People like sorting themselves into groups with other people. We identify with those who share our political views, have similar religious traditions, look like us, went to the same schools, etc. This seems to be a normal human thing. But it’s an all-too-easy shift to go from thinking “I am like these people” to thinking “I am not like those other people.” Now we have an “us” group and a “them” group. And the slide into deciding that “we” are better than “them” is one that has lead to all sorts of trouble throughout human history.
Tackling all the “us” vs “them” issues in the world today is far too large a scope for a single post. But I do want to address how this mindset is affecting communities interested in personality types. If there was ever a group that should be able to avoid turning against people unlike themselves it should be those learning about personalities. Sadly, that’s not always the case.
One of the core ideas in personality type systems like Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram is that no one type is better than any other type. Every type has strengths and weaknesses and every type is equally valuable. That’s a central part of these personality systems. They’re designed to help you understand your type and other people’s types so that you can better appreciate the variety inherent to humanity.
But even though personality types are meant to help us better appreciate other people the opposite happens far too often. Introverts accuse extroverts of ruining the world and hating us. Intuitives spread hurtful myths about Sensing types. INFJs portray themselves (or are described by others) as otherworldly, quasi-mythical creatures. And the list goes on and on.
I’m an INFJ so I’m going to pick on my own type for a while. I’ve seen topics brought up in INFJ-only settings about how it’s completely unnatural (well-nigh impossible) for an INFJ to be racist or sexist or anything like that. We’re so much better than all those other types that so easily fall prey to attacking other groups of people. Oh, no. We’re so much better than those uncouth bumpkin personality types.
What precious little snowflake hypocrites we are.
I’m sure you can see the problem here. And using one’s own type as an excuse to turn against other groups of people isn’t confined to INFJs. People of any type can make sweeping generalizations about extroverts, or thinkers, or SP types, or any other combination of letters. And those generalizations are often both inaccurate and unkind.
So lets get back to using personality type systems the way they were intended. As a tool to better understand both ourselves and other people, and then to better appreciate them as well. Those of us within the type development community have the tools we need to move past thinking about groups of people with an “us versus them” mindset. We can use type to climb inside other people’s perspectives and learn to appreciate that just because someone processes information and makes decisions differently than us doesn’t mean they’re our enemies or our inferiors.
It’s nearly impossible to study Myers-Briggs® types on the Internet without coming across several articles about the incredibly rare and nearly magical INFJ type. I’m an INFJ myself, and I’ve seen us described as the world’s prophets and shamans with deep spiritual insights. We’re called natural empaths with unfailingly accurate telepathy. We appear so deep you’ll never plumb the depths of their souls. We’re even seen as the ideal type–the one everyone else mis-types as because they wish they were this special. And the more people describe INFJs as perfect and other worldly, the more ridiculous the claims about INFJ super-powers becomes. For example, I’ve actually seen such ridiculous claims like these made in INFJ memes and blog posts:
If you’re laughing out loud at the craziness of this, you’re not alone. The tendency to portray INFJs as something akin to a demigod or goddess doesn’t sit well with most healthy INFJs, and yet these sorts of stereotypes are still around. On the one hand, you have certain INFJs and want-to-be INFJs embracing the idea that they’re better/special and using it to look down on other types (something that can be damaging to us as well as to others). And on the other hand, you have non-INFJs buying-in to the otherworldly stereotype and reacting to it in ways that aren’t good for the INFJs (such as when certain people “hunt” INFJs for a relationship, a disturbing thing that I’ve written about in another post).
How Did This Happen?
The simple fact that INFJs are the rarest personality type is going to make us feel and appear different than other people. That’s where this whole thing started–with acknowledging and explaining why INFJs aren’t like the other 98-99% of the population. So far so good. But soon, it started turning into an idea that “different” equals “better.”
INFJs process incoming information with a mental function called Introverted Intuition (Ni). INTJs also lead with this process, and they’re the second-rarest type. That means only 3-7% of the population has this as their preferred mental process (it’s the co-pilot for ENFJ and ENTJ, and they’re pretty rare too). Ni is a perceiving process that’s inward focused, tied to personal perspectives, highly interested in patterns, and is concerned with things that can’t be directly experienced.
It’s not too hard to see how this process could be seen as mystical, or even magical (as side-note, I actually like the nickname “The Mystic” for INFJs as much or more than “The Counselor,” since it focuses on our dominant function instead of our co-pilot). Introverted Intuition doesn’t “make sense” to most people, even the INFJs and INTJs who use it all the time. Pattern-recognition related to things you can’t directly experience is hard to explain. And if we stop trying to explain how this works, then some variation on “it’s magic” seems like a good enough stand-in.
