sense of self

[ceecee]

I know that

which is why it was only pretty much the first line of the OP

was only mentioned because people who take those tests have to have some sort of idea as to how they will answer questions instead of thinking "well... this is true here, but not here..." and I was wondering how people can actually manage to assess themselves and come up with any sort of conclusive answers to questions that are supposed to describe everything

You can't. Not many of those questions can be honestly answered with an emphatic yes or no. Most of the time I test INTJ. Sometimes I test ISTJ. Sure it's a completely different type but - does it really matter? If it doesn't matter to me it's sure as hell not going to matter to anyone else. My type, whichever is it, doesn't define anything because I could have gone through life never knowing what my type was and been the same way. Anyway, this isn't something that keeps me up at night.

 

[miss fortune]

Are they though? I can't think of a single other scenario where taking a test is supposed to "describe everything." I'm not sure why MBTI would be different. Tests are there to help you and give a good idea, but ultimately they just repeat back to you what you've told it. SAT? IQ Test? Autism Spectrum Test? MRIs? Diagnostic testing is always a starting point for deeper analysis. There's a reason we have job interviews and not job tests.

A good point you brought up though; are we our thoughts or are we our behaviour?

This is a good question. I'm in the camp where ultimately, if our thinking is sufficiently divorced from our behavior, what is the role or value of that thinking? A person can tell themselves they're a genius, intuitive, kind, empathetic, etc, but if that is not demonstrated at all then those are worthless labels. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

I can't come up with a "most of the time" on most of the questions

of course, this is why I don't tend to really take it seriously... it's too vague and squishy

in some environments my thoughts/feelings and behavior are so far divorced that I occasionally question if I am doing the right thing... and then I remind myself that I'm really good at it

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I've been kind of wondering lately how exactly people are able to say that they are XXXX type with any sort of absolute certainty... I mean, how can you know for sure that a certain type can cover who you are? ...

I've never felt certain about it, and if you look deeply enough, I suspect it is difficult for anyone to fit perfectly into any one of the 16 boxes. I find it is easiest to "type" acquaintances. Both strangers and close friends and family are harder to type. I can see examples of all eight functions in most people based on certain contexts, so you have to know them over a long period of time to see which ones are the strongest. Also, I'm not certain it is a fixed thing, but rather personality can change over time and context. Most of the poles N-S and F-T seem relevant to personality, those may not be the only significant parameters. There is something I notice that is missing that has to do with certitude and ego strength that doesn't correlate to the functions as they are listed, but which can fundamentally change the nature of a personality. There is something like Questioning-Certitude that doesn't actually seem to map to the P-J pole.

For myself, I can see how INFJ fit me moreso when I was younger, during college in particular, but I'm not so certain that it is the perfect fit now. I think that individual people are so complex that it is overwhelming for all of us to deal with it, so we long to create a lower-resolution of people that we can understand, and that is why MBTI is so attractive. We then make assumptions about types and only see the information that fits with it, so we get confirmation bias and feel assured that it is easy to understand everyone after all, but only because of living in a false reality based on an inner construct. Look at any single actual person, and you can observe for a lifetime and never fully know them. That's how I see it, anyway.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

This is a link to a thread that looks at the validity of MBTI. The National Academy of Sciences studied it and the only parameter that passed the test for validity was the introversion-extroversion. The other parameters were not stable enough when tested in a variety of contexts.

http://www.typologycentral.com/foru...-functions/18264-measuring-validity-mbti.html

The National Academy of Sciences committee reviewed data from over 20 MBTI research studies and concluded that only the Intraversion-Extroversion scale has adequate construct validity. That is high correlations with comparable scales of other tests and low correlations with tests designed to assess different concepts. In contrast, the S-N and T-F scales show relatively weak validity. No mention was made in this review about the J-P scale.

Overall, the review committee concluded that the MBTI has not demonstrated adequate validity although its popularity and use has been steadily increasing. The National Academy of Sciences review committee concluded that: at this time, there is not sufficient, well-designed research to justify the use of the MBTI in career counseling programs, the very thing that it is most often used for.

