# Proportion of sensors in population



## Silverflame (Jan 4, 2015)

Has it remained the same?
I somehow gets this feeling that there were more of them in the previous generation.
Or is it that we have more options for connecting with our fellow intuitive s now?

(While I am thinking of my parents and grand parents generation Westerners will have to think of their grand parents and great grand parents generation)


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## Strelok (Aug 16, 2013)

Silverflame said:


> Has it remained the same?


Probably.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

You would have to know the people from that generation. When I think of 1840s the first thing that comes to mind is a farmer. There were still writers and like during that time period.


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## Tzara (Dec 21, 2013)

Silverflame said:


> Has it remained the same?


Compared to when?
1980? Yeah.
1200? Probably Not.


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## Strelok (Aug 16, 2013)

Grandmaster Yoda said:


> When I think of 1840s the first thing that comes to mind is a farmer.


So? How much choice did anyone really have in the matter?


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

Strelok said:


> So? How much choice did anyone really have in the matter?


It doesn't really have as much to do with them as how we think of them. When people think intuitive they think creative, when people think sensor they think practical. Most of the content that I would immediately recall about the 1800s was that everyone had a real life job. It's pretty much a stereotype on my part for associating certain types with that but I'm skeptical of the idea, just because practical work was extensively valued during the time doesn't translate to me as meaning that there was a greater percentage of sensors then than now. Of course there are no stats to show any of this so it doesn't really mean much.


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## StunnedFox (Dec 20, 2013)

It's certainty possible that the proportions of each type have changed significantly over time, but it's hard to say whether it would specifically impact upon a given dimension, such as S/N, or just occur reasonably haphazardly. I wouldn't say I've personally observed any noticeable difference between generations, but it's worth noting that the way a particular preference is _expressed_ might differ between generations as well - so an older N might be less like what you expect an N to be like than younger Ns. 

I couldn't find much on this online, but I believe the MBTI Step II postulates that people in the mid-zone on particular subscales tend to drift towards the S-related facet over time (also towards the J-related facet on J/P subscales) - a brief mention here is about the extent of what I found on it when I looked. So that S-ward drift offers another potential explanation for the seeming difference in type proportions between generations...


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## knife (Jul 10, 2013)

Sensors certainly have a practical advantage in the mating game. Culture's development has been entirely beneficial insofar as it's _created_ courtship paths for intuitives that sensors don't often get.

Even so...3 of every 4 people you'll meet are sensors.


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## Strelok (Aug 16, 2013)

Wight Knight said:


> Culture's development has been entirely beneficial insofar as it's _created_ courtship paths for intuitives that sensors don't often get.


How?


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## knife (Jul 10, 2013)

Strelok said:


> How?


The ability to differentiate yourself and win esteem by intellectual and/or artistic accomplishment, rather than just purely the physical. That's the core of it really.


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## stayinggold (Sep 2, 2014)

knife said:


> Even so...3 of every 4 people you'll meet are sensors.


Yes, I believe you're right. Statistically there should be more sensors . However, the amount of sensors change according to where you are at university there seems to be a little less, in fact my whole faculty seems to be composed of only NT with a fair amount of STs throws in.


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## knife (Jul 10, 2013)

stayinggold said:


> Yes, I believe you're right. Statistically there should be more sensors . However, the amount of sensors change according to where you are at university there seems to be a little less, in fact my whole faculty seems to be composed of only NT with a fair amount of STs throws in.


But of course. While a given university's student population is a representative sample of the overall population, preferred majors are one level of self-selection, and going into academia highly self-selecting for intuitives and thinkers.


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## XZ9 (Nov 16, 2013)

Sensors 75% of the population. Intuitive as 25%.


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## saltana (Jan 18, 2013)

@Manticore, Why do you think we should assume that the proportion has changed since 1200?


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## shameless (Apr 21, 2014)

Theres a lot of Sensors that are either innocently mistaken as intuitives thru testing or Sensors that are often in denial. 

