Race, Culture and MBTI

[mlittrell]

Here is my story on culture/race and mbti. Yesterday I went to the gym and it was all african americans, and you know what, I felt much more comfortable around them then your standard white guy. This is my thinking. The african american culture seems to be a much more XSFP culture. I'm not saying there are more XSFP's, I'm just saying they have a very XSFP outlook on life. When in the gym, I wanted to use a bench and there was someone on it so I asked if I could work in. As he looked up I realized he was an ISTJ but he happily chimed "sure man no problem, let me just finish this set". Now usually if I ask a guy who is a white ISTJ, he has to pull the whole macho thing (this is in my gym, I'm not saying all ISTJs are like this) and and tell me to wait till they are completely finished, usually in a very rude manner (not that I care that much). In white corporate America, you dont necessarily need to be extremely smart to get ahead, as long as your a hard worker. To me, white corporate America tends to seem to look well upon the XSTJ culture. Even some XSFP white guys I know have this XSTJ mentality. When in the gym with all of the african americans, even the XSTJ's put me at ease because of what I see as a culture that accepts XSFP.

That's just from personal experience. Wouldn't mind hearing other ideas.

 

[edcoaching]

Here is my story on culture/race and mbti. Yesterday I went to the gym and it was all african americans, and you know what, I felt much more comfortable around them then your standard white guy. This is my thinking. The african american culture seems to be a much more XSFP culture. I'm not saying there are more XSFP's, I'm just saying they have a very XSFP outlook on life. When in the gym, I wanted to use a bench and there was someone on it so I asked if I could work in. As he looked up I realized he was an ISTJ but he happily chimed "sure man no problem, let me just finish this set". Now usually if I ask a guy who is a white ISTJ, he has to pull the whole macho thing (this is in my gym, I'm not saying all ISTJs are like this) and and tell me to wait till they are completely finished, usually in a very rude manner (not that I care that much). In white corporate America, you dont necessarily need to be extremely smart to get ahead, as long as your a hard worker. To me, white corporate America tends to seem to look well upon the XSTJ culture. Even some XSFP white guys I know have this XSTJ mentality. When in the gym with all of the african americans, even the XSTJ's put me at ease because of what I see as a culture that accepts XSFP.

That's just from personal experience. Wouldn't mind hearing other ideas.

The one "official" study I know of is a paper by Dan Robinson, African American and head of higher education at Iowa State. He describes his culture as ESP but found that successful African American males tend to "mask" ESTJ. He prefers ENFP himself.

I do a lot of work with urban schools and when we can get teachers to reframe behaviors as "extraverted" rather than disruptive, they start learning how to change the classroom environment to help these students succeed...

 

[Valiant]

Really? I thought Swedes and other scandinavians were known for being a little introverted or shy, and goofy.

No, sir! Most people try to be extroverted over here, it's kind of the "ideal" to behave in ESTJ manner. ISTP and ESTP are also hugely popular. Male NF's and male introversion is very much discouraged. If a guy is introverted over here, at least where I live (way up north) it is seen as kinda gay to be silent and goofy. :rolli:

 

[GZA]

Canada is pretty fuckin' F.

I also think it is as a whole much more laid back than the United States for example. But that is very vague:


I don't agree that culture will determine type all that much. It will determine to some degree how the type expresses itself, but not the type itself. And in a place like Canada, culture is different from one town to the next depending on the demographics (i.e. french or english, large asian/arab/ect population, average income and standard of living/education, east coast, southern ontario, prairies, west coast, north, ect). The difference even in one town between two different high schools could be completely different, so I say it makes no difference because culture can mean too many things and have too much variation.

I think pretty much every country will be some kind of SJ, most likely STJ, just because those are the kinds of people that make the laws that govern the culture. But as Murkrow said, there are non STJ's that have a large effect on culture and law, and I guess that could be different in different places. Like In Canada I guess it would be some kind of F, maybe INFJ or ENFP.

 

[FDG]

I suppose here in italy we're ESFPs.

