Intp formula.

[Melkor]

I wondered why no-one has made this...


In full knowledge that personality is not inheritated, nor a dysfunction of nature, I think it's acceptable to say that there must be, strange as it may seem, the perfect backdrop,atmosphere, and overall thought bubble to spawn Intp's.


By which I mean, if you took a blank human, and subjected him to a list of things, he'd be a pitiful little Engineer at the end, probably crying and thinking up really long esoteric insults.

Heres my addition, which through interaction with other Intp's and self-studies that went horribly wrong seeks to explain this terribley brilliant curse.


-A misunderstanding,( most likely extroverted) or just plain obnoxious family.

-A multitude of REALLY annoying people.

-At least one, if not many, quiet places of great beauty.

-A really boring atmosphere. this encourages the forming of new worlds to make up for the crappy ones.

-The letter I.

-optional:broken families and or psychological trauma/illness.
This might not apply to us all, but I think it applies to me...:P

Of course, we can substitue these variables with letters once we agree on them all..


I have no doubt that one if not all of the above are debatable.

 

[loveofreason]

-A misunderstanding,( most likely extroverted) or just plain obnoxious family.

-A multitude of REALLY annoying people.

Sort of the same thing? Yes, never understood by family. Still not. SFJ dominant. Suffered terribly at school for being so weird and different. Was persecuted.

-At least one, if not many, quiet places of great beauty.

YES!!!

-A really boring atmosphere. this encourages the forming of new worlds to make up for the crappy ones.

Reality was intolerable, not just boring. Life around me was routine drudgery at best. Always made my own worlds to replace the real one with, or escaped into books, or nature...

-optional:broken families and or psychological trauma/illness.
This might not apply to us all, but I think it applies to me...:P

How bad is something before you call it broken? How about broken but let's use the cellotape and pretend it's normal?

hmmm... other things. I don't think I spoke a word to any of my teachers until grade three. I simply wouldn't communicate.

When I think of childhood I seem to remember a lot of being ridiculed and lied to, and absolutely no emotional validation.

 

[Anthile]

-A misunderstanding,( most likely extroverted) or just plain obnoxious family.
My family is mostly introverted, but obnoxious, yes.

-A multitude of REALLY annoying people.
Check.

-At least one, if not many, quiet places of great beauty.
Yes.

-A really boring atmosphere. this encourages the forming of new worlds to make up for the crappy ones.

Right.


-The letter I.

Hrm?

-optional:broken families and or psychological trauma/illness.

And how!

 

[LucasM]

I don't know.

Definitely the quiet places of great beauty.

But my family isn't obnoxious, and we have come to understand each other in our own way, but not totally. I have a large family, always something is going on, and my two older brothers always used to beat up on me, but they did it for jest.

A really boring atmosphere. I don't get this. I have a weird family.

Maybe, a factor for me is how I would get easily hurt when I was young, but only by those I loved, like my mother. If I tried to do something, but it wasn't enough and she showed displeasure, it was the worst thing in the world for me. Conversely, if it was someone I didn't love as much, I really did not care.

I had a psychological trauma when my parents died, and I moved in with my aunt, but I never could really cry openly or anything like that, and I wondered at the others. I was in third person perspective.

A multitude of REALLY annoying people. How should I know? I am one myself from time to time. I know a few, but I think it is more a product rather than an ingredient of an INTP perspective.

 

[Ermine]

Wouldn't say that obnoxious family has to be extroverted. My whole immediate family is introverted, though they are less introverted than I am. For me, the conflict was because our trains of thoughts kept zooming past each other and we never fully understand each other. More of an S vs. N conflict.

As for the boring atmosphere, my family is fairly quirky, so there's never a dull moment. The outside world, on the other hand, is extremely boring for the most part.

Can't say I've gone through much trauma. However, a lot of my INTP symptoms are very likely due to the really bad adenoid and ear infections I had when I was a little kid. It possibly made me miss out on a lot of social development, learning the unwritten social law that allows other people to just "know" what to say. I have to learn everything deliberately.

And I certainly found a quiet beauty in all the time I spent and spend reading.

 

[Wisp]

Hmmm... I don't suppose I was put upon so much as the rest of you in your childhood. I had my troubles in grade school, being picked on and so on, but I had a couple of friends (who I no longer have, for various reasons, replaced with much cooler ones). I WAS a very imaginative child, prone for spending hours upon end in the woods... imagining. That and playing video games. My INTPness (pardon my french) seemed to grow as I got older, and I became consciously introverted. When I was in middle school I was subjected to my first "perfect beauty" moment. I was at the FONZ zoo camp with a friend of mine, and we were doing a night walk. Then we just sort of... laid down and looked up. It was... potent.

