Also the thing with MBTI that is that it's often interpreted the wrong way.

The personality type doesn't actually define you as a human being, what are your hobbies or ideal workplace. It rather shows you what your preferences in decision making are.
Like:

are you more prone to making decisions based on emotions or reason?

what kind of data that you get from your environment influence your decisions?

what kind of data you will probably forget right after receiving it?

are you more pragmatic or do you forget about doing groceries and cleaning your house, because your head is constantly in the clouds?

And so on and so forth.

It's actually a very helpful tool for self improvement, because apart from knowing what your tendencies are, you also are informed about your short-comings (the cognitive functions stacked behind your main ones).

Like, take me for example: I'm theoretically an INTJ (fun fact: the type usually associated with being a sociopath by most people), that meaning:

I - Introverted
N - Intuitive
T - Thinking
J - Judging

Now, the "introverted" thing in MBTI doesn't mean that I'm introverted in the popular sense (though both "introversions" are linked in a way). It means that my first cognitive function is introverted (so: Introverted Intuition), the second one is extraverted (so: Extraverted Thinking).
The next functions are in my case Extraverted Sensing and Introverted Feeling.

This means that basically that my dominant form of perceiving the world is through the lens of my "inner compass". The Introverted Intuitive types tend to live more in their world of fantasy, make predictions for the future (that often turn true, and because of that other types often find them "foreseeing"), and are more likely to turn to data that comes from the world of "ideas" and not necessarily data that comes from the "here and now". Introverted intuition is also responsible for processing lots amounts of data subconsciously, so if this is your dominant function you'll tend to trust your guts more.

Extraverted Thinking means you are more likely to want and enjoy having discussions/arguments about abstract concepts, complex ideas, etc, and not delve into conversations about (what you perceive as) simple thing: technicalities of our everyday life, social interactions, other people, etc, or your (/THE) emotions. This is also responsible for wanting to be very precise when talking to other people, and wanting to be very precise in your individual line of thinking as well.

Extraverted Sensing is responsable for your everyday life matters (chores) in this scenario, and people with low ES tend to forget about cleaning the house, making groceries, buying toothpaste when you've run out of it, etc., etc. And that's because your mind deems this stuff so unimportant (you've got a plan for world-domination to create after all) that it simply cannot remember this even after repeated notice.

Introverted feeling means an INTJ isn't very likely to want to talk about their emotions, nor will he be very sensitive to other people's emotions. There are these jokes about INTJ as the people who are like "Emotion? What is this?" – which are obviously not true – but a fact is that a person with introverted feeling low on the stack will tend to be disconnected from their emotions or perceive them as unimportant.

The last function is judging and perceiving. For extroverted types this function determines the way your dominant function works, and for introverted types how your subdominant function works. What this "Judging" means in the INTJ scenario is that you will be perceived as logical, competent, calculated and so on. This is because you "judge" the "thinking". You have a mental box for pretty much everything and you ascribe values to these things right away, so you know what matters to you, what should you take care of first and so on (based on the abstract values you have built for yourself.

Long story short, if you put all these together(:) you get an INTJ, so a person who:

Will have very strong beliefs about things, but will be capable of forsaking those beliefs if stronger evidence come against it

Will be very nitpicking, prone to being a grammar nazi and so on

Will be very calculated and precise when talking and thinking

Who you probably wouldn't like to debate, as the possibility you'll lose is greater than with other types

Will be extremely organised in their work station and their work schedule (because they'll always choose the more efficient way of doing things)

Will be disorganised in their everyday home life

Will rather think of the future, than of the now (and will make many assumptions about what will happen next – with those assumptions usually turning out true)

Will probably be highly inteligent (INTJs are over-represented in the IQ tests "genius" category)

Will show little to no emotions to the outside world (the famous Bitch Face is basically what an INTJ face looks like at all times – same with the inside world)

Won't be very good at comforting people (INTJ would rather stay silent and listen, or give out advice on how to improve the situation, not necessarily hug or something)

Will focus extensively on tasks at hand

Will probably want to stay alone most of the time (and that means the very majority of the time)

Will constantly run the new data he receives through the data and values he already has

Would rather stay home, than go out, would rather develop (their) existing concepts and ideas, and not be confronted with new data too fast (his brain needs to take a moment to run the new data through all the massive data collected inside of him) – so very conservative in everyday life routines

Anyway, you see the pattern I guess.
And so, you'd rather want an INTJ to be the CEO of your company, rather than a bureaucrat with lots of paperwork, or rather you'd like such a person to be your career's manager, not your roadie, rather the architect of your house and not the person to clean it.

MBTI basically tells you what your tendencies are, and not who you are. Then knowing what your tendencies are you can work on the things that you leave behind in your everyday life, in order to become a better person.
For an INTJ that would be something in the likes of "try to connect more with your emotions, and at least try to do your best in emotional situations of other people", "Try to focus more on the things you deem as chores, as those are the things that are holding you back in your progress", "try not to be a dick", and so on.

I've once seen a video that had had a very good allegory for the MBTI types and their cognitive functions:
You need to imagine your mind as a car.
Your first function is in the driver's seat,
your second on the passengers seat (with a map),
your third function sits behind the driver (less prone to getting hurt, than)
your fourth sitting behind the passenger.

