The MBTI Comes Calling ...

[chomiji]

Courtesy of blue-hobbit (I already knew that she and I have the same MB type ... chances are, most of you won't get the same result):

The trouble is, it's hard for me to answer these quizzes objectively ... I am a keen amateur student of the MBTI and own several books on the subject, even. But the display on this one is nice because it reflects the fact that my perceiving-judging axis (basically, how organized I am and how much I prefer routine) doesn't show as strong a preference as the other axes.

ETA: It had a "Multiple Intelligences" section too ... so I subbed in a combo results box.

Comments

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

I came out an ENTP, which is odd, because I'm definitely an introvert and had always thought of myself as an INTP. Then again, I'm bad at being objective with these things as well.

[chomiji]

Sometimes you simply have to go with which profile sounds most like you. I've tested as an INFJ sometimes, but the INFP profile seems a better fit.

I know they had at least one question on what I consider a key point of introvert vs. extrovert, which is how you feel after being exposed to a crowd for a while. Extroverts feel energized or exhilarated, but introverts feel drained and need to seek some time alone.

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

I kind of feel both, I think. I mean, I'm energized but definitely need to veg out.

[chomiji]

You might want to look at some profiles, see which sounds more like you.

Here are profiles from a rather strange site ... in one way, I don't like them because the descriptions are value-laden (they use words that most would think of as positive or negative, rather than being neutral), but they ring strangely true to me on the INFP.   INTP   ENTP

These are more tradtional MBTI descriptions of the two types:   INTP   ENTP

Does that help at all? Do you see yourself in any of those?

[bad-mushroom.livejournal.com]

I think I'm mostly an INTP then, but with a little more empathy/emotion than described in the second link.

[chomiji]

I think the descriptions tend to be of the ultimate "type example," with all four axes run up to 100%. On average, women tend to score higher than men toward Feeling rather than Thinking (although a long-standing male friend of mine is an INFJ, and I think my late father may have been an ENFP).

[nenya_kanadka]

Yep, still an ENFP! Is it wrong of me to wish there were more than two options for some of the questions? Some of them are equally wrong! But then again I guess they ask the same sort of question a number of times over, and average out your answers. But it might be nice to have a sliding scale or something, not just the two polar opposites. Oh well.

Happy 10/31!

[chomiji]

I know what you mean about the binary answers ... but it should all average out. Does the ENFP profile "feel" like you?

it's interesting to note

[theloomofmoira.livejournal.com]

my Interpersonal score was so low that my Body/Kinesthetic score showed up on the final list instead of it. and my kinesthetic sense = nil. I am exquisitely and paranormally clumsy, to the point of being almost gracefully uncoordinated. if there's a way for me to be clumsy, no matter how improbable, I will manage to accomplish it (the probability rises as the number of possible spectators increases), and yet never really get hurt.

and that still showed up instead of Interpersonal :D

Re: it's interesting to note

[chomiji]

The definitions I've found for Interpersonal in this theory are disturbing to me because they don't differentiate between introverted and extroverted social skills. People frequently end up telling me their problems, for example, but a lot of the other Interpersonal things have to do with being aggressively social, which I am not. Also, they put "reading body language" under Kinesthetic. I'm good at reading body language, although I'd be hard put to describe exactly what I'm noticing when I'm doing it.

Also, although I'm very clumsy, I got much better after taking Aikido for several years ... and the key thing about Aikido for me vs. other forms of exercise (including other martial arts) was that you learned by working with a more experienced person who, if necessary, moved and pushed your body into the proper positions. This helped me a lot, but wouldn't that be kinesthetic learning?

So although I liked the idea of the multiple intelligences very much, I'm not sure their questions are indicating what they intend.

[chomiji]

The whole "intelligences" thing developed as a way to encourage teachers not to despair of kids who didn't seem able to learn via traditional classroom methods and to try alternate methods, so this has more to do with how you'd be comfortable taking input than anything else. And from what you just said, a musical approach would be an excellent way to teach you something, yes?