 

[Eric B]

Here is my story on culture/race and mbti. Yesterday I went to the gym and it was all african americans, and you know what, I felt much more comfortable around them then your standard white guy. This is my thinking. The african american culture seems to be a much more XSFP culture. I'm not saying there are more XSFP's, I'm just saying they have a very XSFP outlook on life. When in the gym, I wanted to use a bench and there was someone on it so I asked if I could work in. As he looked up I realized he was an ISTJ but he happily chimed "sure man no problem, let me just finish this set". Now usually if I ask a guy who is a white ISTJ, he has to pull the whole macho thing (this is in my gym, I'm not saying all ISTJs are like this) and and tell me to wait till they are completely finished, usually in a very rude manner (not that I care that much). In white corporate America, you dont necessarily need to be extremely smart to get ahead, as long as your a hard worker. To me, white corporate America tends to seem to look well upon the XSTJ culture. Even some XSFP white guys I know have this XSTJ mentality. When in the gym with all of the african americans, even the XSTJ's put me at ease because of what I see as a culture that accepts XSFP.

That's just from personal experience. Wouldn't mind hearing other ideas.

The one "official" study I know of is a paper by Dan Robinson, African American and head of higher education at Iowa State. He describes his culture as ESP but found that successful African American males tend to "mask" ESTJ. He prefers ENFP himself.

I do a lot of work with urban schools and when we can get teachers to reframe behaviors as "extraverted" rather than disruptive, they start learning how to change the classroom environment to help these students succeed...

When I learned about temperament, I early on expanded it to societies in a similar fashion, especially since Tim LaHaye's book on temperament mentioned caucasian civilization as being very "Choleric". I was more familiar with his take on the Galen temperaments, which would probably correspond more to the Interaction Styles. So here's how I saw them (to translate):

Caucasian: In Charge (aggressive, serious)
African and African American (aggressive, fun loving)
Asians: Chart the Course (withdrawn, serious)
Jews were perhaps Behind the Scenes or Phlegmatic, because of their humorousness, as well as being influential in a less aggressive way.

This wasn't looking at Keirsey temperament, but it is obvious thay the dominant Caucasian society is SJ, making ESTJ. (LaHaye would call this "Choleric Melancholy" or ChlorMel). I never thought about what African American society would be in the "conative" area. Their influence is probably what is softening the country down from it's strict ESTJ model. (Didn't Jennifer or someone also mention it becoming more P now?) So perhaps it is some sort of E_FP. But then, on second thought, there is traditionally a lot of Fe in the culture, especially regarding families, along with tradition. Could it be ESFJ? Or possibly ENTP?

Asians would also seem to be very SJ. So, overall, ISTJ. I would think Jews are also SJ, so that may be ISFJ?

It seems SJ is the dominant model in the world, because it maintains the people's identities and institutions (in addition to it being the most common temperament for individuals to begin with).

 

[mlittrell]

When I learned about temperament, I early on expanded it to societies in a similar fashion, especially since Tim LaHaye's book on temperament mentioned caucasian civilization as being very "Choleric". I was more familiar with his take on the Galen temperaments, which would probably correspond more to the Interaction Styles. So here's how I saw them (to translate):

Caucasian: In Charge (aggressive, serious)
African and African American (aggressive, fun loving)
Asians: Chart the Course (withdrawn, serious)
Jews were perhaps Behind the Scenes or Phlegmatic, because of their humorousness, as well as being influential in a less aggressive way.

This wasn't looking at Keirsey temperament, but it is obvious thay the dominant Caucasian society is SJ, making ESTJ. (LaHaye would call this "Choleric Melancholy" or ChlorMel). I never thought about what African American society would be in the "conative" area. Their influence is probably what is softening the country down from it's strict ESTJ model. (Didn't Jennifer or someone also mention it becoming more P now?) So perhaps it is some sort of E_FP. But then, on second thought, there is traditionally a lot of Fe in the culture, especially regarding families, along with tradition. Could it be ESFJ? Or possibly ENTP?

Asians would also seem to be very SJ. So, overall, ISTJ. I would think Jews are also SJ, so that may be ISFJ?

