — but rather that it probably makes more sense at this point to just be asking what kinds of things look like they're at least somewhat tied into the T/F/male/female tangle.

Buuut speaking of the T/F/male/female tangle, and as I said in my "T/F's a mess" post:

Given the asymmetry of male/female T/F percentages, and given the fact that the kinds of characteristics that seem to be the most respectably established as sex-typical personality differences often sound similar to T/F differences, it seems reasonable to suspect that it will turn out that T and maleness and F and femaleness are at least somewhat tied together in terms of their evolutionary roots — but perhaps that, just as it made sense for any given group to include both introverts and extraverts and so on, it also turned out that there were advantages to having a certain number of the men be F and a certain number of the women be T. And if your thinking runs along those lines, it seems to me there's no reason why anyone should assume either (1) that there would necessarily have to be any symmetry between the percentage of male F's that it was good to have around and the percentage of female T's that it was good to have around, or (2) that the T characteristics that it was advantageous for some of the women to have would necessarily be a full contingent of T characteristics by male-T standards (and likewise for the F males and F characteristics). So... it's not hard to see that, notwithstanding anybody's desire (Jung certainly included) to have the system be relatively tidy, there are any number of reasons why it might turn out to be pretty messy.

Just letting my own reckful-speculative apparatus run wild and ponder the possible roles of personality variation in the context of the human race's 50,000-year (or so) hunter-gatherer phase — when I'm inclined to think much of the evolution of the "types" probably took place — and the differing roles of men and women in a typical hunter-gatherer tribe, it sort of seems to me that it would be understandable if the useful niche (evolutionarily speaking) for men who were notably F-ish was a significantly larger niche than the useful niche for women who were notably T-ish. If so, that would be one possible explanation for the fact that ... the official MBTI folks are currently estimating that whereas 43% of men are F's, only 25% of women are T's.​
And if you're open to the possibility that at least part of the explanation behind what stuff ended up in the T/F cluster is that it's a collection of personality characteristics that were advantageous to people occupying the different niches that typical men and women occupied for much of human evolutionary history, and given the _substantially_ different roles that it appears that men and women played through much of those years, and the multiplicity of ways that those roles differed, it's not hard to imagine that the T and F clusters (if you will) might have ended up being substantially varied collections of personality characteristics.

I suspect that, the more you think about it, the more silly it will come to seem to you that Mother Nature would have ended up differentially equipping men and women in the personality department by having men make their "judgments" using one kind of "cognitive function" in the brain (with lots of logic!), while women made their "judgments" with a very different kind of "cognitive function" (that tends to _suppress_ logic to work properly!) — a-a-and, on top of that piece of silliness, that Mother Nature would have said, yeah, and I can't think of any other personality characteristics where there'd be any reason for men and women to be different.

And in any case, and as you already know, my previously-linked "intro to T/F" post talks about the fact that, notwithstanding quite a lot of continuing lip service to Jung, the majority of well-known MBTI sources (including the more function-centric ones) really reflect an evolved perspective on T/F that effectively views it as a more multifaceted collection of things — and a collection that, to the extent they it has anything in the way of a _common thread_, has a thread that revolves more around people/relationship-oriented values than a pair of opposite-ish decision-making "functions."

And in any case, and regardless of how any particular type-me target of mine might be inclined to frame the T/F tangle, they'll be misunderstanding _my_ perspective if, as they read through my descriptions of what aspects of their posts earned them "F points" or "T points" with me, they end up reacting along the lines of (as one woman did when we were talking about "warmth" and F's), "I am having a difficult time seeing how my warmth when socializing would be relevant to my decision making process."

What puts something on reckful's list of "F points" items? Potentially nothing more or less than the fact that it seems to be something that's more characteristically found in MBTI F's (or NFs, or FJs, or INFs, or etc.) than MBTI T's (or NTs, TJs, or INTs, etc.). It doesn't need to be otherwise _explainable_ in terms of any kind of _common-F thread_ of _either_ the internal or external variety — although that's not to say that, in many cases, characteristic "F things" don't at least arguably reflect some kind of more general, common-F-ish thread.

Another general T/F complication that I think is worth noting is that, if you assume that there's at least something to the notion that T/F and male/female are messily tangled, and if somebody was looking to set up a relatively simple bipolar T/F spectrum and have it "work" pretty well in terms of applying to a large percentage of the typed subjects, I think they'd be likely to get significantly better results if they based the characteristics in that artificially simple T/F spectrum on characteristics that typically differentiate male T's from female F's, and then limited their use of that spectrum to male T's and female F's.

And that's because I've come to suspect that, to some significant extent, male F's don't tend to be _F-ish_ in all the same ways (and/or to the same extent) that female F's tend to be — but to an even greater degree (and maybe a much greater degree), that female T's don't tend to be _T-ish_ in all the same ways (and/or to the same extent) that male T's tend to be.

And one reason I refer to T/F/male/female as a "tangle" is that I sure as hell don't claim to have made any substantial progress in _untangling_ it, to the extent that that's even possible. I'd love to be able to sit here and tell you that what differentiates a typical female T from a typical male T is that, whereas male T's have a tendency to exhibit K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R and S characteristics, female T's have a tendency to just exhibit M, N, O, P and Q. Buuut what I've found, instead, is more along the lines of, well, some female T's seem to be KLMNO T's, and others are more like MNOPQ T's, and others are more like LNPRS T's, and so on. So, you know... wtf, Mother Nature?

And one place that leads me is to note that, in various cases where I give a female type-me subject "F points" (for example) for something that I understand to be more characteristic of F's than T's, if her reaction to one of those cases is, well, but I think that's more of a female/male thing than an F/T thing, then my reaction to her reaction might well be that I think she could be (at least partly) right — but it might also include the caveat that whatever purportedly "F-ish" thing I'm pointing to _is_ something that, while it may not work all that well as a _female_ T/F distinguisher, is something that, besides being a reasonably good male-T vs. female-F distinguisher, also tends to be significantly more characteristic of F males than T males.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

[2 of 5]

*SFs vs. NFs*

And here's a long discussion — again, recycled (with a few tweaks) from a post at another forum — of why NFs may be more likely to view themselves as T's than SFs with an equally strong (or mild) F preference.


* *




Here's a piece of much-recycled reckful that's also in my previously-linked "intro to T/F" post:

I think it's not uncommon for INFs to test as INTs, at least partly because many of the F choices on typical MBTI tests (including the official test) are choices that are more likely to appeal to SFs and EFs than INFs — and I think that's probably more true of female INFs than male INFs. I think male F's are often aware that they differ from cultural male stereotypes in ways that make them more "F-ish" than average whereas, by contrast, I think INF women who compare themselves to cultural female stereotypes — not to mention the majority of actual women — are reasonably likely to think of themselves as more T-ish than those "feeler" women (EFs, SFs and, especially, ESFs).

I also think the T-ward skew tends to be somewhat greater for INFJs than INFPs. In any case, it's certainly been my experience that it's considerably more common for an INFJ (male _or_ female) to mistype as INTJ (and later conclude they're really INFJ) than _vice versa_. I think that, in some ways, it's fair to say that INFJs are both the "least F" of the F's and the "least NF" of the NFs.

In my six years of participating in type-me exercises online, the situation where I've most often encountered what I'd call a messy mix on a dimension is the situation where an IN woman is puzzling over her T/F preference. I'd say I virtually always get "mixed signals" on T/F when I'm analyzing INT women. I think F males are a somewhat more recognizable creature. With female T's, there's usually some significant stuff there that, if it was a male subject, I'd think was a more significant F indicator. And in particular, I'd say a fairly typical male INT is likely to be independent/aloof — as far as the importance of other people in his life — to a degree that, besides distinguishing him from other males, is also likely to distinguish him from the majority of female INTs.​
But assuming there's something to that, _why_ are INFJs effectively "less F" than many of the other F types? And in particular, what the heck does S/N have to do with whether somebody's "feely"?

Here's what I told one male INFJ a few years ago:

Another refrain that runs through a lot of your posts is that you often feel you don't match certain type-related descriptions (F, NFs, INFJs, etc.) because you're not sufficiently "touchy-feely."

I think it's not that uncommon for INFJs to mis-type themselves as INTJs based on an inappropriate conception of what an F preference involves (what "feelers" are like). If you're looking for the ultimate emotionally expressive, accommodating, sympathetic, people-loving types, I'd say ESFPs probably deserve the prize — and the point is that E, S and P can each contribute, in different ways, to enhancing one or more of the characteristics associated with an F preference. E's are more emotionally expressive than I's — as Jung said, "What fills the extravert's heart flows out of her mouth, but the enthusiasm of the introvert is the very thing that seals his lips" — and tend to be more focused on interacting (socially and otherwise) with other people. As discussed below, I think that, all other things being equal, a P is more likely to be what you might call a _sympathetic appreciator_ of other people, where a J is more likely to be judgmental (including _negatively_ judgmental, where appropriate) about the jerks, douchebags and asshats he has to deal with (sound familiar? ); and P's, on average, tend to be more easygoing (hence potentially accommodating) than the more strong-willed J's. And as for why SFs tend to be more feely than NFs, I think that's harder to pinpoint/explain, but the MBTI Manual, in describing what various of the preferences produce in combination with each other, calls SFs the "sympathetic and friendly" types. I think maybe an N preference, for one thing, can tend to contribute to a certain degree of what you might call emotional detachment.​
I think the fact that Isabel Myers considered "the sympathetic and friendly types" an especially apt epithet for SFs is potentially a pretty big issue, so I'm going to take a few paragraphs to explain why.

The first thing to emphasize is that, as you may know, I admire the hell out of Isabel Myers. As I said in my "Why I'm a dichotomies guy" post:

The more I reread Psychological Types, the more I appreciate the extent to which getting from Jung to the Myers-Briggs typology involved substantial adjustments and additions. I think the formidable job Briggs and Myers did in separating the Jungian wheat from the chaff and modifying and supplementing Jung's theory is grotesquely underappreciated by many internet forumites. Myers may not have been as smart as Jung, and she may not have had a psychology degree, but she and her mother had the benefit of standing on Jung's shoulders, and Myers then spent many years, as a labor of love, designing and refining her test instrument and gathering data from thousands of subjects, leading her to conclude — among other things — that the four dichotomies (as she conceived them), and not the functions, were the main event. I think Myers' conceptions of the dichotomies and the types still leave plenty of room for further improvement but, fifty years later, the results of many more studies — and, in particular, the correlation of the MBTI dichotomies with the Big Five — suggest that, in terms of the basics, Myers pretty much got it right. If Jung were still around, I think he'd mostly approve.​
There are things in Gifts Differing that make me wince, but Myers was a smart woman (first in her class at Swarthmore) and spent a huge chunk of her life paying attention to type and seeing how it played out in people. And on top of her spectacular achievement at the theoretical level (i.e., the typology itself), it seems to me that she ended up with a good feel for a lot of the characteristics that the various types tended to exhibit — and including characteristics that went beyond what the theoretical categories might lead you to expect. Again, not saying she got it all right by any means, but her observations are worth somebody's serious consideration.

And one of the things she felt pretty strongly about was that, if you're going to subdivide the 16 types into four groups of four types who have a lot in common, the most meaningful way to do that is to use the four S/N and T/F combinations — so: NF/NT/SF/ST. And this was not a passing observation. She devoted a little section of Gifts Differing to it. And when they were putting the 1985 Manual together, they had a database of MBTI test results where they knew the occupation of the subject, and they devoted _49 pages_ (of a 300-page manual) to presenting those type/career correlations sliced and diced in the following ways: (1) a list for each of the 16 types, (2) a list for each dichotomy, and (3) a list for each of the STs, SFs, NFs and NTs. (And maybe needless to add, there were _no_ lists that reflected a function-based carve-up of the types — e.g., a list that showed the occupations favored by supposed "Te-doms," or "T-doms.")

And in case you haven't seen it, I once posted a Keirsey vs. Myers OP that provides some significant data-food for thought (also re occupational choices, but from a much larger data sample), and suggests that Myers' foursome might actually make more sense than Keirsey's. (But note that Myers was more sensible than Keirsey in the sense that she didn't claim there was anything truly fundamental about her foursome, and unlike Keirsey, wrote about characteristics associated with most of the 24 two-letter combinations.)

In any case, whether anyone thinks SF/ST is a more meaningful pair than SJ/SP or not, I think the fact that Myers saw it as a very significant pair is worth some weight, and the fact that my little "study" supported her so dramatically is maybe reason to give it a tad more heft.

But that's not my real point for purposes of this post. That's just somewhat pertinent background. Here's the thing: When Myers looked at the SF subgroup, and she thought about what the most appropriate short phrase was to encapsulate what those SFs were like — as compared to the STs, NFs and NTs — she said they were the "sympathetic and friendly" types. And I think that may point to a pretty huge thing that is not often remarked upon in MBTI discussions.

And you may be sitting there wondering, wait, why is that anything huge? They're freaking F's, they're sympathetic and friendly, no surprises there.

But there's actually (maybe) a potentially large surprise there if you focus on the fact that the relevant four groups also included the NFs. It may be "no surprise" that "sympathetic" and "friendly" get associated with an F preference, true, but why are the SFs any more the "sympathetic and friendly" types than the NFs? What the hell does S/N have to do with sympathetic and friendly?

And again, this was not a toss-off observation. This was Isabel Myers, after her many years of work, describing what she thought of as the most appropriate short way to characterize one of those four _very significant_ (as she saw it) type subgroups.

And I would suggest to you that, in thinking about whether you're T or F, and in thinking about various ways in which it may seem to you that F's tend to be more emotions-R-them, or more connected to their emotions, or less alienated from their emotions, you might want to ponder the possibility that your N preference might account for some not-insubstantial part of those differences.

I don't think NFs are _unsympathetic_ types, or _unfriendly_ types. What is it about S/N that caused Myers to think that "sympathetic and friendly" was significantly more of a defining SF thing than a defining NF thing?

As I told that INFJ guy, I think part of the answer (at least) may be that an N preference tends to be associated with a significant degree of what you might call _emotional detachment_. I think an NF (and especially an INF) is more characteristically (relative to an SF) going to be someone who experiences a split sense of self in terms of there being this person doing things and saying things and experiencing emotions and a separate (psychologically-oriented, you might say) _observer_ person who's watching the first person and analyzing the situation at the same time, with the result that the NF is likely to feel (as compared to an SF) more of a sense that there's something at least somewhat fake/unreal/unnatural about what's happening and/or a sense of being somehow _disconnected_ from what's happening at the first level. As I told another forumite when she pointed to her detached/analytical stance toward her emotions: that's not your T analyzing your F, that's your IN analyzing your F.

And I'd argue that that _analytical detachment_ from their emotions that an NF is more likely to bring to bear than an SF is probably related to the fact that, statistically speaking, the average NF is _much_ more likely than the average SF to become a psychologist.

And I'd also argue that significant further support for the N-makes-NFs-less-warmfuzzy-than-SFs perspective can be found in Keirsey.

It's often noted that Keirsey's foursome divides the 16 MBTI types in an odd way, since it uses J/P to subdivide the S's and T/F to subdivide the N's — whereas Myers's favored foursome uses the _same two dichotomies_ to create each subtype.

But whatever anybody may think about whether SPs are a more significant group than SFs, I feel pretty confident that Keirsey was out to lunch in taking the view that SPs (for example) were a group with a lot of major things in common, but that the people on the opposite side of those _same two dimensions_ — the NJs — were a group that, meh, there wasn't too much to be said about. Instead, I think reality lines up with Myers' view that if it's a _big deal_ to have any particular two-letter preference combination, then it stands to reason that it's pretty much an equally big deal to have the _opposite_ pair.

Buuut the fact that Keirsey may have gotten that wrong doesn't change the fact that, when it came to the aspects of personality that his four groups tend to have in common, he also (notwithstanding some significant misfires) got quite a lot right. And as a result, I've long thought that there's essentially a _hidden text_ buried in Keirsey. If you take the characteristics that he attributed to any of his four groups (and ideally, weed out as many of the misfires as possible), and create what you might call a _shadow portrait_ made up of the _opposite characteristics_, you'll end up with a decent portrait of the people who have the opposite two preferences.