But the point of this, is to say, perhaps the intp brings the backdrop upon himself.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

All of that applies to me to some extent, but I know a lot of people whom these criteria would apply to that are not INTPs.

 

[Waterstiller]

Yeah, all of that applies to me. Especially the quiet times of beauty. I used to sit in my grandparent's backyard and watch the sunset every night; the smog was kinda bad in Anaheim and it would make the sunsets otherworldly in comparison to anything else in my life. I also got to watch Disneyland fireworks every night from my window.

I was also kind of isolated as a kid; up until 8th grade I didn't have a best friend and I never had people over after school. The only people I liked to talk with were adults; all the kids at school were unreasonable and couldn't hold conversations.

Speculation time:
Perhaps INTP's are just those who didn't have good early peer socialization for whatever myriad of reasons. We're perceivers and not judgers because we probably had a more abusive (school and/or home) childhood that led to us always questioning ourselves. I've been meaning to start a thread about self-worth because I've never really had any. I beat myself up so much.

 

[Reverse Transcriptase]

I think INTPs find places of quiet beauty, wherever they are. I'm in this crappy, loud, smelly and crowded city and I've still found quiet places of beauty.

At the same time, I think there are a lot of other types who would look at these places of beauty and ignore them, or not see them for what they are, or get distracted by the features of the place.

Sorry. I don't believe you can induce INTPness.

 

[IfloatTHRUlife]

@Wisp - i spent sooo much time in the woods when i was growing up lol

1. I don't really remember a lot of my childhood, but mostly because it was very uneventful, which would go along with where being raised in a boring atmosphere was mentioned.

2. My family sucks. My mother is a naive. My older brother (intj) was basically abusive, called me names, hit me all the time to "toughen" me up. My oldest brother was hopeless and still is. And i pretty much dont have a relationship with any other family other than at get togethers i were forced to go to. Where most of the time i was pranced around and called a little girl by my uncles for being tall skinny and pale with long hair.

3. Already said this but about the beautiful place, i did spend almost every day after school in the woods.

I do think its impossible to "create" an INTP but this is for a couple reasons, it may seem arrogent but i dont think everyone is born with the capability to be an INTP. Second, i think that in your attempts to administer your plan to make the kid an INTP you wouldn't allow some of the things to happen that might make an INTP. For instance, for you to know that your plan was working you would probably want to keep a hawk eye on the person which now that i think about it would probably help if having annoying parents and people around does make you INTP but you also would be depriving them of the alone time that im sure is neseccary.

That is all. Lol

 

[adastrac]

-A misunderstanding,( most likely extroverted) or just plain obnoxious family.
And friends. And basically the whole world.

-A multitude of REALLY annoying people.
Sooo annoying!!!

-At least one, if not many, quiet places of great beauty.
Yes!! For me, it is an isolated beach.

-A really boring atmosphere. this encourages the forming of new worlds to make up for the crappy ones.
Yeeaah, my teachers used to complain about me being preoccupied in my own world somewhere... it didn't have to be that way (exactly) if they were more interesting! =P

-optional:broken families and or psychological trauma/illness.
Geebus, story of my sad life.

 

[zxc]

-A misunderstanding,( most likely extroverted) or just plain obnoxious family.
Hmm, my family is introverted, and aren't obnoxious or misunderstanding.

-A multitude of REALLY annoying people.
Sure, there are tons at school, but I usually avoid them well enough. They only troubled me in Year 7 and Year 8.

-At least one, if not many, quiet places of great beauty.
Of course.

-A really boring atmosphere. this encourages the forming of new worlds to make up for the crappy ones.
Not really, although I've been an avid fantasy reader since Grade 4.

-The letter I.
??

-optional:broken families and or psychological trauma/illness.
Certainly not in my case.

It sounds like I'm well-off where happiness and INTPs are concerned.

 

[didyouknow]

2. My family sucks. My mother is a naive. My older brother (intj) was basically abusive, called me names, hit me all the time to "toughen" me up. My oldest brother was hopeless and still is. And i pretty much dont have a relationship with any other family other than at get togethers i were forced to go to.

Woah, story of my life, float. Though that "toughening up" does come in handy, I'm excellent at dodging incoming objects.

As for everything else, check for everything. I am beginning to think that most of these are symptoms of being an INTP, not causes. Except for the family/trauma ones which probably just helped stimulate it.

