Retiree wrote:Dragline : that seems remarkable, an about-turn on two of four variables. No idea myself if that's usual, of course.
I can understand that personality can change. But would conscious choice be allowed? Isn't that gaming? I mean, I know I'm I, and proudly so. But my job called for some serious network-partying, and I'd do it comfortably enough, but only because I had to, and for short spaces. And now I avoid those things like poison. So in answering, I took the questions to mean, what would you rather do, given full free choice?
Can introversion really change to extroversion? I'm fully comfortable amongst people, but my preference is to be with a few friends, or even solitude. Can that ever change?
(i don't know much about the mechanics of these things. Just wondering.)
Well, as I said (or meant to say) my E/I and T/Fs are right on the borderline. I think part of it was that I was only 20 when I took it the first time and I wasn't fully formed (mentally).
But what I mean by conscious choice is making an effort to experience and get better at the traits you know you are bad at. For example, on the E/I side I was a horrible public speaker as a child and young adult, but decided I wanted to be able to do it and now I get paid to ask people questions and teach other people how to do it. Similarly, my F side improved in a effort to be a better husband and father (and dealing with a lot of Boy Scouts). After some years of practicing what the opposite traits do and how they think for part of the time, you can develop an appreciation for them and it does become part of your preferences. Your needles may not move all the way over, but they can move based on the inputs into your mind over time, many or most of which you get to choose.
I suppose this all goes back to that age-old nature/nurture debate. There was an excellent model presented in that Jonathan Haidt "Righteous Mind" book that jacob recommended, which was essentially that the mind is neither completely hard-coded nor devoid of coding, but is really somewhat plastic (i.e., BOTH), with some code partially written through our DNA, but subject to having that code improved and revised through subsequent input.
Retiree wrote:Hang on, hang on, what am I missing here? What has confidence got to do with personality type?
I certainly didn't mean to imply that introverted people lack confidence. I just meant to say that I've definitely become more extroverted over time relative to my peers, and I personally attribute some of that to increased confidence (especially in public/social settings). I used to be particularly neurotic about over-analyzing what others may think of me, which contributed to keeping to myself. I'm over that. As GeorgeTOO said, it's a matter of personal growth.
Interestingly, I've also found that the introvert/extrovert label is often relative rather than absolute. So some of the change may also be due to who I choose to surround myself with these days. A general introvert who is comfortable turning on the E when needed (like in a business meeting) looks like a rockstar compared to all the hardened I's taking notes in the back corner.
Along those lines, when answering the survey questions I sometimes find myself debating what context I should assume when replying. How I'd answer may differ when considering talking to a client rather than to my wife. Perhaps I've developed more than one comfortable persona depending on the context -- that seems perfectly plausible and in fact quite reasonable considering how work truly becomes a second life for most people.
BTW, these tests are nice but IMHO there's a lot more to personalities and motivations than MBTI scores. I understand there's a bit of science behind them and appreciate them as a reasonable social barometer, but too often the various interpretations read like horoscopes to me. Interpreter beware.
Tyler9000 wrote:Along those lines, when answering the survey questions I sometimes find myself debating what context I should assume when replying.
I have that problem too. With most multiple choice tests actually, even the traffic exam:) That's what I meant above by the question-proxy being a potential problem. Many of the questions seem to answer the question "what would you do?", which is sometimes a very roundabout way to approach "who are you?". Or, like Jacob said:
Jacob wrote:when people confuse their doing with their being
What about people who are almost completely lacking in one letter? I am an almost neutral 51% on the E/I and moderate in my T vs. F and my P vs. J but I am consistently in the high 90's on the N versus S. I believe that the way this manifests in behavior is that I am extremely absent-minded. My daughter once said "Mom, you are not extroverted or introverted, you just don't notice whether there are any other people in the room." The funny thing is this tendency can sometimes lend me an air of false confidence even though I am actually fairly shy because I am not enough "present" to feel self-conscious until I am suddenly snapped back into attention to the real world. One of my sisters who has much more S and J than me says that I suffer from an anti-anxiety disorder because I do things like get into the right lane of traffic and then just stay behind a slow moving truck for 15 minutes.
Likely this has something to do with the fact that I am good at not spending money but not good at earning money. No matter how slow my spending gets, my earning gets right in the right lane behind it and stays there. (sigh)
7Wannabe5 wrote:Likely this has something to do with the fact that I am good at not spending money but not good at earning money. No matter how slow my spending gets, my earning gets right in the right lane behind it and stays there. (sigh)
Hehe, I have the exact same problem. I recently realised that my income has shrunk more than three times since I started consciously optimising spending. Fortunately there has also been a corresponding improvement in work-life quality.
