Mistyped TypeCentral Members

[EJCC]

Well, I have even more material if that doesn't work for y'all.

:

 

[Aquarelle]

Well, I have even more material if that doesn't work for y'all.

It's good with me!

 

[violet_crown]

I'm going to have a hard time phrasing my thoughts here, but I'll give it a shot.

It boils down to the sentiment of: if we didn't pre-judge every member of the type as though they were what we conceive of as the average member of the type, we wouldn't be dissuading folks from labeling themselves as such-and-such a type.

To that end, your statements here about the average are arguably true. But statistical syllogisms are nasty, nasty beasts and can lead us to faulty conclusions about individual members of a set. Sometimes, those conclusions are subconscious and so they only indirectly affect our interactions, but they still ought to be called out and checked.


This gives me the opportunity to rephrase the above in a different way.

If one labels themselves as an ENFJ and they act in non-ENFJ ways, and if we treat type as an objective construct (laffo), there are a few possible explanations. Either they're not ENFJ, or our definition of "ENFJ" and "non-ENFJ" are off-kilter and need to be adjusted.

We're not as open to that second possibility as we ought to be, and I believe that it's much higher than we think. Our working definitions are probably too narrow.

After all, sentiments such as

indicate that those who write descriptions--and also, presumably, most of us--know jack shit about what it actually means to be a certain type, or at least how broad the types actually are.

Re-read this a couple of times, and I'm still uncertain what your overarching point is here.

 

[ReflecTcelfeR]

Re-read this a couple of times, and I'm still uncertain what your overarching point is here.

Don't over look the 1%. That is my understanding.

 

[WALMART]

Soon I will have written the GUT of typology, and you will all be forced to submit to my typings

 

[Cellmold]

Well, it depends on the type of enneagram as to whether or not they get ticked (Fours might be more prone to being offended, and the "identity" minded types). But typically enneagram doesn't really dictate so specifically what your main modes of processing happen to be in the way that MBTI does.

This is exactly it, well said. Also enneagram is more likely to point out flaws and issues in a way that MBTI is not always constructed to do. Although it depends upon who is writing about MBTI and what source a person has used, but many MBTI books are essentially "happy happy joy joy we're all a bunch of special people.....with minor flaws".

Add to this those awful and misleading descriptions and you have a nice recipe for grandiose self-delusion and appraisal. If more people merely took MBTI at the face value of the functions and what those cognitive processes can lead to, without all this rather gaudy dressing up that is done to them, then perhaps they would be less likely to invest their self-worth into their type identification.

Typology is unfortunately the victim of it's own construction. There are many arguments on the nature of 7 billion people not really fitting into 16 neat boxes. But this is often because people always seem to remove subtlety and variation from the equation.

Ive always thought it best to strip away the shit and get to the core of the material. If people can do that they see how type is not rigid and is more variable than they think, not necessarily in a changing of functions, more so that the way in which an individual develops is always individual to their situation and this goes on regardless of type. There are repeated patterns in development to be sure, which is why the theory came about in the first place, that heuristic observation of the human species, experienced with a lifetime of engagement and career, aka with Jung.

However I dont think type theory was originally intended to strangle humanity in a straitjacket, merely guide it with an outlying framework. But I suspect people forget that over time; after all it's easier to group than to dissect.

But you know what humanity is like, we are a species of patterns, we define ourselves by them, our lives are dictated by them and even the most extreme and minute variable often repeats itself on the pattern of existance. Unfortunately this causes us to often see a certain pattern where there is none, which is the problem with functions sometimes. But that's why it is tricky, outcomes can be the same, but what came before the outcome...the process, is what is important.

Then again it could easily all be a load of dingo's kidney's, but it's one of those prove or prove not's that hasn't really been explored thoroughly yet.

 

[Nicodemus]

Soon I will have written the GUT of typology, and you will all be forced to submit to my typings

I am sure it will rival Zang's Metagram in its impact on the hobby of typing.

How are you going to derive the functions?

 

[garbage]

Re-read this a couple of times, and I'm still uncertain what your overarching point is here.

Let me try again.

Long and short: Yeah, that whole "Feelers and Sensors ought to be able to come out of the closet" thing? We're the reason why they don't, and we don't even realize it.


The details:

The average of a set says jack shit about an individual in that set if there's a lot of variance within that set. And there's a much larger variance than we act like there is.