And I think one of the things that Keirsey got right about NTs is the notion that NTs are the most aloof types in the people/relationships area. And that clearly implies that, as Keirsey saw it, NTs lacked warmfuzziness to a greater degree than STs — which further implies that, at least as far as the T's were concerned, Keirsey thought an N preference involved some kind of tug in the direction of emotional detachment.

Keirsey said that NTs had multiple issues with "freely and openly" expressing their emotions (including "control" issues), and said NTs "try to govern their impulses ... by consciously evaluating them and analyzing them, which effectively kills them in the process." "Even with their closest loved ones," Keirsey said, "NTs prefer to restrain and hide their emotions behind an immobile facial stance, with only their eyes transmitting depth of reaction. A public display of emotion or affection is particularly repugnant to most NTs ... because it shows a lack of self-control — a lack of autonomy — and this attitude contributes to the image of the [NT] as the cold automaton."

And if you buy into my "shadow Keirsey" notion — which really only means buying into the idea that, if two preferences combine to produce a certain personality characteristic, then the two opposing preferences will combine to produce the opposite of that characteristic — and you also buy Keirsey's observation that the NTs were the champs when it came to emotional aloofness/detachment, then it follows from that that the SFs would tend to be, as Myers said, the least emotionally aloof types.

So... I think it's probably fair to say that an NF — and especially if the N is reasonably strong and the F is mild — will tend to be an in-betweener in the _sympathetic and friendly_ department. Less sympathetic and friendly than the average SF, but more sympathetic and friendly than the average NT.

Here's some of what I told a female NF type-me subject at another forum:

I'd say all the INs (INFs and INTs both) share at least some significant potential to be the kind of people who will more often feel deeply and meaningfully stirred by aesthetic experiences than by their day-to-day interactions with others. And I think it's reasonably characteristic of an INFP for their F preference to be more prone to take the form of a drive to somehow "serve humanity" or "make the world a better place" than a service-to-others streak directed at the people they're interacting with on a day-to-day basis. I'd say passionate involvement in, e.g., environmental or other progressive causes is pretty characteristic of INFPs. And an INFP artist's desire for self-expression is reasonably likely to include at least some sense that the people who read her novels or poetry or whatever and are exposed to her perspective will be enlightened or otherwise have their lives improved. ...

And I'd also say that there's no question that an INFP — and especially an INFP with no family responsibilities — can end up being a fairly _self-absorbed_ person (and you've described yourself as "more self-absorbed than sacrificing"). Not _selfish_ in the sense of being unfair to others or wanting more than her share or otherwise violating the golden rule, but self-absorbed in the sense that, consistent with some of the NF descriptions in my last post, her goals of self-discovery, self-improvement, self-expansion, experiencing life "in the full," etc. are her central focus, rather than any kind of service-to-others drive.

It's also not uncommon to find INFs questioning their F (as you have) because they see themselves as more logical and analytical than they think "feelers" tend to be. (You said, " I am too ... rational to be a feeling type.") But the notion that F's are people who just let their emotions (or some _non_-logical "feeling function") make their decisions for them is one that doesn't even apply that well to ESFs, and certainly doesn't fit INFs well. All four of the IN types (INTs and INFs both) tend to be notably analytical (including a significant degree of analytical detachment from their emotions), and to bring logic into play when they're making important decisions. All other things being equal, an INF is more likely than an INT to feel like her emotions are significant _and may have something important to tell her_, but the devoted scrutiny an INF gives to her emotions is likely to include a healthy dose of critical analysis, rather than just blind acceptance.​


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

[3 of 5]

*Altruism*

One theme that runs through a number of your posts is a noteworthy orientation toward helping or serving others — from framing the writing that you'd like to do as a _gift_ to your readers, to doing volunteer work to help make the world a better place — and on the other side, a focus on "greed" as an unfortunate aspect of human nature that, as you see it, probably means that humanity is not destined to survive. So the rest of this post is several pieces of recycled reckful — again, mostly (at least) from other forums — on that aspect of the T/F cluster.


* *




I've already talked about the MBTI dimensions presumably being products of evolution, and T/F seeming to be at least somewhat entangled with typical male/female differences, and involving a focus on other people, and relationships. The NEO-PI-R characterizes the Big Five equivalent of an F preference with various characteristics that it would arguably make sense for a mother to have to an above-average degree — including, notably, an _altruistic_ drive to serve others. McCrae & Costa explain that "Agreeableness is primarily a dimension of interpersonal tendencies. The agreeable person is fundamentally altruistic. He or she is sympathetic to others and eager to help them."

Altruism is also one of the six NEO-PI-R "facets" of Agreeableness, and here's how McCrae & Costa describe that facet:

*Altruism:* High scorers on this facet have an active concern for others' welfare as shown in generosity, consideration of others, and a willingness to assist others in need of help. Low scorers on this scale are somewhat more self-centered and are reluctant to get involved in the problems of others.​
But wait! According to official MBTI statistics, around 60% of people (43% of men and 75% of women) are F's. And 60% of the population is nothing like Mother Teresa, right? (Not that MT was necessarily all rainbows and butterflies.) I've been doing back-and-forths with people pondering their T/F status for eight years now, and I'm here to tell you that it's _incredibly common_ for people to read MBTI and/or Big Five characterizations of F (or above-average Agreeableness) and conjure an image in their minds of a nice/warm/generous/self-sacrificing person that any fool can see doesn't correspond to anything like 60% of the population. A typical F is more driven to help others than a typical T, but that doesn't mean a typical F is anything like a saint, and it doesn't even mean that notably unselfish or self-sacrificing impulses dominate their overall personalities — or the way they deal with _most_ of the people in their lives. And for many F's, and depending on what kind of careers they choose, the primary if not exclusive outlet for the majority of their service/help drive will end up being their families — and especially their children. Nothing like 60% of the population is significantly involved in charity or humanitarian work, right?

================================

One theme I've pointed to in past posts as a possible [type differentiator] is what you might call interactive vs. non-interactive love.

Marie-Louise von Franz was apparently one of Jung's prize pupils, and here's a little passage about the poet Rilke that made me chuckle from her book, The Inferior Function:

Introverted feeling, even if it is the main function, is very difficult to understand. A very good example of it is the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. He once wrote: "Ich liebe dich, was geht's dich an." ("I love you, but it's none of your business.") That is love for love's sake! Feeling is very strong, but it does not flow toward the object. ... Naturally, this kind of feeling is very much misunderstood, and such people are considered very cold. But they are not at all; the feeling is all within them.​
And when I say it made me chuckle, I mean a big part of the reason it made me chuckle is that I relate to that quite a lot. I mostly don't experience love primarily in terms of a desire to be actively doing things for the other party; I'm not an "I love you" guy (in terms of saying it out loud, and there are several reasons for that); and I have somewhat of a temperamental dislike of big sentimental/romantic gestures.

More generally, to me, _doing things for each other_ is not an essential part of a romantic relationship or friendship. Ideally, it's based simply on love or fondness for who the other person is, not what the other person does for me (and _vice versa_). I've done several posts at another forum discussing the core drive INFJs (especially) seem to have to make "noble sacrifices" or otherwise engage in significant acts of service for the people they care most about. And in that context, and as an example of more of an _opposite_ orientation toward love, I've quoted C.S. Lewis. In The Four Loves, he noted that, "to the Ancients, Friendship [— by which he meant the kind of kindred-spirit best-friendship that a person has with, at most, a select few —] seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves," and Lewis concurred with that assessment, and went on to note that the idea of one person doing something for the benefit of another played no essential part in — and was in fact somewhat "alien" to — this highest form of human love. Here's what Lewis said:

A Friend will, to be sure, prove himself to be also an ally when alliance becomes necessary; will lend or give when we are in need, nurse us in sickness, stand up for us among our enemies, do what he can for our widows and orphans. But such good offices are not the stuff of Friendship. The occasions for them are almost interruptions. They are in one way relevant to it, in another not. Relevant, because you would be a false friend if you would not do them when the need arose; irrelevant, because *the role of benefactor always remains accidental, even a little alien, to that of Friend. It is almost embarrassing*. For Friendship is utterly free from Affection's need to be needed. We are sorry that any gift or loan or night-watching should have been necessary — and now, for heaven's sake, let us forget all about it and go back to the things we really want to do or talk of together. Even gratitude is no enrichment to this love. The stereotyped "Don't mention it" here expresses what we really feel. The mark of perfect Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all. It was a distraction, an anomaly. It was a horrible waste of the time, always too short, that we had together.​
That strongly resonates with me, and I think my T preference is a significant contributor to that. And by contrast, I_FJs (for example) are often said to have somewhat of a _martyr_ streak, and to seek opportunities to play _benefactor_, in contrast to Lewis's experience of the benefactor role as "almost embarrassing," and an anomalous irrelevancy in the context of "the happiest and most fully human of all loves."

And I really don't view my attitude as _selfish_ in any pejorative sense of that word. As I said in another "type me" thread:

If I tell you that I consider myself a strong T, and that I'm not driven to "look out for others" or "serve others," do I mean that I'm selfish? Not if by selfish you mean breaking the golden rule. I'm actually kind of a fervent golden rule guy, I'd say.

And now, what about if a friend I care a lot about gets herself in a mess — maybe even a largely self-inflicted mess — and I'm in a position to give her assistance with respect to various things she's not in as good a position to do for herself? Since I'm not driven to "serve others," am I likely to stand back? Not at all. I've actually been a concerned, sleep-losing servant to an arguably ridiculous degree on a few occasions. And I'd say I pretty much felt compelled to offer the help, too (hence the "arguably ridiculous degree").

But here's the thing. If this friend of mine was not mess-prone and never needed my assistance, nor did anyone else in my life, would there be a hole in my life? No, ma'am! Would I have any inclination to go out and seek out people who could use my help? No, I would not. I serve others if the need arises and I then feel that the circumstances really call for _my_ assistance for one reason or another.

But to me, an ideal relationship would be one where circumstances worked out so that neither party ever really needed any major sacrifice or assistance from the other. And an ideal life for me would be lived in a world where nobody else ever needed anybody else's assistance. And that's really what makes me a T in that respect, as I see it — rather than any more blameworthy degree of selfishness. Helping others feels to me like a necessary evil that's likely to require just about everybody to step up and do their parts from time to time (and hopefully as seldom as possible), rather than an essential part of what life (or love) is about.​
================================

Switching back to non-recycled reckful, here are a few Soul Kitchen posts that got you F points in this department.

Here's the second paragraph you wrote in response to the "What are some of your most important values?" question in your initial (type me) PerC post:



Soul Kitchen said:


> * *While self-empowerment and self-improvement are noble things to pursue, I find that life isn't fulfilling for me unless I'm contributing something of worth to the wider world.* Almost any job is important in one way or another so long as you do that job well, and so I argue that janitors are almost as important as doctors; we just only appreciate janitors when there's a big stinking mess that hasn't been cleaned up from the shopping mall floor for days. I don't mind working a simple job for that reason, especially when it gives me extra time to develop my creative writing.


Multiple NF points there, right? At least for someone who's on the same page as me with respect to several of the F and NF issues I've already discussed.

"Self-empowerment and self-improvement."

I've posted elsewhere about (but will just quickly mention here) the idea that "noble" is a word that an NF is more likely to use/cherish than other types, and certainly moreso than a typical NT. In the Altruism section, I suggested that an NT's "values" are more likely to be limited (mostly) to the golden-rulish, "do no evil" variety, and that an NF — while perhaps being willing to acknowledge that not going out of your way to do things for others (or "contribute" to the world) doesn't exactly make someone a _bad_ person — is more likely to feel driven to engage in the kinds of above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty activities that occupy what you might call the _positive values_ districts of the spectrum where the participant doesn't just _avoid wrongdoing_, but is _ennobled_.

And you not only said you had a drive to "contribute something of worth to the wider world," but that it was a sufficiently core value for you that life couldn't be "fulfilling" without it. And you've made similar references to the "volunteer work" you do in multiple posts.

And the flip side of that same coin (to some extent) is reflected in the fourth paragraph you wrote in response to the "What are some of your most important values?" question:



Soul Kitchen said:


> * I hesitate to call myself a misanthropist because of my deep concern for humanity's future that comes from caring about humanity. The problem is that I don't see how humanity has a future, because I don't see how human nature can change, and I don't see how humanity can sustain civilisation in the long term because of its unsustainable consumption and overpopulation. I think an attachment to material things is inevitable, same with the greed that usually follows through from an attachment to material things, and a lot of injustice and destruction in this world ultimately stems from greed in one way or another.


You've made essentially this same point about feeling like humanity is probably doomed because "greed" and "materialism" are such a strong component of "human nature" in multiple posts. And it reflects a sense on your part that you're _different from the average person_ in those respects. I'm not saying you see yourself as anything like a saint, but your self-descriptions (including about your "most important values") make it clear that you have a _misanthropist_ streak — not in the sense of not "caring about humanity" (as you note), but in the sense of thinking that much of humanity is made up of people for whom greed and materialisim make up an unfortunately (and perhaps fatally, in terms of humanity's future) large portion of their nature.

And from my perspective, this suggests a recognition on your part that you're in some kind of _minority_ of the population for whom greed and materialism are a smaller-than-average streak, and concern for others (and humanity) is larger-than-average. And both MBTI characterizations of the T/F dimension and Big Five characterizations of Agreeableness suggest that that's the dimension that would be likely to have the largest influence on someone's values/drives/etc. along those lines. And 43% of men are F's, per official MBTI stats, so if you're on board with the idea that those "values" descriptions of yours have a significant F flavor, you'd only need to think that you're in the upper _43% of the male population_ in that respect to think of F as a good fit for you, at least when it came to that stuff.



Soul Kitchen said:


> a) *Even though I enjoy a conversation here and there with a stranger or a close friend, I generally prefer my own company.* I aspire to write short stories in a similar vein of Anton Chekhov, whose stories framed existential searching within a concise and effective tale driven by an interesting premise. I'd like to publish my writings online for free on a blog or something like that. I make enough money in a simple day job to support myself, but *what matters is being able to offer something of value as a gift* to whoever reads and enjoys what I wrote.


This was the first paragraph of your response to the "What activities energize you most?" question in your initial type-me OP, and I think the fact that you frame your aspiration to be a writer in terms of a primary drive ("what matters") to "offer something of value as a gift" to the reader is worth an F point or two. And you might react to that by saying, well, but reckful, come on, why is any writer bothering to write if not to be _read_, eh? And to that I'd respond that, whatever truth there may be to that, my perspective when I'm writing (including posts like this) really doesn't include much of a feel that I'm making a "gift" to the reader, or that it's the _reader_ that matters. Declaring that "what matters is being able to offer something of value as a gift" is just _not_ something I'd say, and doesn't really resonate for me, and I think the _impersonal_ take on my drives/activities/etc. that's (partly) a product of my T preference has something to do with that.

And harking back to that C.S. Lewis quote, I'd say I have a midly aversive response to "gifts" in general, from both the giving and receiving side.

In December 2016 (seven months after your initial type-me OP), you answered the same questionnaire a second time, and this time your response to the "What are some of your most important values?" question included this paragraph:



Soul Kitchen said:


> On the whole, I would say humanity is doomed because I don't see any signs that humanity will change its course before it's too late to avoid catastrophe, but *humans can still do good things for other humans, whether's it producing evocative works of art or doing acts of kindness for other people. That's reason enough for me to care*, and that's why I strive for in my own life. In my personal life, *I define a worthwhile deed in terms of how it benefits others, and that's why I take the time to do whatever volunteer work I can.* I also love literature, and want to be able to get my writing to a point where I can share it with others, and reach people on a subtle level through the way each person responds to what I write.


Again, the greedier aspects of human nature may mean "humanity is doomed," but in the meantime... what makes life worthwhile for you (provides "reason enough for you to care") is the fact that "humans can still do good things for other humans, whether it's producing evocative works of art or doing acts of kindness for other people" — which is why you "take the time to do whatever volunteer work I can."

