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What Difference Would It Make if You Were Mistyped?

BlackCat

Shaman
Joined
Nov 19, 2008
Messages
7,038
MBTI Type
ESFP
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I wouldn't be surprised, I'm weird regardless of type. I just can't imagine being anything else though.
 

norepinephrine

New member
Joined
Jun 10, 2008
Messages
402
MBTI Type
INTP
Well.. there are other ways to use it constructively, like as a tool to understand other people.

I dunno.. some people are less affected by outside perceptions of themselves overall, whether their input comes from other people or from a tool like the MBTI.

I may be guilty of using it at times as a tool to understand other people - ascribing behaviors to their MBTI types and thereby somewhat minimizing how I might otherwise react to that behavior. And that can be a good thing or a bad thing.

Regarding being mistyped... As others have mentioned, if it were an outside agency pigeonholing me based on my type, I would have a problem.

Personally, I don't know that I would be capable of changing any of my idiosyncrasies were I to believe myself an ISTP or INFP.... or ENTP. By the time I took the test, though, I was in my thirties and fairly set in my ways.

Anyway, after reading the INTP profile (Joe Butt's, I think), I was viscerally affected. It was kind of a "Eureka, that's ME" moment.
 

yenom

Alexander the Terrible
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
1,755
I seen someone faked their own type. but you rarely mistyped ytourself. bWho knows about you more than you? If you are wrong about yourself and totally off, I guess you have some serious problems.
 

01011010

New member
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
3,916
MBTI Type
INxJ
It wouldn't matter.

I will continue to think/behave as I always do. Sometimes, it correlates with my supposed type. Many times, it doesn't. I don't care. I won't change anything about myself due to a psychological typing system to begin with. I don't bend to fit into the category. It bends to me.
 

INTJMom

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
5,413
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
I seen someone faked their own type. but you rarely mistyped ytourself. bWho knows about you more than you? If you are wrong about yourself and totally off, I guess you have some serious problems.
It's very easy to mis-type yourself if you don't understand the context that the questions are asked in. The tests are not fool-proof.
I find the comment you made to be especially odd since you have labeled yourself "untypable". Everyone has a type. If it were so easy, you would know what yours is, wouldn't you?
 

Biaxident

Charting a course
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
3,617
MBTI Type
INFP
It's an interesting diversion, but I pay less attention to my type than I do to my navel lint.

*oooo...fuzzy*
 

mlittrell

New member
Joined
Sep 3, 2008
Messages
1,387
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
9w1
I'm curious what others think.

EDIT If you mistyped yourself. If you went through life thinking you were another type.
the only difference it would make is the difference you allow it to make

btw i like your avatar. howlin' wolf is the man
 

tommydystonic

New member
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
13
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
5w4
It's not as bad as if you were to misspell your name for 30 years then check your birth certificate to find that you're an idiot.
 

Jaguar

Active member
Joined
May 5, 2007
Messages
20,647
I stumbled upon this old thread while looking for something else, but I'll still answer wolfy's timeless question by posting an exchange between Z and I:

Jaguar said:
To be frank, you can type me ABRG or 1234. It really means nothing.

Zarathustra said:
True: you are what you are.
 

Athenian200

Protocol Droid
Joined
Jul 1, 2007
Messages
8,828
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
4w5
Well, it would mean that my understanding of the functions was very, very flawed, and any attempt that I ever made in the past to type others, was completely flawed.

That would be really depressing, and make me feel stupid and arrogant for being so sure about my type, but I suppose I would move on.
 

entropie

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
16,767
MBTI Type
entp
Enneagram
783
Ah well, no better world than the one you created for yourself :)
 

nightning

ish red no longer *sad*
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
3,741
MBTI Type
INfj
Do we let type dictate or change our behaviour? Clearly the answer is no... thus being mistype ought to have no effect unless you choose to interact with people of "a type" more than another because you perceived yourself to be that type... But that's a side effect.
 

miss fortune

not to be trusted
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
20,589
Enneagram
827
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
I'd still be me... just the same as all the people who know nothing about typology are themselves nonetheless :cheese:
 

xisnotx

Permabanned
Joined
Sep 24, 2010
Messages
2,144
What Difference Would It Make if You Were Mistyped?