The impression of INFJs as empaths and mind-readers comes from how Ni relates to their co-pilot process, Extroverted Feeling (Fe). Fe picks up on other people’s feelings and makes decisions based on meeting the needs of the whole group. When you couple a keen interest in other people and an ability to pick up their emotions with Ni pattern recognition, INFJs can be insanely good at predicting behavior. And so we became known as the telepathic mind-readers of the Myers-Briggs® community (even though other types use this process as well).
Perpetuating The Unicorn Stereotype
The fact that the quasi-mythical, somewhat deified image has become a stereotype for INFJs is party our fault. Many INFJs grew up feeling like outsiders who never fit in. We’re carrying around deep emotional scars and we’re longing for someone to look at us and say, “Your weirdness makes you wonderful and valuable.” And we find that in the personality type community. Here are a couple examples:
The INFJ has been called “The Mystic,” “The Counselor,” and “Empath”. They are described as original, gentle, caring, and highly intuitive. The quality of extrasensory perception, or ESP, is often attributed to them. People who have known INFJs for years continue to be surprised when yet another layer of their complex personality is revealed. (Ann Holm, “The Mysterious INFJ”)
If we hearken back to humanity’s tribal days, we would likely find only a few INs in a given tribe. At that time, they would have assumed roles such as sage, healer, Shaman or prophet—anything that capitalized on their powers of insight and intuition. Indeed, their rare and unusual gifts would have made INs a precious commodity. (Dr. A.J. Drent, “Why INFJ, INFP, INTJ, & INTP Types Struggle in Modern Life”)
While there are some INFJ haters out there, most of what you’ll find about INFJs on the internet is positive and supportive. In fact, the descriptions are so good at inviting you to identify with this type that non-INFJs are very likely to mis-type when reading about different types online. In at least one little niche of the world, INFJs are in vogue for the first time in their lives. On the one hand, this is a good thing–we do need to understand that there’s nothing wrong with our personalities and that we have amazing strengths. On the other hand, though, we also need to be aware that we’re not a special category of human that’s more valuable, impressive, intelligent, etc. than other people who aren’t INFJs.
The Dark Side of Special Snowflakes
As I mentioned in the opening for this post, there are a couple dangers to letting the mythical unicorn INFJ persona run around unchecked. On the one hand, it can build resentment towards INFJs or make them targets for unwanted attention. I’ve seen a few nasty, aggressive posts attacking INFJs for thinking they’re so special. But for now, let’s set aside how the mythical stereotype hurts people’s perceptions of INFJs and look at how it can lead INFJs to develop wrong ideas about ourselves and damage our relationships with other people.
After writing my “Myths About Sensing Types” post, a reader on Facebook commented that quite a bit of the Sensor-hate online comes from INFJs, who write a large percentage of the personality type content online. Since Sensors make up 70% of the population, that means most of the (very real) emotional wounds that INFJs carry around and feel so deeply came from Sensors. And so we may look down from our “I’m the most insightful personality type around” pedestal and turn Sensing types into villains, or at the very least a type that Intuitives like us cannot get along with.
It’s not just around Sensing types that this sort of thinking can become a problem. We also read that we’re too intelligent for the Feelers and too emotional for the Thinkers, which further alienates us from the other types. Depending on how an individual INFJ responds to the message that they’re special and different, they can become a terror in typology as they wield their 1% status to prove that we’re better than everyone else. Alternately, it might make an INFJ feel even more isolated and alone than they did before now that they’re sure they don’t fit in with other Feelers, or the Thinkers, or Sensors. If we’re to believe our special snowflake status makes it impossible for others to understand us, that leaves a depressingly small pool of people we can build relationships with.
Embracing Differences Without Becoming A Snob
In describing INFJs, it’s important to make sure we do so the same way we describe other types. INFJs are special and different, but we’re no more special and different than everyone else. We need to make sure we talk about and value the unique traits of each type, and show both INFJs and all the non-INFJs balanced, insightful, and helpful portraits of their types online. At the same time, we also need to remember that everyone individual is more than the mental hard-wiring that we call a Myers-Briggs® type.
As INFJs, we need to guard against the temptation to see ourselves as better because we’re more rare or because that’s what we read online. We also have to be careful not to resent or put down other types because they’re not like us or because someone of that type hurt us in the past (I know I have to be careful of that when I meet people with the same personality type as an ex-boyfriend). This shouldn’t really be a difficult thing to do, since as INFJs it’s usually easy for us to see things from other people’s perspectives. Most of us know what it’s like to be misunderstood, misinterpreted, and unfairly judged. Let’s commit to not doing that to other people.
