I’m fascinated by personality tests. I know a lot of people are averse to them (’I don’t need a test to tell me who I am!’) but what’s really happening is the reverse – you’re telling the test who you are. What people don’t like is the result; the realisation that they can be pigeonholed so easily, that they conform to a textbook ‘type’. And that’s precisely what the Myers-Briggs test proves. Seventy questions reveal which one of the sixteen Jungian personality types you are. Apparently it’s 70% accurate, but it got me down to a T.
“INFJs are quiet, private individuals who prefer to exercise their influence behind the scenes. Intensely interested in the well-being of others, they prefer one-on-one relationships to large groups. Sensitive and complex, they are adept at understanding complicated issues and driven to resolve differences in a cooperative and creative manner.”
- sensitive
- quiet leaders
- great depth of personality – intricately and deeply woven, mysterious, and highly complex, sometimes puzzling even to themselves
- introverted
- abstract in communicating
- live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities – part of an unusually rich inner life
- artistic (and natural affinity for art), creative, and easily inspired
- very independent
- orderly view towards the world but within themself arranged in a chaotic, complex way only they could understand
The ‘favoured careers’ section here amused me the most – I must have considered almost all of these at some stage:
psychotherapist, artist, art curator, bookstore owner, freelance writer, poet, teacher (art, drama, english), professor of english, painter, novelist, book editor, copywriter, philosopher, environmentalist, bookseller, museum curator, opera singer, magazine editor, archivist, music therapist, screenwriter, film director, creative director, librarian, social services worker, art historian, sign language interpreter, photo journalist, makeup artist, photo journalist.
For most people, discovering their type isn’t going to be news. It’s just a neat way for you and others to see what you already know condensed into a couple of catchy paragraphs. While this is all very interesting, it doesn’t really get us anywhere. Does it make us feel any better to know that our personality is so predictable? Off-the-shelf? No. I don’t want to feel like my personality is the same as 1/16th of the world’s. I feel too important.
Just like taking size 38 or 39 shoes, we might be an INFJ or an ENSP. Now, if your feet are a 39, that means you can only wear size 39 shoes. Does it follow that being, say, an ESFJ, means that you can only do things an ESFJ would do?
When the limits of your box are defined, albeit artificially, it’s easy to redefine the limits of yourself. To unintentionally revert to type. I’m not saying anyone would do this on purpose; it can just happen. The actress who gets stuck playing character roles. The guy who always has to sort out the paper jam. The manager who holds three-hour brainstorms every day. What I’m trying to say is that while it’s great to know who you are, it doesn’t hurt to step out of the box from time to time and see things through different eyes.
Filed under: self | Tagged: analysis, boxes, categories, infj, jung, myers-briggs, no doubt, personality types, psychology, test