I really do not think that theres nearly as many intuitives in per c then what is registered as so. 

BTW I mistyped as INTP for a little while. 

I still test back and forth between ENTP & ISTP. 

Honestly to me its very obvious that a lot of people are not intuitives here or anywhere else in life. But theres a lot of people here and many other places in life that like to think they are. 

Point no I do not think percentages in the ACTUAL number of either has changed what has changed is that people liken themselves more to intuitive traits now often while testing where as in other eras many would not have by popular culture and political correctness, and new enlightenment ages, would have been much more conservative and tested more concrete. Where now as some (not all) people mistake being hipster for being intuitive. Or counter culture as revolutionary (intuitive). 

So no I don't think the percentages really have changed I think the numbers simply are skewed because the testing data is predated material past the intellect of the 1950s cookie cutter, so everyone that can see past a cookie cutter suddenly answers everything that would score intuitive. 

Its really about being extremely honest with ones self which is hard to decipher some of the things from who you desire to be, from who you actually are.

Anyways I tend to think a lot of people are more like myself and tend to be strong in certain functions but then extremely close in other functions and can cross type.


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## tylerofwahstate (Feb 16, 2015)

Cinnamon83 said:


> Theres a lot of Sensors that are either innocently mistaken as intuitives thru testing or Sensors that are often in denial.
> 
> I really do not think that theres nearly as many intuitives in per c then what is registered as so.
> 
> ...


Spot on! I think that a lot of the borderline X's are often indicative of a healthy balance of differing information-handling preferences in that they can use both (you might be an ambivert), and while strong preferences have benefits as well, they also have drawbacks. I suppose my counter-thought to this would be that everything balances out in the end anyway, though riding toward the middle is usually a good way to smooth sailing.


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## aendern (Dec 28, 2013)

knife said:


> Sensors certainly have a practical advantage in the mating game. Culture's development has been entirely beneficial insofar as it's _created_ courtship paths for intuitives that sensors don't often get.
> 
> Even so...3 of every 4 people you'll meet are sensors.


Where do _you _meet people? :shocked:



knife said:


> But of course. While a given university's student population is a representative sample of the overall population,


No, it obviously isn't.



tylerofwahstate said:


> Spot on! I think that a lot of the borderline X's are often indicative of a healthy balance of differing information-handling preferences in that they can use both (you might be an ambivert), and while strong preferences have benefits as well, they also have drawbacks.


The only Xs that would be quasi-plausible would be in the e/i blank. All others are not possible.

I'll use intj as an example.

an xNTJ would be quasi-plausbile because the same functions would be valued whether you were E or I.

an IxTJ would not be plausible at all because you would be on completely different axes (Ne/Si vs Se/Ni).

an INxJ would not be plausible because, again, different axes (Te/Fi vs Fe/Ti).

and INTx is the most implausible because it changes every single function.


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## knife (Jul 10, 2013)

emberfly said:


> Where do _you _meet people? :shocked:


Here and there. But I was thinking of an epiphany I had while eating brunch last summer -- that three of every four people in that bistro had to be sensors.


> No, it obviously isn't.


I don't know what culture you were raised in, or what university you went to, then, because the way I was raised there was tremendous pressure on _everybody_ to go to college, and the general-purpose research universities have populations that mirror the diversity of their society's.

In other words, a university's general (i.e. mostly-student) population is a microcosm of society's. A statistically useful sample.


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## Strelok (Aug 16, 2013)

It sounds like in previous decades, universities were places for the thinkin' folk (mostly iNtuitives) to expand their minds and so forth. They still are, moreso than any other place you can go in modern society at least, but now that literally _everyone_ is told they _need_ to go to college/uni, you can pretty much find the same demographics on campus as you can off campus.


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## Silverflame (Jan 4, 2015)

saltana said:


> @Manticore, Why do you think we should assume that the proportion has changed since 1200?


Couldn't Darwin have worked out in the course of evolution?
I myself erred while posting thread.
This proportion is likely to have been there for a while....


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