[MBTI General] S descriptions of Ns?

[wildcat]

Especially be aware of the xNTJs. Like many of history's xNFJs, the xNTJs also have a dream...but the xNTJs are just not as nice!

You mean the Blond Beast?

Reinhard Heydrich - Biography

 

[wildcat]

Yeah, but results aren't 100 % perfect... But true, my J has grown much weaker in just the past year. I am kind of into an existential and identity crisis. I have less focus.

Interesting. Once the Ti (which is very close at the heel by now) gets the upper hand, you are an INTP.
Here in the forum there are people who have made the metamorphosis.

 

[Splittet]

Interesting. Once the Ti (which is very close at the heel by now) gets the upper hand, you are an INTP.
Here in the forum there are people who have made the metamorphosis.

Hehe, well, I don't really see it happening. If it did though, it would be the result of apathy and failure to create/find answers to the philosophical questions that troubles me. In that perspective I hope I never become an INTP.

 

[heart]

See, when I describe N and S along these lines, my Sensing friends and acquaintances (except for the ones with vocational education) usually think they're N. How does one explain the N/S dimension to a Senser holding, say, a Master's Degree in humanities so that they self-select as Sensing? I sometimes feel like I'm (indirectly) saying "So, essentially, this is the preference that, all else equal, would make the best (insert their academic profession here), and this is the preference that is better for doing something more practical/concrete. Which preference do you think you have?"

Wel, I don't know your particular situation but here is an observation I have made on my own experiences. Sometimes it may be that a strong N thinks another person is a sensor, but they are really just closer to the mid point but still N.

In my situation, my husband often gets really impatient with me over being random and rambling when I am trying to explain something ...he is always "get to the point, get to the point...do you have a point? Why didn't you just say it that way to begin with!" and yet he gets the same thing from his strongly sensor relatives when he is trying to explain something.

The reason became apparent in taking the long version of the test that gave indications of how our marriage works. I come out significantly higher in the N section than he did but he is still an N.

 

[lecky]

As a sensor, I enjoy being practical. I feel like I can appreciate what's right in front of me without overanalyzing it or making it into something it's not. I enjoy being relevant and here in the now.

I prefer that sensors are here in the present, more down to earth, easier for me to relate to. I communicate better with them...

Negative things...I also get the feel that they may assume I am not as intelligent and am lacking in depth. While in turn I feel like they can be completely irrelevant and pointless at times.

I'm going to add some positive things about N's as well...there is a part of me that is fascinated by their depth of imaginations and creativity. It comes so easily for them...it would be interesting to peek inside those heads, or experience being an N for a day.

 

[Domino]

I deeply envy the S ability to engage their environment by instinct. I struggle with that even on a very basic level. I always feel like I'm the one missing the punchline to the joke of life -- all the S's around me are getting it and I'm left trying to intuit my glass of juice.

 

[samIam]

my husband often gets really impatient with me over being random and rambling when I am trying to explain something ...he is always "get to the point, get to the point...do you have a point? Why didn't you just say it that way to begin with!"

I used to roll my hands when I said that. Now I just listen for key points and wait. If it's too long however the I in me overrides the E and I'm off to some other place. Sometimes I catch myself and pull myself back in and hope I didn't miss anything. Usually I miss the one point she had to make in the first place and we have to start over.

 

[alcea rosea]

There is a reason for this. SPs can easily see the big picture, and they do use the other functions as well. This article captures something that I have attempted to convey in other threads:For this reason, in answering the question whether SPs stay in the moment is as equally relevant to how developed the Ni is for both Ne and Se types.

Thanks for the link and the posting because it really helped to understand one thing bothering in ISTP's. I really been wondering how ISTP can see the big picture so cleary even if being S.

 

[DaRick]

I often like to draw, but the pictures I created on paper are not quite the way I imagined them in my head.

Same...except that I also suck at drawing.

Now, for what I think would be an S description of me (although I am on the low end of the N scale, IMO):

- Moody (this is mostly internal though), vague, forgetful, absent-minded, lacking in common sense, impractical, theoretical, (possibly) intellectual, indecisive, 'head in the clouds', lacking the ability to lead...although some of those traits may not really be N traits.

 

[Fiver]

It's almost counterintuitive to me, but it seems that an S gets what it means to be an N better than an N can understand what it would be like to be an S.

For example:

I'm going to add some positive things about N's as well...there is a part of me that is fascinated by their depth of imaginations and creativity. It comes so easily for them...it would be interesting to peek inside those heads, or experience being an N for a day.

