Intuitives Becoming More Common?

[Forever_Jung]

It seems to me that personality type distribution can change depending on the need of society. After all, personality is fundamentally an adaptation, a specialization we make to survive and manage (as Jung describes it anyway.). I have read other old timey theorists like von Franz talk about how types didnt exist back in the day, since we could not afford to be so specialized back in the more primitive times (crude paraphrase disclaimer). Nowadays, the rationalization people always use for SJs being so common is that they are the backbone of society, we need them the most, they are practical, etc.

Is it possible that as our society had changed, as technology and the world at large continues to change at a faster and faster rate, and as the way we interact with the world has become increasingly abstract and symbolic, that intuitive types have become far more common, since their mindset is now more relevant and practical?


I know a lot of people mistype due to the shitty descriptions, I know a lot of people claim that most INFJs are actually INFP and ISFJ wannabes, and ENFPs just ESFJs with delusions of grandeur. But is it possible maybe intuitives are actually more common than everyone says? Like maybe INFJs are 5% of our population instead of 1? Don't extraverted intuitives seem fairly common to you as well?

Last month I saw a poll in a podcast group where out of 1076 people, 85% reported themselves to be intuitives types. 223 reported themselves as INFJ (20.7%), far and away the most common result. In 2nd and 3rd, ENFP and INFP were at like 12% apiece. ENFJs and INTJs were 11ish%.


The most common S type was ISFJ at 6%.The least common intuitive result was ENTP (3% of the poll). SPs and STJs made up the bottom 6 results.

I know that isn't a statistically random group (it's like a nerdy pop culture podcast), but that certainly is interesting to me.

[Legion]

From my understanding, type has existed since the beginning of humanity. It is essentially determined from conception I think, maybe with some room for movement but not a lot. I could be wrong. But basically, what that means is that the percentage of Ns in the population would barely be shifting at all. Human genetic drift isn't that rapid. But people can of course use more or less of a given function, and what I suspect may be happening is that maybe Ns are using less S (e.g. increase in technology decreases need for practicality) and thus typing more often as Ns. Not sure though.

(adding a lot of "not sure" comments, as although I would prefer to just say what I think and leave it at that, people seem to react negatively to that and I haven't found a suitable way to phrase myself that is both authentic and inoffensive )

[Peter Deadpan]

Cognitive functions are in essence the directionality of one's perception and processing. As such, it really does not make any sense that it would be developed and change over time. If it is, I highly doubt that occurs after infancy. A person is simply not going to switch from a primary mode of gathering abstract patterns to encouraging collective ethical harmony, for example. It does not make sense if you really sit and think about it.

I think introverts are born introverts and extroverts are born extroverts, whether that be referring to perception or judgement (not social level!). I think the manner in which the functions are paired is where variation comes into play (people who spend most of their time internally processing [TiSi or NiTi, for example] will appear much different than people who spend most of their time actively interacting with the world around them [FeSe or NeTe, for example], or even others of the same 4-letter type who spend most of their time using their top two functions in order [TiNe or NiFe, for the first examples, respectively]).

[Peter Deadpan]

Sorry - I skimmed through your post first and now realize I am a bit off topic for your intentions.

[Officer Ed Powell]

What was the podcast about? Depending on the topic, do you think there could have just been a higher percentage of intuitives in that group than in the general population? Or could it be some of those people were themselves mistyped?

That said, I often wonder if the supposed percentages people often reference that point to the rarity of intuitives are incorrect. However, it’d be difficult to get an accurate percentage without a larger sample size, and even then we’d have to wonder how many people reporting were incorrect. Not sure what the margin of error might be for something of this nature

[Officer Ed Powell]

And regarding theories about type not existing in olden tymes, I’m not sure about that. It’s possible that people of certain types may have still gravitated toward certain roles and tasks more in line with their preferred cognitive styles. Would not be surprised if cro mag INFJs and INFPs were more likely to end up as medicine men/women or cave painters, whilst ESTPs might be more likely to be warriors and hunters, TJs might more often end up tribal leaders, NTPs might be the ones inventing new tools, etc. But I don’t really know. Everyone would have been pretty limited by the harsh conditions and their biology.

