I think other people sometimes CAN type you more accurately than you type yourself for a few reasons:
1. They know the typology theory better. And if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck....then it still could be a baby swan, so let's look past the surface a bit & not jump to conclusions based on stereotypes.
2. They are exceptionally good at understanding what makes people tick. They see the difference between baby swans & ducks more easily.
3. While they have their own ego, they don't have YOUR ego, so they are not blinded by your ego & can see it. It's kind of like how other people see your own face more than you see it; it's yours, but it's not visible to you because you're functioning though it. You can go & look in the mirror of course, but sometimes that means seeing what you want to see (ie. you make a flattering face or whatever). A photo of you which is at odds with your perception of your own face can catch you off guard (often unpleasantly), and yet others are used to you seeing you look that way. So just as the image in your head of your own face can differ a bit from reality, so too can your perception of your personality & how it actually appears to others.
That said, I think it's mostly futile to tell someone they are mistyped. I think discovering their type can be a process a person has to go through, and that process can mean mistyping for a bit. They won't be able to accept their ego if it's told to them anyway; they really have to uncover it themselves for the realization to set in & turn into something productive. The point of realizing your ego is so you can transcend it, but you're ego is sort of trying to protect itself from being destroyed. This is why even when people DO identify their actual type, they can deny the negative traits of it. This is because the ego doesn't want you to register your personality as basically being a flawed lens for the world. In identifying as the wrong type, you don't have to face your actual flaws because you don't have that types' flaws!
Now, why other people can fail massively at typing others:
1. They don't know typology well at all, but may think they do.
2. They are bad at understanding how people work in general (ie. even if they grasp theory, they still have a hard time understanding different thought processes from their own).
3. They have massive bias due to their own ego. So yes, their own ego gets in the way of seeing your ego accurately (it's like a mirror facing a mirror!). This is especially true when you don't fit their idea of
themselves, yet you claim the same type; this threatens their ego.
The last reason is why some types get more huffy when they suspect someone is mistyped as their type, or why some types simply try to out others more
cough:NTs:cough: and :ahem:INFJs:ahem: ). The nature of their ego includes some aspect about being more rational or special than most people, etc. Again, you're threatening their ego because you don't fit their picture of themselves.
This, however, is also why people can mistype - they gravitate towards types seen in a more positive light. It's been suggested by people that this may be a reason for the seemingly excessive amount of Ns online; N is perceived as more intelligent, special, etc, and so people type themselves based on that instead of the more neutral definitions which describe different egos without one being better or worse than the other.
It makes total sense; it's why I tend to have a kneejerk aversion to a lot of these stereotypes.
