Myers-Briggs 16 personalities test

[Maciamo]

For some reason, everytime I take the Myers-Briggs (Jung) personality test (at a few months' or years' interval) I get different personality types. The only stable one is "T" for Thinking.

I took the test just one year ago and got ISTP :

Introverted (I) 59.38% Extroverted (E) 40.63%
Sensing (S) 52.78% Intuitive (N) 47.22%
Thinking (T) 83.87% Feeling (F) 16.13%
Perceiving (P) 51.72% Judging (J) 48.28%

I took the test on the same website today and got ESTJ ("Administrator") :

Extroverted (E) 51.61% Introverted (I) 48.39%
Sensing (S) 55.88% Intuitive (N) 44.12%
Thinking (T) 69.44% Feeling (F) 30.56%
Judging (J) 58.82% Perceiving (P) 41.18%

In one year, the most stable trait was "Sensing". Of course, my scores are usually in the 40% and 50%, so it's easy to pass from one side to the other, depending on my mood.

A few years ago, I got INTP ("Thinker"). Looking at the descriptions to find the character that fits me best, I am probably a mix of INTP and ESTJ, which are opposites in everything but "T". How is that possible ?

All this to say that I do not find this test accurate at all for me.

What about you ?

[Mycernius]

I'd say your one crazy mixed up person. In other words, normal, like the rest of us

[Tsuyoiko]

I mentioned this test on another thread yesterday - I have recently taken the test 5 times over a couple of weeks and got INTP every time. The description is me to a 'T'. But I think most people are going to be a mix. And I don't find it surprising that your results change over time, because people do change over time - but as personality tests go it seems the most accurate for me. Maciamo - I don't know about the first three, but I would say you are a J - you seem to have made your mind up about most things.

[Void]

I am INFP "Questor". Not a big surprise though

[Kinsao]

Oh, I'd never done the test before. I got ESTJ "Administrator" for both my actualised and preferred type. Interesting, because that is my job title!

[MeAndroo]

A few years ago, I got INTP ("Thinker"). Looking at the descriptions to find the character that fits me best, I am probably a mix of INTP and ESTJ, which are opposites in everything but "T". How is that possible ?

Well, judging by your scores, none of them were overwhelmingly on one end except for said T. It doesn't seem impossible that you could go from, say, a I to an E based on a small percentage shift.

I got an ESTP the last time I did it. Pretty accurate, but the scores were similar to yours in that they were very close to being even.

[mad pierrot]

Maciamo,

Are there any other tests you score consistently the same with? I would assume that anyone could conceivably be under a number of different emotional unfluences at the time one takes a test. Given a different emotional state each time one takes the test, it would be easy to get different results for each test, right?

[Elizabeth]

Maciamo,

Are there any other tests you score consistently the same with? I would assume that anyone could conceivably be under a number of different emotional unfluences at the time one takes a test. Given a different emotional state each time one takes the test, it would be easy to get different results for each test, right?

I have been an INTJ for the last several years, the only vector that wavered somewhat before that was between P and J -- so it seems very predictive in my case as well, at least as my personality has came of age.

It seems reasonable to me too that major life upheavals or even temporary emotional states may swing anyone's results unexpectedly. Or for those of us that just don't have enough insight into ourselves to be good subjects.

[lastmagi]

Thanks for the interesting topic, Maciamo!

I agree with Mad Pierrot; emotional states can influence our responses.

One other thing I noticed myself doing whenever I do personality tests is that I sometimes consciously determine how I want to be seen in the end. This is especially true whenever the test in question gives you special attributes like "The Hopeless Romantic" or "The Charismatic Leader" or "The Satanic Dog Catcher from the Fifth Layer of Hell." If I notice a pattern in questions, then I will adjust my responses accordingly, which unfortunately undermines the point of the test. This may be harder to do in a test like the Myers-Briggs, where you only get basically an acronym of your traits, but it's still there. Note that I may still be responding truthfully, though perhaps not as a whole, because I may be thinking of one behavior in particular that contrasts against another tendency; in other words, both of these behaviors/tendency on which I am answering may be true to some degree, and it is always hard to quantify how much.

Thirdly, there is a question of reliability in questions. In sociological/psychological terminology, this refers to how well a question returns the same response from an individual every time he or she retakes the test. So if I get on a weight scale 50x, it should show the same weight every single time. So like I was talking about in the last paragraph, I may be thinking of one particular instance/tendency that describes my character for one question, but if I retake it again, I may be drawing from another instance/tendency. Let's see how exactly reliability plays into question by looking at some examples:

1) I am systematic.

