My reasons for learning MBTI

[Athenian200]

I think I've figured out why I was disappointed with MBTI at one point. I just realized what I expected to be able to do with the system when I first got a glimpse of it.

Basically, I expected to be able to do something like this...

• Have NT friends for when I wanted to learn about abstract concepts without considering the human aspects or having emotions involved.
• Have NF friends around when I wanted help understanding the way an idea related to people (or psychological help/empathy for myself).
• Consult STs when I needed help figuring out how to do something practical.
• Get SFs to help me recognize and be sensitive to the practical aspects of relating to people.

Thus, it was really frustrating when I had to deal with bleed-over and messiness. I would tend to encounter people of multiple, disparate types in a single group which made choosing the best interaction style much more difficult. In other words, I wouldn't be able to associate separately with each group in order to make the best impression on each of them.

Also, people would sometimes test as types other than their actual type, and/or behave in atypical ways for their type. For instance, I would get stuck dealing with NTs whose logic was being affected by their feelings to such a degree that they were unreliable, and they would often try to share emotions or concern themselves with my well-being, which colored my interaction with them in such a way that they couldn't fulfill my original purpose for them. Many of them ended up filling the NF role quite well, however.

There was also confusion with the NFs. Many of them had been affected by NT or Sensor ideas to the point that their perceptions or judgments were diluted. They would sometimes be emotionally influenced to ignore their own perceptions and accept poorly designed abstractions conceived by Sensors. Or else they would be influenced by NTs to apply logic to themselves and the world and thus dull their awareness of how ideas affected or related to people (sadly I might be one of these). This made it impossible to feel like I had a good gauge of how abstractions related to the human side of things.

The worst problems came in dealing with Sensors. Instead of avoiding the abstract entirely, they would often denounce it, or very stubbornly declare poorly designed abstractions that they had come up with to be true. This was so infuriating that I couldn't deal with most of them. Also, it was often very difficult to communicate to them what I needed. A few of them were intelligent and helpful, but it was almost never in the area I expected.

I was hoping that I could use the system to identify what other people represent to me, and thus figure out how to get other people to fulfill the roles I needed outwardly to facilitate smoother interaction with them. It would also have been helpful in replacing friends that help focus certain qualities in myself as I go along, since it's very likely that I won't be able to hold on to the same ones indefinitely.

So I probably expected too much of MBTI to begin with, and that's why it didn't work for me.

Does that make sense?

 

[Azseroffs]

I think MBTI is a tool better used to understand people's actions rather than to be used to create ways of interaction.

If you want to come up with a better way of interacting with people do the former first for each individual.

 

[Hirsch63]

If one is to use the same practical criteria searching for human interaction that they would shopping for reliable appliances your experience does make sense.

 

[Quinlan]

I think MBTI has use for developing selfawareness, but is very limited when applied to other people.

 

[Athenian200]

I think MBTI is a tool better used to understand people's actions rather than to be used to create ways of interaction.

I would agree, having tried to do the latter and failed.

If you want to come up with a better way of interacting with people do the former first for each individual.

Sigh. I guess I'll have to, won't I? It's just that having to do that for each individual takes so much time and energy, and I hoped there was a better way.

If one is to use the same practical criteria searching for human interaction that they would shopping for reliable appliances your experience does make sense.

Wow, that's harsh. Do I really come across that way?

I think MBTI has use for developing selfawareness, but is very limited when applied to other people.

Yeah, I guess it is.

I suppose I just somehow saw the potential for a system that would allow me to concern myself less with past ties and specific people (which doesn't work well for me), being able to quickly identify equivalent people in each group I encountered and be able to apply my already-refined awareness of how to deal with them without having to re-learn everything for each individual person. Having to do things that way limits my capacity to move forward in life quickly and easily.

It requires a lot of investment in individual people that can't be reapplied, and it means that I'll be forced to do all that work all over again once the individual people I've taken the time to understand are gone. So frustrating. Sometimes it feels like the world is set up for people who have lots of energy to burn. Is it so bad to want a shortcut?

Oh, well. I suppose that's what they want people to see so they'll get interested in MBTI, even though it isn't there.

 

[Azseroffs]

If every person fit neatly into their type, your method would work flawlessly. Sadly, people aren't so easily understood.

 

[Athenian200]

If every person fit neatly into their type, your method would work flawlessly. Sadly, people aren't so easily understood.

