S descriptions of Ns?

[runvardh]

My ISFP little brother is into computers, visual art, and music. He's not great with sports, but he tends to gather friends that he builds up. Good kid even though he's constantly living in pain.

[Quinlan]

Originally Posted by sarah

Sorry for being a crank, people, but I'm starting to wish I never joined MBTIcentral -- reading all the bias against Ss (SPs in particular) makes me angry.

Please don't go anywhere, you are a great, you post all the things I want to say but can't find the words to. Your posts have been very valuable in helping me understand myself and my type. I think a lot of your posts should be put in a thread and stickied to set people straight on the whole S vs N thing. Although I do understand a lot of iNtuitives might have built up angst against S's over the years, that does not excuse them from ignorance.

[entropie]

Originally Posted by Quinlan

Although I do understand a lot of iNtuitives might have built up angst against S's over the years, that does not excuse them from ignorance.

Yea, they can give some back now.

Dont you come up with good ideas, please ?!

[Jeffster]

Sarah, it's a good thing you joined, you say some cool stuff. I guess I don't see specifically what you mean by a "bias" against Sensors on the forum. I think there is definitely some ignorance, simply because we are the minority here, but I think MOST of the members want to understand people that are different than them, and that's a big part of the reason they're here. There are a few that see this as their therapy room for all the abuse they have suffered from the tyrannical S's who have traumatized them their whole life, but I think those people are actually a pretty small minority. Some people make jokes, but I think they are mostly in good fun, so I guess I'd have to see some specific examples (like the good Sensor I am ) before I would agree with what you say about bias.

The other thing I'd say is that, the people at my work that I have tested, it has been the opposite of your experience, almost all of them have come out S's. And almost all of them J's. It's the second part I have trouble believing, so I don't know if the problem is that at work they are thinking too much about having to be organized in their job so they are seeing themselves more that way or if the test questions (mostly I have used the Keirsey sorter) make P sound too irresponsible and childish. I suspect it may be some of both. Several of the people who have taken it, I believe the J result without any trouble, but others I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.

[millerm277]

Originally Posted by sarah

Sorry for being a crank, people, but I'm starting to wish I never joined MBTIcentral -- reading all the bias against Ss (SPs in particular) makes me angry.

I'll be honest. I don't really see it. Mis-interpreting what some of our traits are, maybe, but I don't see a bias against any particular type.

[wolfy]

Originally Posted by Quinlan

Please don't go anywhere, you are a great, you post all the things I want to say but can't find the words to. Your posts have been very valuable in helping me understand myself and my type. I think a lot of your posts should be put in a thread and stickied to set people straight on the whole S vs N thing. Although I do understand a lot of iNtuitives might have built up angst against S's over the years, that does not excuse them from ignorance.

I agree. Don't leave us! I love your posts.

[Sunshine]

Originally Posted by sarah

Thank you, entropie, this is really important. I'm so sick of hearing people talk about "Ns" adn "Ss" as though a preference for one means you can't do both!

I realize this thread was started a long time ago, but I just feel the need to say that yes, everyone I know who is interested in type identifies first with the iNtuitive descriptions. EVERYONE. Pretty remarkable, huh? And only later do some of them come to realize that they might prefer sensing, thanks to reading more accurate descriptions of the 16 types. I myself can't score as having a preference for sensing on many type tests, given the way they are worded, and yet I know now that I fit the ISFP pattern. Something's clearly wrong with the way these tests are worded, seeing as how so many people are being misled by them.

Secondly, I majored in fine art in college. Meaning, I didn't just make "pretty pictures", my art was definitely communicating my worldview. I can't stress this enough -- all fine art conveys a worldview, and people like me who prefer Sensing can and do produce fine art! Why on earth would anyone here believe that _S_s don't have feelings or opinions about the world that we want to communicate visually? It's insulting! And what on earth made so many people here believe that SPs can't communicate visually? This is the sort of thing that makes me so mad that I want to dispense with the whole idea of psychological type altogether -- I'm so tired of the misinformation about what it means to prefer Sensing, and I'm so sick of seeing person after person talk about Sensing in a degraded, insulting way.

Wouldn't you agree that the act of creating tangible, visual works of art with your hands is a sensory pastime? NO, it's not just that we "play sports" with art materials, as someone here suggested. (that's insulting too!) SPs like me can and do feel passionately about the things and ideas we care about, and we want to say something through their art. You DON'T have to have a preference for abstract language in order to communicate your feelings and opinions visually!!!!

I'm sorry if I sound offensive here, but threads like this that generate commetns that totally diss _S_s really make my blood boil.