You "define a worthwhile deed in terms of how it benefits others."

And honestly, Soul Kitchen, I think it would be hard for me to overstate how much more typical of a male (especially) INF those expressed attitudes/sentiments are than a male INT. Especially the "acts of kindness" part. _Producing works of art_ is an INFP>INTP thing, statistically speaking (more here and here), but "acts of kindness" — and "defining" the "worth" of a deed "in terms of how it benefits others" is a _strongly_ INFP>INTP thing, IMHO.

Not an _impossible_ thing for an INTP to say because, to probably beat a dead horse, type isn't about impossibilities, it's about probabilities. (And T/F's a mess, and on and on.) But from my _points system_ perspective, paragraphs like the just-quoted one get you some bigtime F points.




*Tactfulness*


* *




You've said you consider yourself above-average in Big Five neuroticism, and that sounds right to me. One of the six NEO-PI-R facets of Neuroticism is Angry Hostility, and here's some of McCrae & Costa's summary of that facet:

Angry hostility represents the tendency to experience anger and related states such as frustration and bitterness. This scale measures the individual's readiness to _experience_ anger; whether the anger _is expressed_ depends on the individual's level of Agreeableness.​
And your posts have given me a pretty strong impression that, whatever proneness to annoyance/anger you may have — (in terms of what you _internally experience_ — in the face of statements or conduct by others that you consider wrongful, you're also someone who's above-average in the extent to which whatever impulses you have to bitch at someone are typically suppressed in favor of more tactful/constructive approaches.

I, by anecdotal contrast, am what I understand to be a fairly typical TJ with above-average neuroticism in terms of my proneness, when somebody's doing something that I disapprove of, to vent my disapproval in a way that doesn't register particularly high on the tactful/diplomatic scale.

Here's you, in posts that got you some F points at Casa Reckful:



Soul Kitchen said:


> When presenting my analysis as criticism, I focus solely on the belief under scrutiny itself instead of trying to make the criticism personal. One shouldn't insult or degrade the person with criticism since doing so wouldn't make them change their mind, not to mention that it's important to maintain a standard of dignity no matter what situation one is in.


As you probably know, the history of _debating_ as an organized activity reflects the fact that there are lots of people who not only don't avoid, but actually _relish_, moments when a point is delivered in a way that includes an element of stinging ridicule/contempt/etc., and I'd say that NTJs are quite possibly the type most likely to find that kind of debating _temperamentally comfortable_. Bill Gates was somewhat infamous (in his youth anyway) for telling people, "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard." And I think that's something an NT guy is considerably more likely to make a habit of saying than an NF guy.

That quote of yours came from one of the answers in your first PerC type-me questionnaire, and I'd say the importance you place on avoiding "insults" or "degrading" language out of a concern for "dignity" when you're addressing someone who's said something that "clashes with your current beliefs" is worth an F point.

Any by contrast, I'd say NT guys are the classic "sticks and stones" guys, and the most prone to feel guiltless if somebody gets hurt by a caustically-expressed criticism — because it was their addressee who erred, by taking the barb too _personally_.



Soul Kitchen said:


> *10. What do you repress about your outward behavior or internal thought process when around others? Why?*
> 
> It matters to me when people maintain a standard of dignity around others, because there's just nothing to gain from being rude to people or needlessly losing your temper, or complaining about every little thing you see. I'm certainly not afraid to disagree with people or speak up when things are unfair or don't make sense, but you can speak up in such a way where you don't intentionally rub other people the wrong way. Besides, a little niceness can go a long way towards both making that person feel good, which makes you feel good as well.


And so I'm not misunderstood, I'm not saying my T preference makes me _mostly disagree_ with this post, assuming it's interpreted as a description of what is arguably a _better manner of relating to others_ — at least in many situations — than the manner that (often, not always) seems to come more naturally to me.

But if I was talking about myself in relation to this issue in a _type-me thread_, I'd make it clear that, like typical (methinks) NTJs — and especially above-average-neuroticism NTJs — this is an interpersonal area where I have something of a temperamental tendency to be _less nice than average_, more blunt than average, less capable of biting my tongue than average, etc.

And as for "a little niceness can go a long way towards both making that person feel good, which makes you feel good as well"... well, on the one hand, who can disagree with that, right? But it's not something I'd be likely to say, and certainly not in a paragraph where the point of the post was to give the readers a portrait of _what I'm like_.

And for what it's worth, I see "dignity" as a term that's considerably more likely to have resonance for an NF than an NT. It's never been a word I use. And when it's used in the context of _how to talk to someone you're clashing with_ (and you used it in both of the last two quotes in that context), it seems to me to be a fairly typical example of the often-remarked-on aspect of T/F that involves viewing interpersonal clashes in personal terms (in terms of at least taking impacts on the other person and the relationship into significant account) vs. impersonal terms (i.e., a temperamental tendency to be oblivious to personal/relationship impacts, and/or to view it as a mistake to take anything the T says "personally").

And if you're on board with the idea that T/F tends to play a substantial role in how much concern for the other person's dignity/feelings come into play, and how much "niceness" is likely to come into play, and if you focus, again, on the fact that around 43% of men allegedly belong in the F category, wouldn't you say that your attitudes/concerns in this department put you in the more nice/considerate/tactful 43% of men?


----------



## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

[4 of 5]

*Sociability*


* *




Here's a little recycled reckful from an old PerC type-me thread:

As you undoubtedly know, both I/E and T/F have roles to play in how sociable someone's inclined to be. An EF is the most quintessential "people person," and an IT is the best candidate for hermithood, and IFs and ETs are the in-betweeners.

And guess which types are the most likely to feel tormented by what seems to be an internal war between a deep desire to relate to their fellow human beings and a host of misgivings and avoidance propensities (with an accompanying love of solitude)? That's right: the IFs. And especially the INFs. And most especially the Limbic INFs.

And what's more, while I'm rolling, as between Limbic INFJs and Limbic INFPs, the Limbic INFPs.​
Your posts make you sound like one of those _in-betweener_ types to me, and I think IF, not ET, is the likely candidate.

In your first _5 things_ post, you said:



Soul Kitchen said:


> 2. I live most of my life in solitude, but I'm stimulated by interesting people and conversations. However, I tend to be a social outcast through choice because of my esoteric interests, and lack of interest in social activities such as sports, religion, or clubbing,


And in your original type-me OP, you said:



Soul Kitchen said:


> Even though I enjoy a conversation here and there with a stranger or a close friend, I generally prefer my own company.


But you've also said:



Soul Kitchen said:


> I often catch myself feeling lonely and wanting company, but I remind myself that I don't partake in the things people often do to meet other people, such as going to church, playing sports, or going clubbing.


And:



Soul Kitchen said:


> 4. Loneliness and boredom are not too easily separable for me.


And:



Soul Kitchen said:


> I think there's an argument to make for extraversion. When I think of the times I've been in my best mood, it's because I experienced something I'd never experienced before, or because I spent an afternoon with a friend. ... Apart from that, I have a fairly regular habit of chatting with randoms out in public. ... By no means am I a shy person.


Looking at that last quote, I'd say you were right to think that the stuff described is somewhat more characteristic of ENTs than INTs, but that it's also more characteristic of INFs than INTs, and in your case, and as between those two possible type-related explanations, I think INF is the likelier one.




*NFs & the "self"; people as meaningful wholes*


* *




Long, long ago (2009!) in an MBTI forum far... well, not that far away, actually, this being the internet... somebody created a type-me thread and I ended up waxing so long-winded on T/F issues that one of the mods told me that my post lengths put me in a class by myself. This was not necessarily intended as a compliment.

And the T/F issue that I may have spent the _most_ time talking about (in two endless posts) was the notion that F's (and NFs especially) were more prone than T's to view individuals as _meaningful wholes_. And I'm going to take this as an opportunity to _very briefly_ revisit that issue, starting with this piece of much-recycled reckful:

I think of NFs as the "self"-oriented types. By that I don't mean selfish, or even self-centered. What I mean is that an NF, more than the other types, is likely to cherish the view that each person is a unique individual who adds up (or, ideally, can come to add up) to some kind of meaningful whole, and whose life ideally consists of a kind of journey of self-discovery and self-improvement in which each passing year will find you wiser about yourself, and also a better and/or expanded person, than you were the year before.​
Here's some Keirsey on NFs:

Although [NFs] make up only about 12 percent of the general population, ... their influence on the minds of the populace is massive, for most writers come from this group. Novelists, dramatists, television writers, playwrights, journalists, poets, and biographers are almost exclusively NFs. ... The theme of people in restless search of self runs through novel after novel, is voiced by protagonist after protagonist, and is the source of agony in drama after drama.

The search for meaning as a necessary pilgrimage for _all_ people is advanced by the NFs in their writings. Very often the other types ... are troubled by the thought that they _ought_ to be pursuing these values, even if, somehow, the search for meaning and integrity does not beckon to them. This reluctance of 88 percent of the world to join the search for self-actualization is a great source of mystification to the NFs.​
By contrast, I think a typical NT is more naturally inclined to think of a person as a mixed-up collection of traits, tastes, knowledge, interests, etc. that doesn't really add up to a "self" that somehow represents a meaningful unit in the same way that it does for a typical NF.

And I'm not going to quote any of your posts at this point, but I'll be referring back to this general notion in at least a couple more specific contexts in what follows.




*Languages*

The strength of your desire to learn foreign languages puts you in a very small minority, as you undoubtedly know, and that's a subject I've posted on before, so here's another chunk of recycled reckful from another forum.


* *




Since it was several posts back, I'm going to remind you of a point I made in the introductory part of this T/F series on the subject of what puts a personality characteristic on my F (or NF) list:



reckful said:


> What puts something on reckful's list of "F points" items? Potentially nothing more or less than the fact that it seems to be something that's more characteristically found in MBTI F's (or NFs, or FJs, or INFs, or etc.) than MBTI T's (or NTs, TJs, or INTs, etc.). It doesn't need to be otherwise _explainable_ in terms of any kind of _common-F thread_ of _either_ the internal or external variety — although that's not to say that, in many cases, characteristic "F things" don't at least arguably reflect some kind of more general, common-F-ish thread.


And here's some some much-recycled reckful on the subject of people out near the far end of the spectrum in terms of type-relevant personality characteristics:

I've noted in past posts that the effect of probabilities is often substantially more dramatic at the ends of the scale than near the middle. As one example, as I understand it, the chess-playing ability of the average woman is not dramatically different than the chess-playing ability of the average man — but if you look at the end-of-the-spectrum subgroup of chess grand masters, it's a group that's very heavily male-dominated. ...

So... anytime somebody not only exhibits a personality current that's more characteristically associated with, say, NFs than other types, but also exhibits that current to a degree that puts them in the top 5% or 1% of the population, it arguably makes sense to assign that _unusually strong_ streak more "NF points" than a milder version of the same streak that doesn't put the person in a particularly small minority.​
And one of the things that's often pointed to as more characteristic of NFs than any of the other types is a strong interest in _language_. NFs, as you'll recall, were one of the groups that made up Myers' favored foursome, and Myers noted that NFs "often ... have a marked gift of language," and she explained that the NFs' above-average "command" in this area "derives from the combination of intuition and feeling. Intuition supplies imagination and insight, feeling supplies the urge to communicate and share, and the command of language is apparently a joint product of intuition's facility with symbols and feeling's artistic discrimination and taste." (And note that you don't have to buy into Myers' _explanation_ to accept the fact that her data-gathering and interaction with the types had led her to conclude that NFs, _for whatever reason_, tended to be the language buffs.)

NFs were also part of Keirsey's foursome, as you know, and Keirsey agreed with Myers, noting that all four NF types tend to "demonstrate ... a remarkable facility with language."

And when it comes to the people who at least arguably inhabit something like the far end of the love-of-language spectrum, it's long seemed to me that a passion for _learning foreign languages_ made for a pretty good indicator.

And my N preference is pretty damn strong, it seems to me, but _foreign languages_? The Biblical story of the Tower of Babel explains that everybody spoke the same language once upon a time, and that the multi-language "confusion" (to quote the King James version) was inflicted on humanity by God as a _punishment_ after people tried to build a tower to the sky.

And I say _Amen_ to that perspective, because I'm here to tell you that this NT views the fact that everybody on Earth doesn't speak the same language as pretty much just a sorry mess of a situation.

As part of my "people as meaningful wholes" discussion, I said I thought it was more typical of NFs to be interested in the aspects of someone's personality that made them more of a unique individual. And I think one of the main things that people with a passion for foreign languages are apt to point to to explain their passion is the _psychological_ angle that says that a language isn't just a passive tool for describing an objective reality but embodies a rich and multifarious set of _perspectives on things_, and that the perspectives embodied in each language include perspectives that are missing from the NF's native language, and have a special fascination for that reason.

In other words, it seems to me that some of the factors that make an NF more likely than an NT to have a passion to get to know other individuals as a way of being exposed to a rich cornucopia of somewhat idiosyncratic perspectives on the world are the same factors that make an NF characteristically more interested in learning about _other cultures_ and those cultures' idiosyncratic perspectives on the world.

And to give the dead horse another whack, noooooooo, I'm not saying this is anything like a _definitive indicator_ in the NF department. I'm just saying that given that this particular streak is strong enough in you to put you in a very small minority of the population, and given that it's a streak that I think is particularly NF-characteristic, it caused me to award you another INFJ>INTJ point or two or three.




That concludes the recycled portion of this post. And here are a few Soul Kitchen posts in this department.

Here's the second paragraph you wrote in response to the "What activities energize you most?" question in your initial type-me OP:



Soul Kitchen said:


> I have a passion for foreign languages, because language and culture are inseparable from each other. It's just not the same to take the usual tourist experience of taking a whole lot of pretty photos of major tourist attractions, spending a fortune on packaged tours, 5-star restaurants and hotels, and speaking only English. I want to know what it means to live like a local in that country.





Soul Kitchen said:


> I dabbled in Esperanto for a while


"Esperanto!" exclaimed reckful.



Soul Kitchen said:


> I spent the past year trying out different languages to see which one was for me. Mandarin Chinese was a tough nut for me to try and crack because of its writing system and tones, as well as its unfamiliar vocabulary, and so I lost interest in it after a while.


"Manadarin Chinese!" exclaimed reckful.

And so I'm not misunderstood, Soul Kitchen, I'm not saying you're certifiably crazy or anything. Just emphasizing that you're in a small minority in the love-of-language department. Right? A very, very, very small minority.

In the What Are Your Thoughts on Traveling thread, you said:



Soul Kitchen said:


> I'd be interested in becoming a digital nomad for a while at some point in the future. Basically I'd spend extended periods of time in a few different locations so I can immerse myself in other cultures, while cutting down on living costs compared to what tourists would usually pay in their travels. If I can make freelance developing work out for me, I could basically work for anyone from any corner of the world so long as I have a laptop and an internet connection.
> 
> I would make it a point to learn the language of the place I wanted to stay at first before staying there, which isn't a chore for me since I love languages.


It's not hard for me to imagine somebody conceding that, notwithstanding their love of languages, learning a foreign language can still be something of a chore. For someone to love languages so much that learning a new one "isn't a chore," I assume it helps to love languages to an extent that puts that someone in, at the risk of being repetitive, a very, very, very small minority.


----------



## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

[5 of 5]

*Soul-sucking jobs*



Soul Kitchen said:


> b) The idea of working in a soul-sucking job sounds like hell to me, and from an existential stand point it comes across as much more dreadful than those images we generally associate with hell, such as burning flames, worms eating flesh, pain and torture for all eternity. It takes faith to believe there is such a hell in an afterlife. However, working a job you hate most of your life is not something you need faith in for it to be a real possibility for you.


Here comes some recycled reckful on NFs and soul-sucking jobs, from a type-me thread involving a male INFJ.


* *




One refrain that runs through a lot of your posts is your career frustrations and your desire to find a job that's meaningful to you (a common NF complaint, as you know) — and not only meaningful, but meaningful in classic NF terms.



