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[MBTI General] Do all INTx relate to sociopath characters in popular media?

Coriolis

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Social skills are like any other tool - they can be used for good, or for ill (manipulation).
 

Fluffywolf

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By definition of social, they are no longer social if used for ill.
 

Coriolis

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No, social means simply related to society and its organization. As with "great" the noun it modifies determines whether the overall thought is good (social justice) or bad (social disease). Since "skills" is neutral, the whole phrase is neutral.
 

Haphazard

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Does anybody else get the feeling that characters portrayed in media as sociopaths... aren't?
 

Sinmara

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I have known a few sociopaths. Dexter is a fair approximation from what I have seen, homicidal urges aside. Sociopaths don't socialize so much as they perform and play to a person's expectations. Again, speaking generally.

But, no, most of what you see on TV are more like psychopaths.
 

Mipp

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What foolishness.

Psychopaths (those with Antisocial Personality Disorder) are poisonous, destructive people with superficial charm, superficial desires... one might say superficial everything. They are hollow and use their intelligence for nothing better than exploiting and destroying well-meaning people. They do not possess higher emotions such as empathy, love, or remorse. I am insulted, as an INTP, to be compared to such creatures. I am a person of highly developed thought and feeling. I also find it insulting that some people seek to associate being an INTP with a personality disorder! As though we are fundamentally flawed! As though our personality type might be written off as an abberrant disorder!

My intelligence and dedication are worth more than just to be used as tools to defraud luckless souls. I am also capable of comprehending how my actions might impact others both known and unknown to me. I possess human emotions and self-control.

I find this very question insulting, and my knee-jerk reaction is to wonder if it was asked by someone who'd watched too many Hollywood movies and thought serial killers were "kewl". Real psychopaths, not the ones played by Anthony Hopkins on celluloid, tend to be pathetic, freakish creatures.
 

ilike2poison

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What foolishness.

Psychopaths (those with Antisocial Personality Disorder) are poisonous, destructive people with superficial charm, superficial desires... one might say superficial everything. They are hollow and use their intelligence for nothing better than exploiting and destroying well-meaning people. They do not possess higher emotions such as empathy, love, or remorse. I am insulted, as an INTP, to be compared to such creatures. I am a person of highly developed thought and feeling. I also find it insulting that some people seek to associate being an INTP with a personality disorder! As though we are fundamentally flawed! As though our personality type might be written off as an abberrant disorder!

My intelligence and dedication are worth more than just to be used as tools to defraud luckless souls. I am also capable of comprehending how my actions might impact others both known and unknown to me. I possess human emotions and self-control.

I find this very question insulting, and my knee-jerk reaction is to wonder if it was asked by someone who'd watched too many Hollywood movies and thought serial killers were "kewl". Real psychopaths, not the ones played by Anthony Hopkins on celluloid, tend to be pathetic, freakish creatures.

I wouldn't go as far as being totally insulted by the question. Asking myself that very question was what brought me to this page during self-analysis. Though the sociopathic mind is unlike the regular human mind, in as far as it characteristics are concerned, they're all carried quite the same qualities; just to a lesser degree. Imagine having 8 ingredients, with which you'll make a dish. The amount of each ingredient you use will change the final dish, and the mind is no different. What happens when you remove the feeling function altogether? Empathy, love, and remorse logically have to cease to exist. Our feeling function is one of the lowest amongst all the types, so the question isn't unreasonable. There are a large number of sociopaths that run corporations, governments and miiitaries. These are the people who decide to send thousands to war, cut jobs, and create the policies that shape our world. It may not seem pretty, but who better equipped to make the types of decisions that require a view separate from emotional thinking than those without the ability to feel? Not all sociopaths are knife-wielding maniacs, they're just devoid of feelings. I don't think myself as a sociopath, but I wonder if the feeling function can lessen over time, or if it can be changed at all.
 

KDude

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You can't be much of a sociopath if you don't do anything about it. If that wasn't the case, then austistics would be sociopaths too. But no, they just have bad table manners.

I think the most realized sociopath I've known was probably an ESTP. He's serving a life sentence for murder. And that's only the one he was caught at. God knows what else he did. I remember the first time I met him, he wanted me to drive to some dude's house.. he didn't think he'd be home, but he wanted to shoot his dog. Just to say he was there (needless to say, but no, I didn't help him).

So yeah.. don't be so hard on yourselves. lol. If you're not actually doing anything like Dexter, then you're not Dexter.
 

mujigay

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Does anybody else get the feeling that characters portrayed in media as sociopaths... aren't?

Well, obviously not. Because if they portrayed an honest-to-God, clinical sociopaths, they'd be getting calls in saying that they created a monster. As it is, the glamourized Hollywood versions already come under fire.
 

