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Directive vs. informative styles

Gauche

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Ok, I'm not very at ease with this directive and informative thing, so I'd be glad if someone could explain it.

I've read that we have 8 directive and 8 informative types.
Directive are all Js except ESFJ and ISFJ (those two are informative)
Informative types are all Ps except ESTP and ISTP (those two are directive)

So, what that after all means? I have vague ideas about what that directive and informative styles look like. My thoughts are that directives would direct you a little bit with their language, e.g. go and buy a milk, while informatives would not push on you, like we are out of milk.

If that was true, I can understand that ESTP is directive, but how the fuck ESFJ is informative?? And how ISTP is directive and ISFJ is informative as well?

So, could someone reasonably explain the whole thing about directive vs. informative approach?
 

Totenkindly

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Link to your datasource, please. Thanks!

(Kind of hard to explain or critique source material that's not presented in your post...)

Directive vs informative, as a very general example, is very observable in a governing body: Informers like to discuss possibilities, options, strategies, and data but hate to actually make the decisions, while the directors sometimes get frustrated because everyone's just talking but no one's moving forward and making decisions.
 

"?"

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Linda Berens’ interaction styles are based on a combination of several models. I think that the E/ISTP types, as well as the E/ISFJ types are grouped according to Keirsey’s temperament types. The difference between being directive and informative is as follow:
Directing communications seem to have a task focus and Informing communications have a people focus. MBTI practitioners have long related task focus to a preference for Thinking and people focus to a preference for Feeling. Likewise, one would assume that a time focus goes with a preference for Judging and an emergence focus goes with a preference for Perceiving. Yet, when Keirsey applied the role-directing versus role informing construct to the sixteen types as they related to temperament, he related Directing to N and J or S and T in the type code and Informing to N and P or S and F in the type code. Our investigations bore out Keirsey's distinctions.
Berens does offer a disclaimer in her booklet Interaction Styles, that in western society males are expected to be directive and females informative, so there can be some confusion. As ISTP I am far more directive in my speech and interaction than informative.
 

Totenkindly

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Sure. Be it e.g. wikipedia, but I saw a few other sources on the internet as well, I guess I'll find them eventually...

Keirsey Temperament Sorter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'd be interested in seeing how Berens (with her four working styles, including "Staying the Course" and "Behind the Scenes" etc.) arranges them.

Keirsey is not MBTI.
He is, well... Keirsey.
It's based on MBTI and resembles it in many ways, but isn't.


EDIT: Doh, thanks "?" ! Our posts overlapped.

As ISTP I am far more directive in my speech and interaction than informative.

I find myself extremely informative.
It's really easy for me to provide people with information, context, perspectives, possibilities... and then be perfectly happy with letting them decide what to do themselves.
(I like to empower.)

I really really don't like directing much at all.
It makes my skin crawl.
 

Eric B

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Why this is, is because there are two totally different models cross-mapped to the 16 types.

Temperament was originally measured in terms of a person's "response-time delay" and "response-time sustain". Long delay became what we know as introversion, and short delay became extraversion. Sustain is often referred to in terms of people vs. task-orientation or "responsiveness". This tells us how much a person holds on to negative emotions, and thus, how serious or "responsive" they tend to be to others. So this model paired Sanguine and Choleric as extroverts, Melancholic and Phlegmatic as introverts; Sanguine and Phlegmatic as people-focused, and Choleric and Melancholic as task-focused. So here, we had our original temperament matrix.

Immanuel Kant introduced perception into the mix, but this paired "opposite" temperaments Sanguine and Melancholic as "Beauty-perceivers", which is basically the forerunner to Sensing. The other two, as low in that scale, would thus become "iNtuitive". So now, the matrix was basically "twisted" along the lines of S/N. After this, you would have Kretschmer's system, and eventually Keirsey's, which would be mapped to the 16 types. However, Linda Berens would discover another set of "four temperaments" in the 16 types (which she called "Interaction Styles"), more closely fitting the original delay/sustain factors of I/E and people/task, which she then named Informing/Directing.
Keirsey's temperaments would use S/N and another new factor called Cooperative/Pragmatic, which would roughly tie in as another kind of response-delay. But since that matrix was basically twisted by the perceptive factors, the true counterpart to response-sustain would be discovered by Berens, tying together "opposite" Keirsey temperaments (NT/SJ and SP/NF), and dubbed "Structure/Motive". So you have two four-temperaments systems blended in each of the 16 types. One is more about social skills, and the other is about "action" or roughly, leadership skills.

MBTI used its four dichotomies, and only E/I happened to correspond with one of the temperament factors. Keirsey's "twisted" temperament matrix mapped pretty well (though not symmetrically) to the other three dichotomies. Which meant that the old delay/sustain factors would not map consistently to any of the other three dichotomies. However, the two "sustain" (people/task) factors would mirror each other, both using T/F and J/P, but swapping roles according to S and N.