In what? There are some things in which I am systematic, and some things in which I simply don't care to be organized about. And I find it hard to quantify the areas in which I am systematic vs. the areas in which I am not because there is so much grey area, so there is an inability in my part to describe a general tendency.

2) I am attracted to eccentrics.

Too broad. How would you define an eccentric to narrow them down? Tori Amos is eccentric in one way that is different from Japanese musician Sugizo, whose eccentricity is different from Daniel Emilfork in The City of Lost Children (which was great, btw). The first's eccentricity I find annoying, the second kinda odd, and the third wonderful.

Actually, these questions aren't as bad as other, less reputable personality tests. But personality as a whole is so hard to quantify that I take these tests only for the fun factor than anything else.

[Tsuyoiko]

Well in the tests I have taken you choose on a 5-point scale. So if I am 'systematic' on some things and not others I will choose the middle point. I don't know if they all have a sliding scale though. And I guess if you choose a lot of middle points you will get a middling result, with everything close to 50%. I suppose it works for me because I am an extreme but stable sort of person.

[nadeshiko]

Hmm, the questions seem so similar that I thought - more than once - that several of them appeared twice Hnyaaaaa, I suppose this is what happens when you take the test 'afore going to sleep... lol. I've got INFP for all three sections though, and if I don't remember wrongly, I had this same 'personality' last I did this sort of test (fromt another website).

[Doc]

Actualized type: ISFJ
(who you are)
Introverted (I) 90% Extroverted (E) 10%
Sensing (S) 67.5% Intuitive (N) 32.5%
Feeling (F) 52.94% Thinking (T) 47.06%
Judging (J) 64.29% Perceiving (P) 35.71%


ISFJ - "Conservator". Desires to be of service and to minister to individual needs - very loyal.

Preferred type: ISFJ
(who you prefer to be)
Introverted (I) 90% Extroverted (E) 10%
Sensing (S) 57.78% Intuitive (N) 42.22%
Feeling (F) 52.94% Thinking (T) 47.06%
Judging (J) 69.44% Perceiving (P) 30.56%

ISFJ - "Conservator". Desires to be of service and to minister to individual needs - very loyal.


Attraction type: ESFJ
(who you are attracted to)

Extroverted (E) 64.52% Introverted (I) 35.48%
Sensing (S) 59.52% Intuitive (N) 40.48%
Feeling (F) 54% Thinking (T) 46%
Judging (J) 61.54% Perceiving (P) 38.46%

ESFJ - "Seller". Most sociable of all types. Nurturer of harmony. Outstanding host or hostesses.


Interesting test.

Doc

[Platinumbaby]

Actualized type: ENTJ
(who you are)
Extroverted (E) 68.75% Introverted (I) 31.25%
Intuitive (N) 51.52% Sensing (S) 48.48%
Thinking (T) 54.76% Feeling (F) 45.24%
Judging (J) 60% Perceiving (P) 40%

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.


Preferred type: ESTJ
(who you prefer to be)
Extroverted (E) 75% Introverted (I) 25%
Sensing (S) 50% Intuitive (N) 50%
Thinking (T) 53.49% Feeling (F) 46.51%
Judging (J) 57.14% Perceiving (P) 42.86%

ESTJ - "Administrator". Much in touch with the external environment. Very responsible. Pillar of strength. 8.7% of total population.


Attraction type: ESFJ
(who you are attracted to)
Extroverted (E) 74.07% Introverted (I) 25.93%
Sensing (S) 51.61% Intuitive (N) 48.39%
Feeling (F) 52.63% Thinking (T) 47.37%
Judging (J) 66.67% Perceiving (P) 33.33%

ESFJ - "Seller". Most sociable of all types. Nurturer of harmony. Outstanding host or hostesses. 12.3% of total population.

[ultralars]

Actualized type: ISTJ
(who you are)
Introverted (I) 53.33% Extroverted (E) 46.67%
Sensing (S) 51.85% Intuitive (N) 48.15%
Thinking (T) 51.72% Feeling (F) 48.28%
Judging (J) 68% Perceiving (P) 32%

ISTJ - "Trustee". Decisiveness in practical affairs. Guardian of time- honored institutions. Dependable. 11.6% of total population.


Preferred type: ESTJ
(who you prefer to be)
Extroverted (E) 53.85% Introverted (I) 46.15%
Sensing (S) 62.96% Intuitive (N) 37.04%
Thinking (T) 55.56% Feeling (F) 44.44%
Judging (J) 68.75% Perceiving (P) 31.25%

ESTJ - "Administrator". Much in touch with the external environment. Very responsible. Pillar of strength. 8.7% of total population.


