# I am an INTJ who is absolutely obsessed with Myers Briggs



## Raymaster (Mar 12, 2013)

Hello everyone,
I am an INTJ. I have no clue what to post in this thread, so I will simply add that I have strong preferences for introversion and thinking, but weaker preferences for intuition and judging. Many people treat me like I'm an ISTJ which is rather annoying. SJs really like me at first, but once they get to me, they run for cover! Due to my weak preference for judging, I get along quite well with xNTPs - much better than with ISTJs since we share the same NT temperament. Personality types I really like besides me are own are INFJ, INTP, INFP, ENTJ, ENTP, ENFJ, and ENFP - pretty much all the NTs and NFs. I can get along pretty well with a few SJs an SPs, but they are pretty much always STJs or STPs. SFs are very confusing to me. My interests include classical music, psychology, economics, science, etc.


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## Mr. CafeBot (Jun 13, 2009)

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## FlightsOfFancy (Dec 30, 2012)

Well engage your Te some; none of this is a proven science. In fact, aside from some circles, it's largely considered BS. Don't type and take it too seriously IRL.


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## Reggie (Sep 30, 2012)

Honestly, MBTI, aside from its illuminating conceptual distinctions it makes, is pretty handy as a tool for selfgrowth and a tool for probable predictions of human behaviour/thought and your interplay with others.

Simply put: MBTI doesn't say everything, but it puts you in a different gear towards maturity and growth as well as empathy.


I am glad you enjoy it. Welcome!


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## Raymaster (Mar 12, 2013)

True, it's not a proven science. But I have found it to be highly accurate 95% of the time, so it's at least a well developed hypothesis. (Interesting how you downplay the system, yet you also advise me to engage my Te...)


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## Raymaster (Mar 12, 2013)

@Reggie 
I completely agree with what you said


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## Reggie (Sep 30, 2012)

Raymaster said:


> (Interesting how you downplay the system, yet you also advise me to engage my Te...)


This is actually you using your Te 
Te spots and tries to eliminate contradictions


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## Raymaster (Mar 12, 2013)

By the way, I was extremely skeptical of Myers Briggs for quite some time. I learned and accepted the theory through my Te.


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## FlightsOfFancy (Dec 30, 2012)

Reggie said:


> This is actually you using your Te
> Te spots and tries to eliminate contradictions


This is why it can become a bit 'hoky'; everything gets funneled through functions as if there are no other methodology. I like its potential, but I think its predictive potential is exaggerated. Technically, Ti is what tries to eliminate contradictions in terms of logical 'tearing apart' :frustrating:



Raymaster said:


> True, it's not a proven science. But I have found it to be highly accurate 95% of the time, so it's at least a well developed hypothesis. (Interesting how you downplay the system, yet you also advise me to engage my Te...)


How would this be a contradiction. It was me talking in theory, but I meant that using it as a basis for understanding IRL behavior can have deleterious effects because type cannot be ascertained with certainty, especially with conflicting behaviors in social spheres. 

If you want to get technical; Te shouldn't be content with the theory because it lacks empirical basis. There really are no objective empirical studies to show its efficiency. While I agree with @_Reggie_, I caution using it IRL due to its scientific unsoundness.


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## stone100674 (Jun 22, 2012)

Hello and welcome to Per C.
The true key to getting along with others is maturity and emotional health. Work on yourself and your coping mechanisms and you will find it becomes easier to deal with all types of people on a regular basis.


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## Raymaster (Mar 12, 2013)

It's not a contradiction per se. However, it doesn't seem entirely consistent to say I should take the theory with a grain of salt and then make a recommendation using the theory ("engage your Te"). 

I agree with you about the lack of empirical evidence in the sense that there aren't scientific studies proving the theory. However, if the theory is a good working model for understanding human behavior, and I find that it is, then I don't see a problem with using it IRL. Myers Briggs has been a tremendous asset to me for developing better relationships with people who are puzzling to me. This isn't really inconsistent with Te, as empirical reasoning ultimately rest


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## Raymaster (Mar 12, 2013)

ultimately rests on observation


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## Astrali (Mar 28, 2012)

Welcome to our world of curiosity and self expression!


