Estp and being a nerd

[cascadeco]

I don't really understand what you mean when you say that "spewing a bunch of statistics is really pretty useless when it comes to an *individual* looking to type themselves."

What I mean is this. Let's say for the sake of argument that someone is definitively of S preference. Let's say they've taken the official mbti test you cite, let's say they are now part of the bundle of statistics out there in the world that people are drawing from to then go forth and type others. Let's say they happen to be an artist (which I am using as an example because you enjoy using art=N stats in these sorts of posts). Let's say they then go on this forum, start reading threads where these stats are presented, then because of how the information is presented, decide that because they are an artist, well, that's a strong indicator that they are in fact N, so they change their type to N. Or let's forget about the original S, now it's just some random person who is an artist who reads art->N and thus decides they are N (when they could he an S like our original person). They are using the stats to type themselves when they should not be - they are using a tendency/group probability to then attempt to apply to themselves, an individual. I am saying this is not how it should be done. Now maybe you agree this isn't how it should be done, but the reality is when all of these stats are presented in a forum, whether in type me threads, or whatever, people will use those probabilities to then apply to themselves. What if they are, as in our example, an 'outlier'?

Or, someone reads of the overwhelming 'stats' tied to iq, where high iq points to high likelihood of N, thus determine they must likely be N based on stats alone.

Are stats defining type then rather than type feeding the stats? Even if you think type is feeding stats, in scenarios such as on this forum where stats are being given, the reverse sill occur - stats will drive typing.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

I don't disagree that Jung said that Se's (not Si's, tho) were concerned with the "aesthetics" associated with concrete stuff, and I specifically quoted him on that issue.

But when a typical MBTI type-me subject talks about their interest in the arts (or similar terms), they're almost always (in my experience) talking about the N kind — literature, music, movies, etc. — rather than, e.g., fashion and fine food. And Jung didn't associate the former kind of interest/creativity with Se-doms at all, and in fact, as I noted, he said that Se-doms feel that "what comes from inside" seems "morbid and suspect." And he said Si-doms were theoretically capable of it, but that was the exception rather than the rule.

And again, by contrast, he said that "active fantasy is the chief mark of the artistic mentality," and that "Active fantasies are the product of intuition."

And what I'm saying is that I think (do you disagree?) that when Jung refers to the "artistic mentality" that he associates with N, he's using the word "artistic" in essentially the same way most modern people use the term when they refer to someone as a "creative artist," or to someone with an interest in the "arts."

As to the issue of whether an S may be more likely to be a fashion designer or a chef or an interior designer or a landscaper or etc., I wouldn't say I have much of a take on that, and I wouldn't disagree that if that's true, that would be consistent with Jung's perspective (on Se-doms, but not Si-doms).

No, you're just trying to steer the conversation back to "the arts" and away from aesthetics.

The OP didn't ask about the arts or "creativity" or whatever. He (or she) just listed a bunch of interests, and I could see where they could easily fall under the rubric of aesthetics. And Jung was clear: Aesthetics is the province of both S and N. Anyway, I'll follow up with some quotes tying S to aesthetics, if you really insist. I'll post a little later with those.

 

[reckful]

What I mean is this. Let's say for the sake of argument that someone is definitively of S preference. Let's say they've taken the official mbti test you cite, let's say they are now part of the bundle of statistics out there in the world that people are drawing from to then go forth and type others. Let's say they happen to be an artist (which I am using as an example because you enjoy using art=N stats in these sorts of posts). Let's say they then go on this forum, start reading threads where these stats are presented, then because of how the information is presented, decide that because they are an artist, well, that's a strong indicator that they are in fact N, so they change their type to N. They are using the stats to type themselves when they should not be - they are using a tendency/group probability to then attempt to apply to themselves, an individual. I am saying this is not how it should be done. Now maybe you agree this isn't how it should be done, but the reality is when all of these stats are presented in a forum, whether in type me threads, or whatever, people will use those probabilities to then apply to themselves. What if they are, as in our example, an 'outlier'?

Or, someone reads of the overwhelming 'stats' tied to iq, where high iq points to high likelihood of N, thus determine they must likely be N based on stats alone.