Attraction type: ISTJ
(who you are attracted to)
Extroverted (E) 50% Introverted (I) 50%
Sensing (S) 56% Intuitive (N) 44%
Thinking (T) 51.61% Feeling (F) 48.39%
Judging (J) 61.9% Perceiving (P) 38.1%

ISTJ - "Trustee". Decisiveness in practical affairs. Guardian of time- honored institutions. Dependable. 11.6% of total population.

I give it an 4 on terms of accuracy, but i guess it's me not quite understanding all the terms being used.

[LeBrok]

Actualized type: ENTJ
(who you are)
Extroverted (E) 59.26% Introverted (I) 40.74%
Intuitive (N) 51.28% Sensing (S) 48.72%
Thinking (T) 60% Feeling (F) 40%
Judging (J) 65.52% Perceiving (P) 34.48%

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Preferred type: ESTJ
(who you prefer to be)

Extroverted (E) 61.29% Introverted (I) 38.71%

Sensing (S) 52.63% Intuitive (N) 47.37%

Thinking (T) 61.54% Feeling (F) 38.46%

Judging (J) 64.52% Perceiving (P) 35.48%

ESTJ - "Administrator". Much in touch with the external environment. Very responsible. Pillar of strength. 8.7% of total population.

Attraction type: ENTJ
(who you are attracted to)

Extroverted (E) 63.33% Introverted (I) 36.67%

Intuitive (N) 56.76% Sensing (S) 43.24%

Thinking (T) 55.88% Feeling (F) 44.12%

Judging (J) 53.57% Perceiving (P) 46.43%

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Dominant: Extraverted thinking (Te)
Te organizes and schedules ideas and the environment to ensure the efficient, productive pursuit of objectives. Te seeks logical explanations for actions, events, and conclusions, looking for faulty reasoning and lapses in sequence. [15]
Te is the most developed function for ENTJs. Te involves ordering, structuring, specifying, and applying logic to situations. ENTJs tend to be endowed with strong organizational and coordination skills. Te is also focused on performing a task in the most efficient and productive manner, which generally gives ENTJs the ability to direct and marshal their environment according to work-specific needs. Further, Te contributes to the ENTJs' ability to accumulate relevant data while analyzing that data for factual accuracies and impersonal applications.

Extraverted intuition (Ne): Ne finds and interprets hidden meanings, using “what if” questions to explore alternatives and allowing multiple possibilities to coexist. This imaginative play weaves together insights and experiences from various sources to form a new whole, which can then become a catalyst to action.[22] For the ENTJ, Ne can connect and generate ideas, adding breadth to the intuitive process of Ni. In its negative form Ne has a critical element that may lead to actions that demoralize or immobilize others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENTJ

[Kardu]

ISTJ in all three:)

[himagain]

INTP here. I feel comfortable with that.

[mrikë]

I never took this test, but it results that I am ISTJ

Introverted (I) 87.1% Extroverted (E) 12.9%
Sensing (S) 54.05% Intuitive (N) 45.95%
Thinking (T) 52.27% Feeling (F) 47.73%
Judging (J) 58.82% Perceiving (P) 41.18%

ISTJ - "Trustee". Decisiveness in practical affairs. Guardian of time- honored institutions. Dependable. 11.6% of total population.

Regarding the type to whom I am attracted, to my surprise, the results were rather accurate. I found myself approaching the test with tiredness at times and answering rather impulsively, therefore I did not expect this level of accuracy.



Introverted (I) 76.47% Extroverted (E) 23.53%
Intuitive (N) 51.28% Sensing (S) 48.72%
Thinking (T) 51.16% Feeling (F) 48.84%
Judging (J) 51.52% Perceiving (P) 48.48%


INTJ - "Mastermind". Introverted intellectual with a preference for finding certainty. A builder of systems and the applier of theoretical models. 2.1% of total population.


I persuaded my partner to take the test as well, and his results are the same with roughly similar ciphers.

[Endri]

I took the test out of curiosity on two different sites and apparently i'm an ISTJ type...

1)http://similarminds.com"]Similar Minds[/URL]

Introverted (I) 60% Extroverted (E) 40%
Sensing (S) 71.05% Intuitive (N) 28.95%
Thinking (T) 77.14% Feeling (F) 22.86%
Judging (J) 68.57% Perceiving (P) 31.43%

2)http://www.mypersonality.info/"]My Personality[/URL]

Introverted (I) 89% Extroverted (E) 11%
Sensing (S) 95% Intuitive (N) 5%
Thinking (T) 84% Feeling (F) 16%
Judging (J) 84% Perceiving (P) 16%

[himagain]

Once I read in a newspaper that there are, in the US, more ISFPs in prison than any other type. Are there any data to show what types are most often jailed in Europe?

