I started reading this thread and I thought 'Awww, I feel special!"
And then I read Protean's post with the statistics and I thought 'Awww, I
don't feel so special!'
ENFP females are up to 10% of the population? Damn, and yet I
still can't recognize "my own type" when I see it!
I do think the idea of statistics differences between nations are interesting. Makes you wonder how personality traits are carried genetically, molded culturally. What gets encouraged and what gets repressed/penalized.
It would be great if there were some kind of definitive questions/signs to determine S vs N in people you meet. It is the hardest trait to determine in people though through pure observation. I think you have to really understand the way a person processes information, comes to decisions, etc. to get a sense of it. I understand what Protean is getting at, though I am not nearly as familiar with this S/N question as she is.
I have an ISTJ bff and it's only because of years of knowing her that when I learned she was an "s" that it made sense to me. Because I knew how she took some things literally and had a tertiary Fi (or is that quand..ary?) and how differently we approached problems and saw things. I knew of these differences before I got into Myers-Briggs and way before she took the test. It was an "a-ha" moment and my point of reference for S-N differences. I also briefly dated an ISFJ and I was joking once and she got annoyed and said, "Don't over think things". That kind of sums up to me the
perception of the S/N difference.
But yeah, 25% are N's? Whhhooooo-hooo! I feel special.
And maybe it's because I am ENFP and it's considered an "eccentric/independent" type, but I caught a loooooooot of flak growing up for being "different/strange/weird". Seeing it through a lens of S/N difference though made some of that more understandeable and making it understandable helps deal with it.
And if I also count in all the companies/co workers I've worked at/with where there was a definite mismatch , if I attribute S/N divide to that as well --
Yep, 'N's are rare. Or maybe I'm thinking of 'NP'. Let's say 15%-20% for NP?