Are stats defining type then rather than type feeding the stats? Even if you think type is feeding stats, in scenarios such as on this forum where stats are being given, the reverse sill occur - stats will drive typing.

I still get the sense you're talking past me.

I'm not saying that anybody should make a definitive decision on their type based on any one thing. Not on a test result, not on statistics about a particular characteristic, not on anything.

You pointed to an artist who's taken the official MBTI test and come out S, and then reads that N's are more likely to be artists than S's and "so they change their type to N," and you say that's wrong.

And I agree that it's wrong, as I said, to take any one particular thing as a definitive type indicator, but are you saying you think it would be wrong for that person, in trying to figure out their type, to even take into account (as one possible factor in their decision) respectable statistics about what the possible types under consideration tend to be like?

I think they should take their test results into account, should take the artist stats into account, and should take everything else they learn about S's and N's from respectable sources (statistical and non-statistical) into account, and then see if, at the end of the day, they feel pretty confident they're one or the other. And if they end up thinking of themselves as in the middle, or uncertain-for-now, that's OK, too.

 

[reckful]

No, you're just trying to steer the conversation back to "the arts" and away from aesthetics.

The OP didn't ask about the arts or "creativity" or whatever. He (or she) just listed a bunch of interests, and I could see where they could easily fall under the rubric of aesthetics. And Jung was clear: Aesthetics is the province of both S and N. Anyway, I'll follow up with some quotes tying S to aesthetics, if you really insist. I'll post a little later with those.

I don't get the sense that we disagree much about Jung, now that you've clarified. And I suspect the OP's "aesthetic" interests run more to stuff that I'd be inclined to put on the abstract-artistic side than the concrete-aesthetic side, but maybe he'll come back and clarify that.

 

[cascadeco]

I still get the sense you're talking past me.

I'm not saying that anybody should make a definitive decision on their type based on any one thing. Not on a test result, not on statistics about a particular characteristic, not on anything.

You pointed to an artist who's taken the official MBTI test and come out S, and then reads that N's are more likely to be artists than S's and "so they change their type to N," and you say that's wrong.

And I agree that it's wrong, as I said, to take any one particular thing as a definitive type indicator, but are you saying you think it would be wrong for that person, in trying to figure out their type, to even take into account (as one possible factor in their decision) respectable statistics about what the possible types under consideration tend to be like?

I think they should take their test results into account, should take the artist stats into account, and should take everything else they learn about S's and N's from respectable sources (statistical and non-statistical) into account, and then see if, at the end of the day, they feel pretty confident they're one or the other. And if they end up thinking of themselves as in the middle, or uncertain-for-now, that's OK, too.

Ok, that's fair and seems reasonable to me. I do think though that you may be unaware how your presentation of these concepts comes across to others and how it might be used, as I feel like this is one of the first posts you've made where you've said all of this succinctly and mentioned the stats are one component of lots of things to consider. imo the stats you present often seem much more definitive and 'powerful' than the fact that they are merely one thing to look at. My 'talking past you' may be my trying to articulate the fact that these additional layers of checkpoints and such aren't evident in many of your posts. To me, at least.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

I don't get the sense that we disagree much about Jung, now that you've clarified. And I suspect the OP's "aesthetic" interests run more to stuff that I'd be inclined to put on the abstract-artistic side than the concrete-aesthetic side, but maybe he'll come back and clarify that.

Okay, sounds like we've got some grounds for agreement. So I'll hold off on the quotes.

But now the big problem is that you're suggesting a sensor can't be a consumer of art created by an intuitive. But the OP wasn't talking about reading James Joyce. He was talking about enjoying mass market culture. Even if you have a low opinion of Sensors, I can't imagine you would think Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings are outside an ESTP's range of interest or comprehension or whatever.

Sensors are aesthetes. They love art, they love beauty, and their tastes and interests are finely tuned and usually pretty sophisticated.

 

[reckful]

Okay, sounds like we've got some grounds for agreement. So I'll hold off on the quotes.