[Maciamo]

I have found this great page that summarises the character traits of highly creative people based on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People. Mihaly is a seminal professor of Psychology and Management, and is the Founding Co-Director of the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont.

Creative people display contradictory traits not usually found together in the rest of the population. I have rarely found a page that better characterises my personality as this one. It finally explains why I get different results almost every time I take the Myers-Briggs Personality Types test (except for the Thinking component). I am borderline Introverted-Extroverted, Sensing-Intuitive and Perceiving-Judging, usually scoring 50% +-3% for each category.

[FBS]

For me the best tests for human nature are the Spiral Dynamics that profile the value systems and several tests developed by SixSeconds especially the Brain profile. But, those have to be done only if you get trained and understand the model, otherwise people tend to label and misuse the results. Since my blog is in Albanian only, here is the one that I like about Spiral Dynamics in English http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_93.htm .

I would quote this part:
Depending on the developmental stage a person is at, or where they are on the Spiral Dynamics helix, their values will influence everything they think and experience to a greater or lesser extent. This means that their values will impact their:

• Feelings
• Ethics
• Motivations
• Beliefs
• Preferences for learning and working
• Political position
• Ideas about social systems.

Essentially Spiral Dynamics was developed in order to help us understand:

• How people think about things (as opposed to "what" they think).
• Why people make decisions in different ways.
• Why people respond to different motivators.
• Why and how values arise and spread.
• The nature of change.

[Angela]

For me the best tests for human nature are the Spiral Dynamics that profile the value systems and several tests developed by SixSeconds especially the Brain profile. But, those have to be done only if you get trained and understand the model, otherwise people tend to label and misuse the results. Since my blog is in Albanian only, here is the one that I like about Spiral Dynamics in English http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_93.htm .

I would quote this part:
Depending on the developmental stage a person is at, or where they are on the Spiral Dynamics helix, their values will influence everything they think and experience to a greater or lesser extent. This means that their values will impact their:

• Feelings
• Ethics
• Motivations
• Beliefs
• Preferences for learning and working
• Political position
• Ideas about social systems.

Essentially Spiral Dynamics was developed in order to help us understand:

• How people think about things (as opposed to "what" they think).
• Why people make decisions in different ways.
• Why people respond to different motivators.
• Why and how values arise and spread.
• The nature of change.

That looks very interesting. I'm going to do some reading about it.

As for the Myers-Briggs test, I almost always come out INFJ. The I and N categories are usually only moderately predominant however, while the F is usually extremely high.

It's a pretty rare type in life from what I read, and I would guess practically non-existent on these types of forums.

[FBS]

@Angela
Since you live in US, both SixSeconds and NVCC (Spiral people) are based in CA. So you can easily attend their courses or introductory workshops. For me Spiral is amazing tool in understanding people and societies. I had to go to UK to attend the training which was amazing.

[LeBrok]

I have found this great page that summarises the character traits of highly creative people based on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People. Mihaly is a seminal professor of Psychology and Management, and is the Founding Co-Director of the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont.

Creative people display contradictory traits not usually found together in the rest of the population. I have rarely found a page that better characterises my personality as this one. It finally explains why I get different results almost every time I take the Myers-Briggs Personality Types test (except for the Thinking component). I am borderline Introverted-Extroverted, Sensing-Intuitive and Perceiving-Judging, usually scoring 50% +-3% for each category.

Very interesting observations. Many points might seem contradictory in paradoxical way.

For example let me comment on number 7.

Most creative people are both rebellious and conservative. “It is impossible to be creative without having first internalized an area of culture. So it’s difficult to see how a person can be creative without being both traditional and conservative and at the same time rebellious and iconoclastic.”

Generally creative people are rebellious. This is in sense that they refuse to do anything till they have understanding of its benefit. They will always ask question, or keep thinking, why, why, why, perhaps just from curiosity of their minds. When it is explained, or they find satisfactory answer why it is done this way, and they agree with this logic, they can fulfil what is required of them to the letter. Almost in religious way, with better conviction than ordinary people do, and as long as it makes sense for them. On this grounds they might be called conservative in their behaviour, or it might agree with old customs, or old socio-political ways therefore deemed conservative.
Otherwise if they don't agree they will be in rebellious opposition to the notion.

It is in strong contrast with ordinary folks way, for whom it is enough to follow customs learned from parents or teachers, and be happy with this state of matter.

There are also examples of creative people who don't possess intellectual capacity to pull solid logical conclusions and as such will always rebel against anything, because it doesn't make sense. In sort of conspiracy theorist ways. Something only make sense in their heads but never agrees with the physical world, and will never find understanding of other.