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Personality Types in Population

eternal recurrence

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Jan 23, 2010
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46
MBTI Type
iNfj
This is a basic question Ive never seen addressed: what accounts for the varying percentages of type distribution across the population?


Why ISTJ 11-14%, INFJ 1-3%, or ENFP 6-8%? What determines this?
 
A

Anew Leaf

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This is a basic question Ive never seen addressed: what accounts for the varying percentages of type distribution across the population?


Why ISTJ 11-14%, INFJ 1-3%, or ENFP 6-8%? What determines this?

My guess is one or all of the following:

1- It's impossible to know the exact number unless you type every person in the population.
2- If you did #1 then you would have to rely on the test being accurate and that the people taking the test knew what they were doing.
3- Most likely the people making up these numbers looked at a large sampling of a population and figured out the likely range of certain types given how prevalent they were in the sampling pool.
4- Pudding.
 

nanook

a scream in a vortex
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the accountant.

the-accountant_456x292.png
 

KDude

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This is a basic question Ive never seen addressed: what accounts for the varying percentages of type distribution across the population?


Why ISTJ 11-14%, INFJ 1-3%, or ENFP 6-8%? What determines this?

The original numbers I've seen were in Myers' book, and were just determined from her sampling from various schools (both college and highschool). The newer statistics I guess are taken from a much larger sampling, considering how many official tests are given out.
 

eternal recurrence

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so whats your conclusion? given we cannot measure it. do you believe that there are still stable variances within a population of each type that could theoretically be determined?
 

eternal recurrence

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it doesnt matter what the statistics are. my question is what accounts for the fact that there are at all...
 

spirilis

Senior Membrane
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MBTI Type
INTP
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Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Whatever the reason is, it's likely a complex and multivariable answer. But a thorough discussion and maybe even sociological study to try and explore different angles of "why" would make for some excellent reading.
 

nanook

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i don't believe we have accurate statistics. we don't have accurate measurement of cognitive preferences. tests 'measure' traits or attitudes that are only loosely related to the typological aspect of cognition and that are also correlated with other patterns, such as stages of development and related cultural memes. especially the S/N percentage is most likely a mistake. we don't understand how type is created, so this thread is open for speculations, but there won't be a consensual answer.
 

RaptorWizard

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MBTI assessments, I believe.

Ya the stats are very shaky. I have seen some sources like Keirsey for example who said Ns are 15% of the population but then Myers-Briggs say it is as high as 30% of the population. Were talking about a 100% increase in N types between the 2 systems. Something is clearly out of place and by the way I went to the Mojo reading site and I am quite impressed with the new twist on the personality theory along with the artificial intelligence developed for each mojo. This surely is the wave of the future for the human mind!
 

Pod'lair

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Ya the stats are very shaky. I have seen some sources like Keirsey for example who said Ns are 15% of the population but then Myers-Briggs say it is as high as 30% of the population. Were talking about a 100% increase in N types between the 2 systems. Something is clearly out of place and by the way I went to the Mojo reading site and I am quite impressed with the new twist on the personality theory along with the artificial intelligence developed for each mojo. This surely is the wave of the future for the human mind!

Yep. There are definitely advantages in seeing the phenomenon as it stands rather than leave things to interpretation of description or test. It's clearly showing things that are outside of the vision of other models. As far as its use to the scientific community, we'll have to wait and see.

Considering the vast majority of forums like this identifying themselves as intuitives, it's pretty safe to conclude that types are far more equally distributed than people seem to make out.
 
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