Treats for Statistics-Lovers

According to one site:

(Sorry, I have no idea how to do a table in html)

Type Female Male
ISTJ inspector 6.9% 16.4%*
ESFJ provider 16.9* 7.5
ISFJ protector 19.4* 8.1
ESTJ supervisor 6.3 11.2

ESTP promoter 3.0 5.6
ISTP crafter 2.4 8.5
ISFP composer 9.9 7.6
ESFP performer 10.1 6.9

INFJ counselor 1.6 1.3*
INFP healer 4.6 4.1
ENFP champion 9.7 6.4
ENFJ teacher 3.3 1.6*

INTJ mastermind 0.8* 3.3
INTP architect 1.8 4.8
ENTP inventor 2.4 4.0
ENTJ fieldmarshal 0.9* 2.7

Without gender division:
ISFJ 13.8 INFP 4.4
ESFJ 12.3 ESTP 4.3
ISTJ 11.6 INTP 3.3
ISFP 8.8 ENTP 3.2
ESTJ 8.7 ENFJ 2.5
ESFP 8.5 INTJ 2.1
ENFP 8.1 ENTJ 1.8
ISTP 5.4 INFJ 1.5

I didn't tally them. I have no idea how they were tallied. I'm sure you can find alternate percentages.

Whaddaya think?

Cool, where'd you get it? And what are the asterisks for?

I don't, ah, remember. *face colors in shame* I'll try to retrace my steps. The asterisks point out the extremes. Since the format came out a little wonky, I'll explicate:
19.4% of women are ISFJ and 16.9% of women ESFJ. 16.4% of men are ISTJ.
1.3% and 1.6% of men are INFJ and ENFJ, respectively.
0.8% and 0.9% of women are INTJ and ENTJ, respectively.
I thought you all might find this interesting.

This explains why I've had such trouble locating an INFJ male for myself, but it doesn't explain the fact that 50% of the females I associate with are INTJs.

(INFJ)

Funny how that goes, seimeis. Yes, you INFJs are the loneliest on the planet, for type-company. Tell me where to find this trove of INTJ women, until I got involved with this site, I had a hard time finding them. According to Please Understand Me, NFs are very compatible with NTs. Maybe open up your search a little bit?

Huh, that's funny. So far I've found an ENFP majority in my female classmates, even though ENFP has nothing to do with science and tech...

citygirl: The other INTJ women are all lurking about online! And, strangely enough, they seem to like anime, science fiction, politics, and writing. I am inclined to agree that NFs work well with NTs. I seem to be drawn to friendships with them. They make straightforward, witty, and interesting companions and it is easy to know where you stand with them because they are only too happy to tell you if you ask. :) I greatly appreciate bluntness.

chainedwind, about your observation about NFs in science. What's really interesting about this typing stuff is the shades of meaning. For example, even though I'm such a strong T, I'm interested in many of things NFs would be. The books that interest me are about the relationships between people. I seem to have a gift for really seeing inside people and helping them out with their inner processes and close relationships. And even though I'm personally ambitious, my wildest dreams involve using whatever success I gain to help people fulfill their potential. As I've mentioned in other threads, I'm not all that interested in science, I think because I don't relate it to people and relationships. So, I don't think it would be too unusual to find NFs in fields that NTs gravitate to. Their logic apparatus often works just as well as that of many Ts.

I agree with you - NF's can gravitate toward NT and vise versa. When I was first introduced to MBTI through my job, my profile came out as ENTP - borderline E and T. I've come to the conclusion that my typing would have been as it is now, INFP except that I was answering certain things as I wanted them to be, not as they really were. It isn't hard for me to put on the "t" for business ... even now, because I can see the value of it.

I've read that businesses have misused MBTI tests (and other type testing), so one does have to be careful, and maybe not 100% honest.

I've only just discovered this site, hence the big gap in dates. I'm actually one of those elusive male INFJs alluded to earlier; reading the profile in Please Understand Me I felt a bit like reading an interview with myself. I was introduced to MBTI a few years ago by my sister in law, also an INFJ. She had never met a fellow INFJ before and was astonished to find not one but two of us in her husband's family; the other one is my maternal grandmother. I'd often described myself as 'the introverted version' of my brother and it seems that I was right because he is an ENFJ. Oddly enough my friends have almost always been female (only one or two really close male friends) and recently I seem to have spontaneously formed a small group of close female friends ALL of whom turned out to be INFJs. Even odder is the fact that my wife (married for seven whole months now!) and soul mate is also an INFJ. So if you're wondering where all the INFJs have gone apparently I've got them...

Personally I've taken the Myers-Briggs Test several
times and I always come out the same, an ENFP.

Librarianwannabe

Very kooooool, historydoctor. You could start your own little world-changing compound, send out beacons for the other INFJs ;-)

Hi, Librarianwannabe, I hope you join. I don't think we have any other ENFPs, buts lots o' INFPs. It'll be fun to see the differences.

Perhaps I already have without being aware of it. I'm still trying to adjust to the fact that my wife is even more introverted than I am, which forces me to be more extrovert than I'm used to. You may not be surprised to learn that, as two INFJs, we don't go out much so beacons would be the order of the day!

>5 citygirl: Tell me where to find this trove of INTJ women, until I got involved with this site, I had a hard time finding them.

citygirl, I sometimes participate in an online Buddhist forum called E-sangha. According to the ongoing poll "Buddhism and Myers-Briggs / Are personality types prone to Buddhism", more INTJs participate there than any of the other 15 personality types (currently clocking in at 20.34%). The next highest is INFP at 18.31%.