So for a Sensor, T defines "directing" while J defines "structure-oriented"; and F defines "informing", while P defines "motive-oriented". But an iNtuitor switches this, with the T defining Structure, and the J defining Directing; and the F defining Motive, and the P defining Informing. So we see here that T and J, and F and P are basically interchangeable in defining those two factors, thus, directing and structure are counterparts of each other, as are informing and motive orientation.

So while the SFJ's are informing (S+F) unlike all the other J's, they are also structure-focused (S+J), which does give them a bit of a critical edge, similar to "directing". The STP's are directive (S+T) unlike all the other P's, but instead, they are motive focused (S+P). You can also look at it that any extraverted judgment will be either directive, or structure-focused, or both (in the case of the TJ's). That makes sense, as they are defined as "ordering" the outside world! And that's why on the S side, only the SFJ's and STP's are "out of place" as informatives or directives, respectively. STJ's are just as directive as NJ's, and as Structure focused as NT's by virtue of being both T and J.

Here I explain this and the "two-level matrix" temperament system:
ERICA vs EISeNFelT
 
B

beyondaurora

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I'm too lazy to explain, but here are some examples from from http://www.infjorinfp.com/docs/DIExamples.htm:

Directing / Informing
Don't put shoes on the bed. / Shoes don't belong on the bed.
Please open the door. / That door is still closed.
Kindly serve the lunch at noon. / It would be helpful if the lunch were served at noon.
Please check the box and bring the mail in. / Is the mail in the box?
Put the black cards on top. / It would help me a lot if you put the black cards on top.
Who took the rubber band? / I wonder where the rubber band went.

Much more info can be found at INFJ or INFP? a closer look under the tab "Your Preferred Communication Style".

I have to admit though, that I've always hated the much-used example of the green light. You'd have to be an idiot to exclaim, "Go!" when the light turns green -- I've done that before, and the driver always freaks out (i.e., punches the gas or yells, "What?!"). So I ALWAYS say "green light". Besides, as a driver, I NEVER do what people in my car tell me too -- after all I am the driver.

Edited to add: My mom (ISFP) drives me INSANE because she'll say something like, "Wow, the cat box really smells." Or she'll stomp around saying, "There's so much junk in the garage. I can hardly fit my car in". I usually ignore her when she does this because it pisses me off! Sometimes I'll just come right back at her with, "If you want something, just ask me!!!".
 

Randomnity

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when I saw the thread, I guessed ISTP would be directive. couldn't tell you why though (theoretical basis).

as an aside, the "informing" options you mentioned, beyond, seem very passive-aggressive and irritating to me, even though I tend to be somewhat passive-aggressive myself. I like people to get to the point instead of trying to spare feelings. I kinda thought that was a T thing though.

edit: actually, it's kinda why I keep wondering if I'm J...I can't stand it when people want to sit around all day talking about a problem instead of actually figuring out what to do. I'll suggest "we should do this" if nobody else has proposed something useful.
 

greenfairy

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I used to think I was informing just going by the extremes, and I didn't know there was a middle ground. Reading [MENTION=5295]beyondaurora[/MENTION]'s link was helpful. I think my natural inclination is to be directive because I usually have an idea of how things should be done and I tell people what my ideas are. I leave it up to them to decide whether they agree with me, but I do suggest a course of action. This is not true in all situations, like I'm pretty bad at Te types of things, but Ni does the job in many instances. A lot of times I will say "how about we do x" or "we should do x" or "you should do x." Then again a lot of times I'll just suggest something as a possibility, and then discuss the merits of my idea versus theirs. Most of the time I prefer to just do things on my own and let other people do their own thing, but I do like giving advice. I think maybe giving advice is a directive thing. I equally like discussing theory with others and sharing my theoretical assessments of things though.
Edit: Also I'm impatient.


Although I really hate being bossed around...
 

Octavarium

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For each of Keirsey's temperaments (SJ, SP, NT, NF) Berens assigned one type to each of four interaction styles: chart-the-course (introverted + directive), behind-the-scenes (introverted + informative), in-charge (extraverted + directive) and get-things-going (extraverted + informative). From that perspective, you can see how she's chosen the type from each temperament that best fits each interaction style, so that each temperament has one type per interaction style. For example, assuming that T's and J's tend to be more directive while F's and P's tend to be more informative, if you look at the SPs, it makes sense that STPs would be more directive than SFPs, and if you look at the NTs, it makes sense that NTJs would be more directive than NTPs. But her theory only makes sense if you assume that each temperament has to have one type per interaction style, so on what basis is she making that assumption? For example, why are ISTPs more directive than INTPs? Is it just one of those things that has been found to be the case in various studies, but we don't understand why at this point?
 

valaki

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Directive here.

Not sure about chart-the-course vs in-charge
 
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