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MBTI type changing over time

sincerelysasquatch

New member
Joined
Aug 14, 2014
Messages
7
Hello, I mentioned this in its own thread but I thought it deserved its own topic. Has anyone had their MBTI type change over time? As a teenager I was consistently an INTP and am now testing out as an ISFJ... quite a change. Has anyone else had this happen? Does anyone know if this is common?

To be honest, I am not very confident in my ISFJ typing. I only took a test the other day, it seemed thorough, and I don't score very strongly on any of the components so I could probably take a different test and get opposite results. I'm not sure, but I see it as a good thing, I suppose I have a balanced personality? I'm just guessing that's the case, a very good psychologist once told me that it would be healthy for introverts to develop some extrovert qualities and vice-versa, that mid-range is ideal. Not sure if this rule applies to other parts of the MBTI.
 

olias

New member
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
19
MBTI Type
INTJ
Yes, happened to me. I think back to how I was as a kid, and it strikes me as ISTJ. I recently dug out my first MBTI from college, and that has me as an ENTP (?!?) Clearly, that first test was off the mark. I've been consistently INTJ since then.

The type reported from a test would be expected to have some variance from test to test. What the test is capturing is not who you truly are, but who you described through the answers you gave. I can see, for instance, how being young and not having had enough experience out in the world, making your own decisions, discovering how you like to do things, would impact the score a test returned.
 

INTP

Active member
Joined
Jul 31, 2009
Messages
7,803
MBTI Type
intp
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx
Dont rely on tests giving you a type, even the good tests only suggest you a type that then should be weighted carefully. ISFJ shares the same functions than INTP, but in different order, so ISFJ isnt actually that far from INTP.
 

sincerelysasquatch

New member
Joined
Aug 14, 2014
Messages
7
I didn't feel ISFJ described me as well as my fiancee's INTP describes him, so I took a test on a different site to see if I'd get a more accurate result and scored INFJ. The description fits me very well and I think I found my type. I found a very in-depth article about relationships between INTP and INFJ (specifically intp men and infj women) and it was uncanny how much it described our relationship, and the good news is it says we are very compatible (I know we are) and even described us as a "golden pair". Very pleased to have gotten that cleared up, haha.
 

Showbread

climb on
Joined
Oct 3, 2013
Messages
2,298
MBTI Type
ESFJ
Enneagram
3w2
Instinctual Variant
so/sp
When my mom first got into MBTI when I was a kid she typed me as ESTP, which I find quite funny now. About 5 years ago I typed ESTJ, like my dad. But now I essentially exude Fe.
 

Hitoshi-San

New member
Joined
Jun 26, 2014
Messages
1,078
MBTI Type
esfp
Enneagram
???
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
I never tested before recently, so I have always, to the extent of my knowledge, been ESTP. When I was younger I was on the introverted side, but that's possibly because of anxiety problems I've since overcome.
 

highlander

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
26,562
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Hello, I mentioned this in its own thread but I thought it deserved its own topic. Has anyone had their MBTI type change over time? As a teenager I was consistently an INTP and am now testing out as an ISFJ... quite a change. Has anyone else had this happen? Does anyone know if this is common?

To be honest, I am not very confident in my ISFJ typing. I only took a test the other day, it seemed thorough, and I don't score very strongly on any of the components so I could probably take a different test and get opposite results. I'm not sure, but I see it as a good thing, I suppose I have a balanced personality? I'm just guessing that's the case, a very good psychologist once told me that it would be healthy for introverts to develop some extrovert qualities and vice-versa, that mid-range is ideal. Not sure if this rule applies to other parts of the MBTI.

Yes, happened to me. I think back to how I was as a kid, and it strikes me as ISTJ. I recently dug out my first MBTI from college, and that has me as an ENTP (?!?) Clearly, that first test was off the mark. I've been consistently INTJ since then.

The type reported from a test would be expected to have some variance from test to test. What the test is capturing is not who you truly are, but who you described through the answers you gave. I can see, for instance, how being young and not having had enough experience out in the world, making your own decisions, discovering how you like to do things, would impact the score a test returned.

Your type does not change. Ever. It simply means that some or all of your test results are incorrect.
 

