• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

effect of sex hormones on type

Recluse

New member
Joined
Sep 3, 2007
Messages
213
MBTI Type
INXP
What behavioral differences have you noticed between the males and females of each personality type? (Excluding the obvious sexual ones, of course.)

I assume that the effect of sex hormones, particularly on the development of neurological structure, would have some impact on behavior.


This thread was inspired by meanlittlechimp's post in another thread:

Do any of you notice any visible differences between male and female INFJ behavior or tendencies?
 

ptgatsby

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
4,476
MBTI Type
ISTP
The one I know is very prevalent is neuroticism, with women being more emotional (length of emotion, depth of emotion and sensitivity of the initial reaction), with a strong dominance of negative over positive emotions (meaning, more neurotic and less extroverted in terms of reactions).
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
50,187
MBTI Type
BELF
Enneagram
594
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I assume that the effect of sex hormones, particularly on the development of neurological structure, would have some impact on behavior.

Yes, it does impact behavior, although each group (men and women) also vary in terms of each individual's personal hormone levels, and both men and women have some amount of hormones of the "other gender." So there are many caveats here, and any conclusions that can be drawn will still be broad generalizations. And also, gender behavior patterns stemming more from social influences will obviously vary from culture to culture.

The aggressive impact of testosterone vs the nurturing effects of estrogen are probably the large broadest "overlays" on behavior that spring to mind.

Keep things casual and speculative at the moment, I can throw out some observations:

- Male and female ENFJs seem similar.
- Male ENFPs seem more aggressive than the females and seem more likely to get mean/vicious when angry; female ENFPs can also be volatile but I see many more at the "softer emotive" end than males.
- Yes, INFJ males do seem colder/harder than INFJ females. The females seem to emote more positive emotion, probably through socialization but perhaps hormonal influences as well.
- I've seen "harder" ISFJ women than ISFJ men... but that could be blamed partly on the fact I have such a much larger sample size of female ISFJs. In a similar vein, ISTJ women can seem colder than other women, but they are still warmer than the men. Usually the men are amiable or they are stiff/cold, but I think the women are socialized to emote more positive feeling, again, where the men are not required to do so.

I need to go, but perhaps some other people would care to contribute in the meanwhile. There are lots of nuances on a topic like this.
 

Varelse

Wait, what?
Joined
Apr 25, 2007
Messages
1,698
MBTI Type
INTJ
- Male and female ENFJs seem similar.
- Male ENFPs seem more aggressive than the females and seem more likely to get mean/vicious when angry; female ENFPs can also be volatile but I see many more at the "softer emotive" end than males.
The one ENFX male that I know doesn't seem very soft. He does care about people, but he's not soft.

And I've seen some scary angry from a male ENFJ as well. :boohoo:
 

Athenian200

Protocol Droid
Joined
Jul 1, 2007
Messages
8,828
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
4w5
The one ENFX male that I know doesn't seem very soft. He does care about people, but he's not soft.

And I've seen some scary angry from a male ENFJ as well. :boohoo:

I think what she means is that female ENFJ's can also be sort of aggressive because of their outgoingness. Although it's usually more "aggressively nice" than anything else, their negative emotions can quickly turn very strong and visible when they appear, since they have dominant Feeling.

Anyway, my assumption is that it doesn't change the underlying neurology in many ways besides women tending to be N and/or F, and men tending to be S and/or T. If a man is F, he'll likely display fewer positive emotions than a female F for two reasons. The first is that he's been conditioned to avoid it to some extent, and the second is that females are often conditioned to look cheerful even when they aren't really happy (The "June Cleaver" ideal). The men will display more negative emotions because he'll likely have tried to repress his feelings to some extent, so only the negative ones are strong enough to come through his mental barrier, and his feeling will have a more primitive character than it would have otherwise. (Also, men experience a slight unofficial social reward for display of negative emotions like anger and aggression compared to kindness and sympathy, despite the first two being officially discouraged by authorities.)

The women who are T will be better at socialization skills because of the same principles, although I doubt they'll ever be quite at the skill level of female F's in terms of conflict avoidance and display of false positive emotions (or really want to, for that matter).

I think the social ideal/natural tendencies for men are ESTx, and for women IxFx
 

FDG

pathwise dependent
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
5,903
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
7w8
You might not believe this, but there have been experiments in socionics (I don't know if I can find the exact paper but I might if really needed) that used blood samples of different personality types to find whether there was an impact of stereotypical traits associated to a given hormonal profile, and actual descriptions of a given psychological type. They found that ESTP and ENTJ males had the highest amount of free testosterone (it seemed like the result was consistent among samples, but I did not read if they controlled for the right variables). Of course then they immediatly connected the marked higher aggressivity of the two types with the result. Just after there were ISTJ and ESTJ.
 

