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INFP, ISFP, ENFP. differences? similarities? (4w5)

Noll

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hi. lately i've been thinking a lot about what MBTI-type i am, i've always thought myself to be INFP, but something has got me thinking. a close friend told me that i'm probably either INFP, ISFP or ENFP. i'm very, very sure about my Enneagram-type. but i'd just like to know, what are some key differences and similarities between these three MBTI-types? anything specific for 4w5? and if any, do i give off any vibes? feel free to ask questions too.
 
B

brainheart

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hi. lately i've been thinking a lot about what MBTI-type i am, i've always thought myself to be INFP, but something has got me thinking. a close friend told me that i'm probably either INFP, ISFP or ENFP. i'm very, very sure about my Enneagram-type. but i'd just like to know, what are some key differences and similarities between these three MBTI-types? anything specific for 4w5? and if any, do i give off any vibes? feel free to ask questions too.

I would say look at your life as a whole vs particular instances, that would be one thing. Also, I would determine whether you are for sure a Fi dom or not, that will narrow it down to IXFP. I would make a video of yourself answering questions that you didn't write- these ones work ok- http://cognitivetype.boards.net/thread/315/read-first-video-reading-instructions, but not read the questions first so you can see how you respond in real time. Then I would read up on cognitive functions and try to see what ones you notice in your video the most. These descriptions are short and easy to grasp, so they're a good introduction: http://www.bestfittype.com/Models/FunctionsOfType.cfm

I was thinking maybe I was an INFJ, then I did this and watched myself. My video was essentially one big long Fi rant, with Ne rambling and losing train of thought mixed into it. I think this method can really help if you're an introvert because introverts have a tendency to view reality so subjectively that sometimes it can be difficult to see what you actually do.

I think this video does a great job of showing the difference between INFP and INFJ:


If you feel like it, it's especially good to watch the entire video that they got these excerpts from because then you can really see the difference in the types in detail. Mulligan stays composed, Garfield rambles and forgets what the question was, etc.

[MENTION=18664]Stansmith[/MENTION] is an ISFP so he could maybe give you some good info about that type.
 
S

Stansmith

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The way I realized I was Se>Ne was after noticing that I take things at face-value (Se) first, and then look for intrinsic patterns (Ni) within the context if it's of any interest to me. Ne users look at an object and can immediately connect it to some external pattern. Tertiary Ni is more subjective and strange, while Auxiliary/Dominant Ne is a bit more surface-y and whimsical.
 

Noll

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thanks for the help you two. just realized i'm actually ISFP.
 

reckful

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It sounds to me like you may be the latest in a long line of victims of bad cognitive functions analysis.

If 4w5 really makes sense as your Enneagram best-fit (and you say you're "very, very sure" about that), I'd say INF is very likely and ISF is unlikely.

Based on a quick browse of your TC posts, you sound like a Limbic INFP to me (although my P lean isn't that strong), and you'll find a little info on what it means to be "Limbic" in the next linked post.

Feel free to ignore this suggestion, but I'd be curious to see your results — including the percentage scores — on the two tests I link to in this post (which include the official "Step I" MBTI).

Also, in case they're of any use to you, the next spoiler has online profile roundups for the four IF types — although I really don't think you're an S.

If your test results seem to narrow you down to, say, two likeliest possibilities, a possible way to give prospective type-me contributors more information to go on is to read through some profiles of those types and post about anything in them that provokes a notably strong "that's me" or "that's not me" reaction — but, if you're going to take those linked tests and post your results, you may want to do that first and wait to get some more feedback on those before you decide which profiles it makes sense to be reading.



Returning to the cognitive functions issue, and FYI: The MBTI dichotomies, which substantially line up with four of the Big Five personality dimensions, now have decades of studies in support of their validity and reliability, while the "cognitive functions" — which James Reynierse, in the article linked below, refers to as a "category mistake" — have barely been studied. And the reason they've barely been studied is that, unlike the dichotomies, they've never been taken seriously by any significant number of academic psychologists. Going all the way back to 1985, the MBTI Manual described or referred to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 MBTI studies and, as I understand it, not one of the many study-based correlations reported in the manual were framed in terms of the functions. And many more dichotomy-based studies have been done in the years since. The third edition of the MBTI Manual was published in 1998 and, as Reynierse notes in the linked article, it cited a grand total of eight studies involving "type dynamics" (i.e., the functions model) — which Reynierse summarizes as "six studies that failed, one with a questionable interpretation, and one where contradictory evidence was offered as support."

