Identity-Seeking vs Knowledge-Seeking Personality

[KazeCraven]

In David Keirsey's book titled Please Understand Me II, he labels all NT types as "Knowledge-Seeking" personalities and all NF types as "Identity-Seeking" personalities. However, it seems that most people are searching for the answer to "Who am I?" which appears to make his distinction rather useless.

However, I wonder if it would be accurate to say the following:

NTs want to know about themselves so that they may fully understand all their inner processes and be able to adequately handle all their quirks, wants, desires, et cetera. And if they seek to improve themselves, it is out of a need to better satisfy their wants and desires, in effect becoming more efficient and more fulfilled. Being phony means faking emotions or opinions, though behaving out of character is rather difficult for them if they aren't lying about their thoughts or feelings.

NFs want to become who they are on the inside, in essence their ideal self, and are nearly always fixated on the process of becoming. Their inner struggle is driven by a need to become more and more perfect. And if they seek to know more about their current selves, they do so in order to figure out where they are in their pursuit of an identity and how to get from where they are to where they want to be. Being phony means not being who they think they are, even if they aren't lying about how they feel or what they think.


Personal connection: I thought I was INFJ (or, at least, thought I would most like to be INFJ) once upon a time, and I wanted to learn more about myself so that I could figure out what goals I would most enjoy pursuing, what persona I would most like to extravert, and what type of career I would most enjoy. In essence, setting myself up for success. Thus I tried changing my behavior to fit INFJ.

As time went by, these new behaviors dropped off without me really noticing. A couple of months later, when I realized my behaviors had dropped off I thought to myself, "Huh. Well I must have something wrong here." Despite becoming a little more animate and friendly, my behavior patterns very closely matched the INTP mindset, so I figured I must be one of those.

My next step is to discover why I don't fit the INTP description precisely (more animate and open to strangers than most) and whether that's important on my end or on the theory end, though it's likely important on neither end. Discovering the misconceptions underlying the reasons I thought I was not an INTP has helped me to understand my needs better and what activities fail to satisfy said needs.


Any thoughts about this issue?

 

[Aiss]

Any thoughts about this issue?

My first thought was "INFP".

I've read somewhere that INTP and INFP are very much alike in observing the world, but different in experiencing it - understanding vs personal meaning approaches.

I agree that understanding of the world may lead to understanding the way we view and judge the world, and therefore to understanding ourselves. I don't think this search of "who am I" is the driving force for INTP, though. The other identity-related thread shows INTP attitude to it quite well.

An excerpt from INFP profile:

For INFPs, life is a journey to understand themselves and the world. Where some others may strive for achievements such as degrees and promotions, an INFP tends to consider these as important mainly for their value in making it easier to fulfill the INFP's life goals.

 

[Jesin]

To me, this looks like quite a misleading distinction to try to make. There are too many shades of meaning that it just fails to account for.

 

[Da Blob]

I kind of agree, Unless one has F or T as a dominant trait the distinction may not be that relevant. I mean within one's own mind where is the line between Thought and "Feeling"? I do not think or feel that it is usually an either/or scenario, but our impressions of Self are a combination of Thoughts and Feelings. It seems simply a matter of temporary priority whether Thoughts about Self or Feelings about Self are seen as the more relevant.

 

[fullerene]

I just don't know how you can separate them, because knowing yourself and your identity is a subset of knowledge. I don't know how/why he just separates the two.