According to HumanMetrics.com, I am an INFP (Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceiving) on the Jung Personality Test. Having taken a number of these tests over the years, the results come back as INFP or INTP about 50/50, demonstrating my tendency toward both feeling and thinking to guide my choices and responses. Personally, I think the reason is because I’m female, which comes with heavy socialization to encourage empathy toward others. If born a male, it’s likely I’d be an even greater asshole.
hehe
Funny that they peg me as an introvert considering my family and friends tend to consider me an extrovert. Over time I’ve come to refer to myself as an “extroverted introvert.” I can be really outgoing in certain social settings and am very talkative with my own people, but then can be shy and nervous with new folks, especially females, preferring to speak as little as possible (lest my foot find its way to my mouth, as it typically does).
Here’s what Keirsey.com has to say about INFPs:
Idealist Portrait of the Healer (INFP)
Healers present a calm and serene face to the world, and can seem shy, even distant around others. But inside they’re anything but serene, having a capacity for personal caring rarely found in the other types. Healers care deeply about the inner life of a few special persons, or about a favorite cause in the world at large. And their great passion is to heal the conflicts that trouble individuals, or that divide groups, and thus to bring wholeness, or health, to themselves, their loved ones, and their community.
Healers have a profound sense of idealism that comes from a strong personal sense of right and wrong. They conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place, full of wondrous possibilities and potential goods. In fact, to understand Healers, we must understand that their deep commitment to the positive and the good is almost boundless and selfless, inspiring them to make extraordinary sacrifices for someone or something they believe in. Set off from the rest of humanity by their privacy and scarcity (around one percent of the population), Healers can feel even more isolated in the purity of their idealism.
Also, Healers might well feel a sense of separation because of their often misunderstood childhood. Healers live a fantasy-filled childhood—they are the prince or princess of fairy tales-an attitude which, sadly, is frowned upon, or even punished, by many parents. With parents who want them to get their head out of the clouds, Healers begin to believe they are bad to be so fanciful, so dreamy, and can come to see themselves as ugly ducklings. In truth, they are quite OK just as they are, only different from most others—swans reared in a family of ducks.
At work, Healers are adaptable, welcome new ideas and new information, are patient with complicated situations, but impatient with routine details. Healers are keenly aware of people and their feelings, and relate well with most others. Because of their deep-seated reserve, however, they can work quite happily alone. When making decisions, Healers follow their heart not their head, which means they can make errors of fact, but seldom of feeling. They have a natural interest in scholarly activities and demonstrate, like the other Idealists, a remarkable facility with language. They have a gift for interpreting stories, as well as for creating them, and thus often write in lyric, poetic fashion. Frequently they hear a call to go forth into the world and help others, a call they seem ready to answer, even if they must sacrifice their own comfort.
Princess Diana, Richard Gere [<-- hehehe], Audrey Hephurn, Albert Schweiter, George Orwell, Karen Armstrong, Aldous Huxley, Mia Farrow, and Isabel Meyers are examples of a Healer Idealists.
[Giggles mine]
And here’s what Keirsey.com has to say about INTPs:
Rational Portrait of the Architect (INTP)
Architects need not be thought of as only interested in drawing blueprints for buildings or roads or bridges. They are the master designers of all kinds of theoretical systems, including school curricula, corporate strategies, and new technologies. For Architects, the world exists primarily to be analyzed, understood, explained – and re-designed. External reality in itself is unimportant, little more than raw material to be organized into structural models. What is important for Architects is that they grasp fundamental principles and natural laws, and that their designs are elegant, that is, efficient and coherent.
Architects are rare – maybe one percent of the population – and show the greatest precision in thought and speech of all the types. They tend to see distinctions and inconsistencies instantaneously, and can detect contradictions no matter when or where they were made. It is difficult for an Architect to listen to nonsense, even in a casual conversation, without pointing out the speaker’s error. And in any serious discussion or debate Architects are devastating, their skill in framing arguments giving them an enormous advantage. Architects regard all discussions as a search for understanding, and believe their function is to eliminate inconsistencies, which can make communication with them an uncomfortable experience for many.
Ruthless pragmatists about ideas, and insatiably curious, Architects are driven to find the most efficient means to their ends, and they will learn in any manner and degree they can. They will listen to amateurs if their ideas are useful, and will ignore the experts if theirs are not. Authority derived from office, credential, or celebrity does not impress them. Architects are interested only in what make sense, and thus only statements that are consistent and coherent carry any weight with them.
Architects often seem difficult to know. They are inclined to be shy except with close friends, and their reserve is difficult to penetrate. Able to concentrate better than any other type, they prefer to work quietly at their computers or drafting tables, and often alone. Architects also become obsessed with analysis, and this can seem to shut others out. Once caught up in a thought process, Architects close off and persevere until they comprehend the issue in all its complexity. Architects prize intelligence, and with their grand desire to grasp the structure of the universe, they can seem arrogant and may show impatience with others who have less ability, or who are less driven.
Albert Einstein as the iconic Rational is an Architect.
Dr. David Keirsey, Robert Rosen, George Soros, Gregory Peck, James Madison, Ludwig Boltzman, Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, and Thomas Jefferson are examples of the Architect Rationals.
So another annoying mutt, basically.
hehe Ah well…the world takes all kinds.








wakemenow said
At the end of the day, who knows and who cares? Can’t classify people so succinctly, and besides, we do change and grow as we live and experience.