In year 3 & 4 I didn't have any friends at all after moving states. I constantly got teased so I just sat on a bench for the entire lunch break thinking, imagining.

 

[Agent Intellect]

-A misunderstanding,( most likely extroverted) or just plain obnoxious family.

-A multitude of REALLY annoying people.

do these result in one being INTP, or does INTP result in the perception that other people are obnoxious and annoying?

-At least one, if not many, quiet places of great beauty.

i'm not sure about this. i don't find anything about my home town, nor the people that inhabit it, beautiful.

-A really boring atmosphere. this encourages the forming of new worlds to make up for the crappy ones.

this seems accurate for me. and, i'd say the new worlds that i use to replace the crappy ones are the places of "quiet beauty" for me.

-The letter I.

I as in "me" or I as in "introvert"?

-optional:broken families and or psychological trauma/illness.
This might not apply to us all, but I think it applies to me...:P

my family isn't broken, unless you consider being poor as broken.

 

[IfloatTHRUlife]

@didyouknow- Good stuff my friend, the toughening has came in handy indeed. Although i would like to add that i am glad i am the way i am, if i were a more emotional type i would probably be a psychopath by now. Also you raised a good point, that most of the things that were mentioned were probably result of being INTP not the cause.

@Agent- Being INTP probably does result in thinking other people are obnoxious or annoying, but that is only because our we have a lot higher standards and are more intent on precision then most of the other types, we cant help but notice others flaws.

 

[Jordan~]

-A misunderstanding,( most likely extroverted) or just plain obnoxious family.

Not really, they're very nice to me. Too nice? Very possibly. I might suffer from the opposite - a family that's stiflingly overparenting. I've never lived with siblings, so I never had any of those to deal with, and I've always been the sole focus of the affection of an INFP (or perhaps ISFP) mother.

-A multitude of REALLY annoying people.

Not particularly... Annoying people are everywhere, but how annoying is really annoying? For a lot of people, I imagine I was really annoying during my early childhood... Certainly, there were a fair few people who got on my nerves a lot, but no more than for most people, I think.

-At least one, if not many, quiet places of great beauty.

I rarely went outside once I got a computer, and never alone (stifling parents, again). And there was a park right outside my house for years. I did go on walks with my dad, but never did I get a chance to go exploring alone. I suppose my quiet place of great beauty might just be the Internet, in a twisted sort of way.

-A really boring atmosphere. this encourages the forming of new worlds to make up for the crappy ones.

Not especially - grew up with a computer, and when I wasn't passing time on that, I had other things to do. My atmosphere was hardly exciting, but it wasn't boring, either - I was never lost for something to do.

-The letter I.

Presumably for Introversion, but I can't think what you mean. Both my parents are introverts, so I think introversion seemed the natural, normal behaviour for me.

-optional:broken families and or psychological trauma/illness.

Not at all. My parents married after I was born, I was rarely sick as a child, and nothing especially traumatic ever happened to me.

Since most INTPs seem to have at least a couple of these, I'll offer an alternative set of conditions:

1) Doting family leads to self-importance. (Development of Perception, and possibly Introversion)
2) Clash with reality leads to emotional suppression. (Weakening of Fe)
3) Environment rich with readily available information and opportunities for imagination (Strengthening of Ti, Si and Ne)
4) Clash with reality leads to delusions, loss of self-importance (Strengthening of Ne, weakening of Fe, reinforcement of Introversion)

 

[Deridaburi]

It seems that your cause and effect may be backwards.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

It seems that your cause and effect may be backwards.

+1.

We may not have scientific evidence but I think it's pretty safe to say that basic temperaments are inborn. You'd have to have some pre-programmed behavior that determines the different ways you react to your environment.

 

[Trebuchet]

I think INTPs find places of quiet beauty, wherever they are. I'm in this crappy, loud, smelly and crowded city and I've still found quiet places of beauty.

At the same time, I think there are a lot of other types who would look at these places of beauty and ignore them, or not see them for what they are, or get distracted by the features of the place.

Sorry. I don't believe you can induce INTPness.

I agree with Reverse Transcriptase. I think INTPs just happen, or maybe it is hereditary after all.

I had an introverted, understanding, nurturing family, with no trauma other than being bullied badly in middle school. I found some interesting people and things, too. So INTPs can happen in all kinds of environments.

I also agree with RT about finding beauty. It seems like an effect of being INTP, not a cause. Mine was a washed out night sky as a kid. Later, I used to literally stop and smell the landscaping flowers, or watch flocking birds, or clouds, on the way into my cubical job. It turned out my coworkers could see me out the windows. To this day I'm not sure why a moment of beauty was worth teasing someone about, but they thought it was hilarious. Non-INTPs can be very strange.