INFJGuy said:


> As INFJs in the workforce, do you find that there is a constant internal struggle in your lives with regards to engaging in meaningful employment (doing something for the greater good)—which is always disappointingly low in terms of compensation and benefits, versus engaging in lucrative employment (usually involves being a cog in some profit-driven machine)—which allows one to pay the bills and meet other unavoidable financial obgligations (pay off student loans, buy food, pay rent, pay taxes, buy a home, take care of family, etc.).
> 
> How do you reconcile this? Or are you struggling with it as much as I am?





INFJGuy said:


> I would like to work for a company whose mission/goal is to make a positive impact on the environment, nature, or humanity





INFJGuy said:


> I share that "help the world" trait. That trait is what's killing me in all of my jobs and careers.





INFJGuy said:


> I have struggled with working in traditional office environments most of my life.





INFJGuy said:


> I would like for my career and my passionate pursuit to be one and the same. But right now, I am working a job (oh, please dear God, don't call it a career) in an industry that really doesn't reflect my values. On one hand, the pay is good, and I can have a decent life. On the other hand, I feel as if my soul is dying little-by-little, day-by-day.


I'd say the environment is one of my favorite "causes," and I've written more than my share of checks to the likes of Greenpeace and the NRDC. But I _resent_ feeling the need to write those checks. And I wouldn't be likely to choose a job based on how well-behaved the company was with respect to the environment. I don't see protecting the environment as _my problem_, and I can't emphasize too strongly how little desire I have to feel like I'm making some kind of _special personal contribution_ in that regard. On the contrary, it really pisses me off when _anything_ — and reasonably preserving the environment for future generations is just one example — that ought to be viewed (and handled) as _everyone's_ responsibility gets handled (or not) by leaving it to individuals and private companies to decide for themselves how "good" they want to be. That's a _nice guys finish last_ system, and I resent the hell out of _nice guys finish last_ systems. Environmental protection ought to be accomplished by legislation that _forces all companies_ to be environmentally responsible, so everyone's required to do their fair share and the good guys don't end up at a competitive disadvantage for doing the right thing. And I _want_ to do _my_ fair share. But I have no desire to do "extra" to compensate for some bad guy who isn't doing his share. Why should I?

Now here you might say, well, reckful, but don't misunderstand, there's nothing I'd like more than to live in a world where politicians weren't corrupted and everything that should reasonably be done to protect the environment was a legal requirement, like you've described. And I'd reply, of course, but here's the thing: If that happened, I think your NF would go in search of another cause. You'd still have a core drive to be personally involved — by virtue of voluntary and self-defining/expressing choices — in "doing something for the greater good."

And don't misunderstand me. If I was working at a job that met my core NT requirements and that job also involved making the world a better place in some way, it's not that that would have _no_ value to me. But it would just be a bonus. I've never felt any significant drive to make job choices on that basis, or spent any time agonizing that my work wasn't "meaningful" in those kinds of terms. My main job criteria have to do with whether I'll get compensated reasonably well for doing things that I find satisfying in terms of being interesting, challenging, calling on my creativity/knowledge/skills, etc. And not choosing a job (or agonizing about a job) because it's not a serving-humanity-type job hardly puts me in a minority, as you're undoubtedly aware. Your agonizing puts you in a minority, and that minority is heavily populated by NFs.

I should also note that I wouldn't be able to do a job that _violated_ my values in the "don't do evil" sense of requiring me to commit fraud or otherwise do something that made me, personally, a wrongdoer. But I'd say that kind of what you might call "negative values" (stuff I _wouldn't_ do) is substantially different from your approach. When you say, "I would like for my career and my passionate pursuit to be one and the same. But right now, I am working ... in an industry that really doesn't reflect my values ... [and] I feel as if my soul is dying little-by-little, day-by-day," you're talking about proactively serving _positive_ values (thus making the world a better place).




And here's a little more recycled reckful, from a more recent type-me thread involving an NFJ woman.


* *




I recently typed an INFJ woman at another forum, and here's what she posted in a thread entitled, "Say something your type would NEVER say":

I'm going to pursue a career in sales!​
In Gifts Differing, Isabel Myers noted:

NFs prefer possibilities to facts and they handle these with personal warmth. Often their enthusiasm and insight bring them success in understanding and communicating with people. In the samples of counseling students and creative writers, 76 per cent and 65 per cent were NF; among the theology, health-related professional, and journalism students, the per cents of NF were 57, 44, and 42. NFs also do well in teaching, research, and literature and art; but among the finance and commerce students, sales and customer relations people, and accountants, NFs made up only 10, 8, and 4 per cent.​
The MBTI Manual includes a table showing self-selection ratios for the 16 types in liberal arts, engineering and business, and it shows that, by substantial margins, "liberal arts were more attractive to NF and IN types, ... and business to ES and ST types."

Keirsey similarly noted that "most NFs show little interest in buying and selling."

And the reason I've brought up this aspect of NFs is that ... I suspect that one of the big reasons (if not the biggest reason) that you have the sense that the "work you" is just a "mask" you've "donned to succeed" (rather than the "real you") is that you're experiencing the kind of alienation that NFs are more likely than other types to experience in a typical corporate environment where the focus is basically on business-related (profit-motivated) goals.

You were an award-winning musician in your school days ... and your ultimate dream would be to be a novelist. And those are much more quintessential NF _passionate pursuits_ than climbing a corporate ladder. But an NF's passionate pursuits have a tendency to be things that don't pay that well (as INFJguy complained) and/or involve very long odds of success — so it's hardly surprising that NFs often end up taking jobs that leave them feeling at least mildly alienated and unfulfilled. And maybe needless to say, it's hardly uncommon for people of _any_ type to end up in jobs that are far from what they'd call _passionate pursuits_. But all other things being equal, I think it's fair to say that an NF is more likely to insist on a more _meaningful_ job (in NF terms) in the first place, and if an NF ends up in a non-meaningful (in NF terms) job, that's likely to _rankle_ the NF more than it would most or all of the other types.




*Etc.*

Finally, and partly for the benefit of any other armchair typologists who may want to ponder you as a type specimen, what follows are three more posts of yours that I found potentially relevant in the T/F department.


* *




Also in that initial type-me-questionnaire OP you did, in response to the "What are some of your most important values?" question, you said:



Soul Kitchen said:


> * I draw a lot of meaning in my life from philosophy, especially from the analogies of the Myth of Sisyphus and Eternal Recurrence. At times, life can seem a lot like pushing a boulder up a hill only for it to fall to the bottom each time you near the top. You can either despair at never reaching the top, or you can find meaning in the act of pushing the boulder up the hill, either by enjoying watching it roll downhill or by getting ripped from pushing a heavy boulder for all eternity. With Eternal Recurrence, I ponder what I'd have to say about my life if I was told I would repeat every moment I ever experienced as I relived life again and again for all eternity. For me, what matters is living meaningfully in my day-to-day life so that I would be thrilled at the idea of reliving life all over instead of dreading it.


And you've described that Eternal Recurrence notion in a number of other posts since, and it doesn't really resonate that much for me, and I think it's possible that it's an NF indicator in the sense that, consistent with what I said in the NFs & the "self"; people as meaningful wholes section (above), it seems to reflect both the search for "meaning" that's quintessentially NF, but also something of a _meaningful-whole_ perspective on a human life — or at least, what a human life can ideally be. There's a flavor of wanting your life to end up being like a _story you wouldn't mind reading again_ — or maybe, more aptly, a _journey_ you wouldn't mind taking again, with an overall course that tends to reflect progress toward one or more meaningful destinations.

Note that I said it doesn't resonate "that much" for me. I'm not saying I don't relate to some degree, and I think most people would probably say that they relate _to some degree_. But it was the _very first item_ you described in response to the open-ended question, "What are some of your most important values?"; and it's a notion, as I said, that you've brought up in multiple posts. So again, nothing like a _definitive_ NF indicator — first and foremost because I believe in a _point system_, etc., rather than _definitive indicators_ — but arguably worth an NF point or two.

================================



Soul Kitchen said:


> 3. Even though I do hold certain values, I can easily make compromises on them out of pragmatism. So I'm a vegetarian, but not a vegan because I want to save up on extra dough, so I still consume dairy milk and caged eggs. For me, values are a flexible thing that depend at least partly on circumstance.


I would disagree with the notion that it would be uncharacteristic for an INFP to treat _most_ of their "values" as "a flexible thing that depend at least partly on circumstance" — and I think the most likely source for that notion would be poor "Fi" descriptions on the internet.

Keeping in mind that ISFP is one of the two supposed _Fi-doms_, I think anybody who thinks that the _Fi types_ are notably prone to be dogmatic/uncompromising/etc. when it comes to their "values" would do well to give this long — but _entertaining_, insisted reckful — post a read.

================================



Soul Kitchen said:


> I'm fairly confident that I'm an Ne dom, at least as confident as Ne would allow me with its ability to fit in different perspectives and change them at will. But I think I might have too much of an idealistic strain in how I live and what motivates me to fit with the type. I don't automatically assume the worst in people, even if I don't necessarily see the best in them either, and I have a lot of concern for humanity and its future. I have stuff-all in the way of street smarts. Maybe I'm an ENFP?


This is from a thread you started (_Too idealistic to be an ENTP?_) at a time when you'd (tentatively) settled on ENTP as your type, but thought (as you said) that you "might have too much of an idealistic strain in how I live and what motivates me" to be an ENTP — including "a lot of concern for humanity and its future."

And you understood that that was arguably F-indicative (from a _points-system_ perspective, in any case), and so you asked, "Maybe I'm an ENFP?"

And I'd just note that I don't think E/I is a significant factor in this department, so that INTP/INFP parallels ENTP/ENFP, and I suspect that the doubts/pondering that led you to make this thread were rightly tugging you in the NF>NT direction.




More than enough from me, I assume, and thank you for serving as a specimen, and as an excuse to do some more forum-to-forum recycling.

And again, because you're leaning T and I'm leaning F, I've pretty much presented you with what I see as the pro-F case, based on the post-stalking I did — buuut I was also totally sincere (not being _diplomatic_) when I said that I'm _also_ inclined to think that for a lot of people (at least), the idea that they occupy anything like a _single position_ on one side or the other of anything like a tidy _T/F spectrum_ may be an expectation that's significantly at odds with the facts.

So for that reason, among others, I'll hardly be disappointed (or surprised) if your profile continues to reflect a T lean on your part.

And I'd be happy to engage in some follow-up discussion if you like, but on the other hand, I haven't planted this stuff with the idea that any further discussion is expected, and wouldn't be the least bit surprised if you've had more than enough reckfullian input on your type at this point. And to the extent that you want to follow up on any of it, please don't feel any sense of time urgency.

As a final note, I should add that my post-stalking only included the posts you'd made through Dec. 24 (and not _all_ of those).


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

@reckful I don't think your assessment of my being an INFP is erroneous. Based on the post history you have at hand, a lot of it does indicate an INFP typing, and if I were an impartial observer who knew nothing about Soul Kitchen and I read your analysis, my money would be on INFP as well.

At any rate, we at least agree on my being an INP, which is a start. You seem to agree on P over J. I also agree not just in that the T/F dichotomy is by far the murkiest out of all four of them, but that I am not strongly a T or an F, but rather a mixture of T and F traits that averages out with a rather mild lean either way at most. Perhaps it's possible I could just be an INxP, even.

You also raise some excellent points about INF types being less "touchy-feely" due to their I being self-composed, and their N making them more "meta" in how they approach emotions and values.

But what your analysis lacks is a context framed both within my own perspective, and a lack of context weighted for my personal development. Besides, I was depressed when I wrote a lot of what you quoted, and in my present frame of mind, I've moved past my depression and am more focused than before, although I'm still Limbic.

I still believe I prefer T over F more than I do F over T. If I am indeed an INTP, my T preference is still less pronounced than yours, reckful. Considering F types usually think of me as more of a T type due to their own bias, perhaps it's in your bias to see me as more F leaning because I'm not a "hardcore T," as you describe yourself? I can't help but notice how you use your own T as a basis for evaluating my (alleged) F lean; especially in your opinion on the Tower of Babel.

Below is a belabored counter-analysis where I address each of your points one by one. Whether or not you reply to them is your choice, and I accept that you've already gone to great lengths in writing your analysis of me. Perhaps we might be at an impasse, and might just have to agree to disagree about which way T/F leans the most. In which case, I will tag @Turi once more in the hopes of consulting a neutral third party.

Afterwards, I will search through my recent post history for examples in favour of T, which I will let speak for themselves, and then show you the answers I chose for the INTP or INFP quiz made by IDR Labs (formerly known as Celebrity Types).

ALTRUISM

* *




If you were typing me based on my mindset at the time, then yes I was quite the altruist. I won't dispute that I was. Except this is why I warned you to take anything I said further back in my post history with a huge grain of salt, because as of 2018, I'm not anywhere near as much of an altruist as before.

My sense of purpose is no longer defined by a need to serve others. I'm not going to pursue volunteer work much further, because my focus from now on is to reap what I've sown through my labours. Through work, I expect to be compensated for it through a salary or experience, if not both. That's not to say I'm completely selfish - although self-interest that doesn't harm another is hardly a sin - because sometimes it's nice to help someone, but only if it comes at no great inconvenience to myself.

Or if it comes at inconvenience to another. The reason I refuse to give change to the homeless is not just because I suspect many are lazy bums faking it, but also that it could serve to keep them trapped in their situations. We further ourselves through struggle, and if the homeless are given the means to fund their various addictions - as many are drug addicts and alcoholics - then that benefits neither me nor them. In a way, I am observing the golden rule in much the same way you are, reckful.

I don't owe the world anything, and the world owes me nothing, and when I help others, it's usually out of mutual benefit. None of us were born with any purpose beyond the ones we create for ourselves.

And I've stopped writing because fiction writing is a much less useful skill to know than, say, knowing how to code. Even if I were to pursue a career out of altruism, which I'm not, the world needs programmers much more than it needs artists.




TACTFULNESS

* *




Yes, I am tactful (or at least I try to be). That in itself could be seen as a point in favour of F. However, I was under the impression that many NT types placed an emphasis on deconstructing the idea over attacking the person behind the idea. And boy oh boy do I love to argue. I don't even mean arguing just in favour of a cause, or speaking out against an injustice, or in trying to address a relationship, which is what you seem to be getting at here.

What I mean is that I appreciate intellectual debate as an end in itself, to the point where I'd approach street preachers and pick holes in their beliefs; "you cite such-and-such a verse, but this verse says this." Or where I'd get locked into debates on forums or with close friends for the thrill of it. Sometimes I will even argue in favour of a belief or position different from my own just to see how people respond. The reason for this comes down to a need to have my own assumptions questioned, and to provoke others into questioning their own assumptions. All with a focus on a consistency in paradigm. A sense of injustice has less to do with it than my own intellectual curiosity.

In other words, I'm a gadfly who stings less out of internalised anger, and more out of a desire to provoke. Oh, and that quote you just mentioned? That's all the way back from 2016, back when I was less willing than usual to provoke others. Same with that quote about niceness. No, these days, I'm much more interested in which perspective is the least fallacious, and I'll only be as nice as is necessary without obscuring my point. I wouldn't simply say "no, that's stupid," but that's because a blunt statement like that begs for a follow up on why it's stupid, and apropriateness is less of an issue.




SOCIABILITY

* *




These days, I'm more content with my own company than before. I attribute it to the depression I had at the time where I hated being alone, which was out of character for me. Now I'm more like the stereotypical INT male hermit you described. Some company every now and then is nice, sure, but I can go weeks without any contact without it affecting my mood.




MEANINGFUL WHOLES

* *




I actually said more than once in my old posts that people are the sum of their genes, culture, upbringing, and experiences. I still stand by this opinion, and thus find the idea of free will preposterous for that reason. In saying this, I'd amend it to mean "no more than the sum of their parts." Basically there is no special destiny for any of us beyond whatever purpose we may conjure up for ourselves. The human mind is just neural cells buzzing and cracking with chemistry, and these all shrivel up and die from oxygen deprivation.