It seems SJ is the dominant model in the world, because it maintains the people's identities and institutions (in addition to it being the most common temperament for individuals to begin with).

This is a very interesting way of looking at it. I, personally of course, always saw the japanese cultrue as accepting NT's much more. Specifically XNTJ. Other asian cultures may differ. Thoughts?

 

[milti girl]

Type experts in India point to theirs, saying "We have a billion people, a million gods in our pantheon, and the goal of Hinduism is to go beyond what is seen." That last bit is the kicker toward N.

No way!! No way in hell is India N. It might have been at one time, and sure, I think if you equate India with Hinduism, Jainism or Buddhism, as religions in themselves - whcih would be an almost fundamentalist thing to do, and very wrong - then perhaps India could be called N. And yeah, Gandhi, the Father of the nation, was N, but his vision for India and the India of today are so very very different.

I've lived here all my life, and Sensors thrive. You need to be street smart, you need to be alert, you need to know how to talk to people and use every opportunity you get to get what you want and to get where you want. You need to know how to sell yourself here. Right from the bosses in the big corporates to the beggars on the street to the swamis on dope - everyone is marketing themselves and everyone's on the move. The education system depends on how much you can 'mug' up - that is, learn things by heart, which can be torture for right-brained people like me! Employment in a good place or government position more often that not depends on whom you know rather than what you know.

And as for the J-ness? There's a running joke in India that IST (Indian Standard Time) stands for Indian Stretchable Time. NOTHING is on time, people. If your bus/train is scheduled for 7:00pm, it's bound to leave only at 8:30. Oh yeah, by the way, all timings are always rounded off for convenience. The only time they aren't rounded off is for the writing of a newborn baby's birth certificate, for astrological purposes.
The bureaucracy can kill you (this is what we really have to blame the British for ) but it isn't efficient at all (the way a bureaucracy is meant to be.) This is mostly because the bureaucrats themselves have no idea of what is going on or if your form reached them or if your passport got made or not, and worse, they don't care anyway.
India is P. Very P. So P that J people are constantly cursing.

Oh yes, and it's a very F country. There's a lot of feeling and 'brotherhood' amongst people, most of the time, that is. The fact that there's suffering and poverty makes closeness very important to any given community. Festivals are celebrated with great splendour, people fall at the feet of their gods, it's all very F with a feeling of emotional saturation.

I've made India sound so terrible. But this is everyday-India I talk of. Not how it used to be 2000 years ago. And you know what, it's not so difficult to live here once you're used to it! I looovvvve my country! It's ESFP-heaven. It's just one big party, people!
Edit:
Maybe it's ISFP. I can't be too sure.

 

[unconvinced]

i think that probably all cultures have preferred personality types, which represent the "ideal" members of that society, and which influence the individuals within it when they take MBTI tests; but the true distribution of personality types is probably similar across cultures.

it seems to me that most people in any given culture tend to prefer whatever traits are preferred culturally, whether they really have them or not (they may even really believe that they have those traits when they don't). i think this is true of sub-culturally preferred traits too (and i think this is why there are so many N's online but not in real life--i think most online N's are really S's--they post like S's at least).

this is one of the problems i have with MBTI results, i think they reflect more often what people wish was true about themselves than what actually is true.

 

[cloakofsnow]

Originally Posted by murkrow:
Canada is pretty fuckin' F.

But as Murkrow said, there are non STJ's that have a large effect on culture and law, and I guess that could be different in different places. Like In Canada I guess it would be some kind of F, maybe INFJ or ENFP.

I'm curious to know what it is that makes Canada seem F to you. As for the S-N dimension, I live on the west coast, and although I find that, probably like everywhere in the world, we have a fair share of Sensors here in the general population, the general "atmosphere" is quite N. I don't know about the east coast, though. Never been there.

 

[cloakofsnow]

I've made India sound so terrible. But this is everyday-India I talk of. Not how it used to be 2000 years ago. And you know what, it's not so difficult to live here once you're used to it! I looovvvve my country! It's ESFP-heaven. It's just one big party, people!
Edit:
Maybe it's ISFP. I can't be too sure.