It’s also important to point out that while INFJs aren’t perfect (we’ve all got a bit of a dark side to us), most of us don’t default to thinking we’re better than everyone else. It’s when we’re unhealthy, hurt, and/or stressed that we become adversarial or snobbish towards other people. A healthy INFJ is going to recognize that these tendencies are not ideal and work against them (or perhaps not even have a problem with this at all).
Personality type systems are meant to give us insight into how our minds work. That insight should empower us to understand and embrace our differences while also celebrating the uniqueness of others. It’s okay to enjoy what makes your type unique and, in the case of INFJs, rare as well. It’s even okay to embrace certain aspects of the mystic persona, if that fits your personality in a healthy way. But we should never use our INFJ-ness as an excuse to put-down other people or make ourselves look better than them.
One of the most disturbing trends I’ve noticed in the community of Myers-Briggs® enthusiasts is a bias against Sensing types. You’ll see it in comments from Intuitives about how they don’t want any Sensing friends because they couldn’t possibly understand us. It’s someone saying a fictional character is too dumb and shallow to be an INFJ so they have to be ISFJ (or insisting another character has to be INFJ because they’re relatable and imaginative). It’s assuming all SP types are dumb jocks who’d run off a cliff just for a thrill and all SJ types are conservative traditionalists who’d rather die than see the status quo change.
There was a similar issue when introverts finally started realizing they weren’t broken extroverts. In some cases, the introvert hype turned into an idea that introverts are better than extroverts, which is simply not true. It resulted in stereotypes being used to tear-down extroverts and build-up introverts. We’re still undoing that damage, but I think we’ve finally started to balance out and realize that introverts and extroverts are equally valuable.
Unfortunately, I’m not seeing a similar shift toward balance in how Intuitives view Sensing types, at least no everywhere. There are some wonderful groups out there (like Personality Hacker’s “Intuitive Awakening”) that insist on no Sensor-bashing while exploring what it means to be an Intuitive. But outside those groups it still happens. And even if we’re not staying Intuitives are better than Sensors, I wonder if the fact that there’s so much more material out there for Intuitives than for Sensors is still sending the message “you don’t matter as much as us.”
Sensing/Intuition Numbers
70% of the population are Sensing types, but when you Google individual personality types only 19% of the search results relate to Sensors (that’s if my math’s right — numbers aren’t one of my strengths). I searched each type and compared the number of results that came back. Here’s the full list:
INFJ – 16,100,000
INFP – 15,300,000
INTJ – 13,700,000
INTP – 8,090,000
ENFP – 5,680,000
ENTP – 3,510,000
ISTP – 3,100,000
ENFJ – 2,270,000
ISFJ – 2,230,000
ISTJ – 2,080,000
ESTP – 2,040,000
ENTJ – 2,020,000
ISFP – 1,900,000
ESTJ – 1,890,000
ESFP – 1,280,000
ESFJ – 1,210,000
No wonder so many people mistype themselves as an INxx — we’re the types flooding the internet with articles about what we’re like and inviting people to identify with us. That’s great for people with those types, but it’s actually one of the things contributing to the anti-sensor bias.
One of the reasons that so many people online identify as INFJs is because there is just so much more, and so much better, and more in-depth content on INFJs. If every second article you read is about INFJs, it’s only natural to come to identify more with INFJs, simply because we relate more to things that we understand more.” — Erik Thor, “Have You Ever Thought That You’re Actually Just A Smart Sensor?“
If you Google “INFJ” you get back about 16,100,000 results. Search “ISTJ” and you get about 2,080,000 results. That’s almost 8 times as many results for the world’s rarest type as for the one that’s most common. We can argue that it’s because INFJs need more support online since they don’t get as much validation in-person from meeting people like them. But don’t Sensing types deserve the resources to learn about how their minds work as well? and the connection of seeing their types positively portrayed and defended by people writing about personality types? Read more →
As an INFJ, you’re good at picking up on other people’s emotions. And when you pick up on what other people feel you also start to get a good feel for their expectations. For some of us, that seems like a good thing. We know what’s expected of us in different social settings and from different friend groups. We understand who we need to be so we can fit in.
But is that really a good thing for us? Does being able to fit in help an INFJ?