LANGUAGES

* *




I would've thought an interest in different languages and cultures denoted an Openness to Experience more than anything else. You cited the lack of practical benefits in people being divided by different tongues, but that's your perspective as one NT (who is also a TJ) out of many, and you don't speak for all NTs.

For instance, Christopher Hitchens was most likely an INTJ, and expressed a fondness for languages in Mortality, his book of essays. In that book, he remarked on the etymology of the words "stronger" and "starker" while writing about Nietzsche, and named his group of intellectual dinner parties a French name. He said one of his greatest regrets was not having any real mastery over a foreign language.

On top of that, I suspect a large number of folks in the conlang community are INTPs in that their focus is on a mathematical approach towards grammar. Being INTPs, they would be a bit more in favour of studying foreign languages as an end in itself, while you who is strongly a TJ type likely see languages as a means to an end.

I have no problems with English serving a role as an international language. Some NFs would cry "cultural imperialism," but I favour its usage because it allows people from countries as different as Germany, Japan, and Brazil to communicate with each other. It acts as a bridge; some might say a crude one, but aesthetic is a subjective matter. What matters is there's a bridge to use at all.

It's also interesting you mentioned an interest in different cultures, for I actually possess enlightenment values. I don't see all cultures as relative, but instead measurable by the same lens in the sense of which cultures are more intellectually open, and which ones are more in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I see no shame in calling some cultures barbaric. Sure I acknowledge that I might think otherwise if I were a local, but that would be due to an ignorance of better and more effective civilisations that exist.

Anyway, I've put language learning aside because it's not the most useful skill for me to know right now, and I need to further my career development.




JOBS

* *




Could a job be considered soul sucking if there is no soul to suck? Again, you caught me during a time of depression when anything - even getting out of bed - was hell to me. Now that I've worked past that, this is a non-issue to me. I've got a job to do, this job will lead to a salary and experience, so I'm quite willing to knuckle down and just get it done. There's always time to pursue whatever wacky N hobbies I want in my spare time.

It's also worth reiterating how I'm approaching my career in the present. When I've weighed up my career options, I've thought largely about where the demand is, what sort of salary I could make, and what level of difficulty is involved in entering that field. That's not to say I disregard my own personal satisfaction, but I like to think I have a grounded approach towards such things. It would be unrealistic of me to expect a career satisfaction of 10, so as far as I'm concerned, a 6 or 7 would suffice. That's why I'm not just going to throw everything into the wind to try and make it as an artist.




ETC.

* *




The notion of eternal recurrence I proposed was inspired by studying a bit of Nietzsche, who was himself probably an INTJ.

If I had to type myself using functions, I'd say I was an Introverted Intuitive type, but I don't take functions as seriously as before. I will humour them, but at the end of the day, dichotomies are much more useful. That argument I made for point three was intended to be T over F, not Fi.

I'm much less of an idealist these days. As you've probably understood by now, my present concern is climbing up the ladder of society to earn my keep. When I say values are flexible for me, I mean that I probably wouldn't get all that torn up about letting a thousand people die to spare a million. The focus is on the bottom line, and less on whether or not a deed could be considered ethical.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

Here are various opinions of mine which I consider as having a T lean.


* *






Soul Kitchen said:


> First of all, let's all assume there's an absence of a divine power with an interest in human affairs - whose absence is probable given the (lack of) evidence, although not certain. Assuming that life was not a divine miracle, the term "deserved" would be a loaded term to use.
> 
> Life wasn't given to us on a silver platter, but instead something which emerged through a freak accident involving primordial soup, which occurred despite the astronomically remote odds at the time. From there, it took billions of years of evolution to get from single-celled organisms to sentient life forms, guided through natural selection in the face of a constantly changing environment. The reason our species is the dominant species of this world today is because of our species own unique ability to reshape their environment on a massive scale, thus allowing humans to not just adapt to our environments, but even to control them. If natural selection is all just a big game of "which species can survive the longest through thick and thin," then humans seem to be earning their right to keep on playing this game so far.
> 
> ...





Soul Kitchen said:


> If I were the divine creator of all life in this universe, the question of whether or not anyone deserved to live wouldn't even cross my mind. I'd just sit back in amusement and fascination as I watch my creations running around doing their thing. I wouldn't judge anyone or anything for what they did.
> 
> Basically I'd be a kid with an ant farm.





Soul Kitchen said:


> I don't think it would be within my means to convince that person not to do it. Maybe if they were just a jumper and had no weapons at hand, I could try it, but it would be unwise to put myself in danger if the other person had a gun. What's to say they wouldn't turn the gun on me if they're unstable enough?
> 
> I'd basically back away to a safe place as quickly as possible, and then call the police. They might not be able to intervene in time, but it's the best I could do to help the other person. They may well be beyond reason at that point, and perhaps restraint is the only thing that could stop them from harming themselves and others.





Soul Kitchen said:


> Every single region of the brain has a role to play in your conscious experience. If the parts of your brain to do with, say, your memory or emotion processing was damaged, you would lose a lot of sense of who were you were.
> 
> But the brain is not the only part of our body that affects our conscious experience, but also the way in which signals travel across the nerve system as well. The chemistry of our bodies also plays a role, such as the effects of adrenaline and testosterone when released in large qualities.





Soul Kitchen said:


> His hotheadedness doesn't just give him a repugnant personality - which in itself wouldn't be so much of a problem if he were actually competent. The problem is that his hotheadedness leads to him making ill considered policies, seemingly without heed of the consequences. I could rant about his ill considered policies all day, but I'll list four examples instead.
> 
> Banning people from certain Muslim countries won't actually remove the risk of terrorism when the majority of terrorism in US soil comes from US citizens. Terrorism from abroad is less of a threat to the USA than uncontrolled gun regulations; and with the influence of rifle associations in right wing politics, I think Trump would likely turn a blind eye in that direction.
> 
> ...





Soul Kitchen said:


> It's an interesting idea, that's for sure. Certainly quite novel. But does this movement have any merit? Not really. Even if the urge to have children isn't biological and is instead social, natalism is still too deeply ingrained into our cultures. There is too much of an orientation around the family unit to convince the majority of people to stop procreating. Hell, you would have to convince every single person to stop procreating, because the human species can proliferate from as little as one hundred people in, say, the tundra of Siberia.
> 
> I also disagree with the assertion that anti-natalists are necessarily VHEMT supporters or volunteers by default. I don't even advocate for the end of all procreation of just one species, for starters; it's just a personal belief that maybe it's not that worth bringing in one more life into this world, that's all. Besides, if a childfree life will catch on, it will largely be for selfish reasons, such as saving money and spending more time with friends... which is fine.
> 
> I also don't think overpopulation is the key environmental threat here so much as it is our unsustainable consumption and dependency on non-renewable resources. One American can have the ecological footprint of an entire village in Africa.





Soul Kitchen said:


> So what exactly is the definition of a slave to begin with? Oxford Dictionaries defines it as "a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them," and also "a person who is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something."
> 
> Is personhood necessary for an animal to be considered a slave? Are pets people in the same way humans are?
> 
> The difference is that with slavery of humans, humans are aware of the state of being enslaved. A pet dog or cat, on the other hand, might not know any different because they've adapted to their domestication.





Soul Kitchen said:


> My current avatar is the Fraser spiral illusion. It looks like it's a spiral, when in truth it's just composed of overlapping circles with irregular spacing between each loop.
> 
> I chose this avatar because it represented my desire not to accept things as given, but to instead look further to understand the phenomena in question. This goes for many things, from my own preconceptions, to commonly held beliefs, to superstitions and falsehoods.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

INTP or INFP Test: https://www.idrlabs.com/test/intp-or-infp.php

* *






> With regards to values, there is no absolute truth. Whatever people's values are, that is true for them.


Disagree. INTP: 1



> As an expert writing about a topic, I would be more inclined to stress:


The general pattern that is observable most of the time over most of the world. INTP: 2



> Overall, my values lean more toward:


Precision. INTP: 3



> When I look at the scene of international politics I see:


Different shades of grey. Of course all countries are not equally bad, but they're all driven by self-interest. The best way to get along is for all countries to agree to play by a common set of rules. INTP: 4



> Which better describes your outlook?


We must all try to fit in and then pursue our goals and individuality from there. INTP: 5



> When someone makes me privy to an overall plan or idea they have, I more often find myself:


Parsing out the unstated implications of their position and calling attention to ramifications of their thoughts that they had not always thought of themselves. INTP: 6



> The kind of people that frustrate me the most are:


People who refuse to acknowledge that any reasoning they employ must be a two-way street that also applies to themselves. INTP: 7



> When setting out to examine a subject, I generally prefer to take:


A more quantitative approach, with data drawn from a greater number of subjects, which allows me to draw wide and generalized conclusions. INTP: 8



> If people were to criticize me, they would be more likely to refer to me as:


Childish. INFP: 1



> Which is more true of you?


 I may be perceived by others as impassive at times, that is in part because I wish to make room for others to be themselves and not impose myself upon them. INFP: 2

_I'm not that impassive._



> Which is closer to your understanding of history:


History is primarily shaped by overarching and generalized conditions like geography, legal and economic institutions, and natural resources. Individual contributions matter less. INTP: 9



> Which is closer to your personal experience?


Sometimes I turn social interaction into a kind of game where I am overly receptive to the opinions of others and end up adding so much nuance and elaboration to my own opinion that my stated position becomes practically meaningless. INTP: 10



> Which is closer to your view of civilization and human nature?


Overall, I'd say civilization has a beneficial influence on human nature. INTP: 11



> If you had to choose, would you rather:


Live among others under some measure of social coercion, knowing you were free to scrutinize objects in your thoughts as you wanted. INTP: 12



> Which would you say is the bigger problem for you?


Other people seem to be cut out for a 9-5 corporate zombie routine, and it sometimes makes me feel like a space alien that I just don't fit in. INFP: 3



> Which is the stronger force when it comes to driving societal change on a mass scale:


People's desire to see an improvement in their material conditions and standard of living. INTP: 13



> Which is closer to your experience?


I more often feel uncomfortable being prompted to connect with people and express the right sentiments on the spot. INTP: 14



So I'm an INTP by a landslide according to that quiz; 82%. Sure some questions go more the way of Fe vs. Fi than T vs. F, so the results should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, the fact I didn't test close to the middle is worth considering.


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## Lunacik (Apr 19, 2014)

@Soul Kitchen there's got to be a better way than quizzes and current resources...maybe we can put our heads together?


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

RGBCMYK said:


> @Soul Kitchen there's got to be a better way than quizzes and current resources...maybe we can put our heads together?


Tests aren't supposed to provide the be all and end all to a person's type; not even the official MBTI test, where question items were shortlisted based on results from thousands of subjects. They're just a place to start.

As for the resources, it depends on what questions you want answered. Do you mean shortcomings within the MBTI resources as written by Myers and Keirsey, or do you mean shortcomings to do with MBTI as a whole?


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

Having gone through the Step II facets for T/F, I can identify with the following facets.

*Logical* > Empathetic
I've consistently reached the viewpoints I have through impartial analysis, same with my career decisions. For example, I deconverted from Christianity not out of a sense of hurt or betrayal, but rather because it's not possible to reconcile the contradictions of faith. I base my career decisions not on a need to serve others or to satisfy inner values, but instead so I can make ends meet. While I'm very open to reconsidering my views, I'm much less receptive to appeals based on sentiment than I am to impersonal logic, because logic is a two-way street to which everyone is accountable. In addition, it's easy enough for me to disagree with someone's opinion while respecting the individual in question. Sometimes I will question where the other person is coming from, but that's only insofar as I'm taking into consideration how their own biases could skewer their judgement.
I don't consider my story or the stories of anyone else to be particularly special when we're each merely the sum of our genes and experiences. I have little interest in getting dragged into gossip or drama, and would much rather focus on living life. I only engage interpersonal conflicts when they're problems that need to be solved. Sometimes I've made irrational decisions despite my better judgement, true. However, when I think about the decisions I've made over my lifetime, I'm far more content with those decisions reached through impersonal logic.

*Reasonable* > Compassionate
In a given conflict, I'm less interested in which party is harder done by, and more interested in bringing a resolution to the conflict itself. I'm not one to root for the underdog because they happen to be the underdog. At the end of the day, regardless of who is the most in the wrong, people and groups generally act to further their own interests. That's why both sides need to be held accountable to the same rules and principles in order to maintain a level playing field, because no one is entitled to anything. If that means compromise, then so be it.

*Questioning* > Accommodating
I question things a lot, be it questioning commonly held assumptions, questioning my own understanding, expressing scepticism towards others, or simply for the sake of debate as an intellectual sport. Such is my willingness to argue that I've been called out on it regularly. If I'm just expected to go along with something because "that's what's expected", then I won't be satisfied with my understanding of the situation or circumstances. Would I compromise? Perhaps, provided it would be in my best interests to compromise. But I'm not going to just nod and say "I guess you're right" if there's a glaring fallacy at issue here.

*Critical = Accepting*
I am more critical of ideas and things, and more accepting when it comes to individuals themselves. Because I can disassociate the project or idea from the people involved, it's easy to provide frank, objective criticism of issues at hand. If there's a fallacy, I will point it out when I see it. If something doesn't work, I will explain in great detail why, and offer up any alternatives that come to mind. The point is not to demean something, but to provide constructive criticism so that it can be better, or so any mistakes made are not repeated again. That said, I do try to exercise a certain level of tact.
It's more difficult for me to provide personal criticism. I accept that people are more often than not irrational, and it's not within my means to change what a person thinks or does. Are people wrong for believing what they believe or for making the decisions they make? Maybe. But so long as the other person isn't causing any problems with their decisions, then they themselves are ultimately accountable for what they do. If I must criticise someone personally, I wouldn't berate them for their faults, but would instead focus on offering constructive advice.

Tough < *Tender*
Most of my decisions are made with my self-interests in mind, but I would be deeply troubled if I ended up screwing anyone over with any decision I'd make. Nor would I stand to see people being mistreated if it was in my means to intervene. In my personal interactions with others, I generally come across as easygoing and courteous, although a bit distant in some ways. Likewise, I generally expect at least basic courtesy from others in my dealings with them, and am bothered when people act prickly for no reason. I've often been described as a good listener. Sometimes I don't compromise on certain things, but I do make concessions where I can.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

reckful said:


> *NFs & the "self"; people as meaningful wholes*
> 
> 
> * *
> ...


Reading through my previous responses, one notion I haven't properly addressed is the notion of "meaningful wholes". Nothing I've said before has necessarily proven the notion that I don't see myself and others as being something greater than the sum of their parts, so it's worth elaborating on that point.

If someone asked me to describe myself, I'd list a few adjectives about myself, or list my interests or hobbies, or what I hoped to achieve this year - such as completing projects or travelling to some place. Likewise, I would describe the people I knew in a similar fashion if asked to describe someone else I knew. I wouldn't be thinking about how one's traits, interests, and experiences meshed together into a cohesive unit. In truth, I don't consider myself as being unique or special or anything like that, because whatever trait or interest I could list, I could easily attribute to another person I knew. I'm argumentative? So are lots of other people. I'm an atheist? So are lots of other people. I'm interested in programming? So are lots of other people. Hell, there are plenty of people who are argumentative atheist programmers. That's one reason I've lost interest in small talk, since eventually the conversations follow a cookie cutter pattern of "my name is x, I'm from y, and I do z".

Does that mean I don't believe in the concept of personal development? Not necessarily, because I know that my understanding of things and the knowledge I have isn't the same understanding and knowledge I had before. But I don't put too much stock into the notion of a "self", because the "self" is a construct the psyche imposes upon its own conscious experience to try and make sense of itself. I don't believe my life follows any greater narrative or purpose, and nor do I need that understanding to get through the day. My idea of "personal growth" just involves acquiring more knowledge and doing more stuff so that I know more than before, or in developing habits for better wellbeing.