 

[miss fortune]

[MENTION=14857]fia[/MENTION] oh yeah... I'm not saying that it's valid or that I'm really upset about not really knowing what to choose for anything because I know that it's kind of a shitty description that doesn't really describe that much in a way

my real question was about how anyone has a certainty as to "who" they are as opposed to "what"... I have a very good concept of what I am, but the who part is rather iffy too many factors go into that for deciding anything really... I had just mentioned MBTI in the intro line because there are so many people here who seem absolutely certain that they can quantify their personality with some sense of certainty and I just kind of wonder how, I guess

and [MENTION=4050]ceecee[/MENTION]... not saying that it really bothers me in the least, just kind of used that as a starting point and then went off towards what I found MORE interesting (i.e. certainty as to identity)

 

[Yama]

I am never certain and perhaps none of us can ever be 100% certain because after all, we as humans are more complex than the MBTI box allows

 

[Bush]

Some given typology systems happen to partition cognition/behavior in a way that assigns a pretty clear category for some given individual. YMMV for pretty much any system out here. There's the "how."

As far as the "who"? A sense of identity is overrated. "I" is just a useful construct. It's often prudent to think in those terms, but it's not the only way to view ourselves. Our self-perception can sometimes be more constricting than some category in some system could ever be.

 

[Gawain]

Now that you've made it clear that this is a philosophical question as opposed to a personal one, perhaps you should do some reading on the functional stacks. I can be vehemently sure that neither Ni nor Ne is my primary, because this is just way too philosophical to be enjoyable for me. Particularly when it was not made clear whether it was a personal crisis or a philosophical curiosity that sparked the question. (ENFPs do that alot. You wouldn't happen to think you might be ENFP, would you?)

You can also see many other types that showed varying levels of frustration and judgement in this very thread. That in itself shows a vast difference in personalities. Now if you know the functions on sight, and you see the ways in which people reacted and miscommunicated in this thread, you can begin to piece together some of the types and have a way of describing their differences. I am not that skilled at MBTI (yet). But I do know enough about my functions and the way the types closest to me work to have a solid framework with which to describe my behaviour. Considering this was the very reason for me to learn MBTI, I find it rather helpful. (My family seems unable to understand our personal differences, so I wanted a way to bridge the gap and explain myself to them. It has had some success, especialy when I keep their functions in mind.)

 

[Edgar]

I've been kind of wondering lately how exactly people are able to say that they are XXXX type with any sort of absolute certainty... I mean, how can you know for sure that a certain type can cover who you are?

I mean, there are a lot of contributing factors to how a person sees themselves... what do we tell ourselves about ourselves? what do other people tell us? what do we tell other people? how do we relate to our bodies? what happens in our heads when nothing happens? how do we relate to others? what are we good at and what are we bad at? and so on and so forth... I mean, I could type out questions for hours there and still wouldn't be anywhere near coming to an end

what happens if these perceptions don't match one another? or if a person thinks and feels one way and yet acts another? is a person their actions or is a person their thoughts... or are they that split in between the two?

how do you know who you are?

That's the issue with mbti in general is that (at its present form) its based on a questionnaire that a person with poor self awareness can easily fuck up.

The answer to that would be a visual identification database of confirmed types. Or maybe in the future they could do a blood test or something. Basically any objective criteria. Until then the angst will continue

 

[Sil]

I've been kind of wondering lately how exactly people are able to say that they are XXXX type with any sort of absolute certainty... I mean, how can you know for sure that a certain type can cover who you are?

I mean, there are a lot of contributing factors to how a person sees themselves... what do we tell ourselves about ourselves? what do other people tell us? what do we tell other people? how do we relate to our bodies? what happens in our heads when nothing happens? how do we relate to others? what are we good at and what are we bad at? and so on and so forth... I mean, I could type out questions for hours there and still wouldn't be anywhere near coming to an end

what happens if these perceptions don't match one another? or if a person thinks and feels one way and yet acts another? is a person their actions or is a person their thoughts... or are they that split in between the two?

how do you know who you are?

Experience and observation.

I don't struggle with questions of self-perception.

 

[DaftGuru]

Sometimes I feel like these personality systems are like this:

1. Which do you like more?

A. orange
B. apple

What if you like both exactly equally or dislike both exactly equally? It doesn't seem to be about deficiencies in self-perception.

 

[andresimon]

I've been kind of wondering lately how exactly people are able to say that they are XXXX type with any sort of absolute certainty... I mean, how can you know for sure that a certain type can cover who you are?