Athenian200

Protocol Droid
Joined
Jul 1, 2007
Messages
8,828
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
4w5
You might not believe this, but there have been experiments in socionics (I don't know if I can find the exact paper but I might if really needed) that used blood samples of different personality types to find whether there was an impact of stereotypical traits associated to a given hormonal profile, and actual descriptions of a given psychological type. They found that ESTP and ENTJ males had the highest amount of free testosterone (it seemed like the result was consistent among samples, but I did not read if they controlled for the right variables). Of course then they immediatly connected the marked higher aggressivity of the two types with the result. Just after there were ISTJ and ESTJ.

That sounds intriguing. I'd like to see that paper so that we can check the results against people's observations of these types. (And because this seems ironic, given you are split between ENTJ and ESTP.) ;)
 

Natrushka

Pareo cattus
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
1,213
MBTI Type
INTJ
You might not believe this, but there have been experiments in socionics (I don't know if I can find the exact paper but I might if really needed) that used blood samples of different personality types to find whether there was an impact of stereotypical traits associated to a given hormonal profile, and actual descriptions of a given psychological type. They found that ESTP and ENTJ males had the highest amount of free testosterone (it seemed like the result was consistent among samples, but I did not read if they controlled for the right variables). Of course then they immediatly connected the marked higher aggressivity of the two types with the result. Just after there were ISTJ and ESTJ.

Did they test other hormones like DHEA and/or Cortisol? If you could find the paper I'd be interested in seeing it, FDG.
 

Veneti

New member
Joined
Aug 19, 2007
Messages
264
MBTI Type
XNTX
What behavioral differences have you noticed between the males and females of each personality type? (Excluding the obvious sexual ones, of course.)

I assume that the effect of sex hormones, particularly on the development of neurological structure, would have some impact on behavior.


This thread was inspired by meanlittlechimp's post in another thread:

It must have some impact as there are less INTJ's as a percentage of women than there are the same in Men.
 

meanlittlechimp

New member
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
338
MBTI Type
ENTP
Yes, it does impact behavior, although each group (men and women) also vary in terms of each individual's personal hormone levels, and both men and women have some amount of hormones of the "other gender." So there are many caveats here, and any conclusions that can be drawn will still be broad generalizations. And also, gender behavior patterns stemming more from social influences will obviously vary from culture to culture.

The aggressive impact of testosterone vs the nurturing effects of estrogen are probably the large broadest "overlays" on behavior that spring to mind.

Keep things casual and speculative at the moment, I can throw out some observations:

- Male and female ENFJs seem similar.
- Male ENFPs seem more aggressive than the females and seem more likely to get mean/vicious when angry; female ENFPs can also be volatile but I see many more at the "softer emotive" end than males.
- Yes, INFJ males do seem colder/harder than INFJ females. The females seem to emote more positive emotion, probably through socialization but perhaps hormonal influences as well.
s.

Overall, I think it's less hormonal and more the cultural expecations/pressures (but probably a combination of both).

I have had similar experiences with male ENFPs. It could be that when a boy shows more sensitiviy and gives and wants affirmation (they are more likely to get ridiculed for it) and try to compensate in other ways. One ENFP I know did it through sexual conquest (which was easy for him, but it didn't make him happy). 3 out of the 4 male ENFPs I know are kind of wacked out on drugs and have serious issues. The one that is very healthy and developed ENFP male is in a great relationship and is in a band and paints/draws (and sells his work). Maybe the creative outlet and recognition makes a difference. The female ENFPs I know are much more well adjusted overall.

The ENTP women I know seem a slightly depressed and I suspect it has something to do with their natural tendency to be aggressive and outspoken which is more frowned upon coming from a woman. This could obviously be just these individuals (and not indicative of type/gender), but I'm looking forward to everyone else's observations.

Strangely, the male ENFJ and female ENFJ I know are very similar.

The one gender/type I have never met in person is a female INTP. I would love to hear anything about how they might differ from the males, if at all.
 

Varelse

Wait, what?
Joined
Apr 25, 2007
Messages
1,698
MBTI Type
INTJ
The one gender/type I have never met in person is a female INTP. I would love to hear anything about how they might differ from the males, if at all.
Well, I've scored in the male range on some tests.

Part of it is going to be the nuture factor, probably. My mother is an ISFJ and always tries to push me towards more of a housewife, submissive position. She was much more interested in teaching me sewing than Algebra, for one.

I never fit in with most of the people in school, especially in Jr. High. Our church, for one, had some gender-specific excursions that were somewhat stereotypical, and most of the girls seemed to enjoy them. I usually sat there wondering why 13 year old girls were wasting so much energy on boys. And I found most of the boys at that age to be immature.

I'm not sure about the differences as much. I'd hope I have more tact then some of the male INTPs I've observed. :blush:
 
Top