We call it the chameleon effect when an INFJ leverages their unique combination of mental processes to blend in with different groups of people. Chameleon INFJs might even appear as if they’re a different personality type in different situations because they’re automatically shifting toward being extroverted around the extroverts, logical around the thinkers, and interested in the real world around the sensors.
Blending in feels like an advantage at times. That’s why we do it. Fitting in feels safe. It seems like a way to protect ourselves from negative attention. But in reality, using our gifts in this way doesn’t just protect us from bad things. It also blocks us from really being seen and appreciated as ourselves. Read more →
I love ice skating. The graceful sweep of a skater’s arms and legs as they glide along the ice. The crunching swish as ice flies up when they come to a stop. The romance of sweeping over a frozen lake with glittering stars overhead.
But I only liked skating from a distance. Figure skating is the only winter sport I ever follow or watch, even during the Olympics. I’ve even been to see the Smucker’s Stars On Ice Tour (just once — my grandmother had tickets. I loved it). I’ll watch YouTube videos of figure skating much the same way I watch Dancing With The Stars routines. And I didn’t try it myself.
This past Saturday evening, though, I actually strapped on skates went out on the ice. I spent the weekend visiting my boyfriend and when he learned I’d never actually been ice skating he pulled out his phone and found out when the rinks were open. Which is something I never really thought about trying. I haven’t even looked for local ice skating rinks or thought about signing up for lessons or tried to find out if friends with frozen ponds had skates I could borrow.
Many INFJs struggle with translating what’s in our heads into the outer world. We have a hard time turning our dreams into reality. And that’s only if we get to the point where we think about making them real at all. Often, we don’t get past the daydreaming phase before getting distracted by yet another idea that’s probably going to stay in our heads as well.
Another thing many (though not all) INFJs deal with is a lack of affinity for sports. Many of us don’t watch them and we certainly don’t play them. It requires far too much coordination and balance and teamwork.
But even though I don’t think of myself as balanced or coordinated, I’m on a dance team at church and I’ve even started teaching dance. I love it. And I’m pretty good at it. So there’s no reason those skills shouldn’t translate into similar activities like ice skating.
I wonder if perhaps we INFJs might be missing out on things we’d actually enjoy because we assume we won’t be good at it. Just because Extroverted Sensing is our weak spot doesn’t mean we can’t work on befriending that function and give ourselves a chance to enjoy physical activities.
Even though many INFJs struggle with outer-world activities, it’s good for us to actually try the things we’ve been daydreaming about. When I tried ice skating, I was sure I’d fall over before I even made it to the ice. But I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t fall at all. It turns out I like skating even though I was nervous and cautious and wobbly. It was so much fun. There were even moments (brief ones) where I felt like I was starting to figure out what I was doing and could just skate instead of thinking about how to stay upright. And I’m planing to try it again, hopefully fairly soon.
We’ve moved into another calendar year. As per a long-standing tradition, I spent New Year’s Eve with my sister and our cousin eating lots of yummy food and drinking sparkling grape beverages (Moscato d’Asti this year). And per a tradition established just last year, today I’m sharing post highlights from my blogging year.
I started doing this type of post last year with Top 5 lists. I’d wanted to do top 10 then, but there hadn’t been quite enough traffic to make the posts that didn’t make the top 5 lists stand out from each other. As you can see in the graph, there was quite a bit more traffic this year. And I’m really close to 1,500 followers now, so that’s exciting!
Posts With The Most Traffic
The INFJ User Guide remains firmly at the top of this year’s list. In fact, all but two of my most popular posts are directly relate to INFJ types. It’s so cool to see “Religion And The INFJ” on the list for this year. It’s become the most commented-on posts on my blog and I’ve been thrilled to have so many INFJs with different religious (and a-religious) backgrounds sharing their stories.
I’m so excited to see that several of my posts where I interviewed Christians with different Myers-Briggs types about their faith were so popular last year. And while most of the high-traffic posts on the list above were from 2015 and 2016, the newer ones did pretty good this year as well. Only the last one on this list was under 1,000 views. The top one had over 12,000.
2017 has been a year for narrowing the gap between the two sides of my blog (Christian and Myers-Briggs). Saturday’s Bible study posts still aren’t eclipsing the Monday posts in terms of traffic, but some of the most popular ones have over 500 views this year. Here’s the top 10 list:
The top 4 stayed the same, as I’d expected. And like last year, I have quite a few readers from south-east Asia. It’s interesting to see more people from India, Germany, and South Africa joining us. I’ve also heard directly from several readers in South America, which is pretty cool.
Like An Anchor 