Thus, we have to be open to redefining what it means to be such-and-such a type, from the perspective of those from that type. Because that's how we understand the individual (because, after all, we're all special butterflies, and the rules don't apply to us).

And when we aggregate our understandings of the individual, we actually understand typological categories.


On this forum, we always approach from the other direction--we mash people into categories rather than forming categories around people. Long and short, that creates a culture wherein

Ive decided it is better to keep ones type a secret from the forum in terms of it being visual next to your name.

and

hesitate to put any type forward because I KNOW that I don't fall into the cookie cutter mold of anybody on this forum and by putting down a type it would only be inviting everyone's type stereotypes and arguments as to how I fit into a stereotype or didn't.

This is a very bad thing, because we're actively forcing away this sort of input. So we're getting further away from actually understanding typology.

 

[Aquarelle]

The average of a set says jack shit about an individual in that set if there's a lot of variance within that set. And there's a much larger variance than we act like there is.

Thus, we have to be open to redefining what it means to be such-and-such a type, from the perspective of those from that type. Because that's how we understand the individual (because, after all, we're all special butterflies, and the rules don't apply to us).

And when we aggregate our understandings of the individual, we actually understand typological categories.


On this forum, we always approach from the other direction--we mash people into categories rather than forming categories around people.

QFT

 

[RaptorWizard]

Soon I will have written the GUT of typology, and you will all be forced to submit to my typings

Be sure to send me a mention in your thread when this theory is fully developed. It should be interesting and yes, like another poster said, perhaps it could be compared against Zang's Metagram.

 

[violet_crown]

[MENTION=5578]bologna[/MENTION], I appreciate your clarification, and see where you're coming from now.

Let me try again.

Long and short: Yeah, that whole "Feelers and Sensors ought to be able to come out of the closet" thing? We're the reason why they don't, and we don't even realize it.

I feel this to be an accurate assessment. Where I differ with you somewhat is here:

The average of a set says jack shit about an individual in that set if there's a lot of variance within that set. And there's a much larger variance than we act like there is.

Thus, we have to be open to redefining what it means to be such-and-such a type, from the perspective of those from that type. Because that's how we understand the individual

As far as I'm concerned, while personality is without question fluid, typology and the definitions that constitute it are not. There is a fixed range as to what charecteristics an individual may exhibit and still be said to fit a certain type or to have preference for a certain function. This is without question a flaw in the system as you're trying to use something discreet to capture something that actually exists along more of a continuum. Are people always going to fit neatly into one category or another? No. But that's why the types are based on a preponderance of charecteristics. The types are distinct enough and the categories are well enough defined that that works out.

Now, going back to my example of me playing dress-up as an ENFJ. Regardless of how much I might want to be an ENFJ, or how much I might feel I have in common with ENFJs, that particular descriptor is not the one with the greatest explanatory power in terms of my behavior. If you redefine "ENFJ" in order to suit me, there's going to come a point where you're going to wander out of the ENFJ set into a more suitable one, but you're still no longer talking about the type ENFJ. So my point is that while, yeah, there's some variance across type, there's not so much that you can have some meaningful "redefinition" without ultimately corrupting the original idea.

I'm intrigued, though, by what you've said about creating type definition from the perspective of each respective type. Because in spite of what I said to Lark about not jiving too much with most ENTJ descriptions, I do very strongly relate to other actual ENTJs that I've encountered both on the site and irl. But the fact of the matter is that we are so strongly similar that I feel that it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to come in and say, "Ok, these group of people share these core similarities in terms of how they see the world. We can extrapolate that these core similarities are most likely to be true for some percentage of the population as well. They are probably all the same type."

On this forum, we always approach from the other direction--we mash people into categories rather than forming categories around people. Long and short, that creates a culture wherein

and


This is a very bad thing, because we're actively forcing away this sort of input. So we're getting further away from actually understanding typology.

Based on what you've just said, we understand typology just fine, but are getting away from a clear understanding of the actual psychology that drives it. I don't really care about that, because I feel it's not the core issue here. The problem is that the typological categories, rather than being neutral constructs, have been utterly bogged down with bullshit connotations. So the result is that rather than an individual accepting themselves for what they are, they have to contort themselves into a box that has nothing to do with them.

