Reluctantly
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Seriously, what's the point?
Some people aren't self aware. It can help you learn about yourself and other people. It helped me to start to understand other people and see where they are coming from.
develop inferor functen a hundred times and becomes a superhumen
Did it though, or did it justify how everyone is different? I mean, it's kind of lame in that regard. Yeah, people come from different points of view and philosophies and what not, but how is it helpful to justify it with a personality code? If anything that takes away from actually understanding people by generalizing and justifying concrete differences with abstract personalities.
seriously,
With the book Please Understand Me, I was able to see the perspectives and appreciate other people and the motivations and logic that compel them.
I noticed archetypes of people early on. MBTI served to give me word to help express what I had intuitively seen. Now, if you lack creativity it would be easy to see MBTI as black and white and taking away from people's individuality. It's just a tool, and one that doesn't help everyone. It's clearly not useful for you.
To find what kind of work each type is best suited for and who they should be mated with, in the coming revolution. ☭
Typology is a pseudo-scientific vague and always positive in its outlook supplementary illusion of self-validation or self-understanding following the Forer effect and a few other cognitive biases that was created in order to bring notoriety and profit to the Myers family and related individuals who offer "officially" approved psychological testing for companies, agencies and unrelated people for real money.
It is a niche market producing a few millions of revenue every year, even despite how dated and debunked the whole scheme is there are still people and companies paying and/or listening to its theorists. Effectively, it's no different from astrology or visiting an eloquent fortune-teller. The end result is the same, you'll feel better about yourself, or more at peace, and your wallet might be thinned out proportionally.
The only unique differing element I can point out to that has something positive going for it; is that being classified in mbti way; allows you to stumble (cluelessly as befitting of a misguided victim) upon similarly clueless individuals with whom you can then bounce a number of personal ideas back and forth before hitting a wall of tedious regurgitation of his holiness Jung and the cultism around it.
Gives you the benefit of way more experience with people than you'd otherwise have, which allows you a much broader understanding of people.
- Community, validation, legitimacy - been explained at length multiple times by multiple people. Plus, stumbling across the INTP profile for the first time was a revelation of my entire life up to that point - explained core themes in my life that I hadn't been able to account for and was made to feel 'wrong' about, even though I felt driven to pursue them and felt more wrong ignoring them. That's pretty fkn impressive imo. And yeah, I read the other profiles too - didn't relate to most, and related by far the most to the INTP. How is this Forer effect? The test actually typed me as something else - don't remember what - I found the INTP one after looking around.
- I have more leeway to give for Fs now, and more forgiveness for myself (well, a little) for being relatively cold and detached. Previously I thought it was just a matter of one group being right and the other wrong (I alternated who was wrong). This is an extremely common human misconception.
- I can find people to talk about abstract, weird shit easier than before, by looking out for correlated markers that previously wouldn't have been a flag for anything other than general personality. Not all Ns are outwardly weird, cerebral, conceptual or anything - many interesting people present plainly and normally. But if you know what to look for there are tells. I've met some people I previously would've thought uninterested in typically N stuff, but because I see other traits, even mannerisms, associated with particular types, I get to know them and it's rewarding (specifically in the ways expected). It's just faster.
- I can read people faster, down to the particular things they'd be interested in and common ground we'd have, using sub-type categories experience has developed in my head. I would be a lot slower without the general framework to start me off. I'm sure some people can read people like this right off the bat, though it hasn't been my experience (people misread me and my interests all the time). I personally find a framework useful.
- I have words for describing, framing and better understanding what draws me to or repels me from particular people. For instance, there are some types which consistently draw me. Previously I might've been able to clumsily attempt explaining it by saying they're "charming" or "friendly", but now I know much more precisely exactly what it is I'm drawn to, because essentially typology has clustered their personality traits which allows me to see the patterns behind them. I also know what about the traits which draw me will also repel me, and what kind of lack is implied by what is present. Again, experience verifies this.
- Related to above: I can avoid the trap of idealising someone because I've never or rarely met someone like them. Typology allows me to see the finer picture (pinpoint the specific things that are causing an attraction) and the bigger picture (understand that there are many other people with these same qualities, that they are good in some ways and lack in others).
I like seeing the patterns around me, and typology helps me do it much faster. It's basically saying, "All these people exist. You'll meet some of them a lot more than others. Keep your hat on when you meet the rarer ones. There's a math behind everyone - none of it's magic."
I think there's some validity to the system because I can type people fairly accurately, even the first time meeting them. (Not 100% success, and should probably assume confirmation bias.) How do I check? I ask them questions (related to functions) about how they think, their general worldview/philosophy, their focuses and interests. I also ask them (attempting not to give indication) questions which relate to the opposite functions/types, which they shouldn't relate to at all or should even be repulsed by (function polarity). When they answer with increasing shock, "Yes - Yes! - YES! oh my god I'm freaked out!" to the questions specific to their type, and a disappointed, "No - not really - no, not at all" to questions which relate to other types, that seems like pretty good confirmation to me that it's not just the Forer effect. I've had multiple strangers tell me that no one has ever understood them that well (freaked me out too tbh).