I mean, there are a lot of contributing factors to how a person sees themselves... what do we tell ourselves about ourselves? what do other people tell us? what do we tell other people? how do we relate to our bodies? what happens in our heads when nothing happens? how do we relate to others? what are we good at and what are we bad at? and so on and so forth... I mean, I could type out questions for hours there and still wouldn't be anywhere near coming to an end

what happens if these perceptions don't match one another? or if a person thinks and feels one way and yet acts another? is a person their actions or is a person their thoughts... or are they that split in between the two?

how do you know who you are?

You are going about it backwards. Specific behaviors don't tell you what type you are, they are a result of your type. At best you can hope to use behavior as data. All types can exhibit a very wide range of behaviors. The key is to understand cognition. When people say things like "my type changed" what they are really saying is everything you said above. Type does not change, behavior does change. I can't explain cognition in a single post, nor would I try. I'm too busy licking boots. Snickerdoodle.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I've been kind of wondering lately how exactly people are able to say that they are XXXX type with any sort of absolute certainty... I mean, how can you know for sure that a certain type can cover who you are?

I mean, there are a lot of contributing factors to how a person sees themselves... what do we tell ourselves about ourselves? what do other people tell us? what do we tell other people? how do we relate to our bodies? what happens in our heads when nothing happens? how do we relate to others? what are we good at and what are we bad at? and so on and so forth... I mean, I could type out questions for hours there and still wouldn't be anywhere near coming to an end

what happens if these perceptions don't match one another? or if a person thinks and feels one way and yet acts another? is a person their actions or is a person their thoughts... or are they that split in between the two?

how do you know who you are?

I am watching this thread for some time because I wanted to see what will others say first.



I think that your main mistake in this problem is that you are after strict definition of personality. I define myself as a person that will be able to take care of the problems that life makes and still grow. Therefore when I am faced with choices A,B,C,D,E i do not chose strictly D but instead I am sure that A,C,D and somewhat E are what can be truthfully said about me. I am a Ni dom, I have 5 and 3 in tritype and I am Sp dom and therefore I am in favour of "the end justifies the means" logic. The term "the end justifies the means" is very vague but a person that likes to live this way is pretty easy to spot, even if it pays attention to ethical standards. Parts of me are not well defined at all since those parts can change under circumstances but this only means they are defined in a way that they do not have a strict definition, even if their goal is pretty strict. What I am trying to say is that you don't need strict definition in order to have a definition. I have in some parts of life spent years apart from people and their strict influence and therefore I have managed to get to know myself pretty well, since I was the only person I was really communicating with. (family at minimum, no friends, no school, no job)



I have discovered MBTI by pure accident on the internet and my first test gave me INTJ and over the years that picture of myself has never really changed since I have defined myself as an INTJ long before I knew a first thing about MBTI. It can happen that ambition can drive me into eNTJ zone but that is just a sideffect of what I am and therefore I do not give this too much attention.
Because of the decades of learning and improving I can appear as many different personas but to me my INTJ core/starting point is very obvious.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

People do treat the categories almost like a club. It gives people a sense of group identity like "I'm a Republican, I'm a Socialist, I'm a Presbyterian, I'm a Scientist, etc". This becomes a clear motivation when people of some type start trying to kick people out "no, you are not an XXXX, you don't belong here with us, go away". Quite a few types have behaved that way - especially the introverts which is ironic because it would seem they are less likely to care about group identification.

 

[Virtual ghost]

People do treat the categories almost like a club. It gives people a sense of group identity like "I'm a Republican, I'm a Socialist, I'm a Presbyterian, I'm a Scientist, etc". This becomes a clear motivation when people of some type start trying to kick people out "no, you are not an XXXX, you don't belong here with us, go away". Quite a few types have behaved that way - especially the introverts which is ironic because it would seem they are less likely to care about group identification.

Yes, but they are also the ones that are more likely to push people away.

 

[Null]

Quite a few types have behaved that way - especially the introverts which is ironic because it would seem they are less likely to care about group identification.

I feel like it's more of a 'rare type' thing than introverted? I've seen countless Ni-doms (especially people who mistyped themselves as those) or Enneagram 4s and 5s caring about this stuff, but I have yet to see a Si-dom behaving like that. As if other people could endanger their rareness.