Again, to go back to the first post of mine that you quoted, my point had nothing to do with whether or not a Feeler is capable of logic or objectivity about their feelings. It was more to do with the fact that the system is what it is. Calling Fi Ti because it makes you feel better doesn't make it so. Fi and Ti are very different things, and someone who knows the difference is gonna look at that IFP whose labeled themselves ITP and say, "Hey, ITP, that argument you're puttin out there right now sounds a lot more like your internal value system, and a lot less like a analytical assessment of the variables at work here. You sure you aren't IFP?" Am I saying that they're incapable of the latter if they typically prefer the former? Not at all. (We do technically have use of all 8 functions, afterall.) But T's are going to be a helluva lot less willing than F's are to bend the system to accomadate someone, and F's get called out more as a result. Contributing to this is the cultural stuff which makes the T label appear to be more valuable, and F's (who are more sensitive to those kinds of signals anyways) just end up getting caught out more often.

And I feel like that's where our views converge. To me, the system itself is valuable. People ladening it with bullshit subjective judgements about x-type being "better" than y-type is what fucks things up for everyone, because then people start reporting inaccurately and the whole thing becomes useless. So, yeah, ignorance and prejudice within the culture of this site are definitely to blame for making typology less useful than it ought to be.

What annoys me about this whole exchange is the insistance that saying that Feelers assess things in a way different from Thinkers (aka one that's not strictly based on logic), or that they tend to take things personally more often is being construed as a put down. I honestly could give a fuck if there's some small segment of the Feeling population for whom that's not true, because it's true both to theory and to my own experience that most are. So in terms of practice, I'm not going to approach most Feelers as if they're that magical small percentage who have balanced their F out with their T. I'm going to do my best to meet them where they are until they've shown that they're coming from somewhere different. It lacks pragmatism to do otherwise.

 

[cascadeco]

Agree with all of the posts re. variance within a given type.

Also have to throw out my usual piece re. mbti does not and should not describe every aspect of a persons' psychology, behavior, abilities, perceptions/conclusions drawn, etc. Also, that all of the cog. functions and theories thrown about are simply that - theories. Descriptors/categories that can provide easier means of describing more abstract phenomena and patterns of thought. .... which, others have said as well.

But agree with Wind-up Rex too that the whole 'point' of mbti / these categories is to, well, have actual meaningful categories. So if the variance within a given category is so extreme that for all intents and purposes the two people don't at all approach things the same way at all, or cognitively assess things in the same way, then it's ludicrous to consider them the same 'type'. So yeah, in that case, if there's someone out there who thinks he's an intp when in reality the way he approaches things and such much more closely mirrors the esfp Pattern instead, well, of course people are going to say he is mistyped, because if he was viewed as intp, then it basically makes the entire theory absolutely pointless.

/this is coming from someone who takes mbti with a huge grain of salt. But again, if the categories/'types' have no basic structure or agreed-upon facets or 'trends', then it's utterly pointless.

(which it can be in some ways, at least the way some people want to apply it, but I digress. lol.)

 

[WALMART]

I am sure it will rival Zang's Metagram in its impact on the hobby of typing.

How are you going to derive the functions?

The criticism is duly noted.


If I knew that, dear Nico, the equations would be solved

Let me try again.

Long and short: Yeah, that whole "Feelers and Sensors ought to be able to come out of the closet" thing? We're the reason why they don't, and we don't even realize it.


The details:

The average of a set says jack shit about an individual in that set if there's a lot of variance within that set. And there's a much larger variance than we act like there is.

Thus, we have to be open to redefining what it means to be such-and-such a type, from the perspective of those from that type. Because that's how we understand the individual (because, after all, we're all special butterflies, and the rules don't apply to us).

And when we aggregate our understandings of the individual, we actually understand typological categories.


On this forum, we always approach from the other direction--we mash people into categories rather than forming categories around people. Long and short, that creates a culture wherein

and


This is a very bad thing, because we're actively forcing away this sort of input. So we're getting further away from actually understanding typology.

An accurate summarization. People are indeed afraid of those labels, with apt reason. I cannot recall how many times in my short life on the forums the casual observation that sensordom equals stupid has been passed before my eyes.


When I see threads like highlander's "MBTI Type and Social Media", all I can do is sit back and laugh.

Be sure to send me a mention in your thread when this theory is fully developed. It should be interesting and yes, like another poster said, perhaps it could be compared against Zang's Metagram.

If I ever do, I shall. I actually think I hammered out the most personally relevant thoughts, I'll likely lose interest soon here-after


I do have one more concept floating around up there...