I'm writing with the certainty I have *now* because of how often this has been verified. The other day I asked someone whose whole vibe felt NT if they have a compulsion to weed out cognitive biases - a weird question that Ti types would relate to but would be completely out of left field for most other types. This person's face lit up, mouth dropped and yelled, "YES!" It looks like insight to an outsider but it really isn't - I only know to ask these questions because typology tells you about trait clustering (which traits correlate, which traits indicate the absence of others, which traits each type feels is essential to their identity, etc). Otherwise, I would've described them as rational, no-nonsense, ambitious - but there's nothing in there that specifically indicates a need to eliminate bias, and I wouldn't have known to think of it that way, even though I know *I* think that way.
It sounds wanky, yeah, but ime it works. I can't just dismiss experience because a bunch of forumers are cynical about it and/or unobservant. Typology isn't a complete explanation of humanity by any means, and MBTI (and jungian shit) has gaping holes in it that I've seen time and time again, but what it does explain is useful and fascinating.
Of course it doesn't mean I understand anyone's deeper motivations.... The enneagram is better for that.
And I'll just head off any assumptions about typology creating presumption or false understanding right now:
No, I don't walk into social encounters assuming I'll be able to understand everyone. (In fact, I can say with no hesitation that I don't understand many people.) I might have an idea of what I think drives them but I have crippling uncertainty about nearly everything I think. The certainty you see here isn't even total certainty, and is only where it's up to because of repeated experience. (I still completely doubt the validity of anything in typology at times.) Also, when I end up in conversation with someone my aim isn't to type them but to get to know them because I'm genuinely curious about what makes people tick. I might occasionally ask questions related to type-things I'm privately thinking about, but not with the presumption that I'm right - I don't "tell people who they are" unless they ask me or the mood seems right. I don't openly type people who hate the idea of being typed, only those who request it as a party trick, or out of surprise that I seem to 'get' them. Most people in my experience love it when someone's curious enough to look into their minds - it makes them feel special and 'seen'. And it causes them to think about some of the deeper questions posed (like what they value, or how they operate under a crisis and *why*).
I talk to people because I enjoy it; I ask about them because I'm curious. Over time, patterns build up and I can't help that. And despite my love of categories, people tell me I advocate *too much* for taking every person on an individual basis and not making any assumptions. If I make false assumptions it's because I have congenital idiocy, not because of typology.
Its true benefit is that it doesn't assume a 'correct' state of being, just difference in individual preference. Its predictive power beyond that is circular in nature.
But it makes people feel good and appeals to the ego - "I understand stuff now!" so people who're typically not good at underatanding others like it because it seems to make the understanding process easier. The concepts of MBTI aren't important, it's how its packaged - as a convenient way to accept and describe differences in personality between various people, not as an important predictive tool.
redbaron is correct, topology is a good way of understanding differences in people.
his ego must be the most best validated ego of us all![]()
To understand yourself and others.
What people use it for, is another matter entirely.
Differentiation, sure. I think that's the main point too.
But Kitty, not sure that summing people up as a collection of traits is a good way of understanding how people differ. Traits don't explain what under-rides them. Plenty of people of a given type have disagreements about what their traits mean to them.
Effectively it's a paradox that makes you wrong here. Not just on this matter, but on every controversy out there.What's the point of this *thread*? We've had so many of these already; there's nothing new about the idea that typology is complete bunkum. Are you expecting to make people suddenly realise that MBTI is a load of crap, after the last thousand attempts have failed to do so? There are 3 camps: typologyisuseful, idunnoabotutypology, and typologysucks. Everyone knows which camp they're in and everyone knows about the existence of the others (except noobs, but they'll learn - you're an old member).
It's worth noting (and I have said this before) that there are effectively two (three actually, but for simplicity, two) versions of the MBTI. There's the 'internet' version which is the relentless predication of conjecture by mogos, and there is the actual MBTI which is an increasingly solid theory of how people view and react to the various stimuli in the world (internal and external), and how the differing types can better understand one another, etc.
Assuming we had 100% validity in typology:
We'd know more about our evolution as humans. How were the various cognitive traits helpful in surviving non-human threats and what biological/physical features were passed down as a result of sexual selection?
We'd be closer to excavating the full depth of the human psyche. What is the true potential of the human brain? How far back into our evolutionary lineage do our "psychological artifacts" predate homo sapiens?
We'd have an exhaustive, if not perfect, system of interpersonal (in)compatibility. Are there people who are truly futile for us? Can love really conquer all? Do some people just naturally get along? Are some relationships truly inspirational?
We could optimize employment and office positions. Are some people just naturally better than others in certain areas? At what point is education no longer a significant factor of competence and ability?
Of course knowledge is power so this understanding could be used for detrimental purposes.
Personally typology is a mental exercise for me, though I don't think about it every day like I used to years ago. I also recognize my social need of being surrounded by those who are familiar with it, so I enjoy discussing it, and sometimes arguing it, with others.
