So You Want To Determine Your MBTI Type...

[Mal12345]

There are two fundamental ways of determining your MBTI personality type: The hard way, and the easy way.

The hard way -

You have eight JCF cognitive functions which, when combined in certain ways, somehow create a personality type.

Let's say you determine your primary function readily enough. Now you have to work out your auxiliary.

But wait. Your tertiary can sometimes appear as your auxiliary. How do you know if this is the case for you? You don't, nor can you until you determine which one is your true auxiliary type.

You may say, the difference is that the tertiary of your type has the same attitude (I or E) as the primary. But once you determine that, how do you know if your primary is the correct one? Perhaps you were mistaken from the very beginning. So your tertiary is really your auxiliary, and your primary is some function having the opposing attitude.

Not necessarily, however. What if - just what if - your primary type is undifferentiated due to immaturity or mental illness. In that case, your function order of the moment is determined by your deeper mental/emotional issues which typically come and go.

Now for the easy way -

1. Most of the time you're either introverted or extroverted:

There are different ways of breaking this down; but just for purposes of the MBTI, you're either a type A or type B personality, either generally energized by thoughts, feelings, and ideas, or generally energized by interacting with the external world. Likewise, either too much interaction with the internal world tires you out, or too much interaction with the external world tires you out.

2. You're either the intuitive or sensing type:

No matter what you do with the information you focus on, and whether your preferred focus is internal or external, you prefer to work with and live through either concretes or abstractions. If you prefer to live in a world of concretes, then you will interact with concretes either directly or indirectly. Direct interaction with concretes involves such examples as driving fast cars. Indirect interaction living through the intermediate of externalized symbols or concrete sayings such as "all work and no play..."

If you are the intuitive type, then you prefer to work with and live through a world of abstractions. Compare this to Plato's Ideas: they are in the world, but not OF the world. The intuitive's general goal in life is to interact with abstract notions, and possibly even advance beyond a concern with the material world altogether. As a result, intuitives add novelty to the world. They are different, and they know it.

3. You're either a feeling or thinking type:

You either decide things with your heart or with your head. You either primarily take the feelings of others into account, or you prefer to judge with logic as against feelings. Your first instinct is either to employ justice or mercy.

4. You're either a perceiver or a judger:

Either you prefer spontaneity and excitement; or you prefer control, whether over oneself, others, or both. If you are a judger, then spontaneity doesn't come naturally to you, and when you try to be spontaneous even then it comes off as controlled. If you are a perceiver, then self-control and/or control over others will be difficult for you, and you prefer to live and let live. Moreover, you wish others would see it the same way, and allow you, the perceiver, to live and let live.

Now that you've taken the easy route to determining type, maybe it will help you determine something about your JCF type. However, they aren't they same system, and so they don't always correlate well.

 

[Cellmold]

JCF can be overly-convoluted and often far too open to interpretation, making it hard to pinpoint with any accuracy the right functions to the right processing of information. This, as you identified, leads into wild speculation and personal interpretation with no grounding with which to measure your own assumptions against.

On the other hand, relying on incredibly simplified dichotomies that neither explain nor delve in depth, has the hazard of creating bias and prejudicial assumption about how outward traits characterise a particular person, ignoring the complex ways in which a person can adopt a persona or outward character, that often differs from the inward cognition.

Of course it's always important what YOU, the individual, thinks about his/her own type.

At the moment we don't have any real answer to an accurate discernment of type, or even any useful evidence for it outside of heuristics.

I actually don't think this is even the right era for typology, or rather it isn't quite....complete, it needs a restructuring and also a change in how people approach it for it to have any useful relevancy.

Meh anyhow, i'm sure this post is full of sloppy generalising.

 

[Mal12345]

Let's just start at the simplest level and consider the complex personality attributes later.

 

[Cellmold]

Let's just start at the simplest level and consider the complex personality attributes later.

I understand that. But even the simplest level is unsatisfying for a start point as it currently is. Although this is just me, replying in my fashion.

Human beings will always want to discover the nature of themselves though, that at least is a hope for progress.

 

[Mal12345]

I understand that. But even the simplest level is unsatisfying for a start point as it currently is. Although this is just me, replying in my fashion.

Human beings will always want to discover the nature of themselves though, that at least is a hope for progress.

Yes, that is just you chopping through a jungle of personality traits. But that is revealing in itself and reduces at least some of the problem to simplicity.

 

[Eric B]

It probably is better to just start with the dichotomies, and then from there verify that the function[attitude]s fall into place as the dichotomies imply, and the important thing to remember is that you're only dealing with TWO function-attitudes; dominant and auxiliary, as determinant of type; not eight, or even four.
So you verify your dominant attitude, and the preferred functions. Then, you can verify J/P's suggestion of which of the functions is extraverted, and assume the other one is introverted, and look to see if this matches your dominant preference. (If you're E, then your extraverted function is also dominant; if you're I, then it's auxiliary, and the other function is introverted and dominant).

The remaining functions are all suppressed reflections of these two, and are basically associated with various subconscious ego complexes (which of course, is a much deeper, more advanced level of the theory).

 

[RaptorWizard]

Indeed Mal+ I agree that the classic personality traits are much easier to identify than the internal dynamics they create. An observed bahavioral pattern should fit its corresponding cognitive profile. It is easier to see the aura and its various emenations than it is to gaze inside the source.