 

[Totenkindly]

This is exactly it, well said. Also enneagram is more likely to point out flaws and issues in a way that MBTI is not always constructed to do. Although it depends upon who is writing about MBTI and what source a person has used, but many MBTI books are essentially "happy happy joy joy we're all a bunch of special people.....with minor flaws".

Lol. That's very true, good point. I think Enneagram (as a more "spiritual developed" type theory, if one looks at it... even the human advocates of it seem to be more hardcore spiritualists of SOME sort) actually integrates change and good/bad into it, via the Directions of (Dis)Integration.

Typology is unfortunately the victim of it's own construction. There are many arguments on the nature of 7 billion people not really fitting into 16 neat boxes. But this is often because people always seem to remove subtlety and variation from the equation.

In a way, maybe Enneagram has it easier because it doesn't seem to really claim to have the kind of coverage that MBTI does in terms of applying to all people. With MBTI, these binary pairs are supposed to categorize everyone neatly, which it doesn't really do. Meanwhile Enneagram is just nine archetypes that might or might not cover the full range, there are no "functions" per se, there are just archetypes.

However I dont think type theory was originally intended to strangle humanity in a straitjacket, merely guide it with an outlying framework. But I suspect people forget that over time; after all it's easier to group than to dissect.

When I get into these discussions and someone starts quoting authorities (like Jung), it always leaves me a bit cold. I mean, I understand that his work contributed to MBTI and some other theories, but really, they are all just fabricated ways to segment populations into "like" groups, it's just one perspective, and as such, it will have its flaws -- it highlights certain things and ignores others. People seem to really want to identify with a particular type and will even change their behavior to fit the model more clearly, which is kind of bizarre.

the process, is what is important.

I agree with that. I think also that's the problem with not being honest with oneself and/or looking at oneself from a neutral perspective regarding MBTI type per se. MBTI isn't really any sort of higher ideal, so it's not really a problem to not match up; but if you lie to yourself about your inclinations and skillsets, you derail your opportunity to be part of the process of self-revelation and growth. To me, that's the only real issue here, since I am viewing it as a tool to be used to effect change (although we can debate the theory itself and how to keep it pure and coherent, and sometimes that is fun too).

 

[The Great One]

I think that [MENTION=15371]RaptorWizard[/MENTION] is really an INTP.

 

[RaptorWizard]

Just to annoy and incite everybody I decided to retype as ISTJ 3w4 sp/sx like Kobe Bryant, the Ultimate Black Mamba Dragon!

 

[The Great One]

Just to annoy and incite everybody I decided to retype as ISTJ 3w4 sp/sx like Kobe Bryant, the Ultimate Black Mamba Dragon!

What type do you really think that you are?

 

[EJCC]

[MENTION=5578]bologna[/MENTION]: Interesting. That means that I actively display my type for the same reason that other people shy away from it, i.e. to disprove everyone's stereotypes.

I mean, I'm sure this is a personality thing -- not a personality type thing -- so it would make sense that not everyone would be comfortable being all "Judge me if you want, but all the evidence that's needed to disprove your theory is right here! :hi:" And maybe some of it is because I have a relatively high tolerance for people who are all "EJCC you're too nice to be a Te-dom, you sure you aren't ExFx?" But either way, I don't relate a ton to the people who shy away from that.

I do think people should stop being so damn judgy, though! The more time I spend on this forum, the more annoyed I am by people who treat JCF/MBTI like scripture, or something, where friggin' Keirsey has to be 100% right 24/7.

 

[garbage]

As far as I'm concerned, while personality is without question fluid, typology and the definitions that constitute it are not. There is a fixed range as to what charecteristics an individual may exhibit and still be said to fit a certain type or to have preference for a certain function. This is without question a flaw in the system as you're trying to use something discreet to capture something that actually exists along more of a continuum. Are people always going to fit neatly into one category or another? No. But that's why the types are based on a preponderance of charecteristics. The types are distinct enough and the categories are well enough defined that that works out.

Now, going back to my example of me playing dress-up as an ENFJ. Regardless of how much I might want to be an ENFJ, or how much I might feel I have in common with ENFJs, that particular descriptor is not the one with the greatest explanatory power in terms of my behavior. If you redefine "ENFJ" in order to suit me, there's going to come a point where you're going to wander out of the ENFJ set into a more suitable one, but you're still no longer talking about the type ENFJ. So my point is that while, yeah, there's some variance across type, there's not so much that you can have some meaningful "redefinition" without ultimately corrupting the original idea.