If you want a long (but worthwhile, if I do say so myself :alttongue:) explanation for why I'm a "dichotomies guy" — including more background on the place of the functions in the MBTI's history — you'll find it in this long INTJforum post.

Links in INTJforum posts don't work if you're not a member, so here are replacements for the two links in that post:

 

mintleaf

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The way I realized I was Se>Ne was after noticing that I take things at face-value (Se) first, and then look for intrinsic patterns (Ni) within the context if it's of any interest to me. Ne users look at an object and can immediately connect it to some external pattern. Tertiary Ni is more subjective and strange, while Auxiliary/Dominant Ne is a bit more surface-y and whimsical.

If (s)he's a 4w5, he's going to relate to the "subjective and strange" regardless. My guess is INFP.
 

Galena

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It sounds to me like you may be the latest in a long line of victims of bad cognitive functions analysis.

If 4w5 really makes sense as your Enneagram best-fit (and you say you're "very, very sure" about that), I'd say INF is very likely and ISF is unlikely.
Curious: what do you think of 4w3 ISF?
 
S

Stansmith

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ISFP 4s are common. Tertiary Ni works perfectly fine with the idea of fourness.
 

Thalassa

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I consistently type as INFP in the four dichotomies, but seek experience like an ENFP or xSFP. I am also way too sensing to be an Si inferior, and if I were in an Fi/Si loop I would not be so obviously Pe and experiential. I had an ENTP on another forum give me an eerie description of my flaws based on generalities of ISFP function order. Some one I was very close to also insisted I seem ISFP rather than ENFP (apparently have similar persona in some cases).

In PTypes I also fit ISFP cyclothymic ambivert Exuberant type best, and think a lot of my interest in the occult and bizarre ideas about things are probably wonky tertiary Ni.

I also don't have as much of an airy quality, in the way I communicate. I certainly don't think I am the Keirsey ideal of "diplomacy" either, though SFPs are kind, they lack the natural diplomacy of NFs.

So I went with Fi supported by sensing, and SEE-Fi Gamma in Socionics.

That's just me. Oh and I think I guide others with tangible experience rather than introducing random possibilities...that would be Beebe's difference between the Se and Ne aux.

I wonder what reckful thinks.
 

reckful

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Curious: what do you think of 4w3 ISF?

I'm not an Enneagram expert (or fan), but my understanding is that E5 is basically INT country and E4 is basically INF country. FWIW, here are three websites I've bookmarked with respect to MBTI-Enneagram correlations:

9types.com
breakoutofthebox.com
personalityjunkie.com

I guess it's fair to say that, if an ISF was a 4, I'd consider a 4w3 less unlikely than a 4w5, but that's not saying much.

If you're talking about yourself, and if you're one of those people who's an INF based on the dichotomies but an ISF based on "cognitive functions analysis," then, if you read my linked INTJforum post, I assume you realize I'd say you're probably an INF 4w3 rather than an ISF 4w3.
 

Noll

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[MENTION=18736]reckful[/MENTION]: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3321340/results.PNG and https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3321340/results2.PNG

i'm very much an amateur when it comes to MBTI, i've always prefered Enneagram. INFP just confuses me cause i'm not that good at abstract thinking, which i guess is common for INFP's, to be good at abstract thinking? i mean i'm not very rational, i'm a feeler, i have a tendency to express myself abstractly (and be really imaginative), but when it comes to understanding others, i'd prefer if they could stay concrete, and i have a pretty hard time learning in school because of it, and i have noticed it, i take a lot of things very literally compared to others. i learn differently but i can't really grasp it. i have been diagnosed with Asperger's, i guess INFP and Asperger's can mix even though it's not that common. i'm not good at symbolism or finding "hidden meanings" unless i'm really into it, like a poem i really like. i have a tendency to just like some things, while not being able to explain why at all. too abstract.

it's always confused me too cause, i'm not THAT introverted, when answering for these kind of tests i choose "reserved", "quiet"-options etc cause i'm shy. when i get to know people i can be overly talkative and not at all introverted. dominant Fi though, definitely. at the end of the day i guess i'm an introvert. another close friend told me i'm probably more Si than Se.
 

Thalassa

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Dichotomy tests tend to prompt Se types to choose N because unfortunately a lot of the dichotomy tests base their idea of Sensing on Si.

You saying that you take things literally is a clue. Even when I typed myself ENFP a lot of people insisted ESFP bc I am very anecdotal, I want to illustrate bigger Fi or Ni concepts through Se tangible experience. Which annoys the fucking piss out of some NTs.
 
