Revisiting the Types: INTJ

[reckful]

Yet, sincerity is also not a scientific or logical criterion. Why is any of this being judged as true or false?

Using scientific, peer-reviewed articles, preferably within the past five years, prove MBTI is a reliable model. Include counter-arguments also posted in scientific, peer-review journals in your analysis.

I already linked to this page, and its various linked sources, including a large combination meta-review and supplemental study that found the reliability and validity of the MBTI to be more or less on a par with the Big Five. If that's not good enough for you, you're asking for more than is needed, IMHO. It's certainly much, much more than anyone can point to to support the Harold Grant function stack.

And what's with the "preferably within the past five years" bit? Are you under the impression that human nature is morphing on a yearly basis, or that personality psychology is an incredibly fast-moving field, or are you just being silly?

 

[Ursa]

I already linked to this page, and its various linked sources, including a large combination meta-review and supplemental study that found the reliability and validity of the MBTI to be more or less on a par with the Big Five. If that's not good enough for you, you're asking for more than is needed, IMHO. It's certainly much, much more than anyone can point to to support the Harold Grant function stack.

And what's with the "preferably within the past five years" bit? Are you under the impression that human nature is morphing on a yearly basis, or that personality psychology is an incredibly fast-moving field, or are you just being silly?

I haven't had the chance to read your posts yet, but since science is constantly encountering new developments, in any given field, it is only appropriate recent studies are included.

 

[highlander]

INTJ Revisited - Michael Pierce

• His videos are always good. I really think this is a brilliant description.
  

 

[reckful]

INTJ Revisited - Michael Pierce

I don't consider Michael Pierce a good MBTI source.

That INTJ Revisited video was previously posted at TC last month, and anybody interested in my critical take can find it here.

 

[highlander]

I don't consider Michael Pierce a good MBTI source.

That INTJ Revisited video was previously posted at TC last month, and anybody interested in my critical take can find it here.

I missed that thread. Merged.

I can read and understand your arguments. I have thought in the past that I disagreed with some of his celebrity typings. However, my opinions are changing because he publishes some really good stuff.

The fact is that if you take the functions part out of it (or are neutral to that piece), I personally find this video to be deeply accurate in describing what it is like to be an INTJ. Does any of it resonate with you?

 

[reckful]

I missed that thread. Merged.

I can read and understand your arguments. I have thought in the past that I disagreed with some of his celebrity typings. However, my opinions are changing because he publishes some really good stuff.

The fact is that if you take the functions part out of it (or are neutral to that piece), I personally find this video to be deeply accurate in describing what it is like to be an INTJ. Does any of it resonate with you?

To quote from a previous exchange we had earlier this year:

As I'm always pointing out, the modern function descriptions you'll find in Thomson, Berens, Nardi, etc. differ in many ways (large and small) from Jung's original concepts, and appear to be a set of descriptions more or less jerry-rigged to match up reasonably well with the MBTI types they purportedly correspond with. (As one dramatic example, and as described at length in this post, the description of "Si" you'll find Thomson, Berens, Nardi and Quenk using bears little resemblance to Jung's "introverted sensation" and is instead a description made to match MBTI SJs.)

So... since "Ni" descriptions are set up to match NJs (extraverts and introverts both) reasonably well (since the EN_Js are "Ni-aux" types) and "Te" descriptions are set up to match TJs (extraverts and introverts both) reasonably well (since the I_TJs are "Te-aux" types), it's not surprising that INTJs and ENTJs both read those modern Ni and Te descriptions and feel like they relate reasonably well. (Although I can't help noting that, as discussed in the spoiler in this post, INTJs often relate pretty well to Ne and Ti descriptions as well....)

So, as a general matter... if you're looking at those modern cognitive function descriptions, and you're applying them to the types who purportedly have them as their dominant and auxiliary functions, you're likely to get quite a bit of piggybacked validity, because if an FJ description is largely made up of things that FJs tend to have in common, it's obviously going to be reasonably valid for FJs.

But none of that has anything to do with whether the functions beat Reynierse's "category mistake" rap.