For the record, my art could be summed up as being about displaying my feelings in a way that communicates visually that all of humanity faces similar feelings, whether they choose to display them or hide them. Also, I love to highlight beauty in what I find in my daily life so ast to make viewers sit up and take notice of what htey might ordinarily. Although my art looks different than Georgia O'Keeffe's giant flowers and skeletons (which make you sit up and take notice), THAT's the sort of message comes through very clear is in my collages and drawings. (Claude Monet did something similar -- if you've ever been to the Musee D'Orsay and seen his series of paintings of Rouen cathedral at a dozen different times of day, know that he wanted to call your attention to something you'd ordinarily not even notice but that he wanted to communicate to you was well worth valuing and appreciating.)

So what differences DO I see between myself and people who actually prefer iNtuition (not counting all the obviously mistyped people out tehre -- and there seem to me to be legions of them!):

1. I tend to take what people say literally instead of figuratively, unless it's clear to me that they are making a metaphor (yes, I DO understand metaphors -- I'm not stupid!)
2. I don't tend to take specifics and diffuse them to an abstract level unless there's a practial reason for doing so.
3. I am usually focused on practical ways I can make a visible difference to other people's lives, as opposed to thinkign about ways I could change things way down the road. If people talk about ideas for the future around me, I get impatient if I can't start on something related to making these ideas real right away.
4. I feel driven to accomplish tangible goals rather than trying to be diplomatic or theoretical, unless there's an urgent need for tact and diplomacy -- and then I try my best but feel impatient with that. This does not mean I'm incapable of thinking theoretically -- it simply means I have a preference for tangible-related activities over those taht aren't. Please understand this is just a preference, not a limitation.
5. When my brain is on auto-pilot, I'm constantly thinking of ways I can visually improve my surroundings, make others feel good, or impact others positively on a psychological level (leave them better off for having encountered me), or make things happen that relate to my values. I'm dominant introverted Feeling, people -- I have a strong set of internal values just like the NFs do!!! I don't know how this differs specifically from what iNtuitives do, but I notice that those who ACTUALLY prefer iNtuition as opposed to those who only think they do tend to be much more abstract-minded than I am. They don't really focus on the here-and-now, and often miss opportunities to make an impact on others right this moment. (I bet someone who thinks they prefer iNtuition but who probably actually is an SP is going to disagre with me on that and not realize that they've mistyped themselves.)

Sorry for being a crank, people, but I'm starting to wish I never joined MBTIcentral -- reading all the bias against Ss (SPs in particular) makes me angry.

Sarah
ISFP

+100000000000000000000000

[Sunshine]

Originally Posted by millerm277

I'll be honest. I don't really see it. Mis-interpreting what some of our traits are, maybe, but I don't see a bias against any particular type.

You might want to get your eyes checked.

Originally Posted by Quinlan

Please don't go anywhere, you are a great, you post all the things I want to say but can't find the words to. Your posts have been very valuable in helping me understand myself and my type. I think a lot of your posts should be put in a thread and stickied to set people straight on the whole S vs N thing. Although I do understand a lot of iNtuitives might have built up angst against S's over the years, that does not excuse them from ignorance.

Yeah, same here!! Sarah, you are awesome.

Originally Posted by Jennifer

My ESFP son is extremely creative... but what I see with SP types who are creative is that they tend to enjoy putting together sensory/tactile stimulations in new and different ways, without necessarily a deep vision in mind. With my son, it's like you just upended a bunch of objects / puzzle pieces together, and he takes them all and makes something out of it just because he likes how it feels or looks, then he can mix them all back together and do it again, without real rhyme or reason.

It's like he's experiment with creating different combinations of things for the pure sensation and experience of doing so.

An ISFP friend of mine used to drive me batty when we would eat together. When he was full, he'd take the leftover food and condiments from his plate and whomever elses (usually without asking) and make designs on his plate and mix them up and whatnot, sometimes making a disgusting mess. He just got a kick out of it. He was being creative and seeing what he could come up with and what happened.

Sometimes SP artists (was Mozart ISFP?) *can* have some real coherency and structure, such as with Mozard's music. It's usually to evoke some sort of tangible feeling state -- an aesthetic quality of some sort.

An N, in contrast, usually has some conceptual purpose or meaning in what they are doing and they are using sensory things in order to evoke that deeper meaning. It's less about the sensory impressions and experience and random combinations of things, and more about organizing the things to suggest something else entirely. There's like a method to the madness, and the tools and items are being used to peer into something else... the art is the "signifier" and the signpost, and NOT the actual end result itself.

That has just been my experience and seems to make sense, if we are going to generalize at all.

You are wrong.

[MacGuffin]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

You are wrong.

I was going to ask how Jennifer was wrong, but I agree with Sunshine.

[heart]

My ISFP friend has some great N, she just doesn't prefer to spend the majority of her time there.

Most of the time when N people are are venting about the S types in their lives that they came to grief with they are talking about people who had very little appreciation, patience or respect for N, not all S types. Everybody is in different learning stages on this board.