Hey
so I've been trying to figure out my type. I was heavily into MBTI a few years ago and took every test imaginable, almost. But they were still all behavioral MBTI tests. I concluded from those unanimous results that I was like, 500% INTP.
Furthermore I felt that the profile at the online resource INTP.org was pretty f*cking accurate... even down to the musical preferences. ! Though I didn't think too much about alternatives for the functional analysis, I certainly felt that it made sense, and the profiles always seemed to fit.
Then when I became aware of socionics, I was tempted to discard it because it made sense to me, I kind of liked being an MBTI INTP, and it seemed kinda new-agey to talk about dual relationships and all that. Even after I read the rationale for why socionics corrects the flaw in MBTI typology, I was still not completely sold. I thought that there was credence to measuring outer behavior as indicative of one's creative function, for introverts. It made sense that any test would be behavioral and that an introvert's outward behavior would be indicative of the function they used in the outer world. (I was pretty sure I was introverted at the time).
However, as I read more about socionics I did want a chance to get deeper in a psychological model if I could. Evaluating each function made sense if you had understanding one's psychology as your goal. I didn't really have a goal to discover psychological compatibility rather than behavioral compatibility, but was interested mostly in understanding my own make up. But I did become more confused about the relation between the two (behavior and functional direction).
The confusion was brought about because I felt that I act WAY too "p-like" in behavior to be a judger (assuming MBTI INTP=, most of the time, socionics INTj). And when people say having a lead extraverted function does not mean you are outgoing, I became more confused. Because the answer given to this question was, that if your psychology is judging that will trickle down to your behavior as well.
Because you can't really rely on how you test on the four scales in MBTI tests in narrowing your type, it seems, I started thinking I might be many more types than I did before. I think at one time I thought I might be MBTI INFP, an acquaintence thought I was ISTP, so i considered that for like, one second.
The profiles I read for MBTI INTP seemed to match me so well, so i've been trying to figure out how this might work in my socionics type, whatever it may be. Of course, the type profiles in both camps have room for error. All those introverts who took these tests, and whose subtypes came out in the wash could have affected their results, I'm thinking. So I felt that I was socionics INTj with an overactive Ne, to make me appear p.
Why do I think I act p? I am messy, absentminded, can't take care of myself, get lost in my thoughts a lot, am late to things, write a lot . However I don't think this has as much to do with gathering more data, though I admit I do do this as well (about external things), as it has to do with wanting to provide clarity of what I am trying to say. I am sensitive to fine differences in nuance. In intellectual matters I need very much to have clarity, coherence and consistency of an idea/theory, specificity and .. fairly immediate answers to my inquiries, even if it's just, "I don't know" or "that hasn't been determined." I'm comfortable with an extremely high level of abstraction though, as long as the ideas are consistent. It won't matter to me how implausible an argument is in real life, as long as it's logical.
However, I think read somewhere that INTps have a more contingent logic than an INTj will have. I've forgotten where I've read it. I certainly wouldn't say that I had a contingent logic, but I think I wouldn't automatically reject some logical theories that others would. I'm thinking about maths, 2+2 is not always equal to 4 kind of things. eh.. im not sure what I think about those, to be honest. But I do know that I consider there to be a univeral logic that governs all, and it will bother me if you've adhered to a stated logic and then acted in discordance with that. (in considering these logic issues and what I'd concede to, I thought maybe I might be F at one point).
Finally, I was obsessed for a time about just my first two functions, ego block. Maybe Im not completely clear on this, but I noticed that functions 3 and 4 are different than they would be in an MBTI model. I've tried to analyse these functions to see which matched me, but I felt I didn't understand the model well enough to really gain much from that.
So if you have any questions that you think would help me figure out my type, please ask me.
Thanks.