But now the big problem is that you're suggesting a sensor can't be a consumer of art created by an intuitive. But the OP wasn't talking about reading James Joyce. He was talking about enjoying mass market culture. Even if you have a low opinion of Sensors, I can't imagine you would think Game of Thrones or whatever is outside his/her range of interest or comprehension or whatever.

Sensors are aesthetes. They love art, they love beauty, and their tastes and interests are finely tuned and usually pretty sophisticated.

Wellll, just FYI, the Big Five dimension that's essentially tapping into the same real, underlying dimension of personality as S/N is called Openness to Experience. The most well-established version of the Big Five (the NEO-PI-R) has six facets for each dimension, and one of the six facets of Openness is Aesthetics, and here's how the NEO-PI-R Manual characterizes that facet:

High scorers on this scale have a deep appreciation for art and beauty. They are moved by poetry, absorbed in music, and intrigued by art. They need not have artistic talent, nor even necessarily what most people would consider good taste. However, for many of them, interest in the arts will lead them to develop a wider knowledge and appreciation than the average individual.​

The Big Five Inventory is one of the more academically-respected Big Five tests, and three of its ten Openness items focus on the arts:

• Values artistic, aesthetic experiences
• Has few artistic interests [reverse-scored]
• Is sophisticated in art, music, or literature

As I say in the "INs are the nerds" spoiler at the end of that post I already linked to:

INs are the folks who tend to be the most serious about the world of literature and philosophy and the arts, and to take one or more divisions of pop culture seriously.​

For many forms of "mass market culture" (as you refer to it) — including TV, movies and pop music — there's a big part of the audience that's truly the "mass" audience, and then there's a minority who tend to be more critical/snobby/whatever, and tend to dislike the most popular stuff, and take the stuff they respect kind of seriously (as more than just "entertainment," if you will), and I'd say that (consistent with the Big Five's Aesthetics facet) the self-selection ratio for the N's in the latter group is substantially higher than the self-selection ratio for the S's.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

[...] one of the six facets of Openness is Aesthetics [...]

But that means aesthetics is only 1/6 of the weighting within the category for "Openness to Experience." Thus "Openness to Experience" can't serve as a measure or proxy for aesthetics.

In other words, if you use "Openness to Experience" as a measure for S/N, you're penalizing S because aesthetics (Sensors' strong point) only represents 1/6 of the score. So it sounds like "Openness to Experience" is measuring something other than aesthetics.

Same thing with your citation on "The Big Five Inventory": Aesthetics is underweighted compared to things like art appreciation and artistic interests.

In other words, all this goes back to my earlier protests about the difference between "the arts" and aesthetics: They are not the same thing. If tests measure arts and underweigh aesthetics, then they aren't good measures of aesthetics.

To sum up: I think it's great that you have access to lots of data and test results. That kind of info can be very handy. But tests only measure the one thing they were specifically designed to measure, and in this case none of the tests in your post were specifically designed to measure the larger category of "aesthetics" and its relation to S.

As I say in the "INs are the nerds" spoiler at the end of that post I already linked to:

INs are the folks who tend to be the most serious about the world of literature and philosophy and the arts, and to take one or more divisions of pop culture seriously.

For many forms of "mass market culture" (as you refer to it) — including TV, movies and pop music — there's a big part of the audience that's truly the "mass" audience, and then there's a minority who tend to be more critical/snobby/whatever, and tend to dislike the most popular stuff, and take the stuff they respect kind of seriously (as more than just "entertainment," if you will), and I'd say that (consistent with the Big Five's Aesthetics facet) the self-selection ratio for the N's in the latter group is substantially higher than the self-selection ratio for the S's.

Same old, same old. You keep talking about "the arts" and not about aesthetics. They're not the same thing.

Jung was clear: Aesthetics are the province of both S and N. I don't really care who is snobby or not snobby about art. Unless you're posting about aesthetics, I'm not really curious. That is, I'm not curious about how Ns relate to the arts. Because "the arts" (and snobbery about the arts) aren't the issue. Aesthetics are the issue. The arts are only a small portion of that.

 

[reckful]

But that means aesthetics is only 1/6 of the weighting within the category for "Openness to Experience." Thus "Openness to Experience" can't serve as a measure or proxy for aesthetics.