The S is better at sensing what it must be like to be an N.

An N knows when someone is *less* N than they; but they have little concept of life outside of N. You would think the N would be able to conceptualize Sness; however to do so, an N has to conceptualize what it's like *not to* conceptualize. With effort, the N may be able to conceptualize an S orientation, but cannot seem to understand the underlying meaning or value behind being an S.

Except in the case of playing tennis. Then I *get* why being able to just hit the stinking ball would be somehow better.

 

[MacGuffin]

It's almost counterintuitive to me, but it seems that an S gets what it means to be an N better than an N can understand what it would be like to be an S.

For example:


The S is better at sensing what it must be like to be an N.

An N knows when someone is *less* N than they; but they have little concept of life outside of N. You would think the N would be able to conceptualize Sness; however to do so, an N has to conceptualize what it's like *not to* conceptualize. With effort, the N may be able to conceptualize an S orientation, but cannot seem to understand the underlying meaning or value behind being an S.

Except in the case of playing tennis. Then I *get* why being able to just hit the stinking ball would be somehow better.

I disagree with this entirely.

Except the tennis part.

 

[entropie]

When being very young by the time of Kindergarten, there was this game, where you had several blocks that resembled pictures of everything you can relate to a farm. The kids occasionally played with it and while the girls where building the perfect farm, where every object stands in relation to the other, the boys were more likely to drop a pillow on the farm as a resemblance for an airstrike .

I remember me having that game one time and I put up a scenario that was completly out of line. I do not remember what it was, but you would have needed me to explain, how I saw the objects in relation to each other. Like the barn roof become the chassis for a spaceship, with the cow as the captain and the treadmill as propulsion .

---

I do not think that neither S nor N have a preference for creativity, but they have different styles of expressing it.

S or N are two ways of perceiving the world and they can be a curse or not. There are generally so many things "Extroverted Thinking N's" at least lack. For example remembering faces together with names or things people said or to summarize in detail what happened just in the last week of your life.

----

When I need to explain the N/S relation, what I dont because people here, where I live, are not intrested in such stuff, I usually does not explain it. The easiest explanation is that in a matrix of objects the S focuses on the objects, while the N focuses on their relation. Both have weaker preference for another.

I used to explain to my ESTP buddy that he knows everyone of his friends personally and is interested in their lifes. You can just ask him about someone and he gives you a detailed reflection of what he knows about the person through the person, without any interpretation of things. He mixes objects together and can create a really creative relation between them, but he does not interpret.

When it comes to my INFJ girlfriend, she tends to see a person's mind before she sees the person. I experienced her saying something about a totally random person, she just got to know and while her knowledge of the other person continued, she figured out that she was right. That this person for example indeed has a terminal psychic problem with male dogs or some shit like that .

I myself tend to exaggerate things. There is always a mutual complot of some random people plotting against me that I see. For example the train does not come and it is due to the growing poverty in the country that humans start to grew lazy and let trains just not come. Most of the time my N-ness but is only useable to find weak spots in people or solutions to engineering problems.

That really sucks, when you are never able to just see a person as she is, when you always have to interpret something into the person that you just can not know. Basically Extroverted Intuition is a bad curse, given to me by the producers of the show I think to be my life.

 

[Fiver]

So a young N would see the boys with the pillows and think "wow! Boys are all crazy! or Boys are fun!" In other words make some kind of interpretation. But the young S person would see the boys drop the pillows and think "A pillow just wiped out the farm." ?? Is that right?

If so then what I'm trying to say is that to me, an N, that seems like an eyeball not connected to a brain. Like a photograph. Yes the pillow hit the farm, but what does it meeeeeeaaaaannn?

 

[entropie]

So a young N would see the boys with the pillows and think "wow! Boys are all crazy! or Boys are fun!" In other words make some kind of interpretation. But the young S person would see the boys drop the pillows and think "A pillow just wiped out the farm." ?? Is that right?

If so then what I'm trying to say is that to me, an N, that seems like an eyeball not connected to a brain. Like a photograph. Yes the pillow hit the farm, but what does it meeeeeeaaaaannn?

Yes, you can take it like that. But you have to remember one really important fact that is the backbone of the MBTI psychology.

There is no S or N's in this world, there are only people, who have a preference for N or S. Everyone has the faculty to use Sensing or Intuiting within their personality, the personality test result just says what you are more likely to do. (or to experience, as perceiving is a passive function)

If I for example, where to build a little airplane out of wood. I would more likely do it without the manual, otherwise I would have not o much fun. Later I will be angry, because I build it wrong and destroyed it, because I havent looked in the damn manual. But with age and experience this will get better.