S

Stansmith

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When I have nothing to talk about, I really have nothing to talk about. On the other hand, I'd imagine an ?NFP could keep an idle conversation going pretty well regardless of the environment they're in.
 

Noll

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dammit this stuff is so hard, having self-insight. finding my Enneagram-type took me a long time too.
 

five sounds

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thanks for the help you two. just realized i'm actually ISFP.

That really seems to fit you based on what I've heard and seen from you so far on the forum.

Fi for life :solidarity:
 

reckful

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[MENTION=20005]Noll[/MENTION] —

I'm involved in a few too many type-me threads at the moment (not just at TC), but I'll be back to this one at some point. I'm still leaning INFP for you, although it looks like you could be pretty close to the borderline on more than one of the dimensions.

You came out INFP on the official MBTI, and all your scores were reasonably solid. Your Big Five results correspond to Limbic ISFx, but four of the five scores are fairly borderline (between 40% and 60%) and, as noted below, I'm inclined to give the official MBTI score more weight on the S/N dimension.

Just quickly for the moment, I wanted to note that the kind of "abstract thinking" that an NF (and especially an NFP) is prone to do is significantly more likely to involve interests in the arts and humanities, and/or psychology and the social sciences, than, e.g., math and the harder sciences. The fact that you chose the N response to 18 out of the 26 items on the official MBTI is a pretty good indicator that you're "abstract" in the S/N sense (albeit in an NF way). You came out S-equivalent on the Big Five test and, although it's not hard to see an NF disliking some of the more NT-ish items on the Big Five test (e.g., "I would take a 10% raise to move to a job where I did theoretical research all day"; and "I am more interested in intellectual pursuits than anything else"; and "I find theoretical physics interesting"), the Big Five score might be an indication that your N preference (if that's what you have) is on the mild side.

Just for the heck of it, I've put a comparison of typical INFP and ISFP career choices in the first spoiler, in case it helps you sort yourself. As you'll see, a typical INFP isn't an "abstract thinker" in the sense of having a job that's particularly scientific/technical, but the INFP job list is notably less "concrete" than the ISFP list.



I mentioned in my first post that one possible way to give prospective type-me contributors more information to go on is to pick what you think are your two (or three) most likely types, read through some of the profiles of those types that I linked you to, and post about anything in them that provokes a notably strong "that's me" or "that's not me" reaction.

You could do that with the INFP and ISFP profiles (if you're still thinking ISFP is a reasonably likely possibility).

What would you list as your main interests (both academic and non-academic)?

=============================================

Finally: I got a rep comment from another forumite requesting the ENFP version of my profile roundups, so I've put that in the next spoiler.

 
B

brainheart

Guest
i'm very much an amateur when it comes to MBTI, i've always prefered Enneagram. INFP just confuses me cause i'm not that good at abstract thinking, which i guess is common for INFP's, to be good at abstract thinking? i mean i'm not very rational, i'm a feeler, i have a tendency to express myself abstractly (and be really imaginative), but when it comes to understanding others, i'd prefer if they could stay concrete, and i have a pretty hard time learning in school because of it, and i have noticed it, i take a lot of things very literally compared to others. i learn differently but i can't really grasp it. i have been diagnosed with Asperger's, i guess INFP and Asperger's can mix even though it's not that common. i'm not good at symbolism or finding "hidden meanings" unless i'm really into it, like a poem i really like. i have a tendency to just like some things, while not being able to explain why at all. too abstract.

it's always confused me too cause, i'm not THAT introverted, when answering for these kind of tests i choose "reserved", "quiet"-options etc cause i'm shy. when i get to know people i can be overly talkative and not at all introverted. dominant Fi though, definitely. at the end of the day i guess i'm an introvert. another close friend told me i'm probably more Si than Se.

Yes, definitely ISFP over INFP based on the bolded. Se + Ni can make for some very intuitive, imaginative art while Ne + Si is great at untangling all of the potential hidden meanings. I think Ne + Si is better at explaining the abstract/ grasping the abstract out in the world vs Se + Ni which just 'does' it. My ISFP kid draws some pretty out there creatures and I'll ask him about them, what they are/ how he got the idea and he'll just shrug and say, "I don't know." Meanwhile, my head is endlessly swirling with what my creations mean and where they came from.