As a reminder, you and I had a dichotomies-vs.-functions exchange last month in another thread, and this post of mine has some more discussion of what it means to use a "dichotomy-centric" framework, and why typical function-based framings both add nothing to that (that has any validity) and also, just as importantly, tend to miss significant aspects of personality that are included in the richer, more flexible dichotomy-centric framework.​

So... if your question is, do I think there's quite a bit of stuff in Pierce's INTJ description that applies reasonably well to INTJs, the answer is yes, but... and the but's include the fact that the misframing in terms of the Harold Grant function stack is very misleading, and distorts the portrait in multiple ways. As one example, and as discussed at greater length in this post (already linked to in my first post), the implication that INTJs have "Fi" aspects of personality in common with, e.g., ESFPs that ESFJs (for example) don't share with ESFPs is utterly bogus, and is based on a function model that's inconsistent with Jung, inconsistent with Myers, and has no respectable validity.

As another example, and as noted in my first post, by limiting his INTJ portrait to Ni + Te + Fi + Se, Pierce's portrait largely misses the MBTI-related aspects of an INTJ's personality that fall outside the corresponding dichotomy combinations — e.g., the stuff that all introverts tend to have in common, and all N's tend to have in common, and all NTs tend to have in common, and so on. And that's also inconsistent with Jung and Myers both (as further discussed in my earlier post).

So would I characterize Pierce's portrait as "deeply accurate"? No, I wouldn't. And what's more, I didn't find that the accurate aspects of it added much, if anything, new to the INTJ characterizations found in existing MBTI sources.

 

[highlander]

So would I characterize Pierce's portrait as "deeply accurate"? No, I wouldn't. And what's more, I didn't find that the accurate aspects of it added much,
if anything, new to the INTJ characterizations found in existing MBTI sources.

Let me put it a different way. You are an INTJ. If you suspend all of his references to functions and blank this out of your mind, do you think what he says about the INTJs experience in life is accurate? Does life ever feel like that to you??? Some key items in the first 18 minutes:

• Highly composed
• Courteous and genuinely nice
• Very weighty matters on their mind
• Appears as though thoughts are distracting them from society
• Ill at ease in crowds
• Need to express things that are very difficult to express
• Have deep passions
• Gentle kindnesses
• Follow their own unique vision
• Want people to differentiate themselves and become great
• Mysterious pondering on heavy subjects
• Not often comfortable with the aliens around them
• A contemplator and conjecturer who seeks to understand the underlying forces in the world and where they are driving things; where things are ultimately going on the present course
• Work tenaciously and effectively
• Intuition seeks to understand what caused the impression vs the impression itself
• Look behind the scenes of the experience and look for the impetus behind them
• Focus on creative conjectures about the future - getting at the essential nature of things
• Have invaluable insights into the direction that society is taking
• Natural role in society is as a foreteller because they try to get to the bottom of what is really going on and can thus see more clearly what their experiences represent to society - and they conjecture based on that
• Naturally conjecture about where things are heading
• They are first and foremost a perceiving type, observing and meditating on the world around them; however, they can feel rather lonely in these contemplations because nobody seems to be doing this - a common sentiment is that people don't seem to think enough about things - people's insights are too shallow; people seem to stop short of the real underlying problem that is obvious to them - why don't people just think??
• Possess drive and tenacity - how to realistically make their vision a reality
• I see the future and know how to get there - can make them very confident, very independent, and master of their fate, in control, see the possibilities and know what it takes to get there
• Can get frustrated with others when they don't understand their ideas or think the INTJ is jumping the gun because the others are getting in the way of what the INTJ thinks should be done
• Can feel contempt for people who aren't thinking or focusing on things that aren't important
• Others can feel they are very arrogant but it isn't true because they don't want to or mean to be arrogant; very morally and ethically concerned people - that is why they are so stubborn because they are doing what think it is right; All the INTJ is doing is evaluating people's subjective desires and judging whether or not those are conducive to what the INTJ is trying to accomplish
• They just want to accomplish what they want to accomplish without getting interfered with by the masses and meaningless social customs
• Naturally better adapted to inhuman facts of a situation and not en mass human feelings and atmosphere

These things all feel very right to me - dead on accurate. It's like the guy is looking into my head, knows what I'm thinking and how I experience life.