Ah, I see we’ve come again to that common confusion between being and doing.
Quite a few here seem to be confusing the two. Unless I’m mistaken Jacob seems to be saying that this is indeed a confusion and a mistake.
Irrespective, this is what I myself say : What you do is NOT who you are. Not by a long shot.
We humans are very multi-faceted beings. One's identity can be seen as an aggregation of very many things. What one does is only a small subset of who one is. And what is more, what one does for a living is further only a small subset of all that one does.
So no, what you do is certainly not who you are.
Of course, in specific cases this can indeed be so. If you yourself choose to limit yourself, and channelize yourself (either deliberately, or unthinkingly) into one single stream so to say, then you may well end up being just a small part of what you can be. In that sense certainly you can be what you do. But that is only a specific case, and an extremely limited case at that.
If I may take a very crude analogy that comes to mind. (I don’t know if the analogy will hold up to rigorous examination, but let me say it anyway.) Say for whatever reason you play the part of a dog to earn your living. Could be you’re a poor kennel-food mannequin in a hot itchy dog-suit ; or could be you are a superstar who is paid a zillion dollars per movie to play a very popular and leading dog character in a series of movies, in action-animation mode. Whatever the explanation, what you do is play a dog. Now if you were asked (in a personality test or otherwise) : Do you walk on four legs? Do you have a tail? Do you do always do your stuff outdoors? Do you feel comfortable wearing clothes, or do you itch to throw them off? Did you forget to wear your collar today? Questions like that. I guess you would feel insulted if I suggested you may end up answering Yes to those questions—if you were that dog actor/mannequin, that is. Well, that is the difference between who you are and what you do. One is not the other, not unless your method acting extends to psychotic limits.
Which is why I said that I assumed that the question ‘Would you rather be alone or perhaps with one or two people close to you at the end of a long day, or would you spend your leisure partying with a room full of boisterous strangers’ (or equivalent words) meant this : ‘Given full and entire freedom, which would you rather do, which would give you more pleasure, which of those two choices represents the real you?’ (And not : Which might you end up actually doing, with a whip—any kind of whip—on your back?)
This kind of talk is more my more outspoken doppelganger’s style than mine own! But this absurd self-limiting that is so pervasive today, and of which careerism is such a stark symptom, is something I feel strongly about.
Coming back to what I just said about how the tests should be taken (by mentally appending to the question the words, “What would be your choice and preference if you were absolutely free of all kinds of external compulsion”?) : I have said earlier that I don’t know much about the actual mechanics of MBTI, although I’m familiar with the product itself and its output. Perhaps those who do have actual and more intimate knowledge of MBTI can tell me if I’m right?
@Retiree: You make a point... identity is much more complex than "what you do." Plus, I'd argue, it's an extraverted answer. Between sleeping, thinking and fantasies, most people spend most of their lives inside their own minds, NOT in motion or speaking. And does the absence of visible external movement constitute idleness? (No it doesn't, as anyone with a quadriplegic friend can attest.) Identity is way more than achievement/utility or the lack thereof.
In its most basic sense, MBTI is a test that determines your preferred method of gathering information (perception) and your preferred method of classifying it (judgment). Example: a person who is scored as an INTJ gathers information via introverted intuition, and classifies it by using extraverted thinking. It does NOT mean that person is/has "introverted intuitive thinking judging," which is what most online tests spit out, unfortunately... that adds to the confusion.
The official test wasn't prepared to test people's preferences in a physical, mental or emotional vacuum. It just asks whether you prefer one thing or another, and calculates the number of times your preferences tend in one direction as opposed to another.
Retiree wrote: ‘Given full and entire freedom, which would you rather do, which would give you more pleasure, which of those two choices represents the real you?’ (And not : Which might you end up actually doing, with a whip—any kind of whip—on your back?)
Good point about who you are vs what you do. The trick is knowing which one is the "real you" and which is the construction, especially as you grow and change over time. As GandK mentions, you can't evaluate yourself in a vacuum. I guess I most relate to Jacob's example of having aspects of different personalities that express themselves in different ways. Or perhaps I just want to believe the human spirit is not so static.
Question #45: You think that almost everything can be analyzed
Perhaps the strength of one's belief in MBTI categorization comes down to this preference?
Cael, I'd been talking about this with my wife's friend, who works in HR. She too says what you do, that these things don't change.
A little knowledge is indeed dangerous! (Note to self : do a bit of reading and research on MBTI myself, since my first-hand knowledge is even less than "little"!) Used loosely and incorrectly (as you suggest, G&K), these things do run the risk of degenerating to Zodiac-sign-like cliches.