Now I do think that NTs and NFs are particularly attracted to meditative traditions (not just Buddhist ones) ... but given how rare INTJs are in the general population, and also considering that I can count on my thumbs the number of fellow INTJs I've met in my 25 years in Buddhist communities, I suspect that there may be another factor at play. We INTJs may be disproportionately fond of answering polls :-)

INFP

A while back I devised my own "religion" and later found out it was very similar to Buddhism. I can understand a lot of INFP's being at a Buddhism site. I think it has to do with understanding people (self included).

Does anyone know how the percentages (of types) have changed over time, or conjectures pertaining to this. Also, why do you think there are 13.8% ISFJ's and 1.5% INFJ's? Do you think ISTP's have a high proliferation rate but are also have a very low mortality rate? Do INFJ's not think it is good for the greater good to have children?

As for me (INFP) and my husband (INTP) we have 1 child. We are not organized enough to have more. I have maintained that I would loose one if I have more than one.

I think country "types" influence the stats on how people fall out. There is a book "Where in the World Do I Belong" by Brent Massey which explores this. USA is ESTJ, while Japan is ISFJ. Nepal and Burma are INFP. Italy, Bulgaria and Denmark are ENFP. Nigeria is basically ESFJ, but Northern Nigeria (Muslim) is ENTP. Hawaii is ESFP. Russia and Ireland are ENFP. Then I ran to the limit I could search this book in Google Books -- so, I guess I'll have to buy it.

The INTJ belong with the Illuminati...

;)

>21 readafew: The INTJ belong with the Illuminati...

???

I kinda get what you're saying, readafew, but do you mind elaborating?

>19 mpramanik:

For a totally unschooled reaction: I should think, historically, certain types have always been rarer than others. Nor do people necessarily have children of the same type - even generally - as reflection will show. :) So, whatever causes the differences, I don't think it's primarily a matter of, say, INFJs not reproducing sufficiently. What else it might be (if there is any viable theory) would interest me.

Well, if you take a cosmic view, I'm just throwing this out there, but the world needs more types for their functions than others. Or maybe the world is the way it is because of the distribution.

Presumably the more romantically inclined NF types have a hard time finding the 'right person' to settle down and raise children with, particularly the introverts. As an INFJ I certainly had a hard time and I feel very lucky that I have managed to settle down at all (I married last year at the age of 33, my wife is 25). I doubt that INFJs or INFPs are actually averse to having children but they may have other things that they want to do before they feel ready, which could eat into the female partner's reproductive years thereby limiting the number of children produced.

As to losing children my INFJ grandmother regularly lost one of her three grandchildren; perhaps she was unusually in touch with her P side?

22,23 > merely a joke, one of the names for INTJ's are Masterminds, working behind the scenes, never seen but always there....

Let's start a secret organization.

No, let's not.

{meaningful wink}

I'm feeling left out and slightly paranoid already!

>30 historydoctor: I'm feeling left out and slightly paranoid already!

Don't... don't...

It'll work much better if you all stay calm.

But is it for the greater good?

Breath in, breath out...

It's for somebody's greater good. *wink*

Just kidding. There's no secret society. :-l

Oh yes there is ;-)

Conspiracy theorist much?

No, not really, I was joking. I read the 'Not your typical Myers Briggs Personality types' site and it made me laugh so I decided to play along. The secret INFJ cabal referred to in messages 12 and 16 is, of course, no longer secret. Anyway we're too busy empathizing the hell out of each other to pose a threat to anyone. ;-)

Adding to my #20 post.

I was able to get back into Google Books to see (book, "Where in the World Do I Belong") if any country might be INFJ (using a different computer, with a different browser) On one of the unrestricted pages, there is a second opinion that Indonesia might be INFJ, but I can't really can't vouch for anything that Brent Massey says in his book.

INFPs and INFJs may both have big libraries, but it may be the J's who are going to take the trouble to list their books in LibraryThing. Having said that, my daughter, ENFP, has done better than I at using this site.

As for NTs and NFs getting along: For years after divorcing the ESFJ, I tried to get close to NT men. But most of them, not knowing a lot of other NTs, are too much in love with their intellects. They are used to being the brains in the room and don't want to think anyone else is on their plane. Fortunately, the ENFP daughter introduced me to a nice INFP man, and everything turned out just peachy.

I read somewhere that three out of four Americans are extroverts, while in Britain the ratio is reversed.

That last bit's interesting although in my experience, as a British introvert, the ratio in Britain is not as extreme as that. Was it written by an American by any chance? ;-)

Seriously though, as a Briton married to an American I would not be surprised to find a difference in the perception of what counts as 'extrovert' or 'introvert' which could influence the interpretation of the statistics. However, it is true that for cultural reasons the British do tend to be more reserved; presumably cultural norms which influence upbringing have an impact on personality so there may truly be more introverts than in the US. Still, within the cultural context of British society there seem to be more extroverts than introverts, even if they may appear less extrovert than Americans.

I wonder if the reverse isn't also true ~ that, as a result of the American culture, there are more introverted Americans than believed, even if they appear more extroverted due to conditioning.

I know I'm always surprised when people tell me how self-assured and confident I appear, and that I am a good speaker. I feel completely inadequate as a speaker (as I mentioned in another thread, I'd rather be dipped in boiling oil than be in the limelight), and I hate being the center of attention. But, being a Leo (astrologically speaking) and firstborn of 6 kids, I've had to act a lot more extroverted than I feel, perhaps due to cultural and familial expectations.

Just a thought.

That's pretty much what I was thinking, Storeetllr. Perhaps, to the unwary observer, extrovert Brits appear introverted; and introvert Americans appear extroverted.