 

[reckful]

Let me put it a different way. You are an INTJ. If you suspend all of his references to functions and blank this out of your mind, do you think what he says about the INTJs experience in life is accurate? Does life ever feel like that to you??? Some key items in the first 18 minutes:

• Highly composed

I'd say this is an IJ thing. Do you think INTJs are more "highly composed" than the other IJ types? And if not, wouldn't it be helpful if this was identified as an IJ thing? He labels aspects of personality that he thinks of as "Ni" and "Te" and "Fi" and "Se" things as being related to those categories, but again, his whole framing treats I, N, T, J, NT, etc. as if they weren't really meaningful type components.

• Courteous and genuinely nice

I assume you're familiar with the idea of "Foreresque" descriptions. It's often said to be typical of zodiac-based personality descriptions that they're made up of attributes that most people are likely to relate to to some extent. And one of the things that makes any aspect of a personality description bogusly Foreresque is if it isn't framed in a way that says that people of that type exhibit that aspect of personality to a significantly above-average degree.

Unless you think that the average INTJ is "genuinely nice" to a significantly greater degree than the average person, then you shouldn't be praising the inclusion of "genuinely nice" in Pierce's INTJ portrait.

• Ill at ease in crowds

I'd say this applies to introverts, and especially neurotic introverts. Assuming an INTJ isn't significantly moreso than any of the other seven introverted types, wouldn't it be substantially more informative if Pierce flagged this as an introversion thing, and therefore something that isn't particularly more likely to be true of INTJs (2-3% of the population) than it is of approximately half the population?

• Need to express things that are very difficult to express

I mentioned this one in my first post. Yeah, baby. This is one of those "Fi" things that makes INTJs and ESFPs cousins!

To the extent that this isn't just Foreresque nonsense — don't you think most people would say they're not infrequently subject to strong/vague/mysterious/whatever feelings that are "difficult to express"? — I'd say it's better framed as being a characteristic that introversion contributes to, first and foremost, and FYI, that's how both Jung and Myers described it.

To Pierce, though, it's an FPs and TJs thing. Which is silly, IMHO.

• Have deep passions

Yeah, baby. As opposed to all those types that don't have deep passions. Remind me which ones they are again?

• Gentle kindnesses

"Gentle kindnesses" are significantly more characteristic of INTJs than most of the other types? Do you really think so? I'd say F is the likeliest MBTI-related contributor to gentle kindnesses, with P a possible secondary contributor. If I had to pick a single type to be the most likely source of "gentle kindnesses" in typical MBTI type descriptions (and I happen to agree), I'd pick the ISFP — and if you're interested, you can find a discussion of that subject in the section of this post that begins, "Since Mr. Dylan remains under discussion."

Imma stop now.

And again, I'm not saying that there aren't quite a few things that Pierce describes in that video that I'd agree are significantly more characteristic of the average INTJ than of the average person, but (1) none of those things jumped out at me as being particularly original to Pierce, (2) I think the proper framing of the corresponding components (whether something's an introvert thing, or an NT thing, or whatever) matters a lot, and (3) there are plenty of things he describes (see above) that are either Foreresque (not really more applicable to INTJs than the average person) or arguably less likely to apply to INTJs than to the average person.

 

[highlander]

[MENTION=18736]reckful[/MENTION], you've succeeded in not answering my question twice. I'm looking to understand whether these things resonate with you personally .

He makes one point that INTJs have a particularly difficult time putting their thoughts into words. It's been a lifelong challenge for me which I've worked hard to overcome because transferring meaning to others is essential to getting anything done in this world. Here is an excerpt from something I have written lately that I have not shared with anyone yet.

"There is this challenge with INTJs that they feel like they know the answer but are not very good at explaining why. An INTJ’s thought process is led through a form of intuition that is removed from consciousness. It is like there are a massive number of thoughts swimming around in your head, an answer pops out and you don’t know how you got there. This happens every day that you live and the timing of the insights you get is unpredictable. As INTJs, we live for these insights. It works the same way for INFJs. The process takes time. While extraverts quickly banter back and forth, the person who leads with dominant introverted intuition (INTJs and INFJs) is often still thinking. They haven’t had time to solidify their perceptions or form a conclusion, so they often say nothing. This is often a great loss to others because they can have important perspectives.