It's just a ride. There is no answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and I believe people who look for those answers are wasting their time. All that stuff about eternal recurrence and the Myth of Sisyphus? It just needlessly overcomplicates things.

@RGBCMYK This is relevant to our discussions of your INFJ type.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

Soul Kitchen said:


> 3. Even though I do hold certain values, I can easily make compromises on them out of pragmatism. So I'm a vegetarian, but not a vegan because I want to save up on extra dough, so I still consume dairy milk and caged eggs. For me, values are a flexible thing that depend at least partly on circumstance.


This point also calls for elaboration.

I actually do favour a strong, objective system of justice for all. Justice shouldn't play favourites or make exceptions, and I'm not going to feel much sympathy for the underdog just because they happen to be "the little guy", so to speak. Oh, so you were stealing bread to feed your family? Tough, you still crossed the line by taking what wasn't yours. Justice, as defined as a sense of an objective code of conduct, is separate from personal values.

My reasons for being morally flexible about my dietary choices are self-serving reasons, anyway. I'm making the compromise when it comes to veganism/vegetarianism because it's convenient for me, even if it comes at the expense of others.

As for the utilitarianism, I don't think there's ever going to be a situation where I have to choose between saving one thousand lives or one million lives. The truth is also important enough where it shouldn't be hidden away from others or disguised under any circumstance. Doing so brings with it corruption, intellectual dishonesty, and limits the body of knowledge available.

Two months ago, I had gone through the copy of the MBTI test again - albeit a lot more thoroughly, and in shoes-off mode. Here were my results.
I: 17/21 (81%)
N: 25/26 (96%)
*T: 21/24 (88%)*
P: 15/22 (68%)

Sure it's possible for an INF type to identify more with T answers than F answers, but damn if that isn't a strong T indicator on its own basis. If anything, it's actually P that's my weakest preference, and not I or T as I had previously believed. This also fits with how I relate to the Step II facets. Reading through the copy again, I don't see any answers I'd choose differently from before.


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## Lunacik (Apr 19, 2014)

Soul Kitchen said:


> Reading through my previous responses, one notion I haven't properly addressed is the notion of "meaningful wholes". Nothing I've said before has necessarily proven the notion that I don't see myself and others as being something greater than the sum of their parts, so it's worth elaborating on that point.
> 
> If someone asked me to describe myself, I'd list a few adjectives about myself, or list my interests or hobbies, or what I hoped to achieve this year - such as completing projects or travelling to some place. Likewise, I would describe the people I knew in a similar fashion if asked to describe someone else I knew. I wouldn't be thinking about how one's traits, interests, and experiences meshed together into a cohesive unit. In truth, I don't consider myself as being unique or special or anything like that, because whatever trait or interest I could list, I could easily attribute to another person I knew. I'm argumentative? So are lots of other people. I'm an atheist? So are lots of other people. I'm interested in programming? So are lots of other people. Hell, there are plenty of people who are argumentative atheist programmers. That's one reason I've lost interest in small talk, since eventually the conversations follow a cookie cutter pattern of "my name is x, I'm from y, and I do z".
> 
> ...


rethinking, bbs


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

RGB said:


> View attachment 778169
> 
> Let me know if you have problems reading my writing or anything.
> 
> ...


I was able to understand your writing. Thanks for sharing that, by the way.

It wasn't my intention to imply there's a solid divide between a T perspective and F perspective; at least not when it comes to a conception of the self. Instead, my point was that there's a varying scale of focus between components and the whole, with the exact level varying between both different individuals and within the same individual. If I asked an NF to describe themselves solely in terms of traits and interests, it's feasible the NF might answer in a similar fashion to an NT in terms of detail, although with different adjectives likely being used - such as "caring" but not "sceptical". Likewise, if I asked an NT to describe the ways in which their personality and outlook has changed over the years, the typical NT would be able to rise to the challenge. The main difference is where the bulk of focus would usually reside.

Thinking of oneself and others as being multifaceted and unique entities is merely a potential indicator of an F preference. The main difference is an NF is more inclined to seek purpose in their lives than the average NT. It wouldn't be enough for an NF just to say "I'm a programmer who likes to explore ideas and try new things", because knowing what they are is not usually going to be enough for them. Instead, an NF is typically focused more on who they could become, and on orienting their lives around the pursuit of an ideal. For an NF, their beliefs, hopes, and ideals are an integral part of themselves. Compare that to the average NT, who sees ideas and beliefs as separate from the individuals who hold them. This is partly why NTs are more likely to challenge others on their beliefs and experiences than NFs, while NFs would typically seek to influence others instead of challenging them head on.

I'm sure a psychologically oriented NT could have a holistic approach towards the self in a way similar to the typical NF, and I point to Nietzsche as a somewhat uncommon example of an NT who focused on purpose and personal meaning in his life. If the majority of individuals are varying mixtures of T and F traits instead of just being T or F, than this need for a greater purpose of self can be thought of as an F trait that only potentially indicates an F preference. To be more exact, it would most likely indicate a potential NF preference, as one shouldn't underestimate the role N plays in one's introspective capabilities.

No, I don't make it a point to engage in chat platforms with strangers over the internet.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

@reckful If you have the time to answer, I have a few more questions in mind. I've been re-reading through this thread a lot in light of the discussions I've had with @RGB, who is likely an INFJ that initially mistyped as an INTP.

My main issue is that you've contradicted yourself.



reckful said:


> One theme I've pointed to in past posts as a possible [type differentiator] is what you might call interactive vs. non-interactive love.
> 
> Marie-Louise von Franz was apparently one of Jung's prize pupils, and here's a little passage about the poet Rilke that made me chuckle from her book, The Inferior Function:
> 
> ...


You relate to the non-interactive style of love with which is commonly characterised as Fi, and contrasted that with the altruistic sense of "interactive love" I had held for a time. We're in agreement that the way in which dichotomies have been conceived has shifted over time. In the case of T/F, the conception of this dichotomy has shifted from the "logic vs. values" as how Jung conceived of them, to something that can be best described as "impersonal vs. personal/interpersonal" - more in line with Agreeableness, which includes such factors as Altruism.

I understand that functions don't correlate very well with dichotomies, and that an INFP could potentially be rather Fe-like in how they form values. Likewise, an INTJ could identify a lot with Fi, even though the Harold Grant function stack is horseshit. Fair enough.

But then you proceeded to contradict yourself in this following post.



reckful said:


> I would disagree with the notion that it would be uncharacteristic for an INFP to treat _most_ of their "values" as "a flexible thing that depend at least partly on circumstance" — and I think the most likely source for that notion would be poor "Fi" descriptions on the internet.
> 
> Keeping in mind that ISFP is one of the two supposed _Fi-doms_, I think anybody who thinks that the _Fi types_ are notably prone to be dogmatic/uncompromising/etc. when it comes to their "values" would do well to give this long — but _entertaining_, insisted reckful — post a read.


1. I was never arguing for this as a point in favour of Fi. As I noted before, my intention was merely to provide this as an argument of T over F. In truth, I'd say that flexible, circumstantial values are more of a P indicator than a T indicator. Besides, my reasons for being flexible in personal values are completely self-serving reasons.
2. To prove your point that Fi was misunderstood, you linked me to a list of sources pertaining to MBTI I_FP types. Why the hell did you conflate dichotomies and functions, reckful? You tripped over yourself.

I understand that altruism is merely a potential indicator of an F preference, and you cited my (long abandoned) sense of altruism as an F facet/point in favour of an F typing. I agree with that. After all, Bill Gates invests significant chunks of his time and fortune into charity, but there's no doubt that he's a T type. Also, would the fact he one day decided to commit his time and fortune to charity make him less of a T type than before? I doubt it. Likewise, the fact I've abandoned altruism isn't going to just change my type. That's not to say I don't believe in cooperation for the mutual benefit of both parties, but I merely mean the idea of an obligation to serve others.

As for my understanding of justice, the purpose of justice is to preserve the self-interests of the individual, and to keep the self-interests of one individual from compromising the self-interests of another individual. Justice should be impartial, unsympathetic, and hold all individuals to the same standard. Personal values are merely one form of self-interest, and thus should be distinguished from justice.

And finally, when taking into consideration my responses between now and then, where do you believe I'm at now in terms of T/F? Are you still leaning in the INFP direction, or more in the INTP direction? Or do you just get too many mixed T/F signals to say for certain, and would just settle for INxP?

I'm still going to type myself as an INTP - albeit with a relatively small T lean - but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.


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## Lunacik (Apr 19, 2014)

@*Soul Kitchen*

• "A life bit spent serving others is a life not worth living."
I have this...I have this so hardcore that I cannot function properly in life without at least 1 deep, close connection with a person. In my mind's eye, it's either a path directed towards people or material things; material things don't matter much, other than being what you need to survive. However, surviving is existing; existing isn't living. Without close connections with others I literally feel I have no reason to exist, and I start wishing I didn't. I'm strange in the sense that intellectually stimulating / analytical conversation is required for those connections to form.

• I don't see the contradiction you mentioned about @*reckful*'s post. Perhaps you're seeing something I'm not, but all I see is that his _resource_ intermingled Fi into the picture, and he said he doesn't agree with Pierce in many points while proceeding to highlight the ones that supported his own. The points he highlighted were also consistent with the dichotomy points that were made. Correct me if I'm wrong.

• I know you say Herald Grant Function Stacks and Dichotomies are not a concatenation, but I see so many connections that I find it difficult to believe. Would love to debate it with you at some point and see how well things stand. (I'm not ready for this yet though, as I have more research to do and my time is limited due to my new job.)

• Being calloused VS being F/T:


> the fact I've abandoned altruism isn't going to just change my type, but I somehow doubt an INFP is going to callously dismiss beggars as being "lazy bums faking it" or "drug addicts not worth helping". I don't mean to say they should all fuck off and die, but sometimes you can do more harm helping another than you can looking the other way.


This wouldn't intrinsically indicate anything pertaining to T/F, simply because these types of human dynamics are non-linear in relation to the F/T spectrum. An F can also share this perspective. They can be jaded or hardened by the world, and I suspect that many F's that have been hardened by it probably do mistype as T's. They can even grow to into a disdain for them if their perspectives coordinate with that. It can also be a part of their values, something they detest; they might for instance see their laziness as a burden to society, or loathe the way so many take advantage, receiving help without helping themselves enough. They may believe in a cutoff being "tough love" and the most beneficial for the person(s). In some cases, that cutoff would be exactly right in my mind's eye. What I'm trying to say is...the problem I see with this statement is that not all F's are enablers. If they see something as enabling someone, especially if they believe that someone is somehow doing something immoral (laziness? Mooching? Taking advantage of others?), they most certainly could share this same view as you.



> I somehow doubt an INFP is going to callously dismiss beggars as being "lazy bums faking it" or "drug addicts not worth helping."


Why not? Why could they not be outraged at the injustice of it for example? (Not that this is my perspective...it's not.)
Personally, I see this as an over-generalization and I think it boils down to a more subjective / circumstantial / individual / evidence-based basis, as not _every_ homeless person does drugs or fakes it. It boils down to wisdom: are they asking for food? Buy them a meal instead of handing them money. However, I have been struggling financially myself for too long to be able to help someone else, so I don't really know myself entirely in this area. I want to say I'd be more inclined to help them by providing a list of self-help resources and opportunities to work their way out of the state their lives are in sooner than I'd hand them money...refer them to places where they can utilize resources needed in order to get up on their feet again if they work for it. "When the pain of where you are is greater than the pain it takes to get to where you need to be, you'll move." I think seeing a way out of their situation would give them something of more value than a couple of bucks if they're truly struggling and in need of solutions. I've heard stories of someone buying a "homeless person" food, then the "homeless person" turns around, opens a car door, and throws it in, goes back to holding up the sign. I imagine anyone who experiences this--especially on a first time, or with multiple individuals--could potentially turn their backs on helping the homeless altogether, regardless of dichotomy. That would essentially be a slap in the face to any type, and the offense could be enough to shape an F's future actions.

Finally, why attribute helping people to Fs? Why couldn't you be helpful to them and not see them in that way, and still be no less T?



> ...cynical sense of rugged individualism...


I also find the idea that an F could have this same attitude highly plausible, if not probable. In a hypothetical scenario, let's imagine that the hardness of heart in social contacts generates an overall outlook of surviving in a "dog eat dog world" in which they cannot rely on others, and extending their hands might result in merely being taken advantage of, for instance. They might withdraw their hand at that point, turn their backs on a world that betrays their trust and doesn't value their altruism, and therefore look out for themselves, believing that they are the only ones they can fully trust (if they even trust themselves). Thus, same end result.


* *




I still see you as a T in spite of this.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Soul Kitchen said:


> 2. To prove your point that Fi was misunderstood, you linked me to a list of sources pertaining to MBTI I_FP types. Why the hell did you conflate dichotomies and functions, reckful? You tripped over yourself.


Your current perspective, as I understand it, is that there are dichotomies and there are functions, and they don't neatly correspond in the way reflected in the Grant function stack.

My perspective is that the (eight) functions were properly characterized by Reynierse as a "category mistake," and aren't appropriately viewed as a separate set of psychological components at all.

When I talk about good and bad Fi descriptions, I'm generally addressing forumites (and they're certainly the great majority) who associate Fi first and foremost with MBTI FPs, and especially MBTI I_FPs, and I'm judging the goodness and badness of those Fi descriptions in terms of how well they do indeed line up (IMO) with things that tend to be characteristic of MBTI FPs (or I_FPs) — rather than in terms of how well they line up with some _separate_ mental "judging function" that I don't (as I said) believe in.

Some possible further follow-up on your type (replying to one or more of your more recent posts) has been on my _possible to-do list_ for a while, and I may or may not end up getting to it, but in any case, it won't be very soon. The important thing I'd stress, tho, is that you've read lots of stuff by me reflecting my perspectives on T and F (and NT and NF, and etc.), and those perspectives haven't changed lately, and you know yourself a lot better than I do, so you're in a better position than I am to figure out — to the extent that you view my perspectives as valid — whether they really get you more T points than F points, and/or the extent to which I ended up mistyping you because I took some of your posts the wrong way, or failed to properly account for depression-related impacts, or whatever.

And also, to reiterate, I said my view of the potential messiness of the T/F dimension was such that it might not make much sense for at least some people to think they could neatly situate themselves at something like a single position on some kind of T/F spectrum, and that it wouldn't surprise or dismay me if you continued to consider yourself a T.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

RGB said:


> @*Soul Kitchen*• I don't see the contradiction you mentioned about @*reckful*'s post. Perhaps you're seeing something I'm not, but all I see is that his _resource_ intermingled Fi into the picture, and he said he doesn't agree with Pierce in many points while proceeding to highlight the ones that supported his own. The points he highlighted were also consistent with the dichotomy points that were made. Correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> • I know you say Herald Grant Function Stacks and Dichotomies are not a concatenation, but I see so many connections that I find it difficult to believe. Would love to debate it with you at some point and see how well things stand. (I'm not ready for this yet though, as I have more research to do and my time is limited due to my new job.)


Reynierse, who has pioneered the Big Five model and noted its strong level of correlation with the MBTI, wrote an article which debunked the whole notion of type dynamics using functions. Basically, the functions are a category mistake; they're only valid observations insofar as they piggyback from a small number of dichotomy combinations. For instance, you could say an INFJ uses Ni and Fe - provided that the function definitions match up to things pertaining to NJ, FJ, INJ, and NFJ types - but boiling down a type to just a few dichotomy types loses sight of the full type dynamics of an INFJ. An INFJ is instead I + N + F + J + IN + IF + IJ + NF + NJ + FJ + INF + INJ + IFJ + NFJ + INFJ. This kind of nuance is lost on functionistas. In addition to that, if an INFJ really did share things in common with ISTPs they don't share with INFPs - due to some function axis crap - then this should reflect in statistical correlations between type and various other data, such as NJ/SP and FJ/TP at one end, and NP/SJ and FP/TJ at the other. Guess what? It hardly ever does.