ISFPs seem to do what feels right to them. INFPs seem to think about what would be the right thing to do. In this way ISFPs can often seem more intuitive than INFPs, because they have that Ni 'in their gut' knowing. INFP intuition, because it's extroverted, has more of an experiential approach, an "I'll know it when I find it". For this reason, INFPs can often seem like perpetual seekers. I don't know how much you know about Van Gogh, but he's a perfect example of the INFP seeker. He tried all of these different life paths and nothing ever felt right- until he found painting. And then he went into it full force. Believe me, this is the INFP desire. To find what they truly value, the method to express their Fi. Meanwhile, an ISFP like Bob Dylan just picked up the guitar as a kid and didn't seem to question it. This interview explains the ISFP 4w5 mindset so, so well.


This post, by the way, is a perfect example of what Ne + Si does. As [MENTION=18664]Stansmith[/MENTION] said, my brain could just go on and on with connecting the dots.

Anyway, [MENTION=10131]IndyAnnaJoan[/MENTION] is an ISFP 4w5.
 

reckful

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[MENTION=20005]Noll[/MENTION] —

I'm not sure about Bob Dylan's full type, but I'd say the odds that he's an ISFP (or an S) are slim. In case you're interested, here's a collection of INTJforum posts I've made on the subject.

================================

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've seen Bob Dylan typed S.

As a host of MBTI studies had shown by the time the Second Edition of the Manual was published almost 30 years ago, people considered exceptionally "creative" under most definitions of the term — poets and musicians included (and architects and scientists, too) — are much more often N than S. Anytime you're trying to type a creative artist — and especially one who's considered particularly original and influential, and even moreso if they're as famous (or moreso) for their skill with words — your opening presumption should be INFP, and you should realize that you'll end up with a less and less likely "famous creative artist" type with each preference that you flip. And the preference you should be most hesitant to flip is the N preference.

My take is that Bob Dylan was N to the nth, and most likely INFP.

=================================

[Another poster replied to me by quoting from Keirsey's typing of Dylan...]

Keirsey said:
Typically, Artisans are not as interested as Idealists in the troubles or the causes of the world. Bob Dylan was not interested in political action; he was much more interested in writing and performing music to have an impact on people. He liked the art, but wasn't as interested in the "deep meaning" of it. He was a genius in reflecting the times by being very perceptive of his environment. He picked up what was in the "air" at the time, and put it to words and music, sometimes borrowing words or tunes and modifying them to his artistic need, at the moment.

He just wanted to write and perform songs when he headed for New York to soak up the pop culture and folk music of Greenwich Village. Like a sponge, he soaked up all different kinds of music -- but he initially imitated the style of Woody Guthrie, a legendary folk song singer and writer.

[To which I sarcastically replied...]

Yeah, Bobby wasn't really too interested in the meaning of the words. He just wanted some stuff to be able to sing at people and, not long after arriving in New York, he discovered that words could be useful for that.

Here's Wikipedia:

Wikipedia said:
Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his first year (May 1960). In January 1961, he traveled to New York City, hoping to perform there and visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie, who was seriously ill with Huntington's Disease in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and was the biggest influence on his early performances. Describing Guthrie's impact on him, Dylan later wrote: "The songs themselves had the infinite sweep of humanity in them ... [He] was the true voice of the American spirit. I said to myself I was going to be Guthrie's greatest disciple."

================================

[Another poster acknowledged that Dylan might be an INFP, but objected that "typing by probability leads to all sorts of errors." And I replied...]

How can the type-the-celebrity game really center around anything other than "typing by probability"? If I or a celebrity-typing site holds up some celebrity we don't personally know as a particular type, what else can we really be doing but saying that, based on the characteristics that X types most often exhibit (a "probability" approach) and the limited amount we know about that person, that person seems to exemplify X type?

But I'd also note that the effect of probabilities is often substantially more dramatic at the ends of the scale than near the middle. As one example, as I understand it, the chess-playing ability of the average woman is not dramatically different than the chess-playing ability of the average man — but if you look at the end-of-the-spectrum subgroup of chess grand masters, it's a group that's very heavily male-dominated. Similarly, as I understand it, the IQ of the average N is not all that much higher than the IQ of the average S — but if you look at the end-of-the-spectrum subgroup of people with genius IQs, you're talking about a very N-dominated group.