I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating this way of being was early in my life. I knew that I had good ideas but I could not get them implemented because I couldn’t communicate them well to others. From the standpoint of interacting with others, your timing is often off. You have a tendency to bring things up after others feel like they have already talked and arrived at conclusion and so your insights are ignored. You have a tendency to interject things into conversations when they pop into your head vs. when it may the most optimal time to do so. This is complicated of course by the fact that you can’t explain why you got to the answer you did. You just know. Here you are with all of these great insights and ideas and most people you interact with have absolutely no idea the depth of thinking that goes on in your head thus you are unappreciated. "

I don't think other introverts have this same issue to anywhere near the same extent. The only type I have known who is similarly challenged in articulating things verbally is the ISFP.

By the way, I am not some wallflower. I work the room at parties. I can be reasonably articulate. Some people have even called me polished (though I feel that goes too far). Mostly I've found a way to work around things.

 

[reckful]

[MENTION=18736]reckful[/MENTION], you've succeeded in not answering my question twice. I'm looking to understand whether these things resonate with you personally .

He makes one point that INTJs have a particularly difficult time putting their thoughts into words. It's been a lifelong challenge for me which I've worked hard to overcome because transferring meaning to others is essential to getting anything done in this world. Here is an excerpt from something I have written lately that I have not shared with anyone yet.

"There is this challenge with INTJs that they feel like they know the answer but are not very good at explaining why. An INTJ’s thought process is led through a form of intuition that is removed from consciousness. It is like there are a massive number of thoughts swimming around in your head, an answer pops out and you don’t know how you got there. This happens every day that you live and the timing of the insights you get is unpredictable. As INTJs, we live for these insights. It works the same way for INFJs. The process takes time. While extraverts quickly banter back and forth, the person who leads with dominant introverted intuition (INTJs and INFJs) is often still thinking. They haven’t had time to solidify their perceptions or form a conclusion, so they often say nothing. This is often a great loss to others because they can have important perspectives.

I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating this way of being was early in my life. I knew that I had good ideas but I could not get them implemented because I couldn’t communicate them well to others. From the standpoint of interacting with others, your timing is often off. You have a tendency to bring things up after others feel like they have already talked and arrived at conclusion and so your insights are ignored. You have a tendency to interject things into conversations when they pop into your head vs. when it may the most optimal time to do so. This is complicated of course by the fact that you can’t explain why you got to the answer you did. You just know. Here you are with all of these great insights and ideas and most people you interact with have absolutely no idea the depth of thinking that goes on in your head thus you are unappreciated. "

I don't think other introverts have this same issue to anywhere near the same extent. The only type I have known who is similarly challenged in articulating things verbally is the ISFP.

By the way, I am not some wallflower. I work the room at parties. I can be reasonably articulate. Some people have even called me polished (though I feel that goes too far). Mostly I've found a way to work around things.

I'd say I already answered your question to a greater degree than you're giving me credit for.

If an INTJ profile asserts that INTJs tend to breathe through their mouths and noses, would that "resonate with me personally"? No.

For something in a type profile to resonate with me personally in any meaningful way, it has to both be something that applies to me and be something about me that I think is significantly truer of me than the average person. And my previous post noted that "there are plenty of things [Pierce] describes (see above) that are either Foreresque (not really more applicable to INTJs than the average person) or arguably less likely to apply to INTJs than to the average person." And I pointed to a couple examples from your bullet points.

On the more specific issue in your latest post: not only have I never had an above-average difficulty in putting my thoughts into words, but on the contrary, I'd say I've always been substantially above-average (going back to my school days) in the articulateness department. I'm somewhat infamous, as you surely know, for my l-o-n-g forum posts (here and at other forums), and I'd be a less prolific producer of those if they were anything like a struggle for me to produce. But they're not. Depending on the post, I may spend a fair amount of time gathering my thoughts and hunting up quotes and etc., but then, thoughts gathered, I don't find putting them into words to be much of a challenge.

I definitely prefer writing to speaking, and don't like having to "think on my feet" — but even there, I'd say I'm significantly more articulate than the average person.