Riva

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 26, 2014
Messages
2,371
Enneagram
7w8
[MENTION=15392]AffirmitiveAnxiety[/MENTION]
 

Cellmold

Wake, See, Sing, Dance
Joined
Mar 23, 2012
Messages
6,266
[MENTION=15392]AffirmitiveAnxiety[/MENTION]

I change my type a lot, that doesn't necessarily mean my type changes. More so that I am just unaware and unsure.

[MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION]

Who are you trying to reassure? And how do you know?

As much as it comforts to hold onto the notion of stable type using perhaps extreme examples as justification, it is no less reasonable to suggest that it changes with time as we reinvent ourselves.

Personality is more like a soft stone, as water presses against it, it gives way in various nodules and dips. These become familiar over time, but that doesn't prevent the water from changing those once familiar dips into something completely different.
 

greenfairy

philosopher wood nymph
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
4,024
MBTI Type
iNfj
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
ISFJ shares the same functions than INTP, but in different order, so ISFJ isnt actually that far from INTP.

Was going to say this.

I don't think type changes as much as outward expression and function development. As you develop your functions and overall psychology your functions may appear to be in different orders at different times.

As for me, I grew up in an environment where I perceived emotion as bad and logic as good, so I developed myself accordingly and tested as INTJ. Later I developed my Feeling more and so my NF temperament was more evident, so I tested as INFP. Plus for various reasons I had a lot of inner conflict surrounding J qualities, and so hadn't had time to balance myself in regard to J OR P, so I would flip flop for quite some time, and to outsiders looked like a P for most of my life. In refining myself emotionally I developed my Ti a lot in my later years of college and so was convinced I was INTP. THEN I realized I'm INFJ and everything made sense. I also in college became very J-like because I was finally able to sort out how I wanted to do things vs. how I thought I should do things (should-->J). Now that I know my type I can see how I would appear to be all those types on the surface, but function-wise it should be evident that INFJ functions were at work my entire life if one looks critically. So one could say I changed type a lot, but really I think I was just a messed up INFJ the whole time.
 

highlander

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
26,562
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I change my type a lot, that doesn't necessarily mean my type changes. More so that I am just unaware and unsure.

[MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION]

Who are you trying to reassure? And how do you know?

As much as it comforts to hold onto the notion of stable type using perhaps extreme examples as justification, it is no less reasonable to suggest that it changes with time as we reinvent ourselves.

Personality is more like a soft stone, as water presses against it, it gives way in various nodules and dips. These become familiar over time, but that doesn't prevent the water from changing those once familiar dips into something completely different.

A question was asked and I'm answering it. I've read a tremendous amount of material on the subject and the message is always consistent - that your type doesn't change. That isn't to say we don't evolve as people. As we mature and hopefully evolve our consciousness, we are also better able to access our less preferred cognitive functions. Here are a couple of links.

Can you change your personality type? - CAPT.org

Can Personality Type Change over Time?
 

greenfairy

philosopher wood nymph
Joined
May 25, 2012
Messages
4,024
MBTI Type
iNfj
Enneagram
6w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Perhaps a corollary to this thread could be, typing yourself when your state of development makes you look like another type. Like, the difference between a J with self discipline issues and an actual P, an F with repressed emotions and a T, an INTJ with a Te-Se fixation and an ISTJ, etc.

If I start doing youtube videos I plan to do a series of these.
 

Cellmold

Wake, See, Sing, Dance
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Mar 23, 2012
Messages
6,266
A question was asked and I'm answering it. I've read a tremendous amount of material on the subject and the message is always consistent - that your type doesn't change. That isn't to say we don't evolve as people. As we mature and hopefully evolve our consciousness, we are also better able to access our less preferred cognitive functions. Here are a couple of links.

Can you change your personality type? - CAPT.org

Can Personality Type Change over Time?

Hmm well these are interesting reads.

And they are presenting arguments I USED to make when first getting into the theory. But this idea of a separate self from cognitive functions, Ie: here are the functions and their framework and now here is the person with all their experiences and individuality, (haw haw), seems oddly contradictory but then again I suppose it can be justified in that general framework way, it's not a real problem I suppose I just find it irritatingly convenient. However while I acknowledge that Jung was against extreme biological thinking such as the brain houses everything and is all there is, he only ever used the rather flimsy evidence that because people can have two kids who turn out very differently despite similar experiences, this means there must be something else.