KDude

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Well, obviously not. Because if they portrayed an honest-to-God, clinical sociopaths, they'd be getting calls in saying that they created a monster. As it is, the glamourized Hollywood versions already come under fire.


Joe Pesci in Good Fellas is a realistic sociopath. But then, that was based on a real character. The real one in the Henry Hill bio is crazier. Not only was a he a mobster, but apparently had a lot of morbid paintings in his house, and kept one room in particular for freezing victims that he could dispense of later. He thought he could do just about anything, and took pleasure in it. Even the mafia killed him themselves, because of some of this.

There's also the charming type of sociopath in movies that I think are like some real ones. Like Gordon Gekko. You know he's screwing you and probably has no conscience, but they're hard to outright call on it.
 

omglookitsagoat

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Sociopaths are usually very charismatic and manipulative. Those traits don't fit most INTs very well. I am INT, but I know I'm not a sociopath because I don't fit the description of completely lacking any capacity for empathy whatsoever. It's possible that I'm less empathetic than some other people, but I'm definitely not devoid of any capacity for it at all. My mbti scores are very consistent with a strongly Ti preference, but a lot of the time I really do wish I could improve the world in some way, like cure cancer or some other disease for example. I do not aspire to inflict pain on other things if they haven't done anything to me.
 

Totenkindly

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The only ways in which I can identify with the typical "psychopath" thing is understanding what it means to have a detached approach to things and willingness to step outside the moralizing of society to look at things without preconceived notions of what is good or bad.

So, also, typically when I study a psychopath or serial killer or sociopath, while I might be horrified on one level by their crimes, on another level I'm quite capable of examining the world through a neutral framework and figuring out how they're viewing society and life, looking for any consistent rationale there. I want to understand the way they see things and reconstruct their worldview.

I don't think it's equitable with INTx. I don't think INTx is incapable of seeing human elements when they look at the world, but for the types we're discussing, they typically don't even seem to have the capacity to feel any sort of empathy. INTx simply have a harder time than some other types (depending), and often expect themselves to be better at it, other people to respond differently to them, and are frustrated it takes them longer to figure it all out when they're so good at figuring out most things not relationship related.
 

KDude

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INTx simply have a harder time than some other types (depending), and often expect themselves to be better at it, other people to respond differently to them, and are frustrated it takes them longer to figure it all out when they're so good at figuring out most things not relationship related.

You're not very convincing with that avatar, you know?

"I'm just misunderstood!" /sacrifices toddler
 

INTP

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Its an INTJ thing, not INTP. All INTJs are sociopaths, but naturally most just deny it
 

Betty Blue

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Its an INTJ thing, not INTP. All INTJs are sociopaths, but naturally most just deny it

S'funny, i always related sociopathic tendancies to estp's...not really intj's.
(Maybe it's more recent than always).
 

Betty Blue

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And I to ISTPs.

Lolz, ISTPs are such social butterflies.

:devil:

ISTP's are freaks. They hate me saying that but they do not realise i like freaks. :smile:
 

INTP

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S'funny, i always related sociopathic tendancies to estp's...not really intj's.
(Maybe it's more recent than always).

Well i wasnt being too serious :D
 

omglookitsagoat

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You know, sometimes I wonder if EF types are actually more like sociopaths than ITs. (at least in some ways they seem to be.) Here's why:

At risk of pissing people off, this is just my observation of the flaws of EF types.

temperamental
vindictive
Very irrational, do not understand logic and cannot be reasoned with,
often do not have a reason to dislike someone, but do anyway (irrational)
react negatively to someone who tries to use logic to figure out what's wrong and solve a problem
Fs are more in tune with other people's emotions = can use this to be manipulative
Es are usually more charismatic than Is = more easily manipulative
EFs usually have a large group of friends that can be manipulated and turned against someone they want to bully

Ts are more likely to have a consistent moral code based on logic,
less likely to do something that would be inconsistent with their views
T allows someone to more thoroughly examine a moral code and develop ones own based on empirical evidence.

Many Es seem to look down on Is because Is aren't as social and charismatic = Many (not necessarily all) Es are more conceited


I don't necessarily want to categorize ALL Es and ALL Fs this way because I think it's unfair to label someone based on their mbti because everyone is different, even people with the same mbti type. Some people will express more positive traits of their type and some will express more negative traits depending on the person and the situation. I do not intend to imply that there are no positive traits of EF types or that ITs are without flaws.

Personally, I get along much better with other IT types. They're easier for me to relate to and we usually have more similar interests. Not all F types are evil, but in my experience, there are more evil EF types than evil IT types. This will probably piss people off, but that's what I think about types expressing sociopathic tendencies.
 
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