If functions really did match up to dichotomies, RGB, then why not just type with dichotomies first, and then read up on their related functions? Explain why reckful would likely be Thinking dominant according to Jung, despite his being a clear-as-mud INTJ.

reckful elaborated on his reasons why he cited MBTI info below.



reckful said:


> Your current perspective, as I understand it, is that there are dichotomies and there are functions, and they don't neatly correspond in the way reflected in the Grant function stack.
> 
> My perspective is that the (eight) functions were properly characterized by Reynierse as a "category mistake," and aren't appropriately viewed as a separate set of psychological components at all.
> 
> When I talk about good and bad Fi descriptions, I'm generally addressing forumites (and they're certainly the great majority) who associate Fi first and foremost with MBTI FPs, and especially MBTI I_FPs, and I'm judging the goodness and badness of those Fi descriptions in terms of how well they do indeed line up (IMO) with things that tend to be characteristic of MBTI FPs (or I_FPs) — rather than in terms of how well they line up with some _separate_ mental "judging function" that I don't (as I said) believe in.


On that note, my current position on functions is indeed that they should be taken separately from MBTI, but I remain unconvinced as to the validity of the functions themselves. Sometimes I do think about how I'd match up to Jung's types, and I've recently typed two people in accordance to things related to those types. But the purpose of it was to understand what Jung was going for using as orthodox an approach as possible, and my exercises in function typing amounted to toying with the theory.



reckful said:


> Some possible further follow-up on your type (replying to one or more of your more recent posts) has been on my _possible to-do list_ for a while, and I may or may not end up getting to it, but in any case, it won't be very soon. The important thing I'd stress, tho, is that you've read lots of stuff by me reflecting my perspectives on T and F (and NT and NF, and etc.), and those perspectives haven't changed lately, and you know yourself a lot better than I do, so you're in a better position than I am to figure out — to the extent that you view my perspectives as valid — whether they really get you more T points than F points, and/or the extent to which I ended up mistyping you because I took some of your posts the wrong way, or failed to properly account for depression-related impacts, or whatever.
> 
> And also, to reiterate, I said my view of the potential messiness of the T/F dimension was such that it might not make much sense for at least some people to think they could neatly situate themselves at something like a single position on some kind of T/F spectrum, and that it wouldn't surprise or dismay me if you continued to consider yourself a T.


That's been my understanding from the MBTI research I've done as of late. I can see how I could be a T type while having aspects of myself which are F leaning, and this does reflects in the Step II facets. Through studying them, I came out with three T facets, one F facet, and one that's 50/50. I posted my descriptions for each of them in this thread earlier before.

As interesting as it would be to see more follow up with examples from recent posts, there's no rush in getting around to doing so. Thank you for the input you've already given.



RGB said:


> @*Soul Kitchen*• Being calloused VS being F/T:
> 
> This wouldn't intrinsically indicate anything pertaining to T/F, simply because these types of human dynamics are non-linear in relation to the F/T spectrum. An F can also share this perspective. They can be jaded or hardened by the world, and I suspect that many F's that have been hardened by it probably do mistype as T's. They can even grow to into a disdain for them if their perspectives coordinate with that. It can also be a part of their values, something they detest; they might for instance see their laziness as a burden to society, or loathe the way so many take advantage, receiving help without helping themselves enough. They may believe in a cutoff being "tough love" and the most beneficial for the person(s). In some cases, that cutoff would be exactly right in my mind's eye. What I'm trying to say is...the problem I see with this statement is that not all F's are enablers. If they see something as enabling someone, especially if they believe that someone is somehow doing something immoral (laziness? Mooching? Taking advantage of others?), they most certainly could share this same view as you.
> 
> ...


I meant this as a potential point indicator against being an F, not as outright proof in itself against my being an F. I'd say my mentality was an indicator of below average Agreeableness, which ties in with a T preference to a certain extent. Low Agreeableness is characterised as selfishness, distrust, and rugged individualism. But I do see where you're coming from, in the sense that an F type could potentially reach this conclusion through feeling that some value has been compromised, or through some past sense of hurt or betrayal. That's not been the case with me, though.

I actually don't feel particularly strongly about this issue, even if my rather strident tone made it seem otherwise. Instead, this point was meant to serve as an example of my outlook. I neither pity the homeless nor despise them, but instead regard them with indifference for the most part. My point was more rather that their problems are their own, and nothing I could do can fix that. Homelessness can only really be solved through dealing with the problem on a systematic level.

Anyway, I don't really regret saying what I've said, but I've trimmed down my previous post because of how long winded it was.



reckful said:


> I'd say the environment is one of my favorite "causes," and I've written more than my share of checks to the likes of Greenpeace and the NRDC. But I _resent_ feeling the need to write those checks. And I wouldn't be likely to choose a job based on how well-behaved the company was with respect to the environment. *I don't see protecting the environment as my problem, and I can't emphasize too strongly how little desire I have to feel like I'm making some kind of special personal contribution in that regard.* On the contrary, it really pisses me off when _anything_ — and reasonably preserving the environment for future generations is just one example — that ought to be viewed (and handled) as _everyone's_ responsibility gets handled (or not) by leaving it to individuals and private companies to decide for themselves how "good" they want to be. *That's a nice guys finish last system, and I resent the hell out of nice guys finish last systems. Environmental protection ought to be accomplished by legislation that forces all companies to be environmentally responsible, so everyone's required to do their fair share and the good guys don't end up at a competitive disadvantage for doing the right thing.* And I _want_ to do _my_ fair share. But I have no desire to do "extra" to compensate for some bad guy who isn't doing his share. Why should I?
> 
> Now here you might say, well, reckful, but don't misunderstand, there's nothing I'd like more than to live in a world where politicians weren't corrupted and everything that should reasonably be done to protect the environment was a legal requirement, like you've described. And I'd reply, of course, but here's the thing: If that happened, I think your NF would go in search of another cause. You'd still have a core drive to be personally involved — by virtue of voluntary and self-defining/expressing choices — in "doing something for the greater good."
> 
> ...


I'll just say that I can relate a lot to what reckful said about how he approaches career decisions. I mean, if I got a job offer with a company that worked to protect the environment, rehabilitate the homeless, make the world a better place, etc. that would be a nice sweetener, but that doesn't play into my career aspirations. I'm not going to feel as though my life were empty or void of purpose were I not working to further humanity in some way, and a lot of the problems we face are ones which can only really be solved on an institutional level, where everyone is made accountable. I'm not going to feel any obligation to clean up someone else's mess, because that produces a "nice guys finish last" situation that doesn't stop the mess at its root.

My main concern when it comes to finding a career is finding a stable career path which pays well, while being intellectually satisfying enough to stave off boredom.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

Here's a link to my most recent type me thread.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

@reckful I'm planning on retiring my account at some point this month, but before I retire, I'd like to ask a few questions. I'm not just disagreeing with your typing so much as I am questioning your methodology.

During my MBTI research, I read the statistics for type distribution between genders, and it reminded me of something you said during my type thread. That's when I realised you've made another contradiction.

In post 1 of your 5 part analysis, you cited the fact the gender skew in men and women reflects in the statistics for T/F.



reckful said:


> Given the asymmetry of male/female T/F percentages, and given the fact that the kinds of characteristics that seem to be the most respectably established as sex-typical personality differences often sound similar to T/F differences, it seems reasonable to suspect that it will turn out that T and maleness and F and femaleness are at least somewhat tied together in terms of their evolutionary roots — but perhaps that, just as it made sense for any given group to include both introverts and extraverts and so on, it also turned out that there were advantages to having a certain number of the men be F and a certain number of the women be T. And if your thinking runs along those lines, it seems to me there's no reason why anyone should assume either (1) that there would necessarily have to be any symmetry between the percentage of male F's that it was good to have around and the percentage of female T's that it was good to have around, or (2) that the T characteristics that it was advantageous for some of the women to have would necessarily be a full contingent of T characteristics by male-T standards (and likewise for the F males and F characteristics). So... it's not hard to see that, notwithstanding anybody's desire (Jung certainly included) to have the system be relatively tidy, there are any number of reasons why it might turn out to be pretty messy.
> 
> Just letting my own reckful-speculative apparatus run wild and ponder the possible roles of personality variation in the context of the human race's 50,000-year (or so) hunter-gatherer phase — when I'm inclined to think much of the evolution of the "types" probably took place — and the differing roles of men and women in a typical hunter-gatherer tribe, it sort of seems to me that it would be understandable if the useful niche (evolutionarily speaking) for men who were notably F-ish was a significantly larger niche than the useful niche for women who were notably T-ish. If so, that would be one possible explanation for the fact that ... the official MBTI folks are currently estimating that whereas 43% of men are F's, only 25% of women are T's.


Note that these are the statistics for men and women who _test as T or F_, and the statistics presumably only reflect those in America who have taken the official MBTI test. Granted, the overall distribution of types seems to be relatively consistent, which would support a temperamental basis for MBTI/Big 5 dichotomies, but there might be some varying skews between countries due to cultural differences.

Anyway, the point is that regardless of the overall distribution of Ts and Fs between genders, the distribution reflects those who score as T or F on the test. And even if the T/F ratio was consistent across cultures for both genders, I would still be among the 57% of men who score as T.

My score on the T/F dichotomy is T: 21, F: 3. That's not a middlish score, here; we're talking about a 7:1 ratio. I even tried to think about ways in which I could justify F answers on the test, but I couldn't for most of them.



reckful said:


> I think it's not uncommon for INFs to test as INTs, at least partly because many of the F choices on typical MBTI tests (including the official test) are choices that are more likely to appeal to SFs and EFs than INFs — and I think that's probably more true of female INFs than male INFs. I think male F's are often aware that they differ from cultural male stereotypes in ways that make them more "F-ish" than average whereas, by contrast, I think INF women who compare themselves to cultural female stereotypes — not to mention the majority of actual women — are reasonably likely to think of themselves as more T-ish than those "feeler" women (EFs, SFs and, especially, ESFs).
> 
> I also think the T-ward skew tends to be somewhat greater for INFJs than INFPs. In any case, it's certainly been my experience that it's considerably more common for an INFJ (male _or_ female) to mistype as INTJ (and later conclude they're really INFJ) than _vice versa_. I think that, in some ways, it's fair to say that INFJs are both the "least F" of the F's and the "least NF" of the NFs.
> 
> In my six years of participating in type-me exercises online, the situation where I've most often encountered what I'd call a messy mix on a dimension is the situation where an IN woman is puzzling over her T/F preference. I'd say I virtually always get "mixed signals" on T/F when I'm analyzing INT women. I think F males are a somewhat more recognizable creature. With female T's, there's usually some significant stuff there that, if it was a male subject, I'd think was a more significant F indicator. And in particular, I'd say a fairly typical male INT is likely to be independent/aloof — as far as the importance of other people in his life — to a degree that, besides distinguishing him from other males, is also likely to distinguish him from the majority of female INTs.


In post 2 of that 5 part analysis, you had put forward a theory as to why an INF might test as an INT, thus explaining why an INF typing is still possible even for an IN who comes out with a relatively clear T score in tests. Fair enough, but as an INP male, wouldn't that make me relatively less likely within your theory than if I were an INJ female?

On that note, you claim to get mixed T/F signals out of INT women (as I also do), while finding INF men to be somewhat more recognisable. As you're probably aware, the hemispheres of the female brain are more interconnected, while the regions of the male brain tend to be more compartmentalised. The increase in interconnectivity could explain why INT women tend to be more in touch with their feelings than INT men. If that's the case, wouldn't it make more sense to conclude that IN women who get mixed T/F scores are just that, mixed on T/F rather than more likely to be INFs? 

The contradiction compounds at the end of post 3 of your 5 part analysis.



reckful said:


> And if you're on board with the idea that T/F tends to play a substantial role in how much concern for the other person's dignity/feelings come into play, and how much "niceness" is likely to come into play, and if you focus, again, on the fact that around 43% of men allegedly belong in the F category, wouldn't you say that your attitudes/concerns in this department put you in the more nice/considerate/tactful 43% of men?


You can't have it both ways, reckful. Either the statistics need to be weighted for a hypothetical bias and are therefore limited, or the test results really do reflect my type on a temperamental level... because I am not among the 43% of men who test as F, regardless of whether I am INT or INF.

I will concede the possibility of being more T than F on some facets and more F than T on other facets. When I went through the items for the Step II, I came out with three facets where I preferred T over F (Logical, Reasonable, Questioning), one which was roughly 50/50 (Critical = Accepting), and only one where I leaned a bit more F than T (Tender). If T/F really is such a mess where it is in fact multiple factors rolled into one, I could see how I might feasibly lean more F in certain respects. But the official MBTI test does not test for facets.

*****​
The other issue I'd like to address is the extent to which altruism reflects an F preference on a temperamental level.

If altruistic attitudes reflect an orientation towards selflessness on a temperamental level, explain why I could suddenly decide not to waste time on acts of service. Shouldn't I have some inner voice saying "don't quit, you idiot, these people need you"? (Not that their life depended on my help, anyway.) I just thought "my time could be better spent committed to learning in order to empower myself through knowledge". Self-interest asides, I'd be more productive writing code for software which people would use than if I were writing books which hardly anyone would read. That being said, as nice as it would be to know that what I produce would be put to use somewhere, it's the intellectual challenge of solving a problem which motivates me as end in itself.

I think I've made my present opinion on self-interest and selflessness abundantly clear by now, so I won't repeat myself again. However, I will concede to the merits of group cooperation insofar as group cooperation brings greater prosperity to both the individual and the group in which support is being provided. In my case, I am currently in good health, but I don't complain about funding public health care with taxes, because there might come a time where I become seriously ill and cannot cover fees on my own. It's more about consistency in principles, I suppose. It would be hypocritical to let people suffer from treatable maladies due to lack of funds if I knew I might need support as well someday.



reckful said:


> And honestly, Soul Kitchen, I think it would be hard for me to overstate how much more typical of a male (especially) INF those expressed attitudes/sentiments are than a male INT.


In deciding F was the dichotomy you'd choose if you had to choose between T and F, you had placed a great emphasis on altruism. It's one thing to argue that an F is more likely than a T to want to actively further some greater good through acts of service, and you did concede that, with typology being about probabilities and tendencies rather than certainties, it was merely significantly less likely for an INT to commit to altruism.

You cited Bill Gates as an example of an NTJ, and even though he is an NT, he is renowned for the substantial amount of his time and fortune he invests into altruism. His T preference is strong and decidedly unambiguous, but by your own reasoning, would you give him some "bigtime F points" as well?

I'm not convinced the correlation between MBTI dichotomies and Big 5 factors is all that tidy. I was discussing the overlap with @Octavarium in another thread, and she noted that while she identifies fairly well with the way the T dichotomy is usually described, she does not relate well to low Agreeableness, and she pointed to other examples of T types who come out middle or high on that particular facet.



Octavarium said:


> When I read the agreeableness descriptions, I find that neither end particularly applies to me. Interesting to note that in this thread from 2016, two people said that they score middle/high on agreeableness despite being MBTI T types. Obviously we can't draw any conclusions from the responses of two people, but it would be interesting to know if there's a broader pattern there. I'd maybe consider myself a third example... or maybe not... Since neither end of the agreeableness dimension describes me particularly well, I'd probably be best described as being close to the middle, and as I recall I scored 46% on agreeableness last time I took a Big Five test. With the MBTI, I did have some difficulty deciding between T and F, but I've always leaned towards T. Some aspects of the T preference, especially the more extreme descriptions, aren't entirely relatable, but I always either relate more to T than F or don't relate much to either, and rarely if ever relate to F more than T. So if we think of T/F as a continuous dimension, I'm not sure how close to the middle I am, but I do tend to relate more to T descriptions than to low agreeableness descriptions.