I guess it is about belief in that rigidity because it is the easiest way to move forward since you have a platform to step from mentally. But there actually is no reason not to think about and interpret the theory in innumerable different ways, the fact that an authority tells me "No! It is thus!" is no evidence that it really is thus.

And it's only as logical as the theory allows it to be. Which is not to say it is wrong or right, just I wonder why it is we interpret it THIS way in particular?
 

Ghoul

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Jul 26, 2014
Messages
66
MBTI Type
ISTJ
Enneagram
huh
I absolutely believe people CAN change. Probably not very often. I grew into ISTJ from INTP.
 

Paladin-X

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Joined
Mar 23, 2014
Messages
34
The MBTI's stance is that Type is innate. You may learn to use your non-preferred functions, but you always have your natural preferences. They liken it to handedness. You may prefer to write with one hand, but you can learn to use the other, it just won't feel as natural and comfortable as your preferred one.

Jung on the other hand believed that type can change:

Type is nothing static. It changes with the course of life.

^ is a response to the question posed at 8:40



You see these things most clearly in cases of men of forty and a little bit more who have led a particular type of life, an intellectual life or a life of values, and suddenly that thing goes under and up comes just the contrary. There are very interesting cases like that. We have the famous literary illustrations, Nietzsche for instance. He is a most impressive example of a change of psychology into its opposite at middle age. In younger years he was the aphorist in the French style; in the later years, at 38, in That Spake Zarathustra, he burst out in a Dionysian mood which was absolutely the contrary of everything he had written before.

- From the Tavistock Lectures
 

Bush

cute lil war dog
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Nov 18, 2008
Messages
5,182
Enneagram
3w4
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sp/so
According to most theorists, one's underlying type is constant. 'Personality changes' are usually chalked up to one developing inferior functions or finding their true type (previously clouded by bad experiences, bad childhood, etc.) or whatever. If you have to perform Olympic-level mental gymnastics to make all of that fit the theory, it's probably not worth the effort if your goal is to understand yourself.

I'd just take it for what it is: results of psychometric tests can change over time, and result snapshots are probably reflective of how you perceive yourself (since they're self-report) as you get thrust into new circumstances or otherwise grow. One set of descriptions might seem to fit at some time, then another at some other time. Nothing wrong with that.
 

Jaguar

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May 5, 2007
Messages
20,647
Type isn't an end in itself, it's a pitstop on a journey to an end - transcending the type problem. That's right - problem. According to Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz who worked with Jung until his death, and became a co-founder of the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Type is a problem, not a solution. von Franz goes into great depth discussing how one can overcome the type problem in her book, Psychotherapy.
 

olias

New member
Joined
Jul 25, 2014
Messages
19
MBTI Type
INTJ
I think a semantic clarification might be helpful here too.

When I say "my type changed", what I mean is that the results coming back on various type measuring instruments changed. This can be caused by any number of things (in my case, I think it was a result of a lack of self-awareness and general life experience).

I'm inclined, though, to agree with highlander in the sense that ones *core* set of preferences does not, in fact, change. At least once it's established in early life.

I also think it's helpful to distinguish between temperament and personality; temperament generally referring to patterns of thinking and general, long standing preferences or perspectives, personality referring to behavior, which is of course associated with temperament, but also highly context dependent.
 

Yama

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Dec 1, 2014
Messages
7,684
MBTI Type
ESFJ
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
I agree with highlander. While of course people change to some extent with time, a change in cognitive functions would be really drastic and very unlikely. Maybe INTP to ISFJ kind of a change isn't as big a deal because they do use the same functions in different orders, but overall one's core personality is pretty much constant. Of course a lot of people get a lot of different results with online tests, most of them either aren't that accurate, or their answers weren't very consistent from test to test, or the test was just a really bad one that types solely on the letters without looking at the functions at all, or the test wasn't thorough enough. This is why I think it's better to just to extensive research and type yourself rather than take tests; I think we all know ourselves better than any quiz ever can.
 

Pionart

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Sep 17, 2014
Messages
4,039
MBTI Type
NiFe
Assuming type is real to begin with, it doesn't change.

That's a big assumption though, isn't it?
 
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