Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Myers-Briggs and Our Creator

I love studying personalities and finding out what makes people (including myself) tick. I'm consequently interested in personality inventory assessments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. In looking over an old MBTI that I took back in the late 90s, which assessed me as INTJ-INTPish, I notice that INTPs (introverted, intuitive, thinking and perceiving) tend to have the following learning style:

Intensely curious, global and abstract learners, understand theories and underlying principles quickly, get so absorbed in reading and research that they wind up forgetting time and people. Finally, INTPs report 3-9 hours per week of non-required serious reading.

The description fits me to a large extent although INTJ likewise says things that match my learning style. By the way, INTJ stands for introverted, intuitive, thinking, and judging. These type of people are inclined to study up to 30 hours per week according to the MBTI. Wow! Our Creator sure made humans to be fascinating and complex creatures. (Psalm 139:14-16)

6 comments:

Terence said...

I enjoy MBTi coupled with the Enneagram, though, of course, these have their limits as to how much self understanding can be derived from them (1 Corinthians 2:11a) That being said, I like Carl Jung's framework and explication of Introversion/Extraversion and can't deny its deductive nature.
From our brief online interactions, I'd say that you are more INTP than "J". Michael Pierce is by far one of the best resources I have found on MBTi and personality type in general.
See his INTP video below:
https://youtu.be/kyqpj75VB18?feature=shared
INFJ, 4w5 JW, UK :p
Haha!

Duncan said...

https://newcriterion.com/article/carl-jung-the-madame-blavatsky-of-psychotherapy/

Terence said...

Not a fan, then... ;-p

Edgar Foster said...

Thanks, Terence. I concur with your statements above regarding the MBTI and how you perceive me to be more INTP: I've come to the same conclusion.

Regarding Jung, feel that he had some insights, but downsides too. I try to use what good/insightful things he imparted.

Terence said...

Using his own psychological functions to type him, it’s widely agreed that Jung himself was an INFJ. The drawback of Introverted Intution (Ni) as a dominant perceiving function is that the user has a tendency to believe he has OBSERVED his insights in the real world whereas his mind has actually synthesised it from abstract data perceived from the outside world. Leaving the strictly data driven empiricist scratching his head and leaving the Ni open to cries of charlatanism. The intuitive jumps in logic are disturbing to one not using that function.
You “get” Jung or you don’t.

Edgar Foster said...

I think you've summed it up well: there is a big difference between intuitive people like Jung or Einstein and the hardcore empiricists. A priori versus a posteriori :--)