How Do You Know If You’re Talking with an Intuitive or a Sensing Type?

25 February, 202024 February, 2020Marissa

Once you find out about your own Myers-Briggs® personality type, it’s usually just a matter of time before you start to wonder what other people’s types are. You can ask them, of course. It’s actually not all that hard to work the question into a conversation.

“What are your hobbies?”

“Oh, I like x, y, z, and Myers-Briggs types. Have you ever taken one of those personality tests?”

Pretty simple. They might not remember their result, though, or might not have taken the test yet, in which case you can pull out your phone and direct them to Personality Hacker for what I think is the best free test on the internet. At that point it could start getting weird, though, so you might need to drop the subject if they’re not interested.

There are also ways to guess someone’s type from having a conversation with them. It’s not always possible (I’m still not 100% sure what my own mother’s type is), but in many cases you can get a pretty good idea of at least a few aspects of their personality from a conversation or two. In today’s post, we’re going to look at how to tell if you’re talking with an intuitive or a sensing type.

Before we begin …

Quick word of advice: if your primary goal in a conversation is to guess someone’s type there’s a good chance you won’t actually get to know the person. Myers-Briggs® types simply describe how our minds work and there is a huge amount of room for individual variation within a type. If you want to get to know someone, you need to listen to them and ask them about themselves. Figuring out what their type is should be a secondary goal after getting to know who they are. Read more →

How Do I Know If I’m an INTJ or an INTP?

18 November, 201917 November, 2019Marissa

After learning about Myers-Briggs® types and taking a few tests, one question you might have is how to tell which of two similar types you are. Taking multiple online tests often gives you several different results, so that’s one way this question can come up. Or maybe you started reading about the types and realized more than one sounds like you.

If you’re trying to decide whether you’re more of an INTJ or an INTP type, I hope this article helps. Just looking at the letters in these two types, we might think the only difference between them is that one’s a perceiving type and one is a judging type. This is only party true. When we dive deeper into the cognitive functions each Myers-Briggs® type uses, it become easier to see the differences and similarities between these two types’ mental processes more clearly.

If you’re not familiar with cognitive functions, click here to read “The Simplest Guide to Myers-Briggs® Functions Ever.” INTJs and INTPs might look similar at first, but they use completely different functions, as shown in this graphic:

The way these cognitive functions work together makes INTPs and INTJs similar in some ways and very different in others. They might seem near-identical times but their underlying thought patters and motivations don’t look nearly as much alike as you might think. Read more →

What Advantage Is There To Using Sensing Or Intuition In Myers-Briggs® Theory?

13 May, 201910 May, 2019Marissa

One of the hardest personality dynamics to navigate is Sensing/Intuition. Part of this is due to the fact that Intuitive only make up about 25-30% of the population. That can lead to Intuitives feeling misunderstood and marginalized. On top of that, because our Sensing/Intuitive preference influences so much of how we conceptualize reality, someone who doesn’t share our S/N preference seems even less “like us” than those who don’t match on the E/I, T/F, or J/P preferences.

An unfortunate side-effect of the challenges involved in navigating Sensing/Intuitive relationships is that there’s now a bias against Sensing types in many parts of the personality type community. The myth that Intuitives are intellectually superior to Sensors and that Sensors will never understand them is now widespread among both Sensors and Intuitives.

However, it’s simply not the case that Intuition is better than Sensing. Both preferences grant advantages in certain areas and disadvantages in others. Myers-Briggs® theory is designed to explain how our minds work. It doesn’t say one way of processing is better than another or invite us to make that judgement. So with that being the case, lets take a closer look at the advantages of using Sensing or Intuition. Read more →

Personality Type Myth-Busting: Is Intuition The Same As A Gut Feeling?

8 May, 20197 May, 2019Marissa

I often see Intuitive types describe their experience of intuition as a “gut feeling.” It’s not something we can explain — it’s just something we know. And that is a valid way to describe a lot of what we experience from using Intuition. But if that was all there was to intuition, then we’d be able to describe a lot more than 30% of the population as Intuitive types.

When people talk about intuition, they usually mean something different than what type theorists mean when they refer to Intuition as a psychological function. Google defines intuition as “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.” We might also use the word intuitive to mean “suited by nature for a particular purpose in life,” as when we speak of intuitive athletes or creative types who “just know” how to do something.

In her book Personality Type, Lenore Thomson points out, “Most of the people to whom we apply the word intuitive in this causal way aren’t Intuitives — at least not typologically. They’re usually Sensates and Introverted P types, whose right-brain abilities the left brain can’t explain to itself” (p. 199). I’ve also noticed that some of the things that Intuitives describe as part of their intuition are actually connected with other mental processes. For example, an INFJ might say they intuitively know how to blend in with different social groups when in reality that ability is tied to their harmony-seeking Extroverted Feeling process more than to their Introverted Intuition.

So if Intuition, in the typological sense, isn’t want people usually think of when they think of intuition, what is it? Read more →

7 Fictional Characters That You’ll Relate To If You’re An INFP

15 April, 201914 April, 2019Marissa

What fictional characters do you relate to as an INFP?

Just as we can describe real people using the Myers-Briggs® typology system, we can also use the system to type well-written fictional characters. Some of fiction’s most iconic and intriguing characters are INFPs, and today we’re going to talk about seven of them that I think real-life INFPs will find relatable.

One great thing about looking at character personality types is that it helps us to better understand people who have different types than we do. Fictional INFPs can serve as examples for what real-life INFPs might be like, and also show how much variation can exist between individuals with the same type.

Alphonse Elric

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood was the first Anime series I watched and it’s now one of my favorite TV series of all time. One of the highlights of this series (as well as the Fullmetal Alchemist series) is the character Alphonse Elric, who I’m pretty sure is either an INFP or an ISFP. Al is a sensitive, sweet young man with great strength of character. He believes deeply in doing what’s right and has a strong bond with the people he cares about, as do many real-life IFPs.

As someone who leads with Introverted Feeling (aka “Authenticity”) Al’s preferred mental process is one that’s concerned with inner harmony. As such, he makes decisions based on what feels right to him. As I’m sure many INFPs can attest, this isn’t an easy or straightforward way of figuring things out. It involves a life-long process of checking in with oneself, figuring out who you are, and finding the right way to navigate an often confusing world. Though he’s trapped in a giant suit of armor, Al is quite a young character and though the course of his story we get to see him working through a complicated process of discovering himself that I think many INFPs can relate to from their own growing-up years. Read more →

7 Fictional Characters That You’ll Relate To If You’re An INTP

1 April, 201931 March, 2019Marissa

What fictional characters do you relate to as an INTP?

Just as we can describe real people using the Myers-Briggs® typology system, we can also use the system to type well-written fictional characters. Some of fiction’s most iconic and intriguing characters are INTPs, and today we’re going to talk about seven of them that I think real-life INTPs will find relatable.

One great thing about looking at character personality types is that it helps us to better understand people who have different types than we do. Fictional INTPs can serve as examples for what real-life INTPs might be like, and also show how much variation can exist between individuals with the same type.

Alice

I actually typed Alice as an ENTP on my Disney Princess MBTI chart, but many people type her as an INTP. I’m fairly certain she uses Introverted Thinking and Extroverted Intuition as her two favorite functions, so both ENTPs and INTPs will probably find her a relatable character.

Extroverted Intuition is the most visible aspect of her personality. “If I had a world of my own everything would be nonsense,” seems the sort of thing a bored, curious intuitive would say as they try to explore every possibility no matter now far-fetched. As Alice goes through Wonderland, she’s constantly testing the different aspects of the world and asking questions. Read more →