Thanks. They're really not easy to understand... at least not if you try to understand them all at once rather than one at a time.

But I suppose I'll look into sociology a few more times before giving up completely.

 

[Hirsch63]

Wow, that's harsh. Do I really come across that way?

When I read the OP that's the impression it gave to me, that to deal with (unreliable, inconvenient) others is akin to cleaning up a nasty kitchen mess of some sort. And people are just that, messy.

Throw away all the preference straight-jackets and allow youself the (admittedly) disappointing realization that you just cannot rely on others to be....reliable. It's like grabbing two fisfuls of petroleum jelly and trying to catch a python. It seems to me at least that Typology is a good rough map of the character of someone's territory rather than a detailed topograhical study of the terrain. The map is not the ground. It is certainly helpful....but it still rests on the vagaries of human behaviour which it seems preferences can only inform not rigidly dictate?

I have enjoyed your informative posts on Type over the last couple of years that I've been here. From my (limited) perspective you have always offered informative and helpful responses to forum members queries. When I have read you though, I find that despite your knowledge you seem to be somewhat remote from practical human interaction? You're somewhat isolated? I did not intend to offer an insult to you, just a practical observation...I believe you are a valuable member here....Although I'm pretty sure I don't share your Preferences, I have spent and lost a fair amount of time and resources trusting in the consistent nature of others...and I see some aspects of my own former rigidity (a great liability) in your post.

 

[wolfy]

I think MBTI has use for developing selfawareness, but is very limited when applied to other people.

+1

MBTI provides us with a common language to build selfawareness from.

 

[Poki]

I think MBTI is a tool better used to understand people's actions rather than to be used to create ways of interaction.

If you want to come up with a better way of interacting with people do the former first for each individual.

It is a really good tool for understanding people, but there is alot of inaccuracies you have to get around. It seems like these innacuracies are because it doesnt get into explaining who the person is on the inside. I am working on pinpointing this for a few types. Like for an ENFP to be able to understand and trust others you must communicate through thier Si and Fi. Si supports Fi and lets them relax. Si gives them the detail of what happened and they can then judge how they feel. P types have a need to understand. This lack of understanding causes P types depression, anxiety, etc.

 

[Athenian200]

When I read the OP that's the impression it gave to me, that to deal with (unreliable, inconvenient) others is akin to cleaning up a nasty kitchen mess of some sort. And people are just that, messy.

Yeah. I'd have to agree with that.

Throw away all the preference straight-jackets and allow youself the (admittedly) disappointing realization that you just cannot rely on others to be....reliable. It's like grabbing two fisfuls of petroleum jelly and trying to catch a python. It seems to me at least that Typology is a good rough map of the character of someone's territory rather than a detailed topograhical study of the terrain. The map is not the ground. It is certainly helpful....but it still rests on the vagaries of human behaviour which it seems preferences can only inform not rigidly dictate?

It seems so. I figured out that I couldn't do that with MBTI long ago, but I realized that I had become interested in it originally because seeing it sparked the thought of a way to clean up that mess.

I have enjoyed your informative posts on Type over the last couple of years that I've been here. From my (limited) perspective you have always offered informative and helpful responses to forum members queries. When I have read you though, I find that despite your knowledge you seem to be somewhat remote from practical human interaction? You're somewhat isolated? I did not intend to offer an insult to you, just a practical observation...I believe you are a valuable member here....Although I'm pretty sure I don't share your Preferences, I have spent and lost a fair amount of time and resources trusting in the consistent nature of others...and I see some aspects of my own former rigidity (a great liability) in your post.

I would say I am rather isolated. In fact, I haven't gone outside in a few months, or had any interactions much more complex than dealing with a package delivery or letting someone in to repair things. Before that, the extent of my interaction was mostly with teachers and people I worked on group projects with, and maybe an occasional store clerk. I just never really got into the whole "interaction" thing that most people obsess over (and I never had any of it forced on me)... don't really know why, I guess it just didn't matter to me until I noticed that it was limiting my opportunities severely and keeping me from doing anything I hadn't already done before... and by then I found it too intimidating and confusing to even want to deal with it.

I've always found dealing with people in a formal or deferent fashion to be easy (in fact, it's easier for me than some other people I know), but I find that everyday casual behavior freaks me out to the point that I avoid people. Because I just don't "get" it.