<p>Thanks!
Lizshup -- what suddenly made sense to me was reading what distinguishes extroverts from introverts and realizing for the first time that you could be a shy extrovert or an introvert who is not shy (unshy?nonshy?).
My husband and I are probably both shy introverts by nature (he's an engineer -- duh) but I would probably no longer be called shy. I am still introverted, by the definition I've just read, because I like to spend as much or more time alone than with people (I'm a writer -- duh). What really hit me is thinking about my kids. I realized my daughter is a shy extrovert who has trained herself not to be shy because she is so extroverted. This really explains a lot: the pre-schooler who said she wanted to learn every language in the world so she could talk to everyone in the world, the high schooler who baffled us because she liked books but never read them because she couldn't seem to spend a single minute alone or off the phone. the college kid who was gifted as an artist but would never spend time making art unless surrounded by others, and the adult who can't understand why when we have a family holiday we don't automatically invite twenty more people. As for my son, I now get that he is an introvert who is not shy. That explains: why as a pre-schooler we gave up on the first try at pre-school for him because he was so miserable, why as a high schooler he spent a year trying to get invited to the "right" parties and then came home complaining they weren't fun, how the kid who has to ease himself into new situations can play solos and his own compositions in front of hundreds of strangers, etc etc etc</p>
<p>Wow, it must have been hard for my daughter to be the only extrovert in the family. And, how hard my son is trying to pretend he's not an introvert. Gotta learn more about this...</p>
<p>Sac, some of the Myers-Briggs terms are not at all intuitive vis a vis the way we use the same words in ordinariy language, cf., Carolyn's masculine vs. feminine campuses, and I've done my own translations of what they mean.</p>
<p>M-B is a four-scale system:</p>
<p>Introvert/Extrovert (I/E)...as discussed, does being with people energize you or drain you?</p>
<p>Intuitive/Sensing (N/S)...do you "live in your head" or through your five senses? I'm an <em>extremely</em> strong N.</p>
<p>Thinking/Feeling (T/F)...the one term that's pretty much self-evident.</p>
<p>Judging/Perceiving (J/P)...I've looked at all the clue words and decided that Goal Oriented vs. Process Oriented captures the sense of it best for me...maybe someone else can come up with something better.</p>
<p>Wow Sac, thanks for explaining. I never thought an extrovert could be shy. It might help me understand my daughter as well. I've had a difficult time deciding whether she was introverted or extroverted.</p>
<p>yeah, lizs, i am an outgoing introvert. i usually keep to myself and stay in my room, but i have a lot of friends and i love to meet new people. i am always invited to the parties and whatnot - some i go to, some i dont - but when i do go i'm usually off by myself somewhere because i don't like being in crowds. when i am with my friends (hanging out and whatnot) i'm one of the loudest ones in the group. they have a hard time beleiving that i am an introvert - but it's true :)</p>
<p>TheDad, thanks for the additional info. I realize that these things are also along a continuum.
lizschup, thanks for mentioning the book, "Do What You Are." I've just ordered it for my daughter. It strikes me that part of her difficulty in deciding what to do next has to do as much with personality as with skills. I kept thinking the programs she talked about did not really seem like "her," though they interest her on an intellectual level. But now I understand how helpful it might be for her to think about future careers in these terms.... something creative, yet with more social interaction than working alone, for starters.</p>
<p>Sac, about the continuum, absolutely. I'm very closely balanced on the E/I, moderately balanced on the J/P, strongly tilted toward the T on the T/F, and extremely tilted on the N/S. With a sense of the scales and continuum, I can often talk to someone for half an hour and figure out what their type is pretty accurately.</p>
<p>Hi TheDad-
I don't personally put a lot of stock into the MBTI (and I am in the field). They used the Meyers Briggs for awhile when I was I grad school to help put undergrad roommates together. I don't think it worked too well. They also gave it to all the law school students to see if certain personality types selected certain professions (we can have a lot of fun with that one with or without the MBTI). They gave it to all of us in our graduate department, and we were as different as night and day. Go figure.</p>
<p>i was given the MBTI during a management course in college. kind of for the same reason you mentioned - different professions and whatnot. basically all of us were some sort of business major (i.e. it being a management course) and our personalities were all different - which is common in most fields.</p>
<p>Jym, funny, but I don't see it as a useful too for things like matching roommates and the like. Where I do find it useful is when I need to mentally back off and identify a source of friction. </p>
<p>Three NT's in this house (don't know about the cat) and it's become a reasonable shorthand, as in "That's <em>so</em> NF!"</p>
<p>I could use a little more NF, as in "living in the moment."</p>
<p>I've been using MBTI for several years in my work. While not an explanation for every behavior or situation you see, it can be very informative. I agree with TheDad's assessment. Someone mentioned "Do What You Are". This crowd may also find "Nurture By Nature", by the same authors, interesting. All about flexing parenting styles to meet the personality needs of the individual child. Consulting Psychologists Press also publishes a booklet called "Introduction to Type in College".</p>
<p>For those of you versed in the subject, if you have NT kids check out the percentages of teachers at the elementary school and high school levels who are SF v. the college level where the percentages of NT's are much higher. If your kid has felt like a misfit, college may truly feel like they've finally come home!</p>
<p>The Dad-
Ironically, the "roommate match" project using the MBTI was spearheaded by a faculty member in our graduate department who trained with Isabel Briggs Meyers. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess...