And as for your notion that "an INTJ’s thought process is led through a form of intuition that is removed from consciousness," I think that's pretty much just cognitive-function-based hoohah, and here's a post about what I refer to as the "mystical taint" that you sometimes find in N (and especially Ni) descriptions.

Do I occasionally have an "aha!" moment. Yeah. Do I have them more often than the average person? Maybe, but I wouldn't swear that's true. Do I have them more often than the average N? I doubt it. (So much for "Ni.") But most importantly, do most of the understandings I come to have seem to have a kind of "aha!" or out-of-nowhere quality?

Not. Even. Close.

And am I typically frustrated by a sense that there's something I "understand" in some kind of inchoate way but just can't seem to put into words? No. Hardly ever, in fact.

Finally, as far as your frustration in conversations with your "timing" being off goes, I already acknowledged that I dislike having to "think on my feet," but that's been described as a typical introverted characteristic going all the way back to Jung — and Myers was also on board with that.

Jung described the characteristic slowness of introverts in conversation, and the awkwardness that resulted from their greater need (as compared to extraverts) to react inwardly for a substantial time before feeling they're ready to express their own thoughts. Chapter 9 of Psychological Types is a discussion of Ostwald's Great Men — a book where Ostwald had talked about two kinds of famous men, the "romantic" types (who Jung explained were basically extraverts) and the "classical" types (who Jung said were basically introverts). And Jung basically concurred with Ostwald's notion that one of the core differences between "romantic" and "classical" men (i.e., extraverts and introverts) was the difference in the subject's "speed of reaction" — which Jung explained resulted from the introvert's characteristic need to mull things over more thoroughly than extraverts, and the introvert's characteristically greater desire to have their expressions be more along the lines of a final product than the extravert's off-the-cuff thinking-out-loud.

I don't believe either Jung or Myers viewed that particular aspect of personality as more characteristic of Ni-doms than other introverted types, and I suspect you may be misattributing your own sense of awkward timing in conversations to a function-based notion you have that your characteristic mode of thinking involves your unconscious to a substantially greater degree than every type other than INTJs and INFJs.

 

[EcK]

Let me put it a different way. You are an INTJ. If you suspend all of his references to functions and blank this out of your mind, do you think what he says about the INTJs experience in life is accurate? Does life ever feel like that to you??? Some key items in the first 18 minutes:

• Highly composed
• Courteous and genuinely nice
• Very weighty matters on their mind
• Appears as though thoughts are distracting them from society
• Ill at ease in crowds
• Need to express things that are very difficult to express
• Have deep passions
• Gentle kindnesses
• Follow their own unique vision
• Want people to differentiate themselves and become great
• Mysterious pondering on heavy subjects
• Not often comfortable with the aliens around them
• A contemplator and conjecturer who seeks to understand the underlying forces in the world and where they are driving things; where things are ultimately going on the present course
• Work tenaciously and effectively
• Intuition seeks to understand what caused the impression vs the impression itself
• Look behind the scenes of the experience and look for the impetus behind them
• Focus on creative conjectures about the future - getting at the essential nature of things
• Have invaluable insights into the direction that society is taking
• Natural role in society is as a foreteller because they try to get to the bottom of what is really going on and can thus see more clearly what their experiences represent to society - and they conjecture based on that
• Naturally conjecture about where things are heading
• They are first and foremost a perceiving type, observing and meditating on the world around them; however, they can feel rather lonely in these contemplations because nobody seems to be doing this - a common sentiment is that people don't seem to think enough about things - people's insights are too shallow; people seem to stop short of the real underlying problem that is obvious to them - why don't people just think??
• Possess drive and tenacity - how to realistically make their vision a reality
• I see the future and know how to get there - can make them very confident, very independent, and master of their fate, in control, see the possibilities and know what it takes to get there
• Can get frustrated with others when they don't understand their ideas or think the INTJ is jumping the gun because the others are getting in the way of what the INTJ thinks should be done
• Can feel contempt for people who aren't thinking or focusing on things that aren't important
• Others can feel they are very arrogant but it isn't true because they don't want to or mean to be arrogant; very morally and ethically concerned people - that is why they are so stubborn because they are doing what think it is right; All the INTJ is doing is evaluating people's subjective desires and judging whether or not those are conducive to what the INTJ is trying to accomplish
• They just want to accomplish what they want to accomplish without getting interfered with by the masses and meaningless social customs
• Naturally better adapted to inhuman facts of a situation and not en mass human feelings and atmosphere

These things all feel very right to me - dead on accurate. It's like the guy is looking into my head, knows what I'm thinking and how I experience life.