Now ask yourself who has the most power over the direction the car is going, and who do you think should actually lead the way.


I might be wrong with some of the stuff, as I'm not an MBTI specialist (I was just interested in it for a month or so), so there might've been some inconsistencies with the official theory, especially in the function description part, but I believe I've managed to explain the gist of it.

Maybe someone more experienced in this stuff, like Innerspaceboy could clarify if I explained things well or got something wrong

I would strongly disagree with pretty much everything you said here.

People tend to not know themselves, not care about whether they know themselves, and thus make stupid life decisions.
Most people don't even wonder whether they know themselves or not, they just live their lives.

How others see us is obviously misguided, because everybody has their own cognitive fogs around themselves, so they filter what they see through the lens of their own minds. And the point of such things like MBTI and psychotherapy, is to help folks blow that fog away and actually start to think in an insightful and meaningful way about themselves.
No tool for self-improvement is unserious or unneeded.
(Now of course, the MBTI test here isn't a thing made for such things, it's more of a fun fact you can throw at your friends, but the overall idea of MBTI and the personalities theory developed by Jung is a pretty serious thing)

I don't know how about you, but I'm pretty much the same person on MB and in real life. Just minus the facial expressions and minus the face-to-face intimacy/naturalness of human contact.


Oh, and I don't mean to be aggressive or anything (it's hard to express intention through the internet), I'm just making some points for a discussion

ha, sociopath category ftw

Yeah, You know, because of the lack of emotional public responses and task-based/calculated type of social behaviour

A marvelous contribution to the topic, Mucha! Thanks so much for contributing! I'm prone to routinely penning 5-10,000 word letters on a regular basis so it's great to see a member unafraid to expound and contribute more than just a few mere sentences in an effort to better-explore the nuance of the subject matter. Thank you!

From my understanding, you appear correct in each of the elements you’ve touched upon. I particularly enjoyed the vehicular allegory to help others visualize the roles of MBTI types and their cognitive functions. Excellent!

Another important component which factors into MBTI are the three primary phases of human life. Different cognitive functions are commonly focused upon and refined in various stages of life. To use myself as an example, I am in phase three, (my 30s, 40s, and beyond), and find myself perfecting my “flow state” and developing my Fi, (that’s Introverted Feeling). Psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi uses the term “flow” to describe the state where we forget about ourselves and our concerns, “becoming one with” our present activity. I experience this often when writing or researching music. And in the past two years, I’ve considerably developed my emotional intelligence, (EQ), and have proactively fostered the most intimately rewarding relationships of my adult life.

I also wanted to touch upon your remark about INTJs and their propensity for untidiness. That’s another facet of my character I’ve consciously developed in adulthood. I’ve found that by meticulously scheduling household maintenance tasks on my daily calendar, I’m able to maintain a spotlessly clean museum of a home at all times with just a few weekly errands for routine upkeep. I share this to show that we are not mere victims of our MBTI - we can use the system to “blow the fog away” just as you said to provide greater clarity to help us become our best selves.

For those readers interested in diving deeper into their cognitive functions, I’ll share three of my favorite introductory sources from my own research on MBTI. These, along with the links I shared in my original post will provide a wealth of knowledge for those just starting out with personality theory.

My first offering is from Cognitive Processes dot com. The site provides an initial summary, followed by a hyperlinked table of all 16 types so you can jump to a more detailed examination of your own personality type. Check it out here:
https://www.cognitiveprocesses.com/16Types/16Types.cfm

Next, here is a lovely introduction to cognitive functions from ThoughtCatalog dot com:
https://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-pri...ive-functions/

And finally, Personality Junkie dot com offers richly informative profiles for each of the sixteen personality types. You can view them all in detail here:
https://personalityjunkie.com/16-mye...lity-profiles/

ribbons and your readers - let me know if anything I’ve provided helps you understand your cognitive functions better! Thanks again!

This sounds a lot like the zen buddhism Satori experience

It's interesting you think so in your 30s/40s.
I have the feeling I might've already had the most intimate and rewarding relationships, and I'm only 21 [and it will never happen again]

The funny thing is, it's so counter-intuitive that this type should have a problem with keeping things tidy.


I've once since an article (sort of science/spirit stuff), that basically said that in order to achieve "enlightenment" in life, one needs to satisfy the demands of your less-developed cognitive functions.

Thank you so much, Marie. That is very kind of you to say (especially as I feel rather ineffective in truly helping my sister right now) and I really appreciate it. Will be returning to my sister's home for a long stay after finishing work today.

Thank you very much, Dianne. Yes, life is cruel sometimes and you know that better than most. I am thinking of you too, and hope your current struggle is short-lived and not overly difficult or painful. Thank you for thinking of me at this time.

ISB and Mucha, thanks for the wealth of info and insight you've contributed to this thread. I'll have lots to study and learn when life settles down a bit. (I recall taking in the past the Humanmetrics test ISB linked to here, and my result was INFJ - same result I've always received in the 10 or so times I've taken MBTI tests, except for one time I was deemed an ISFJ.)