I see the MBTI as helpful to the degree that it has some very general personality descriptors. But I also find it interesting htat they give a disclaimer/explanation that your 4 letter type may not fit you. Does that make intuitive sense?</p>
<p>Jym, I haven't really ever met anyone who didn't "fit" their type. My observation is that people oscillate and that while one mode may be dominant, any particular day/moment/situation may find one acting in one of the other styles.</p>
<p>Love2Listen, I knew my D was an NT at a very early age. I told her in 1st or 2nd grade that she'd like middle school more than elementary school, high school more than middle school, and college best of all. And so it came to pass in the thirtieth year of Tiberius Caesar.... Her 1st grade teacher was probably an SP and just didn't understand D, who was almost frighteningly logical, at all. And she had a very condescending and saccharine way of talking to children that just drove D up the wall.</p>
<p>Me = NFJ for sure, 50/50 on the E and I scale, which is why I've always been torn between writing and teaching, I guess.</p>
<p>H = INTP
S = INTP
D = ESFP -- the only S in our family and I think she notices! We definitely do. (It's weird that our two kids are exact opposites in personality.)</p>
<p>I remember on the old board there was a discussion by accepted students to Chicago last year in which they all listed their Briggs Meyer designations... the clear majority were INTs and then they were divided on J or P. It peaked my interest then due to our S being an INTP, and, even though it was so anecdotal, it was one more reason to explore the school carefully. I wonder if other college student bodies could be categorized by the B-M scale? Like, Yale, for example, definitely seemed more ESFP to us and Harvard seemed more ENTJ. Broadly speaking, of course.</p>
<p>Momof2inca -- I somehow kicked this extrovert/introvert thread off by mentioning in another thread that I had heard the students at Colgate are all extroverts and wondered where the introverts go. Chicago, MIT, and CalTech were some thoughts. But it is fun to take it the next step and figure out the college personality based on this scale. Completely inaccurate, of course, but fun:
Stanford -- ESFP?
Columbia -- ENTJ?</p>
<p>New Yorker ran an interesting article about MB and other "personality" tests recently. Apparently, MB was made up by a couple laypeople with a scant knowledge of Jung. It's their totally subjective view of people, not scientifically based.</p>
<p>Personally, I'm very wary of typecasting tests of any kind (I'm sure someone will tell me what category that makes me--I prefer "crank", cuz "curmudgeon" is already taken.:) )</p>
<p>Son - INFP
Mom - ENFP (the same person, except one is into blah blah blah, the other is not)
Dad - ENTJ
Grandma - ENTJ
Grandpa - ESFJ</p>
<p>Poor S has always been misunderstood - all talkers, and then there is Mr. Zip Mouth. I find MB very useful in the business world, but it is not adequate for a complete system of psychological analysis.</p>
<p>I am 21 years old and have been an introvert all of my life. After 4 years of college I can count on one hand the number of parties I've been too. That sounds pathetic but I have never felt the need to gain attention and have lots of people around me. During a summer internship I went out with some of the people I worked with and I was immediately uncomfortable. Their idea of fun was bar-hopping all night while I prefered to kick back and relax at my apartment with a few friends over. The loud crowded environment of bars is not for me. I am not shy in those kind of environments....there is just too much "stuff" going on. I've often thought about what I would do differently if I could go back and repeat parts of my life but I finally came to the realization that I can't run from who I am and it would be futile to put on act all of the time.</p>
<p>What is weird is that while I don't like being in crowded environments such as parties I had no problem giving a speech in front of +3000 people. I have given quite a few presentations in high school and college and TAs, teachers, and professors have said I was very good. So for me it was "funny" to see some of the most popular students in my classes get very nervous speaking in front a group of his or her own friends where as I wasn't close with any of them. I would be nervous too but I wouldn't manifest it physically.</p>