All right, here's the deal with MBTI tests. I wanted this cleared up for myself, so as well as some basic reading up on this, I contacted someone who is officially trained and has a good deal of experience in specifically this area, and had a longish informal chat. This is what seems to be the case :
Provided the tests have been properly administered and taken (which is a big if, since online push-buttons often miss out a lot), no, personality types do NOT change for an adult.
One possible exception here is extreme traumas, but in that case we are treading into the domain of (potential) pathology, which lies outside the ambit of these things.
Since so much of talk here revolves around MBTI, I thought you would all like to know.
Cael, you said exactly this. And you yourself seem well acquainted with MBTI, from what you say. So I've not found out or said anything different from what you yourself said, but I just wanted to step out of my armchair and make sure myself.
On an entirely personal note, I myself am in favor of seeing these things as merely indicative, and not a self-limiting absolute. (Like Jacob said in this thread.) But that last is purely my non-professional/layman and subjective opinion. Whether or not we let our blue/brown eyes limit us (we could always wear contacts), the actual color won't change--as Cael pointed out, above.
Retiree wrote:
Provided the tests have been properly administered and taken (which is a big if, since online push-buttons often miss out a lot), no, personality types do NOT change for an adult.
One possible exception here is extreme traumas, but in that case we are treading into the domain of (potential) pathology, which lies outside the ambit of these things.
I am striving to never quite fully reach adulthood. Pathologies? Well, maybe.
My understanding is that although your type does not change, any person can have higher or lower functioning within their type and as your functioning becomes higher, you will more resemble people of other types with higher functioning. For instance, my overall functioning as an ENTP would improve if I could adopt more of the traits/practices of an INTJ and INTJs are supposed to improve their functioning in the direction of taking on more extroverted leadership opportunities.
I am INTP and DW is ISFJ. We hit it off being both introverted and shy, lol, but we definitely have some personality conflicts.
For example, if we want to go on vacation she needs to know the exact details of what we will be seeing and when planned out. More like a to-do list than free form. Once things are on a to-do list for me though, they have become boring tasks that I don't want to do. Or if I have meeting scheduled for X, I can't really get absorbed into work/play, because I always know I have that stupid meeting at X and I hate appointments. No deadlines, no appointments, just the freedom to explore is what I want.
I too find these different personality types rather fascinating, and yes, they do seem to explain lots of things. But at the same time, I also sometimes wonder if that apparent explanation that they provide is just a sort of faux-explanation.
Here’s why : Say I set up a well thought out list or questionnaire that asks you searching questions, and the end result of this is to set people up in five distinct boxes :
Box One or Type 1 : The Absolutely Honest and Incorruptible. Those who, no matter what, will never budge an inch from total honesty and full integrity in all they speak and do.
Box Two or Type 2 : Those who hold Type 1 as the ideal to strive to, but in practice often make compromises as long as those deviations from the ideal are sanctioned by precedent : that is, they cut corners as long as it is the “done thing”, while acknowledging to themselves that they are perhaps not behaving quite ideally. Of course, they wouldn’t go so far as to actually break the law, ever.
Box Three or Type 3 : Those who would not mind breaking honest practices, or even breaking the law, in minor things and NOT huge major things, as long as they are sure they’ll get away.
Box Four or Type 4 : The out and out amoral types, whose only consideration for doing anything at all is whether they’ll get away with it.
Box Five or Type 5 : The out and out criminal types, who may be guided by the can-I-get-away-with-it principle most times, but who may not always worry too much about breaking even that very lax standard.
There, sounds nice and scientific looking, does it not? And probably we can all fit ourselves fairly well in those boxes, perhaps directly and perhaps more circuitously via a long questionnaire (or set of questionnaires and tests). And what is more, we will probably find that, like MBTI, a person’s real honesty-type probably does not change after attaining adulthood and personality-and-values-stability. That is, at heart they remain one of these honesty-types all through, although they may in practice act differently, out of choice or necessity.
And if you think long enough you may well be able to devise other similar stereotypes or boxes to fit people into. For instance another categorization comes to mind that involves courage : a full range, going right from the so-courageous-they-don’t-know-what-fear-is, right across to so-cowardly-they-wouldn’t-know-what-courage-is (with some stages in between). See if you can think of other such types and categorizations.
So while yes, these personality “types”, however defined, do help us understand others, I wonder how truly “right” that understanding is.
