I watched a really interesting video on INFJ’s who think they’re INTP or INTJ, and confirmed I’m an INTJ with decent Fe and well developed Ti. Watch it here.

And a few realizations hit me:

1. These personality tests alone are 80% fallible especially when a person doesn’t know much about the theory behind them. I think this is the main reason why so many people often mistype. And when I say mistype, I don’t mean the simple INTJ being mistaken for an INFJ or INTP. I mean those people who test ESFP first then test INFP later. The letters alone don’t mean anything, and I wish people would realize that. If people were much more knowledgable about things like cognitive functions, were more honset with themselves, and actually took cognitive functions tests, I feel that their type wouldn’t change so much.

2. When people take these tests, they don’t try hard enough to understand why they mistype. They don’t try to understand the significance behind mistyping and what that could say about their personalities. If they did more of this, they could have a better understanding of themselves as people. And when they get a certain type, some people start to embrace the stereotypes given to that type. People don’t realize that this test isn’t necessarily about trying to mold yourself to fit into a category. This isn’t about fitting in. You don’t need to change yourselves to live up to the typical behavior of your respective types. People need to stop doing that and try to understand why they don’t have certain qualities of their type instead of trying to alter themselves to fit the mold. This isn’t necessarily a mold that you need to fit into, simply a general overview of how your mind works.

3. Which brings me to my last point, these tests don’t tell you what kind of person you are. They like scientific theories try to tell you how certain processes or things came into being, Myers-Briggs and Enneagram, as well as other tests, simply try to give you a basic overview of how your mind works. As in life, trying to lump people together just because they have similar attributes is not the best way to go about thinking about this. As with the general human population, there is a lovely thing called variation. In every type, you will have different kinds of people, so while you may find common ground with people who have a similar thought process to yours, you will often times find that there are people who seem vastly different from you. There are so many other factors that influence a person’s personality, and this is why this test can’t tell you who you are. It can only give you a snippet of insight in regards to who you are. And I think that if you’ve started to dabble into this MBTI world a bit, you’ve started the journey to learning even more about who you are. And let me tell you, you’ll be surprised that there are many things that you didn’t even know about yourself.