There was especially one instance that isnt especially related to N or S, but to me having a preference to the N. When I got a manual for something I got at christmas (dont remember what it was) my father jumped at me, because I switched through the manual. He said you start a manual at page one and then read it through, so that you are prepared to handle the gear appropiately.

That was really a shocking experience to me by this time, cause I didnt meant any harm and I understood his logic, but I was wondering why I didnt start at page 1 in the first place.

 

[Simplexity]

I think N's aren't immediately attuned to the detail whether it be physical as in the case of a photograph or conceptual. I think N's unconsciously transform what is being presented to something that has a more universal meaning as judged by us, especially in the case of Ti. I think S's have both a greater inclination and better ability to observe the more specific details of the object being observed whether in thought or physical.

Thats why in conversation the need for details always plays out in S's because they are used to relying on that to form a complete "picture" while N's have the ability to fill in the blanks and still get a good "picture".

To sort of add my 2 cents on the point of whether S's have a harder times understanding N's or the other way around, I think that the former is true. I can an do see the use and need for S's to be more concerned about the specifics and details but it is draining for me to carry out that line of thinking and I much prefer my own methods. For S's though to understand an N's line of reasoning is to force them to somehow abandon their attunement the details and reason intuitively sounds to me to be much harder, because all the reasoning done is going to be strongly based on their higher level of recognition of those details and the abstractions they create will have a much more concrete and practical grounding. To somehow get rid of that seems absurdly difficult.

 

[Fiver]

Hmmmm....this is helpful and I like the way you explain how the reasoning processes preferred by S's and N's are different and how that results in how well N's and S's communicate with and understand each other.

Just to clarify, I was originally commenting on the ability of each to understand what it would be like to actually be the other. While the first topic is of key importance, I was just curious about this second idea. In other words, while I am an ENTP, I feel I can imagine what it would actually be like to be I, F and J, but S is more difficult for me.

*sees something else fascinating and takes off*

 

[sarah]

Yes, you can take it like that. But you have to remember one really important fact that is the backbone of the MBTI psychology.

There is no S or N's in this world, there are only people, who have a preference for N or S. Everyone has the faculty to use Sensing or Intuiting within their personality, the personality test result just says what you are more likely to do.

Thank you, entropie, this is really important. I'm so sick of hearing people talk about "Ns" adn "Ss" as though a preference for one means you can't do both!

I realize this thread was started a long time ago, but I just feel the need to say that yes, everyone I know who is interested in type identifies first with the iNtuitive descriptions. EVERYONE. Pretty remarkable, huh? And only later do some of them come to realize that they might prefer sensing, thanks to reading more accurate descriptions of the 16 types. I myself can't score as having a preference for sensing on many type tests, given the way they are worded, and yet I know now that I fit the ISFP pattern. Something's clearly wrong with the way these tests are worded, seeing as how so many people are being misled by them.

Secondly, I majored in fine art in college. Meaning, I didn't just make "pretty pictures", my art was definitely communicating my worldview. I can't stress this enough -- all fine art conveys a worldview, and people like me who prefer Sensing can and do produce fine art! Why on earth would anyone here believe that _S_s don't have feelings or opinions about the world that we want to communicate visually? It's insulting! And what on earth made so many people here believe that SPs can't communicate visually? This is the sort of thing that makes me so mad that I want to dispense with the whole idea of psychological type altogether -- I'm so tired of the misinformation about what it means to prefer Sensing, and I'm so sick of seeing person after person talk about Sensing in a degraded, insulting way.

Wouldn't you agree that the act of creating tangible, visual works of art with your hands is a sensory pastime? NO, it's not just that we "play sports" with art materials, as someone here suggested. (that's insulting too!) SPs like me can and do feel passionately about the things and ideas we care about, and we want to say something through their art. You DON'T have to have a preference for abstract language in order to communicate your feelings and opinions visually!!!!

I'm sorry if I sound offensive here, but threads like this that generate commetns that totally diss _S_s really make my blood boil.

For the record, my art could be summed up as being about displaying my feelings in a way that communicates visually that all of humanity faces similar feelings, whether they choose to display them or hide them. Also, I love to highlight beauty in what I find in my daily life so ast to make viewers sit up and take notice of what htey might ordinarily. Although my art looks different than Georgia O'Keeffe's giant flowers and skeletons (which make you sit up and take notice), THAT's the sort of message comes through very clear is in my collages and drawings. (Claude Monet did something similar -- if you've ever been to the Musee D'Orsay and seen his series of paintings of Rouen cathedral at a dozen different times of day, know that he wanted to call your attention to something you'd ordinarily not even notice but that he wanted to communicate to you was well worth valuing and appreciating.)