One of the more robust streaks running through the statistics in the MBTI Manual is the one that shows that the majority of notably "creative" types are N's. And it's not limited to the arts, either. An entire section of the Manual is devoted to "Studies of Creativity," and they include a series of studies conducted by the Institute for Personality Assessment and Research that looked at people who both worked in creative professions and were "selected by peer nomination" as "highly creative." Out of the resulting 107 "highly creative" mathematicians, architects, research scientists and writers, only three were S's. A 2½-page table presents the results of multiple other studies correlating various measures of creativity (from students majoring in the arts to people working in creative fields), and N's are always in the majority (and often quite overwhelmingly) — and that's particularly striking given that N's make up less than a third of the general population.

For more on MBTI statistics relating to artistic creativity, see [the first spoiler in this post]. I like Keirsey a lot, but I think he missed the boat pretty seriously in labeling ISFP the "artist" type (adjusted to "composer" when he went from Please Understand Me to Please Understand Me II) — and I don't know if he was the originator of that particular meme or not. He did note that creative writers are "almost exclusively NFs," and also that, "where the SPs are drawn to the performing arts, the NFs are drawn to the arts which involve verbal and written communication." But virtually all the statistics I've ever seen suggest he substantially overestimated the extent to which non-verbal creative artists — like painters and composers — tend to be S's rather than N's.

In any case, and getting back to the idea of people near the extreme end of the spectrum — with Bob Dylan, you're not just talking about any old creative artist. You're talking about a guy who many would point to as one of the top ten or twenty songwriters — and particularly lyricists — of his generation. And that alone — and without getting into various other ways in which I don't think he exemplifies typical ISFP characteristics — creates what I would say is a very high probability that he's an N.

================================

Since Mr. Dylan remains under discussion, I can't resist doing one more round. Setting the verbal/musical creativity issue aside and focusing on the personality characteristics typically associated with ISFPs...

Whereas Keirsey considered NT/NF/SJ/SP the most meaningful way to divide the types into four groups who had a lot in common, Myers favored NT/NF/ST/SF, and she referred to SFs as the "sympathetic and friendly" types. Looking at both her and others' portraits of ISFPs, I'd say that if I was asked to choose a likely type if all I knew about them was that three of the adjectives on the "short list" for them were kind, gentle and modest, I'd say ISFP would probably be the best bet.

Mr. Dylan, on the other hand, particularly during the years when he was most in the spotlight, was known for his punkish, outspoken arrogance and a strong caustic streak. And with that in mind, the spoiler's got a little round-up of excerpts from ISFP profiles from some well-respected MBTI sources:



And again, if anybody's reaction to this roundup is, pssh, so reckful, are you saying you think it's impossible that Bob Dylan was an ISFP? — my response is no, impossibility is not what type-the-celebrity is about. The websites and posters who type Dylan ISFP are under no obligation to settle on any particular type for him and, when they hold him up as an ISFP, they're saying something much different from, "We think it's not impossible that Dylan was an ISFP." They're saying that, of the 16 types, they think ISFP is the best match for Bob Dylan, based on (what else but) probabilities, and their understanding of what Bob Dylan was like and a typical ISFP is like.

And my perspective is that, in addition to the top-of-his-generation-in-a-creative-(and particularly a verbally creative)-field issue that leans me pretty strongly N, I also think ISFP specifically is a relatively poor match for Dylan, and that INFP — the quintessential "creative artist" type, as previously discussed, not to mention a type more likely to have an arrogant streak — is a better match.

================================

Appendix D to the Second Edition of the MBTI Manual includes lists of occupations "empirically attractive ... to the sixteen types," based on the CAPT MBTI data bank. Specific occupations are listed in mixed case and composite occupational categories are shown in UPPERCASE. The rankings in each list are based on the percentage of the applicable type making up the total number of respondents in the listed occupation (or occupation category). So, for example, the fact that dental assistant is the #5 occupation on the ISFP list doesn't mean it's the fifth most common occupation among the ISFPs in the CAPT database. It means instead that, among the dental assistants in the CAPT database, the percentage of ISFPs was higher than the percentage of ISFPs for all but four other occupations.

In the spoiler are the "top 40" (out of around 200 categories) from the ISFP list.



It'd be hard to miss the creative/artistic streak running through that list.

And meanwhile, the ISFPs' bottom 40 (again, out of 200) include:

Photographers
ARTISTS AND ENTERTAINERS
Musicians and composers
Writers, artists, entertainers, and agents, miscellaneous
Actors

By contrast, the INFPs' top 40 include:

Writers, artists, entertainers, and agents, miscellaneous
Teachers: Art, drama, and music
Actors
ARTISTS AND ENTERTAINERS
Musicians and composers
Designers
 
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