At the moment I am at the library. Right now I have no internet, I need to pay my internet bill, but something I have noticed since I have been away from my computer is that I no longer have a constant urge to do anything. It might be because of my medications but I would always get anxiety because I felt like I needed to solve problems in my head. I think this could be an example of a trait difference.
Ti deals with its own ideas and the need to refine and perfect them. Te is satisfied that it has accomplished things in the real world because Te looks for ways goals are achieved and thus has more susses than Ti, Ti cares more that flaw in its ideas are seen and in constant revision. I get anxiety because I loose the ability to hold thoughts in my mind. But not only holding them but when I finish an idea I need a new Idea or I get tense and muffled. On wikipedia it says that anxiety comes from low skill level of a persons abilities and high skill level to accomplish a task. When my mind is black and I have no ideas to work with I feel stuck and anxious. Te I believe work in the environment, the obstacles Te faces is very objective. Te understands what needs to be done before they are finished. Ti needs to finish and then implement. I suck at implementation but I enjoy perfecting my thoughts. But once all thoughts are complete I get anxiety. That is why I constantly look for new ideas on the internet for something to think about. This could also be Ne related.
With the difference between Perception and Judgement. P is effortless and J requires effort. Se for example does not need to contemplate what to do next, it simply observes. This is what I am doing now. Instead of trying to "think" I am "observing" more. I have some music on my computer that I repeatedly listen to. It is difficult not to mentally comment on the personal meaning or objective meaning but half the time I "just" hear the music. So that is what I am doing without the internet. I focus completely on the music or I focus completely on seeing with my eyes. But it is still a little difficult not to make judgement. I really want to think about stuff all the time but since I can't I need a distraction like music or I get anxiety.
I think that differences have a cause but I can only go by my experience of what I have. Right now that is observing reality. Forcing myself to "think" really isn't good for me. Feelings I'd expect as a way of making Judgments would be awareness of the body. Feeling is one of the five senses. I mostly focus on my head region. Feelers would focus of the body and the body of others. I just focus on what people say and if it is logical. More and more I think "focus of attention"(orientation) could be a way of truly understanding what "Functions" are.
My time on the library computer is running out so I will come back tomorrow and see what you think.
Surprisingly enough, typology helps me deal with people better. A group of N types at a coffee hangout act differently than the ISTJ's at the office. Around strong Judging types I try to play it close to the vest, cause it's so easy to annoy them, but around certain individuals or cliques I can be myself. I tend to think typology (especially MBTI) is more accurate than it's critics believe.
So with that said: "but it is a fallacy to assume people naturally fall into one of them", well not exactly, we're talking about generalities. In a given situation a person would absorb information differently than from another person. The 'cog functions' so to speak. "If someone does fit one that they will never change": I don't think Jung says that (or does he?) either way I'm not really familiar with a dogma that says types are static and immovable. Like I've already said elsewhere, types are descriptive. If someone's cog stack malleates due to events/plasticity, then there's a descriptive of that state/type to go with it.
Mostly, trying to make themselves feel good about their sense of lack of accomplishment.Very general. Could you elaborate?
Woah there, Nelly. That's a bombshell and then some.First of all, Jung himself disagreed with Katharine Briggs’ use of his psychological types to pin people down like butterflies on a piece of cardboard. He wrote to her that what she was doing was dangerous in that it implied people did not have a will to change.
Blar:
I meant because there is at least one other active thread on the topic already ("What makes MBTI not complete bullshit").
I've met people who behave similarly to others, so I wouldn't doubt we could form types. But I'm suspecting there's more than 16 of them.
nanook said:nailing individuals down to one static type is very hard to do and i can't even type myself.
The main selling point of carl jungs dichotomies is that our reality is made up out of them, so we can look at reality/life/the human condition in a more differentiated manner. in particular, we can have a more differentiated understanding of what someone is saying about reality and use more differentiated language ourselves. i am not into math, but you do the math, how much more intelligent would humanity become, if it were to consistently add that many differentiations to their language or meta awareness of the human subjectivity that contains and creates all supposedly objective ideas about reality. its a real explosion of intelligence, but as always with perspective management, it is not something we can choose to do at will. rather our brain grows into higher levels of complexity all by itself, if it has what it takes, and then this higher level is capable of inventing language or concepts to represent the mind at this level. so jung was an example for that. and when you dumb down typology (mbti) so that everyone thinks they get it, but don't, that doesn't do a lot of good.
nailing individuals down to one static type is very hard to do and i can't even type myself. apart from the difficulty of objectifying oneself, there is the problem that our mind is dynamic and what we experience and speak of is different from how we end up manifesting our life through concrete action.
you guys think i am infp because i told you, but looking at physiognomy i always have major doubts that i am. there are both supposed intp and infp individuals who are so obviously utterly different from me, as biological structures, i know we must have different minds. this doesn't mean that i am not reaping a ton of benefits from typology, for the reasons explained above.