To take two very stark real examples from times past : If you went back two centuries, you could easily bifurcate the human race into Men and Women. Creatures with very different physical traits (I mean strength and endurance etc), and very different personalities as well : very different aptitudes, very different desires and goals, and very different mental ability. And what the heck, that would have been a very true personality classification at that time (for the overwhelming majority of men and women) because of different reasons that we need not go into now. So it was a helpful classification then : but would it have been “true”? Certainly it is far, far less true today (if not entirely meaningless yet).
The same argument could be made with blacks and whites (as seen in predominantly white society), back in the days of slavery unquestioned, when calling a black a black (or any other name) was not considered bad form. Two very different categories, with very distinct personality traits, and not much in common between the two tyes (for the overwhelming majority of those with either skin color).
I know, the flaw with the men-and-women and whites-and-blacks categorization is the fact that they received such different/distinct and set-in-stone inputs from society and their environment, unlike today’s “types”. But still, these two examples from history do compel one think about how truly valid these categorizations are, don’t they? And then you have the honest-dishonest range that I just outlined above, and the courageous-cowardly range too, on the spur of the moment (and probably many more such that others can think of).
So yes, these categorizations of personality types do help (MBTI, for instance), but how truly valid, how ‘true’ are they really? Are they merely superficial descriptors applicable only in this time and age (like the male and female personalities, and the white and black personalities, were in times past), or do they have a deeper basis?
Incidentally, just to be clear, in the post/comment above, I’m talking about a different ‘level’ of “intrinsic”.
One’s MBTI personality does not change after adulthood, after personality has been firmed up, so to say, which is usually around the time of physical adulthood. So one may, through compulsion or choice or cicurmstance or any combination of these things may act very differently from one’s “type”, but that is merely situational, and one’s type does not change. In that sense personality as measured by MBTI (and perhaps some other commonly used categorizations) is indeed intrinsic. No two ways about that.
However, what I’m saying is, perhaps all this is relevant now, in this day and age and society. Would these things have been equally valid, say, back one thousand years ago, in feudal times (as opposed to the current consumerist times)? What about twenty years ago in the Soviet Union, in a communist society? What about seventy/eighty years ago, in a fascist society, such as Nazi Germany? What about ten thousand years ago, in some pre-civilization tribe or group in the forests?
Of course, one answer is this : It does not matter. We live in the here and now. So that is that.
But then, I suppose people could have said the same about masculine and feminine personality traits two hundred years ago. And about white and black personality traits. And they would have been wrong, at least in this “deeper” sense.
I’ve not really reached any conclusions about this. Just thinking aloud.
Perhaps all this has already been thought of and sussed out by someone somewhere? If anybody has any thoughts on this, I’d love to hear them. And if anyone has any links to any reports or articles that talk about what I’m saying, I’d be grateful if you could point them out. (No book references please, at least not for me : at this time I do not spend money to acquire books, and Jacob's book is the only one I have bought in the last two years. And I have a perhaps funny predilection for owning the books I read, so at this time I’m not reading any books other than the largish numbers I already own.)
Devil's Advocate said: To take two very stark real examples from times past : If you went back two centuries, you could easily bifurcate the human race into Men and Women. Creatures with very different physical traits (I mean strength and endurance etc), and very different personalities as well : very different aptitudes, very different desires and goals, and very different mental ability. And what the heck, that would have been a very true personality classification at that time (for the overwhelming majority of men and women) because of different reasons that we need not go into now. So it was a helpful classification then : but would it have been “true”? Certainly it is far, far less true today (if not entirely meaningless yet).
I think a lot of this comes down to biochemistry which is not yet fully understood. For instance, I was born female and ENTP. This means that I have more dopamine (or more dopamine sensitivity) than most people and less testosterone (but more testosterone sensitivity) than around half the population. However, I could choose to alter my levels of either of these directly or through my behavior. For instance, it is not "feminine" behavior to vigorously engage in physical sports because this activity will raise testosterone levels. Another Victorian practice was to advise depressed people to travel or visit the zoo. This is because exposure to novelty will raise dopamine and serotonin levels. Another practice of "femininity" is to allow the male to take the lead because this will raise his testosterone levels relative to you. Ingesting "dope" will make you more ENTP-ish if you are a more uptight type. However, you need to be self-aware about whether you are choosing to alter your chemistry or behavior in a direction of growth/health or vice-versa.
So you're suggesting, 7Wannabe5, that sex does determine personality in a fundamental way that is not predicated on (although it can be amplified by) social mores.
I would agree, I suppose, although it would be a somewhat doubtful agreement. Feminist types wouldn't agree at all, I expect.
The testosterone divide is medical fact, of course ; but I wonder whether it isn't conditioning that keeps women's physical capacity so emphatically different from men's. Certainly that physical capacity divide between the sexes has narrowed substantially in the last two centuries.
