Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: MBTI personality type

[Naomi Anderegg (naomi_anderegg]

Hm. . . maybe I had an exceptional MBPI trainer @ work, but he covered all this 
stuff. He was an introvert himself, but could also put on an "extrovert face" 
and do stand-up-comedy-MBPI-training in front of a group of 60 or so people, 
and 
made that point. I actually tested INTJ but thought that INTP better described 
me and he had no problem saying that sometimes INTP's would kind of like to 
have 
some of those organized INTJ traits, and so they test wrong, but that if I 
though that the INTP description fit me better, then that's probably where I 
belonged. So, even my trainer had no problem saying that it wasn't cut and dry. 
But, it did give me some insight into myself and people that I worked with, was 
interesting, and made me not feel so bad about my procrastinating. (Apparently, 
people who procrastinate actually work better under stress, so they benefit 
from 
procrastinating by investing less time and working hard when they're at their 
peak productivity. Which is not the reputation that procrastinators get! 
Planners, on the other hand, don't work well under stress, and do better doing 
things well in advance.) It seems like some of this information might be useful 
when deciding who's going to do what, as long as people agree with what the 
test 
says about them. You could at least get it out there who to avoid surprising 
with last-minute stressors. 


And Moz, I'm not even going to go there with the extroverts. They are what they 
are. Let it be. They might be great "spokespeople" to pull more people into 
co-housing--my mum's one, and she is quite the networker. 


Best, 

Naomi 


________________________________
From: Moz <list [at] moz.geek.nz>
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Mon, October 4, 2010 5:04:00 AM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ MBTI personality type


Elizabeth Magill said:
> For example, I might report XNTJ instead of INTJ because I know that
> I sometimes test as an E.

And related to what Sharon said, how we are in one situation might not
be how we are in another. Many people have public personas that are at
odds with their private ones (or their self-image). My experience with
these tests is of regularly failing to convince people that I'm
introverted (my housemates, on the other hand, are shocked when I do
go out and socialise... by which we mean "out of my bedroom").

> But be sure to make space for people who feel that personality tests  
> are not a good descriptor of people. You'll have a happier meeting  
> talking about it if you do.

Especially for those who have been forced to do this sort of thing at
work, and have failed to game the metric to their boss's satisfaction.
Partly it also rests on having a good explanation of what you want to
do the test for, and how you're going to use it. INTJ's are often
skeptical but if it's put as "this will help other people think they
understand you, so they will come and bother you less often" it works
better.

Oh and why do people with "good social skills" so often completely
fail to cope with people who don't have said skills? Isn't the whole
point of "good social skills" that they're *better* than average at
that? Alternatively, why are extroversion and empathy not often found
together?

Moz

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