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## FlightsOfFancy (Dec 30, 2012)

Raymaster said:


> It's not a contradiction per se. However, it doesn't seem entirely consistent to say I should take the theory with a grain of salt and then make a recommendation using the theory ("engage your Te").
> 
> I agree with you about the lack of empirical evidence in the sense that there aren't scientific studies proving the theory. However, if the theory is a good working model for understanding human behavior, and I find that it is, then I don't see a problem with using it IRL. Myers Briggs has been a tremendous asset to me for developing better relationships with people who are puzzling to me. This isn't really inconsistent with Te, as empirical reasoning ultimately rest


Sure it does; you claim to be an INTJ so I said engage your Te. My criticism is that it is of poor usage IRL; this isn't IRL. 

Empiricism also deals with being able to see if your results are consistent with reality. I can empirically see that there's something weighing me down...etc. 

With typing someone IRL (e.g. she's an ISTJ), you can't really test or prove that theory whatsoever. She could have what you percieve to be ISTJ traits, but she may indeed not be an ISTJ. This is why tests online are poor; they measure traits and not the person's cognitive function. Given that a great deal of functions are internal (Fi/Ti/Si/Ni), it is hard to see their usage. 

What you're doing is actually rationalism and not empiricism:


> Empirical evidence is information that justifies a belief in the truth or falsity of an empirical claim. In the empiricist view, one can only claim to have knowledge when one has a true belief based on empirical evidence. This stands in contrast to the rationalist* view under which reason or reflection alone is considered to be evidence for the truth or falsity of some propositions.*


Since you're going off evidence that can't be proven, it's a rationalization. 

I'm not saying not to use it; I'm saying be wary of its instability. Try to not type people upon meeting them etc. Just a suggestion. For example, people that try to type me IRL usually get my type wrong about 90% of the time


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## Alumina (Jan 22, 2013)

Was hoping it would be a "I am an INTJ who is absolutely obsessed with INTP's"

Nevertheless, welcome.


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## Raymaster (Mar 12, 2013)

So you advised me to engage my Te, and that's not a use of the theory IRL? I feel like I'm missing something. 
What you're saying about rationalization and empiricism makes sense; I agree that Myers Briggs can't be proven absolutely, and that it has limitations. And no, I don't type people upon meeting them. I only hypothesize as to their type after I've known them for at least a few months. 
I've often wondered about a way to more accurately detect the introverted functions. A person's extroverted functions are usually quite clear, but introverted functions are indeed much harder to perceive. This is probably why people often mistype me as an ISTJ - Ni Si confusion. I've come to the conclusion that only the individual in question can be sure of their introverted functions.


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## Raymaster (Mar 12, 2013)

INTPs are interesting people for sure.


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## Reggie (Sep 30, 2012)

FlightsOfFancy said:


> Sure it does; you claim to be an INTJ so I said engage your Te. My criticism is that it is of poor usage IRL; this isn't IRL.
> 
> Empiricism also deals with being able to see if your results are consistent with reality. I can empirically see that there's something weighing me down...etc.
> 
> ...


Refrain from using terms like empiricism and rationalism loosely like that. These are technical terms with a specific meaning. And not paramount in this discussion. 
For the fans: okay, originally, the aim of empiricism (Hume, Locke, Berkeley) and rationalism (Descartes,...) was, very simply said, to come to infallible knowledge. Is it what our senses tell us? (empiricism? no, think of a stick in the water, hallucinations,...) or is it the Descartes' cogito (rationalism - no think of the deceptor potentissimus - God could have misled you all the way/everything, even your rational thoughts could be a dream) But they fail. Their aim is not exactly truth, but certainty, as Wittgenstein points out. Both theories actually erroneously equalise truth with psychological certainty. (You also have other types of certainty, but I will not digress any further here) 

Anyway my point: 
1) MBTI provides concepts to describe reality, i.e, human cognitive processing. The MBTI framework is not an assertion of facts, but apriori concepts that are not true or false, but useful or useless at most. These concepts are not the measurement, but the yardstick. Not the description of reality, but a norm for the description of reality (as is any conceptual apparatus). They are the form, not the content. 

The question is how useful MBTI's conceptual distinctions are. Concepts are not true, nor false. They are practical or impractical.

2) Of course, the _assertion that someone is XXXX or XXXX can be true or false_. That is an empirically verifiable hypothesis. Provided every letter in an MBTI profile has a clear definition with pretty straightforward _observable_ criteria. And it has! (Introverted/extraverted, sensing/intuition, feeling/judging, Perceiving/judging) It can be principally tested or assessed by an onlooker (provided he looks long enough). Someone can state his preferences on the four scales, for example. Or an onlooker can infer, and here is potential for error. But the inference can be incrementally fed with more available data and principally be done in a correct way.