[typologyenthusiast]

I disagree with the notion that personality is an adaptation. It is not jung's position.
This is a quotation from Psychological Types p 415-416

The fact that often in their earliest years children display an unmistakable typical attitude forces us to assume that it cannot possibly be the struggle for existence,
as it is generally understood, which constitutes the compelling factor in favour of a definite attitude. We might, however, demur, and indeed with cogency, that even
the tiny infant, the very babe at the breast, has already an unconscious psychological adaptation to perform, inasmuch as the special character of the maternal influence
leads to specific reactions in the child. This argument, though appealing to incontestable facts, has none the less to yield before the equally unarguable fact that two children
of the same mother may at a very early age exhibit opposite types, without the smallest accompanying change in the attitude of the mother Although nothing would induce
me to underestimate the well-nigh incalculable importance of parental influence, this experience compels me to conclude that the decisive factor must be looked for in the
disposition ofthe child The fact that, in spite of the greatest possible similarity of external conditions, one child will assume this type while another that, must, of course, in
the last resort he ascribed to individual disposition. Naturally in saying this I only refer to those cases which occur under normal conditions. Under abnormal conditions,
l.e. when there is an extreme and, therefore, abnormal attitude in the mother, the children can also be coerced into a relatively similar attitude ; but this entails a violation of
their individual disposition, which quite possibly would have assumed another type if no abnormal and disturbing external influence had intervened. As a rule, whenever
such a falsification of type takes place as a result of external influence, the individual becomes neurotic later, and a cure can successfully be sought only in a development of that attitude which corresponds with the individual's natural way. As regards the particular disposition, I know not what to say, except that there are clearly individuals who have Either a greater readiness and capacity for one way, or for whom it is more congenial to adapt to that way rather than the other. In the last analysis it may well be that
physiological causes, inaccessible to our knowledge, play a part in this. That this may be the case seems to me not improbable, in view of one's experience that a reversal
of type often proves exceedingly harmful to the physiological well-being of the organism, often provoking an acute state of exhaustion.

[Vendrah]

From reckful posts I remember Jung and Myers stating that type can change.
Considering that, and considering that MBTI reliability is about 60% (over the years, I think? I mean, 40% of chances to change a letter in a year, although thats partially due to the people with X on one of the scale), Big 5 combining all scales have about the same, I came up one day with a private hypothesis that the MBTI personalities could be a state of personality, and what the person "truly are" (the core unchangable-unadaptable you) is beyond that state and it is related on the dynamics and how the person react and adapt to the enviroment OR by a very complicated relation with the cognitive functions. The former is unexplorable and is far from being testable; About the latter, I gather data some days ago with 19 persons that had keys2cognition taken in at least 2 different years here in-forum, just 19 required some tiring work but I couldnt stop my curiosity. In these 19 includes people with changes in personality type (6 considering X as 'any'), but I couldnt make sense of the switches in cognitive functions, and I would need a special computer program to test hundreds or thousands of different equations/relations (in form of symetrical scales) from the cognitive functions in order to try to identify patterns. However, I suck at programming. In my own, after some few try and error (with some logic), I could find only that Ti+Ni<=>Se+Fe was the only relation that was kept in all 19 people, including those who change type.

About the types in the past, there was some search in South Africa personality types that included a special kind of South African that was called something as "afrikkan", that seems to be a tribe, and it had a very peculiar type distribuition. As far as I remember, 50% were composed by ESTJs and ISTJs, while the SP house barely had less than 10%, all NFs summed 1-2%, and INTJs and ENTJs summed about 10%. I, and very likely 80% or more of the internet, would expect lots of SPs for a tribe, but, well, reality seems different.

And about intuitives becoming more common, I never read anything about it, but it is possible indeed. But I would be surprised if MBTI types are changing fast, I would expect a slow change (like an increase of +0,1% to +0,5% of more intuitives per year).

[Ravenetta]

Not sure, but functioning in society is becoming more and more abstract with computer interfacing.

[typologyenthusiast]

From reckful posts I remember Jung and Myers stating that type can change.

Unfortunately, you don't support this by mentioning the references like which book (what title) that is written by Jung or Isabel Briggs Myers at what page, that state the type can change, So that we can check directly to the sources.