New typing method

[Coolydudey]

You take a personality test (short one) and you type as something. You look at adjacent personality types (one or two letters apart), and list the ones that fit you even partially. Your personality type is the one that has the minimum "distance" from all the other types.

Quick example: you type ISTP. You look up a bunch of types, and smack on your list: ISTP, ENTP, INTP, INTJ. Note how INTP is one letter different from all the others on the list, where as the others have two letters of difference with at least one other (INTJ-ISTP). Therefore, the type with the minimum (additive) distance is INTP and that is your type.

Btw, I didn't read this anywhere, it's just my thinking.

 

[Coolydudey]

By the way, this is the same as adding and comparing the totals, so in the example: 3*I, 1*E and 3*P, 1*J, and so on, so that your personality is INTP.

 

[Moocow]

So if all my possible types are INTP, ENTJ, INTJ, INFJ, and INFP which would my type be?

 

[Dapper Dan]

One problem: changing different letters has different effects.

For instance, INTP and ENTP are very similar. They have all the same functions, and the order of those functions is only moderately different.
INTP and INTJ, on the other hand, are fundamentally different types. They have not a single function in common.

And even if you do this based on functions, you have to decide whether sharing a dominant function is more important than having all the same functions in a different order.

 

[Coolydudey]

So if all my possible types are INTP, ENTJ, INTJ, INFJ, and INFP which would my type be?

INTJ

One problem: changing different letters has different effects.

For instance, INTP and ENTP are very similar. They have all the same functions, and the order of those functions is only moderately different.
INTP and INTJ, on the other hand, are fundamentally different types. They have not a single function in common.

And even if you do this based on functions, you have to decide whether sharing a dominant function is more important than having all the same functions in a different order.

True, the impact on cognitive functions is something I hadn't considered, but this is why I posted this, to see if there are any important things I missed out on (and to share it). On the other hand, if people post more examples like moocow did, we can try it out and see the accuracy. Otherwise, we could do a backup by writing down the functions from each type, counting the dominant as 4, the backup as 3, and so on, and then adding up to see totals and going back to personality type from there. (example, INTP gets 4*Ti, 3*Ne, and so on).

Finally, the most accurate would be to say: this fits me 70%, that 30%, and so on, and then taking that into account in the calculation. @Moocow could you do this?

 

[Coolydudey]

Basically, I have reviewed the theory, and taking into account the fact that I over-complicated it a bit with the first version (although it is the more intuitively precise). We'll take the averaging one into account, with percentages taken into account.

Here's me: 85% INTP, 45% INTJ, 50% ISTP, 50% ENTP, 25% INFP, 15% ESTP, 10% ENTJ, 10% ISTJ.

Converting each percentage to a decimal (e.g. 50% = 0.5), we make the following calculation: 0.85+0.45+0.5+0.25+0.1 is my score for I and 0.5+0.15+0.1 (only from ENTP and ESTP and ENTJ) is my score for E. so I am introverted. And so on. Do them all and you'll find me to be an INTP. I would do the same for cognitive functions if I was bothered... It would be interesting to see how closely it matches my results from a cognitive function test.