3) MBTI XXXX codes are easy to decipher, imo, using the four binary questions and then determining a preference. Functions are more complicated. First of all, there is often even a mismatch between the order of functions and someone's type. I've seen INTJ's that have Ni-Ne-Te-Fi-Se-...! Ne as their second function in cognitive tests! So the four letter profile doesn't necessarily even reflect the functions right order. I do agree functions and their frequency/preference of use are harder to spot, but in principle it is doable as well.

4) MBTI is scientifically backed up enough to be used by multimillion top consultancy firms in assembling their project teams (Boston consulting BCG i can tell from my own experience) and in recruiting. The market is the best yardstick for what works and what doesn't. The other empirical evidence is my own experience. I find it useful because de facto I have a payoff from using MBTI: I predict people's behaviour with a high probability,.... And where is the study or the scientific article that proves the MBTI to be scientifically unsound. That is absolutely not a consensus in the scientific community.

I go to sleep now


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## FlightsOfFancy (Dec 30, 2012)

Reggie said:


> Refrain from using terms like empiricism and rationalism loosely like that. These are technical terms with a specific meaning. And not paramount in this discussion.
> For the fans: okay, originally, the aim of empiricism (Hume, Locke, Berkeley) and rationalism (Descartes,...) was, very simply said, to come to infallible knowledge. Is it what our senses tell us? (empiricism? no, think of a stick in the water, hallucinations,...) or is it the Descartes' cogito (rationalism - no think of the deceptor potentissimus - God could have misled you all the way/everything, even your rational thoughts could be a dream) But they fail. Their aim is not exactly truth, but certainty, as Wittgenstein points out. Both theories actually erroneously equalise truth with psychological certainty. (You also have other types of certainty, but I will not digress any further here)
> 
> Anyway my point:
> ...


Long winded ! = correct. Anyway: 

I didn't know we had to go into the history of such (as it was largely irrelevant); no less, empirical data remains paramount to true scientific study--Whatever the original context:


> *em·pir·i·cal* (
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It is not verifiable. As you said, the MBTI is unfalsifiable. Science does not deal with unfalsifiability and as such does not respect it. It is scientifically unsound because it does not heed falsifiability. Scientists are not going out their way to prove an unfalsifiable theory unsound because it is not in the realm of science--it is a psuedoscience. That's a scientist's way of calling something unsound.
Falsifiability - Karl Popper's Basic Scientific Principle

There are also some contradictions here; first, XXXX codes are not easy to decipher. The reason being is that the MBTI uses traits of a person rather than absolutes. It's a shallow theory at best. An onlooker may go, "hey she's a T; look at her adherence to logic" despite the fact that said onlooker is in a logic class with the examinee. It is not a 'yardstick' or a 'norm' because it is all relative. A norm is not relative; a yardstick can be used to unambiguously measure--the MBTI cannot. So this is an inadequate analogy. 

Then there's the issue of function interpretation; Ni seems more like Si than Ne for example. Many people may not consider a person without 'new ideas' as intuitive; in fact, outside of the realm of the MBTI, that is what intuition is seen to be-more aligned with Ne.

The MBTI being used by multimillion dollar companies gives no scientific credence to the MBTI. All that shows is that they are quite ready to invest in something marketable to the less discerning. This is called marketing...this is called commerce... The market is not the best yardstick for 'what works'; it's the best yardstick for 'what makes most money'. This is irrelevant.


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## Raymaster (Mar 12, 2013)

Reggie is correct. The issue is whether Myers Briggs is a practical/accurate/useful tool. This of course can be a matter of debate, but I've used, and I've seen others use, the theory with great success. Now, as our ability to observe and decipher the 4 dichotomies in human thinking and behavior, while it is true that we may use different functions depending on the situation, it's not too difficult to read past this given enough observation and careful thinking. For example, if were to give a lecture, it wouldn't be immediately clear whether I was an introvert or an extrovert. However, if you were to observe me in a different situation, say, at the dinner table, it would be clear that I am emphatically introverted. The same goes for the other characteristics. Some are more clear than others; however, in each case it is possible to discover an overall preference given enough time an observation. 
As far as the market goes, what makes the most money is what consumers are willing to pay for. This isn't proof that Myers Briggs is true, but it is at least a good indicator that people find it to be a useful tool.


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