I'm not denying there is any potential overlap between F/T and Agreeableness, but I can't ignore the inconsistency concerning straightforwardness. One would expect Fs to be more straightforward if they were more agreeable, but a T is typically more frank and honest in their dealings with others than an F, even if it comes at the expense of tact. Another T type who commented on that same thread discussion said he identifies well with MBTI T, and despite scoring rock bottom on altruism, said he scores highly on cooperation. So, it seems there isn't even a clean correlation in the areas where a T or F type would overlap or not overlap in their Big Five facets.



reckful said:


> As you probably know, the history of _debating_ as an organized activity reflects the fact that there are lots of people who not only don't avoid, but actually _relish_, moments when a point is delivered in a way that includes an element of stinging ridicule/contempt/etc., and I'd say that NTJs are quite possibly the type most likely to find that kind of debating _temperamentally comfortable_. *Bill Gates was somewhat infamous (in his youth anyway) for telling people, "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard." And I think that's something an NT guy is considerably more likely to make a habit of saying than an NF guy.*


As you're aware, Myers had arranged the sixteen types in a grid where the Ts and Js formed a wall around the square, with the tough-minded TJs in the corners and the gentler FPs in the middle. FJs and TPs are in-betweeners. That's something you discussed in another thread.



reckful said:


> The FPs are the most conflict-avoidant types, with ISFPs probably at the top.
> 
> And the TJs are the least conflict-avoidant, with ENTJs maybe getting the top prize.
> 
> FJs and TPs are in-betweeners.


Here's the thing, reckful. Even though I may not push a single idea or viewpoint as strongly as some TJs, I am nowhere near conflict avoidant to the extent typical of FPs. Earlier in the thread, I described myself as a gadfly, and I say that because one of the most recurring things that stick out when people criticise me is my tendency to argue with everyone. Back in the day, I got in trouble with teachers at school because of it. Maybe I do prefer to avoid drama when it amounts to a bitchfest over whose feelings were bruised the most, leading to even more bruised feelings, but that's something Keirsey had considered as typical for NTs.



Keirsey said:


> The NTs, as a group, do not thrive on conflict at a personal level. They do enjoy intellectual dispute, but quarreling on an emotional level is something NTs find destructive; generally an NT will walk away from this kind of interaction.


However, I do not think of conflicts as drama when they involve the impersonal critique of ideas and projects, which is why I do not hold back on criticism, save for personal attacks when they make an impersonal issue into too much of a personal matter. I may criticise things people do, but my criticism doesn't reflect on qualities they may or may not possess. Honestly, if people take offense at my disagreements, that's their problem, because it should be clear I mean nothing personal.



Stephen Fry said:


> It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what.


Below are some posts of mine within the past few months where I show just how "tactful" I am in disagreeing with those who are being imbeciles.


* *






Soul Kitchen said:


> Yes, let's create a new personality forum to cut out all the bullshit from the rest of the personality forums. Let's turn this personality forum into a cult, one in which all those who don't conform to your highly subjective interpretations of type theory are excluded, and only those who prostrate themselves in front of the altar of Objective PersonalityTM are included.
> 
> For someone who boils down Ji/Je to separation from the tribe/setting and enforcing the standard of the tribe, you do an awful lot of insisting that everyone else in the tribe follow your lead.
> 
> In the meantime, you can struggle to make sense of Jung's arbitrary, inconsistent clusterfuck of a typology theory, and I'll take the more empirical MBTI model - one which is actually testable, and therefore useful in obtaining statistical data.





Soul Kitchen said:


> Anyway, you complain about the objectivity of journalism, but what's to say your sources of liberals cracking down on free speech are reliable? Why should I take your word when you haven't backed up your list of incidents with citations, and how do you know your sources are more reliable than the spooky liberal media?





Soul Kitchen said:


> Please don't conflate your own likes and dislikes with objective analysis, because I don't give a shit about how you feel about it. Your statement is circular reasoning that proves nothing.
> 
> ...
> 
> Likes and dislikes don't constitute an analysis. Whether or not you hate them is irrelevant to how they are applied in the real world.





Soul Kitchen said:


> I use facts and objective observations to back my arguments, you use arbitrary value judgements without backing them with facts. Your arguments are circular statements with no external proof supporting them. Who's the one applying feeling judgements here? Methinks you're projecting.





*****​
When I read through your analysis, I noticed that P/J hardly showed up in your typing of me. There were a lot of things pertaining to Fs, NFs, IFs, and INFs, but you only specifically addressed the P preference in the comment on flexible values. You could've as easily been arguing INFJ>INTJ instead of INFP>INTP. Is it because you only got a mild P lean out of me (at one point, you claimed to have received mixed P/J signals from my posts), or is it because you regard P/J as relatively less fundamental than the other dichotomies?

I've read enough of your copypastas to know you regard INFPs/INFJs and INTPs/INTJs as close cousins, respectively. I agree that P/J shouldn't flip your functions and completely change your type. In fact, I've increasingly come to the understanding that P/J is not only almost as messy a dichotomy in its own right as T/F (explaining all the "which INxx?" threads), but also that it has the least predictive power in determining career satisfaction or in the research published in the MBTI Manual.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Soul Kitchen said:


> On that note, you claim to get mixed T/F signals out of INT women (as I also do), while finding INF men to be somewhat more recognisable. As you're probably aware, the hemispheres of the female brain are more interconnected, while the regions of the male brain tend to be more compartmentalised. The increase in interconnectivity could explain why INT women tend to be more in touch with their feelings than INT men. If that's the case, wouldn't it make more sense to conclude that IN women who get mixed T/F scores are just that, mixed on T/F rather than more likely to be INFs?


I haven't "concluded" anything on these issues, and the hemispheric stuff you've described might be part of the picture, as far as I know.



Soul Kitchen said:


> You can't have it both ways, reckful.


I don't know how I can be _having it both ways_ on issues where, as already noted, I'm not _having it_ any way in terms of settling on any definite conclusion. I'm open to the idea that you may be an F, or a T, or some kind of mix — and that it may not even make much sense to view T/F as a single dimension.



Soul Kitchen said:


> The other issue I'd like to address is the extent to which altruism reflects an F preference on a temperamental level.
> 
> If altruistic attitudes reflect an orientation towards selflessness on a temperamental level, explain why I could suddenly decide not to waste time on acts of service. Shouldn't I have some inner voice saying "don't quit, you idiot, these people need you"?


It's not that simple. You know this. Type-related stuff is just part of what goes into someone's motivations. And there are plenty of T's with _inner_ altruistic streaks, and plenty of predominantly selfish F's, in my experience. And if you take "altruism" to mean humanitarian-flavored motivations to assist _strangers_, I think that's too narrow a characterization, and that if you frame it that way, it may not apply very well to the majority of F's.



Soul Kitchen said:


> In deciding F was the dichotomy you'd choose if you had to choose between T and F, you had placed a great emphasis on altruism.


I'm not going to review my posts at this point, but my recollection is that they covered _many_ aspects of your posts that I thought got you F points — but _none of which_ (as I told you) deserved to be treated as a definitive preference indicator.



Soul Kitchen said:


> You cited Bill Gates as an example of an NTJ, and even though he is an NT, he is renowned for the substantial amount of his time and fortune he invests into altruism.


Don't get me started on Bill Gates. Not a _nice guy_ in reckful's book. And who knows what's motivating his charitable stuff, right? But as I already noted, I wouldn't disagree that he could both be a T — in terms of the best overall preference assignment, assuming an overall preference assignment makes sense for him on T/F — _and_ have a significant humanitarian streak.



Soul Kitchen said:


> I'm not convinced the correlation between MBTI dichotomies and Big 5 factors is all that tidy.


I believe — as do many others, including Reynierse and McCrae & Costa — that the MBTI is tapping into the same substantially-genetic, evolutionarily-crafted underlying personality clusters as four of the Big Five.

But that could be perfectly true, and it could _also_ be true that the "correlations" between various Big Five and MBTI-related _models_ (characterizations of those clusters) and _tests_ aren't "all that tidy."



Soul Kitchen said:


> I'm not denying there is any potential overlap between F/T and Agreeableness, but I can't ignore the inconsistency concerning straightforwardness. One would expect Fs to be more straightforward if they were more agreeable, but a T is typically more frank and honest in their dealings with others than an F, even if it comes at the expense of tact.


Here are five of the eight Straightforwardness items on the NEO-PI-R:

• I'm not crafty or sly.
• If necessary, I am willing to manipulate people to get what I want.
• Being perfectly honest is a bad way to do business.
• Sometimes I trick people into doing what I want.
• At times I bully or flatter people into doing what I want them to do.

So I'd say it arguably doesn't make sense to look to that Big Five facet to distinguish between an unselfish, well-meaning T and an unselfish, well-meaning F who strike the balance differently between bluntness and tactfulness.



Soul Kitchen said:


> When I read through your analysis, I noticed that P/J hardly showed up in your typing of me. There were a lot of things pertaining to Fs, NFs, IFs, and INFs, but you only specifically addressed the P preference in the comment on flexible values. You could've as easily been arguing INFJ>INTJ instead of INFP>INTP. Is it because you only got a mild P lean out of me (at one point, you claimed to have received mixed P/J signals from my posts), or is it because you regard P/J as relatively less fundamental than the other dichotomies?


I don't recall how much I ended up talking about J/P and why, but I remember that after I swung around to a P lean, it meant you and I were in agreement on that one, right? In any case, I wouldn't say I "regard P/J as relatively less fundamental than the other dichotomies." I'm inclined to think of S/N as the most impactful one (consistent with Myers and Keirsey's takes), but I don't have a definite order for the others. I might choose T/F as the tentatively least fundamental, but that's partly for messiness reasons: if you're talking about a very T (all facets, assuming facets are a thing) man and a very F (all facets) woman, and you don't exclude tangled gender-related impacts, then I'd say you're dealing with a substantially more impactful divide than the one between, say, a typical INF guy and a typical INT woman. As between E/I and J/P, I maybe don't really have a significant lean in terms of which is more impactful overall.


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## Soul Kitchen (May 15, 2016)

reckful said:


> I haven't "concluded" anything on these issues, and the hemispheric stuff you've described might be part of the picture, as far as I know.
> 
> I don't know how I can be _having it both ways_ on issues where, as already noted, I'm not _having it_ any way in terms of settling on any definite conclusion. I'm open to the idea that you may be an F, or a T, or some kind of mix — and that it may not even make much sense to view T/F as a single dimension.


Perhaps I was extrapolating too much about how conclusive you were on these things. If I understand correctly, you seem to offer up those kind of talking points as fuel for speculation.



> It's not that simple. You know this. Type-related stuff is just part of what goes into someone's motivations. And there are plenty of T's with _inner_ altruistic streaks, and plenty of predominantly selfish F's, in my experience. And if you take "altruism" to mean humanitarian-flavored motivations to assist _strangers_, I think that's too narrow a characterization, and that if you frame it that way, it may not apply very well to the majority of F's.
> 
> I'm not going to review my posts at this point, but my recollection is that they covered _many_ aspects of your posts that I thought got you F points — but _none of which_ (as I told you) deserved to be treated as a definitive preference indicator.
> 
> Don't get me started on Bill Gates. Not a _nice guy_ in reckful's book. And who knows what's motivating his charitable stuff, right? But as I already noted, I wouldn't disagree that he could both be a T — in terms of the best overall preference assignment, assuming an overall preference assignment makes sense for him on T/F — _and_ have a significant humanitarian streak.


From my understanding, the interpersonal interests for the majority of Fs tend to revolve around their relationships with the people in their lives. There's a distinction to be made between those who are in their circle, and strangers who they don't care much about simply because they don't know them. Dunbar's number, basically.

My interest in people extends mostly to what they have to offer. When I do socialise, it's usually either because I'm working with others as part of a project, where cooperation is somewhat inevitable when roles are delegated, or because I'm pursuing a hobby which happens to be a social hobby, or just because I seek to brainstorm whenever someone has an interesting idea.

That's not to say I'm incapable of caring about others, but when I do care about someone, it's felt on an implicit level, not stated through interactions. I don't need to act on how much I care. When I have helped another in time of need, it's because they needed it and I was in the right place at the right time, not because I felt I ought to do so. If I saw someone drowning and I was in a position to save them without risking my own life, you can bet your ass I wouldn't stand there and do nothing, but I'm not going to go looking for people to save.

I'm not interested in debating whether or not Bill Gates is a "nice" person or not, mainly because I don't think of people in those sorts of terms. I'm merely citing the fact he is 1) most likely an NTJ, and 2) someone who is noteworthy for the time and money he puts into humanitarian work, whatever ulterior motives he may have.



> I believe — as do many others, including Reynierse and McCrae & Costa — that the MBTI is tapping into the same substantially-genetic, evolutionarily-crafted underlying personality clusters as four of the Big Five.
> 
> But that could be perfectly true, and it could _also_ be true that the "correlations" between various Big Five and MBTI-related _models_ (characterizations of those clusters) and _tests_ aren't "all that tidy."


I'm of the opinion there's a grain of truth to both sides of the argument, where both the MBTI and the Big Five tap into the same personality clusters, while at the same time interpreting those personality clusters in ways which overlap and ways which don't quite overlap. As McCrae & Costa noted, there are things the two systems can learn from one another.



> Here are five of the eight Straightforwardness items on the NEO-PI-R:
> 
> • I'm not crafty or sly.
> • If necessary, I am willing to manipulate people to get what I want.
> ...


Much like the MBTI Step II, the Big Five factors are written in such a way where it's presumed that the factors necessarily have an equal number of facets. I can't help but wonder whether Straightforwardness is a byproduct of trying to roll multiple facets into one, for the purpose of maintaining an arbitrary balance of six facets per factor. Straightforwardness could well be simultaneously a bluntness facet and a manipulative facet, and it's possible that someone could score in the middle on Straightforwardness all the while having opposite preferences for both "sub facets".

Here's something I was wondering about. In order to be manipulative, you need to not only lack the compunctions against manipulating people, but you also need to know how to manipulate people. It's a combination of questionable ethics and good social skills. What if one of those things cancels out the other, thus causing someone who might lack the scruples against using people to score lower (or is it higher?) on that particular facet than they otherwise would?



> I don't recall how much I ended up talking about J/P and why, but I remember that after I swung around to a P lean, it meant you and I were in agreement on that one, right? In any case, I wouldn't say I "regard P/J as relatively less fundamental than the other dichotomies." I'm inclined to think of S/N as the most impactful one (consistent with Myers and Keirsey's takes), but I don't have a definite order for the others. I might choose T/F as the tentatively least fundamental, but that's partly for messiness reasons: if you're talking about a very T (all facets, assuming facets are a thing) man and a very F (all facets) woman, and you don't exclude tangled gender-related impacts, then I'd say you're dealing with a substantially more impactful divide than the one between, say, a typical INF guy and a typical INT woman. As between E/I and J/P, I maybe don't really have a significant lean in terms of which is more impactful overall.


Yeah, we came to an agreement on that one. You had only specifically commented on the J/P dichotomy in response to one particular item, which was tagged on near the end of post 5 of your 5 part analysis.

I agree that S/N would be the most impactful of the four dichotomies. If I was to pick a second most impactful dichotomy, it would probably be E/I. That's the dichotomy which has the best hard scientific evidence in its favour because of neuroscience, and I'd say the fact Jung thought it to be the single most fundamental dichotomy of all gives it extra weight, even if he put too much weight on that dichotomy in explaining differences. If Myers favoured an SF/ST/NF/NT carve up, I favour an ES/EN/IS/IN carve up, with the INs being my kindred spirits, and the ESs being worlds apart from me.

Many resources I've read claim that, as an INTP, ESTJ should be among the most compatible types for me, since we (allegedly) share a similar dominant function. I have an ESTJ father, and as you can imagine, ESJs and INPs are as different as chalk and cheese. Two of my closest friends are INFPs. While there are some occasional T vs. F differences when I end up being a bit too critical, we still have a lot in common because of the ways in which INPs are similar.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

I've never understood this _retirement_ beezness.

Good luck with your ongoing searches for whatever you may end up searching for from time to time.

(That's the generic version for INTs _and_ INFs.)

And just in case you may ever decide to return, and at the risk of dating myself, here's an old song on the subject of returning by Frank Zappa — who was an ENTP, methinks...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3M0OY6x__s


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