None. The mbti is a system I've learnt (and I'm still learning) to try to better understand myself and others. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't matter how distant the system is from reality, or how badly you are using the system as long as you are learning something from the system then it will be continue to be of use.

Having said that..it's important to try to improve the system (and/or your using of that system) in order to maximize results.

If it turned out I wasn't intp..it wouldn't matter. Ultimately, I'm not intp. I'm not any type. No type describes me perfectly. But under the system (the way I understand it) me labeling myself intp has helped me understand myself..which was the goal in the first place. If other people label me as another type, as long as that labeling helps them understand me better, then I encourage them to do so. They wouldn't necessarily be wrong..as ultimately there is no "right" in the first place (especially under a system that I think we can all agree on is less than perfect).
 

rav3n

.
Joined
Aug 6, 2010
Messages
11,655
I'm curious what others think.

EDIT If you mistyped yourself. If you went through life thinking you were another type.
I've found MBTI to be extremely helpful towards understanding myself. It's like a form of shorthand to describe how you process information and also your potential downfalls.

Te and Fi won't let me leave a mistyping alone. Denial and inconclusiveness/a lack of categorisation create dissonance within me.
 

wolfy

awsm
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
12,251
Wow! Another old thread. After finding the type I related best to I used the suggestions for self improvement. The same for the enneagram and other systems I have been interested in also. You could say that mistyping myself would have made a difference, but possibly just a difference with it being neither bad or good, just different. Above the ability to type myself accurately is the ability to see myself accurately. Now that is something important I think. There have been some traits of near types that I have seen in myself. I was thinking yesterday how istp are sometimes said to have an instinctive understanding of the split between themselves and their body. They see their body as a tool. I see that in myself and relate to that aspect.

So I guess what I am saying is that misunderstanding is a dangerous thing. Mistyping not so much.
 

burymecloser

Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Messages
516
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
6w5
I tend to feel like it wouldn't make much difference in most situations, but realising and accepting things like being introverted or not being SJ or whatever can sometimes help people come to peace with who they are. People like bologna, who realise they are mistyped might consciously adjust their goals to facilitate personal happiness.

God I sound like a hippie.
 

Cat_Cloud

New member
Joined
Feb 23, 2011
Messages
22
MBTI Type
INtP
I would be less interested in MBTI. I could relate to the INTP description, so I tried to learn more about it and the system used to find the types in general. It has helped me to better understand myself somewhat, but the description isn't 100% accurate. MBTI has helped me to become more comfortable with myself. If I had been mistyped I would have shrugged my shoulders and gone on with my life. It wouldn't have made a difference.
 

strychnine

All Natural! All Good!
Joined
Jun 23, 2010
Messages
895
Every time I changed my type I could feel myself adjust my behaviour slightly to fit with the type. Not consciously but more like checking whether it fits whether it is congruent

I do this too. I consider every thought and action I have (seemingly) to see if it fits my type. If it doesn't, I have to rationalize it - explain to myself why it does, in some convoluted way, fit with ISFP. I am really starting to irritate myself. I have been doing this for a year now.

I think I change my behaviour based on which type I think I am. This is obviously not good at all. I am too impressionable.

When I thought I was ISFJ I would constantly try to remember things, to "test" what I thought was my dominant Si. When I couldn't remember, I would start to panic, and the mess of re-typing myself would begin again.
 

Rail Tracer

Freaking Ratchet
Joined
Jun 29, 2010
Messages
3,031
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
:shrug:

I am who I am and I am what I want to be?

If I mistype myself on the basis of what I Think of myself, there could be a reason of why did I choose to mistype myself or whether I mistype myself because I cannot see myself clearly. Or that I mistype myself because I see characteristics in certain types that I find appealing (like a child looking up to a firefighter.)

If others mistype me, it is either because they don't know me enough, or that I have not given enough information to warrant a "good enough" response.

So not really that big of a difference unless I find typing myself to be something very serious. But I can see why I mistyped myself for various reasons also. And just like the firefighter example I just gave, that could be one reason.
 
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