I'm intrigued, though, by what you've said about creating type definition from the perspective of each respective type. Because in spite of what I said to Lark about not jiving too much with most ENTJ descriptions, I do very strongly relate to other actual ENTJs that I've encountered both on the site and irl. But the fact of the matter is that we are so strongly similar that I feel that it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to come in and say, "Ok, these group of people share these core similarities in terms of how they see the world. We can extrapolate that these core similarities are most likely to be true for some percentage of the population as well. They are probably all the same type."

Based on what you've just said, we understand typology just fine, but are getting away from a clear understanding of the actual psychology that drives it. I don't really care about that, because I feel it's not the core issue here. The problem is that the typological categories, rather than being neutral constructs, have been utterly bogged down with bullshit connotations. So the result is that rather than an individual accepting themselves for what they are, they have to contort themselves into a box that has nothing to do with them.

Again, to go back to the first post of mine that you quoted, my point had nothing to do with whether or not a Feeler is capable of logic or objectivity about their feelings. It was more to do with the fact that the system is what it is. Calling Fi Ti because it makes you feel better doesn't make it so. Fi and Ti are very different things, and someone who knows the difference is gonna look at that IFP whose labeled themselves ITP and say, "Hey, ITP, that argument you're puttin out there right now sounds a lot more like your internal value system, and a lot less like a analytical assessment of the variables at work here. You sure you aren't IFP?" Am I saying that they're incapable of the latter if they typically prefer the former? Not at all. (We do technically have use of all 8 functions, afterall.) But T's are going to be a helluva lot less willing than F's are to bend the system to accomadate someone, and F's get called out more as a result. Contributing to this is the cultural stuff which makes the T label appear to be more valuable, and F's (who are more sensitive to those kinds of signals anyways) just end up getting caught out more often.

I don't think that the categories, the system, and the functions are well-defined. Off the top of my head -- there's not even agreement on whether we use all eight cognitive functions; how much in lock-step order the shadow functions play out; the accuracy of Berens' Interaction Styles; and so on. We don't understand typology well--or, at least, we have vastly different understandings of typology. If had a common understanding, we wouldn't still be theorizing about the system to the degree that we do.

And that's a separate problem from that of misapplying the system to the detriment of individuals (bullshit connotations, etc.).

What annoys me about this whole exchange is the insistance that saying that Feelers assess things in a way different from Thinkers (aka one that's not strictly based on logic), or that they tend to take things personally more often is being construed as a put down.

I can't find in this exchange where anyone has actually said that this is a put-down. Can you point that one out to me?

[MENTION=5578]bologna[/MENTION]: Interesting. That means that I actively display my type for the same reason that other people shy away from it, i.e. to disprove everyone's stereotypes.

I mean, I'm sure this is a personality thing -- not a personality type thing -- so it would make sense that not everyone would be comfortable being all "Judge me if you want, but all the evidence that's needed to disprove your theory is right here! :hi:" And maybe some of it is because I have a relatively high tolerance for people who are all "EJCC you're too nice to be a Te-dom, you sure you aren't ExFx?" But either way, I don't relate a ton to the people who shy away from that.

I do think people should stop being so damn judgy, though! The more time I spend on this forum, the more annoyed I am by people who treat JCF/MBTI like scripture, or something, where friggin' Keirsey has to be 100% right 24/7.

It's .. I don't know, a counterphobic six behavior? You're a textbook counterphobic six, EJCC.

Nah, we need to have our notions shaken up every once in a while.

For example, here's an SJ telling us that we should question a system that's been put into place. Doesn't that just make your head fuckin' hurt? I know my brains just exploded, right onto the back wall. The sheer force of the dissonance gushing out from the monitor just

.. and so on.

 

[EJCC]

It's .. I don't know, a counterphobic six behavior? You're a textbook counterphobic six, EJCC.

And you are obviously too rational to be a Feeler, and too energetic in your posting style to be an introvert. So, ENTJ.

Nah, we need to have our notions shaken up every once in a while.

For example, here's an SJ telling us that we should question a system that's been put into place. Doesn't that just make your head fuckin' hurt? I know my brains just exploded. Gee whiz.

Aw, quit it, yer makin' me blush!