But doesn't it bother you that all these seem positive (or neutral definitions at best)
That would lead to ego-backed confirmation bias.

 

[Poki]

But doesn't it bother you that all these seem positive (or neutral definitions at best)
That would lead to ego-backed confirmation bias.

You missed his exact words...what it feels like to be one. How "I" experience. I think what he said is dead on accurate.

 

[EcK]

You missed his exact words...what it feels like to be one. How "I" experience. I think what he said is dead on accurate.

That wasn't my point at all. I got his meaning. I don't dispute any of the points he mentioned. I just remarked upon the fact that bias in any description / prediction is well known to create bias.

Of course people tend to, on average, to be more aware of their 'positives' than their 'negatives'. However that doesn't mean they can't recognize a 'negative' when they see it.

 

[Poki]

That wasn't my point at all. I got his meaning. I don't dispute any of the points he mentioned. I just remarked upon the fact that bias in any description / prediction is well known to create bias.

Of course people tend to, on average, to be more aware of their 'positives' than their 'negatives'. However that doesn't mean they can't recognize a 'negative' when they see it.

Yeah, I couldn't figure out best way to get out what I was trying to say. I think the bias is already present prior to the description. Blame it on some kind of weakened use of Ti directed by internal vision of what it is trying to do. I don't thinks it's aware of negatives, but stuck on what they think which is gonna be subjective as analysis of that doesn't leave self.

Oh well. I think I know what your saying and I know what I am trying to say. I may come back later if the words come to me. I could already sense the issue between what I said and what you said when I wrote it. This is a little better, but still can't pin point it.

 

[EcK]

Yeah, I couldn't figure out best way to get out what I was trying to say. I think the bias is already present prior to the description. Blame it on some kind of weakened use of Ti directed by internal vision of what it is trying to do. I don't thinks it's aware of negatives, but stuck on what they think which is gonna be subjective as analysis of that doesn't leave self.

Oh well. I think I know what your saying and I know what I am trying to say. I may come back later if the words come to me. I could already sense the issue between what I said and what you said when I wrote it. This is a little better, but still can't pin point it.

No worries, I get it.
Regarding 'positives' and 'negatives' I " " them because it's not really how either you or I think of these matters. It's however a useful convention to convey the idea efficiently.

 

[highlander]

But doesn't it bother you that all these seem positive (or neutral definitions at best)
That would lead to ego-backed confirmation bias.

No I think he articulates some of the challenges INTJs face in life pretty well. Any INTJ is going to be able to come up with a list of negatives about themselves with ease so it's fine for someone to come up with something empathizing in a positive way. His description just really resonated with me.

[MENTION=18736]reckful[/MENTION] I was talking about verbal communication and not written. It is related to the thinking on your feet thing but it's more than that.

 

[Forever]

One thing I do want to point out that Micheal Peirce did very well was point out what Carl Jung saw of Ni and Si. With Si, the event is what it holds to in that impression. In Ni it is looking beyond the event, what caused the event. I related that so much and when it is dominant, it is always looking at our dynamic and ever-changing environment saying what "caused" that? It must've been... ...

Which if an Ni user shares his thoughts, people will say you're just making things up. Haha. Oh wonderful video.

I may also add it is common with both Ni types to contemplate things so deeply, others don't seem to understand why we do it. I think re-watching this video with a clearer frame of mind rather than trying to take a point out of it makes it all the more pleasurable to watch.

I am teaching myself in the process to simply "absorb" and let it settle in, there I find vividness comes back and "dull" becomes no longer a word in my dictionary. Both literally and figuratively.

I've also relate to this video greatly because I would often seeing people getting in the way of my goals and would deem their goals to be lesser than mine because it doesn't pertain to that goal which I value so highly and would think everybody would value so highly too.