I really enjoyed your post. I've always found India to be fascinating so it's interesting to read about the country from the point of view of an insider.

 

[milti girl]

I really enjoyed your post. I've always found India to be fascinating so it's interesting to read about the country from the point of view of an insider.

Aww...Thank you! We Indians like to define ourselves with cliches like, "unity in diversity" or "one country, many worlds" but these observations were made by the N people who worked towards Independence. Honestly, after writing that post, I realised that I was writing only about a section of India - the well-educated, IT-driven India of the big cities (the India I am aware of.) Which is a minority. A sad minority. The majority of my country's people live in tiny villages that often experience droughts or floods, with no electricity, and people there know that the only prospect of a decent standard of living for them is in the cities but can't leave their home-towns anyway. And that India is hard-working, and sustains itself through a blind belief in customs and faith and whatever god(s) they worship. I have a suspicion that part of India is more N than we would ever realise.

 

[Haphazard]

If I could look at the major sects of Judaism...

Orthodox: SJ
Conservative: FJ
Reform: NJ

 

[BlownAway]

Personally I would have thought that countries where more hollistic approaches to problems/ situations were taken would be intuitive. I'm not too sure about what culture that describes. Perhaps Sweden?

According to Brent Massey (Where in the world do I belong?), Sweden is the most sensing country of all he has looked into.. Living there, I can only agree. XSTJ I think. Sweden values following rules without questioning and talking about concrete matters. Standing out from a crowd is not ok and highly controlled by "Jantelagen". Though, they say Denmark is an intuitive culture (ENFP)

 

[mollyowens]

According to the MBTI Manual INFJ was the predominant type found among Japanese American children in a classroom study. Not sure if that means that the INFJ type would be more common in Japan, but it's interesting.

 

[entropie]

According to the MBTI Manual INFJ was the predominant type found among Japanese American children in a classroom study. Not sure if that means that the INFJ type would be more common in Japan, but it's interesting.

If they just studied one classroom, it is really not THAT accurate xD

 

[dorareever]

I don't think culture has *that* much of an influence. There are some cultures that seem to be conscious of the value of differences.

I tend to think that no matter where you are, ESTJ's are still the majority.

They are probably more adapted to survival or something. But there are indeed cultures that seem to understand the use of lil mutants like myself. There are probably cultures that foster less common functions (like the incredibly Ni world of the Australian aborigenals), but they tend to be small communities. The non-ESTJ type doesn't seem to work on a great scale.

Another thing that sometimes annoys me is when foreigners, usually Americans, go on and on about how XFXP we are here in Italy or France. Maybe. Maybe compared to the anglo-saxon world we are. But the favored model is still very much ESTJ. Maybe ESTP. But F? Not much success with it here either.


you can type cities or countries though, a bit. but it's more for fun. even though well any city has a certain deep essence that could be expressed in MBTI terms, but it's more the city itself than how the people would type.


I'm not sure if you non-NF's get that. I cannot explain it in logical terms.

 

[mlittrell]

like i said before i think some cities/countries TEND to accept certain types more then others. the most normal and accepted type here in america is probably ESTJ (quite possibly XSFP also). of course, that can still differ because of race and culture within countries.

 

[sade]

Finnish men are ISTx.
Finnish women are ESFJ.
(At least those are the stereotypes.)

But, yes, well, I see lots of ISxJs here. They are everywhere. I could guess at least 1/4 of population, if not even 1/3.
(Finns are supposed to work loyally and effectively and keep their mouths shut. It's an easy place for an introvert to live in. )

Many introverts, many SJs. I'll agree with you.

 

[mlittrell]

According to the MBTI Manual INFJ was the predominant type found among Japanese American children in a classroom study. Not sure if that means that the INFJ type would be more common in Japan, but it's interesting.

I always thought of Japan as being very NT or SJ. Be smart and work hard lol. Then again, I know close to nothing about Japan.

EDIT:

somebody already mentioned it before but SJs make up a nice chunk of the population. I think ESTJs make up 13 percent. That might be wrong though.