So what differences DO I see between myself and people who actually prefer iNtuition (not counting all the obviously mistyped people out tehre -- and there seem to me to be legions of them!):

1. I tend to take what people say literally instead of figuratively, unless it's clear to me that they are making a metaphor (yes, I DO understand metaphors -- I'm not stupid!)
2. I don't tend to take specifics and diffuse them to an abstract level unless there's a practial reason for doing so.
3. I am usually focused on practical ways I can make a visible difference to other people's lives, as opposed to thinkign about ways I could change things way down the road. If people talk about ideas for the future around me, I get impatient if I can't start on something related to making these ideas real right away.
4. I feel driven to accomplish tangible goals rather than trying to be diplomatic or theoretical, unless there's an urgent need for tact and diplomacy -- and then I try my best but feel impatient with that. This does not mean I'm incapable of thinking theoretically -- it simply means I have a preference for tangible-related activities over those taht aren't. Please understand this is just a preference, not a limitation.
5. When my brain is on auto-pilot, I'm constantly thinking of ways I can visually improve my surroundings, make others feel good, or impact others positively on a psychological level (leave them better off for having encountered me), or make things happen that relate to my values. I'm dominant introverted Feeling, people -- I have a strong set of internal values just like the NFs do!!! I don't know how this differs specifically from what iNtuitives do, but I notice that those who ACTUALLY prefer iNtuition as opposed to those who only think they do tend to be much more abstract-minded than I am. They don't really focus on the here-and-now, and often miss opportunities to make an impact on others right this moment. (I bet someone who thinks they prefer iNtuition but who probably actually is an SP is going to disagre with me on that and not realize that they've mistyped themselves.)

Sorry for being a crank, people, but I'm starting to wish I never joined MBTIcentral -- reading all the bias against Ss (SPs in particular) makes me angry.

Sarah
ISFP

 

[ptgatsby]

Sorry for being a crank, people, but I'm starting to wish I never joined MBTIcentral -- reading all the bias against Ss (SPs in particular) makes me angry.

That was an excellent post, in particular the numbered list.

But give the Ns a break. They are, afterall, handicapped (And by this, I think only a few give the wrong impression because of a need to identify with their N, intelligence and so forth, are still insecure and have something to prove.)

Having said that, I don't think there is a strong disagreement that the N/S divide in MBTI has some issues.

 

[Simplexity]

Yes sarah you made an excellent post. That was what I was trying to hit on with the communication in my post. The idea that S's can and do represent themselves on an abstract level but that it is based on a specific and more concrete need( practical if you will), and that it will always be reflected in your thoughts and actions to some extent.

I think you made an excellent point on how you notice and act on what you notice instictively as well, personally I am oblivious to a large amount of details because I tend to diffuse them into an abstract level before I even consciously realise it. I often feel extremely uncomfortable in situations where it is paramount to be consciously aware of things in all their detail.

I think its at the root of why NP's aren't that bothered with physical clutter and deadlines, we only recognize and notice those things that are important in our minds and that is reflected in what we notice in the environment. That is probably why your friend only retained and later told you the general feeling and vibe he got from that encounter, he probably only paid attention to the overriding emotion he felt and actions which backed that up and therefore couldn't describe in detail what really happened.

 

[entropie]

I can't stress this enough -- all fine art conveys a worldview, and people like me who prefer Sensing can and do produce fine art! Why on earth would anyone here believe that _S_s don't have feelings or opinions about the world that we want to communicate visually? It's insulting! And what on earth made so many people here believe that SPs can't communicate visually? This is the sort of thing that makes me so mad that I want to dispense with the whole idea of psychological type altogether -- I'm so tired of the misinformation about what it means to prefer Sensing, and I'm so sick of seeing person after person talk about Sensing in a degraded, insulting way.

I understand you completly in that way and it is my thinking since the beginning of MBTI that people use it to specialize themselves in any sort.

That means instead of doing something that makes them special, they lurk on MBTIc and have their assurance that they are special.

I have to say, you shouldnt bother. If you understand type psychology this puts you in the position to be one, who can straighten out things with people. If you are not so intrested in doing so or lack the power in the long run (as I do for example) at least know, I do not use MBTI to differentiate from people. It helps me to understand better, who I am, because although being that great godly N-type, I absolutely have no clue of who I am. And I need to know