In other words, if you use "Openness to Experience" as a measure for S/N, you're penalizing S because aesthetics (Sensors' strong point) only represents 1/6 of the score. So it sounds like "Openness to Experience" is measuring something other than aesthetics.

I don't understand what you're saying here. The facets of the Big Five, like the facets of the Step II MBTI, are subcomponents of the main dimension (which is a cluster). Any particular component within the cluster will typically be represented by a minority of the items on any test. How could it be otherwise? How does that "penalize" any particular component.

And it's MBTI N's, not MBTI S's, who correspond to high-Openness (and high-Aesthetics) types. In case you misunderstood, the Big Five is very much not using the term "aesthetics" the way you are.

You'd brought up "mass market culture" (and Game of Thrones, which you contrasted with James Joyce), and seemed to be suggesting that S's tastes were "finely tuned and usually pretty sophisticated" when it came to that kind of stuff (movies, TV, popular music), but those fall within the Big Five's "aesthetics" facet (and on the N abstract/artistic side of things), rather than in the more concrete "aesthetics" category that you're associating with S's (and that Jung associated with Se-doms).

ADDED: I've probably been remiss in not linking you earlier to this post, which has a longer discussion on the links between an N preference and various kinds of arts (as well as creativity in non-artistic areas), in case you're interested.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

And it's MBTI N's, not MBTI S's, who correspond to high-Openness (and high-Aesthetics) types.

Don't you see? You're assuming an equivalency between Openness and Aesthetics in that statement. But Aesthetics is only 1 component out of 6 within the Openness measure. So Openness only reflects Aesthetics to a very limited degree. Openness probably mostly reflects art appreciation, like the Big 5 measure you also mentioned.

You'd brought up "mass market culture" (and Game of Thrones, which you contrasted with James Joyce), and seemed to be suggesting that S's tastes were "finely tuned and usually pretty sophisticated" when it came to that kind of stuff (movies, TV, popular music), but those fall within the Big Five's "aesthetics" facet (and on the N abstract/artistic side of things), rather than in the more concrete "aesthetics" category that you're associating with S's (and that Jung associated with Se-doms).

I said an ESTP could appreciate Game of Thrones, and that as aesthetes S-Doms are pretty sophisticated in their tastes. I didn't say anything about snobbery. If you really want to draw an equivalency between aesthetics and snobbery, you'll have to walk me through it (as opposed to burying it under multiple layers of spoilers and in old messages).

I mean, is that really your contention: Some random conclusion concerning the snobbery of Ns toward mass market culture is proof that the OP can't be an S? When did snobbery become a measure of anything?

I think you're just "kitchen-sinking" the issue: Digging through old posts and throwing around any old random crap you find about "the arts", and hoping something sticks to the wall.

 

[Norexan]

LOL ESTPs have no problem with GoT since it becomes mainstream series.

 

[Jaguar]

all smart people are apparently Ns...

Considering how many morons are Ns, I beg to differ.

 

[Ghost of the dead horse]

Can estp be nerdy/geeky?
I always see the NTs come up as the nerdy ones.
I for one identify and tested as a estp but I'm a huge nerd.
I know the lore for lord of the rings,game of thrones. I' heavily into dungeons and dragons,magic the gathering.
I watch and quote movies all the time and I love reading and learning facts about music specifically metal and the bands associated with that genre.
I listen to mainly death,black,thrash and power metal.
I want to be a history teacher

Yet I never see these type things for estp. Could i be typed wrong?

My best friend at time seemed like an ESTP and I believed it to be true. He seemed like a nerd yeah. I now see him somewhere between ESTP and ENTP really, but there's some ineffable quality to him. EXTP can be a nerd, and it's ok to me. I think it's cool to be a nerd. Are they, though, the ExTP? I'm pretty unsure. I don't know.

 

[notmyapples]

I think that Ti is a bit of where the stereotypical nerd characteristics come from. Because Ti loves intricately detailed systems, they tend to enjoy fiction with massive fantasy worlds like Star Wars or World of Warcraft. XNTP is commonly assigned to this because Ne is often in it's head and attracted to imaginative elements, but I don't see why XSTP types wouldn't be interested in the same.