Sometimes I feel quite Queen of Cups myself ... the Moon has slopped itself liberally over several areas of my birthchart ... but actually I used to read for myself using the Page or Queen of Pentacles, mainly because of the nature elements in the card (I tend to use the Rider-Waite deck or variants of it). More recently I've been using the Queen of Swords because I feel rather sorry for myself - even before this latest fiasco.

You do have a real even split on that T/F axis, don't you? Women with strong T have a big part in my life: my daughter and sister are both INTJ (as is my husband) and my good friend K (and probably other female friends) is an INTP. I noticed earlier on that I was much squishier and more emotional than most of the other female SF&F fans I was encountering, which only encouraged one of the classic wierdnesses of the INFP: the feeling of being somehow "damaged."

This INFP profile nails dozens of the really problematic aspects of INFP-hood ... to an extent that I want to get hold of the pagemaker and whack him/her about the head and shoulders, yelling "How dare you expose all my secret pain, you bastard!"

[chomiji]

Err, nope, is not what I mean ... >thinks< ... OK, so Mathematical was way low for you. If someone was trying to get you to memorize some mathemetical theorems, would it be easier for you if it was presented as some sort of jazzy little ditty?

Because I myself used to find cut-and-dried stuff a lot easier if it was presented as lyrics to a tune (for example, to the tune of "Scarborough Fair," from my Latin class days: "Ab, cum, de, ex, in, sub all take the ab-la-tive case ... "), which would be a musical approach, or as some sort of word puzzle or joke: SOH CAH TOA, the trigonometic volcanic island (derivations of the sine, cosine, and tangent: sine = opposite over hypotenuse, cosine = adjacent over hypotenuse, tangent = opposite pver adjacent), which would be a verbal/linguistic approach.

See, I can't do rote memorization of lists at all ... but I remember song lyrics really well! Ditto spellings of weird names, or a pun, or a joke ... much easier to remember than a list or a logical derivation.

But I don't necessarily agree with how they've broken down these categories - see my note to Moira, above, for instance.

[chomiji]

Ah, well, so much for that idea!

In any case, it was only meant to be an example (although it quickly ran away from me, as you can see).

With me, my memory for lyrics reminds me of my memory for getting to places I have been before (which I think they decided came under "visual/spatial") - as I see each bit of scenery before me, the next bit sort of "cues up" in my head. Similarly, when I hear one line of a song, the next line shows up ready to go.

I struggled frantically with math all through high school and college (at first I thought I wanted to major in chemistry ... ). I didn't really nail the concept of how percentages related to fractions until I started working as a copy editor and learned how to re-size figures. Suddenly, with a physical model before me, in started making sense.

Then I went back to school for my computer degree, and made myself re-take calculus - and got an A. This is because my mother-in-law, who is a very talented adult education teacher, ran a series of diagnostic tests on me beforehand, and concluded that to do math, I needed to work though multiple example problems, and that if the text didn't break out the examples clearly enough, with plenty of white space around them so I could really concentrate on them, then I would need to outline the material myself so it looked like that.

(To be truthful, I doubt I now recall any of that calculus course ... it's more than a decade ago, at this point, and I haven't used it since ... but I did it!)

[chomiji]

You with cooking sound somewhat like me ... also I've seen people giving me odd looks when I'm selecting citrus fruit: I do it by weight for size (by hefting it in my hand) and by smell. Works pretty well, actually, but it's hard to explain, especially the heft thing.

Yes, I hated team sports. Paradoxically, perhaps, I like working as part of a team: I like having others to bounce ideas off, and I feel good in meetings when I help facilitate discussion by clarifying what the tongue-tied are trying to say, or helping the shy get their word in by interrupting the "floor" monopolizers on their behalf (I can't do it on my own behalf, but Lord how I love championing someone else ... part of the reason I love Gojyo so much, and Yukimura in SDK).