Myers-Briggs Trial Recap
November 4th, 2008
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Four weeks ago, I started a wacky experiment of working against my personality type, deliberately acting out my non-preferences on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
This involved acting as an ESFJ instead of my natural type of INTP, one letter at a time.
- extraversion instead of introversion
- sensing instead of intuition
- feeling instead of thinking
- judging instead of perceiving
I consider myself to have passed the trials, because I said I would judge myself by effort and not results. But it was very hard to make significant changes on any of the four dimensions. Even my least clear preference, perceiving, was hard to budge.
Michael J Pastor (no link because his blog is only open to invited readers) suggested that I was trying to do too much at once, and that just like with weights, you want to increase the stress gradually. This is absolutely true. If it was really my goal to change, I would have started by making a plan to slowly ease into each trial, instead of jumping in headfirst.
But my intention wasn’t to change, at least not permanently. The point was just to do it to see what it was like. I was curious how hard it would be (very), and whether I would want to continue doing anything differently after it was over (not really). It was entertaining to try it, but I’m happy to go back to normal.
I said in The Personality Puzzle that while we can upgrade our abilities, our preferences are pretty much fixed. And for that reason, I think it makes a lot more sense to go with what you are than trying to change things about yourself that you really don’t want to change. Not that we can’t get better at things with practice, but you’ll always be better at what you like to do. And since all types are equal, why change?
However, we’re all surrounded by people of different types, and I think it’s helpful to be able to understand where they’re coming from. Now whenever I meet a new person, I’ll know that we have something in common, because I tried on their personality for a while.
November 4th, 2008 at 2:20 am
Hi Hunter – I agree. By dong this experiment (or one similar), a person could learn to have more empathy for other people.
Barbara Swafford´s last blog post..A.S.K. Darren Rowse – Problogger – How To Become A Six Figure Blogger
November 4th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I do agree that fundamental personality type is more or less fixed. I remember a serious discussion else where on the term “self improvement” — when there doesn’t seem to be anything to be “improved” upon “self.”
Personal growth has more to do with learning what to do with who you are, than changing who you are.
ari
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November 5th, 2008 at 1:13 am
@ Barbara, I guess some people naturally have a lot of empathy for other people, but for the rest of us, we can always do an experiment like this!
@ Ari, that’s interesting. I guess self improvement is just bringing out the best in ourself, not trying to get a new self.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Hey awesome blog! There is actually this MBTI forum that connects Myer Briggs Type Indicate ( MBTI ) users with other users called Personality Cafe. Just go on google and search for the keywords Personality Cafe. I would love to chat with some of you and get to know about your personality a little bit more!
Just wanna help you guys discover yourself a little more.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:02 am
@ Chipy, thanks, I’ll check it out!
November 12th, 2008 at 11:23 am
The reason to use a different type than your own is because the behaviors in the type you are, like your experience with being a judging organizer, isn’t getting you where you want to be. I’m not sure if our types are fixed. I took the test when I was young. I was an ENTJ all the way. Now I’m an ENTP and when I took the test before I was all thinker, no feeler, now it’s pretty even. Did I lie on the test before, subconsciously, because that’s what I wanted to be? I think I answered the questions based on my behavior, so was my behavior then at odds with who I was, or is it now?
What I really wonder about are people with multiple personality disorder (called something else now, I can’t think what) and the fact that depending on which personality is out they would have a different type. But it’s all the same person. I think we have the potential to be anyone we want.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
@ Carol, I’ve heard several people say their type has changed over time. But since it’s never been someone I actually know, I can’t say if I think their type has really changed or they subconsciously changed their answers. I’m sure multiple personality disorder would make it hard to type someone!
December 12th, 2008 at 8:27 am
that was an interesting experiment! I consider myself an INxP, since my feeling and thinking is near centered. lately I’ve been digging into the MBTI and went one abstraction down to the cognitive processes involved. I then compared the preference of cognitive processes between INFP and INTP, added their ranking and divided the pairs. insodoing I found that extraverted sensing (Se) is my weakest of all cognitive processes. so now I’m looking to practice Se. Im so unfamiliar with it that I can’t clearly identify when others are doing it and am having trouble practicing/reproducing.
I have no intention to change my type, simply being somewhat more familiarized with Se will help me understand others better and prevent making a fool of myself in stresfull situations.
December 13th, 2008 at 1:30 am
@ Mike, it sounds like you’ve been busy! I agree, there’s no need to try to change your type, but being more aware of it could help you interact better with others.