 

[unorthographic]

whether we are born or come into our own, i do think that the same set of circumstances could likely be the backdrop (and likely IS the background of many) non-INTPs. though i identify with most of the line items presented, i think it's how we are that attributes these to us being special snowflakes.

broken/duct-taped families, places of great beauty, ego-centrism and annoying people are, fortunately and unfortunately, universal truths.

 

[Stoic Beverage]

-A misunderstanding,( most likely extroverted) or just plain obnoxious family.

-A multitude of REALLY annoying people.

-A really boring atmosphere. this encourages the forming of new worlds to make up for the crappy ones.

-optional:broken families and or psychological trauma/illness.
This might not apply to us all, but I think it applies to me...:P

The marked apply, in abundance.

 

[Trebuchet]

Hee hee, INTP special snowflakes. Are you a teacher, perchance?

 

[unorthographic]

not a teacher, but thought about it. after lots of paperwork and fees for licensing, i applied to be a sociology teacher at a then-local high school. the interview alone scared me straight. then i worked in tech support, where all users, almost universally, have special snowflake syndrome.

 

[gruesomebrat]

It's funny, I ran into an INTP on Facebook, and in getting to know each other a little, ended up discussing the 'nature vs. nurture' question as regards INTPs. I know, personally, I associate with most of what has been posted here, but I'm definitely of the opinion that personality type is most likely Nature.

While, I'm willing to accept that the individual traits are somewhat open to tweaking through nurture, I think the overall package is just the way you were born. For example, someone born INTP may end up being driven into a severe state of introversion through early-life experiences, but that's more a case of the natural introversion being strengthened than the introversion being formed at that time. I think the same goes for iNtuition and Perceiving. Not sure about Thinking, as I'm fairly sure that cognitive ability is something you're born with and develop.

However, I will admit that I don't have a full grasp of the functions of MBTI yet. Most of my understanding about the index is from reading conversations here on the forum. My Christmas gift to myself, however, is research material on MBTI, so that I can keep up with those conversations in the New Year.

 

[Cognisant]

Introversion
The defining feature of introversion is that the introvert in question is reserved in the manner of their self-expression, this tendency towards secrecy can make the process of developing friendships difficult for them, especially by comparison to extroverted peers who express themselves without restraint. Environmental factors that encourage the development of an introverted personality may include overbearing or attention-seeking parents who effectively smother or outcompete the child's attempts at self-expression. The presence of extroverted/attention-seeking siblings can also have the same effect, as can the absence of siblings encourage introversion by further isolating the child from social contact, leading it to become insecure/nervous in social situations.
Key factors: Isolation, restricted expression, negative experiences with socialisation.

More later...

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Sugar, spice, and everything nice; These are the ingredients to the perfect MBTI type; But Professor Einstein accidentally added one ingredient to the concoction: Chemical X. Thus, the INTPs were born. Using their ultra superpowers, INTPs have dedicated their lives to fighting ignorance and the forces of stupidity!

 

[DarkGreen]

My mom tortured me with the fact that I might turn into a monster one day liker her. She has Schitzo-effective Disorder and Bipolar Type III. One day my parents sat at the end of my bed and spoke gravely of the day that I would hate their guts. I felt trapped in my own mind, I second-guessed EVERY thought thinking of ways to not be bipolar. That's how I became Introverted and Intuitive. I had to escape the anger that I already had to avoid becoming bipolar so I just dropped it and thought about things instead. That's how I became a Thinker. I became a Judging person when I finally got sick of hating myself. When I was little my Grandma kept me holed in a room in the middle of the Ghetto, I had: A TV, and 3 square meals of rice. Every day. Until middle school when my mom and dad could afford a house. But it was still in the ghetto. Suffice to say I had a childhood filled with insanity.
I'm better now.

 

[Trebuchet]

Dark Green, that's terrible. Clearly environment can affect someone profoundly and their personality will be changed.

If we abused or neglected our 6-year-old daughter, or spoiled her rotten, or were super-strict authoritarians, it would leave a mark, certainly.

I'm not sure what type she is, but my husband and I don't have much control over it. Since she was born, we have marveled at the fact that she was very much herself.

We try not to control her personality. She's allowed to disagree with us, or be mad at us, and she knows we love her anyway. And from my perspective, it sure doesn't look like she is developing a personality in response to her environment. It's just in there.