Inquisitiveness and Intuition

[kuno]

There seems to be a general correlation between inquisitiveness (aka, openness to experience) in Big 5 terms and intuition. However, people often agree that sensing types can also be inquisitive, but I rarely see people suggest that intuitive types can score low on inquisitiveness. Why could this be?

[EIE H]

One can be intellectual but still be “dumb as rocks”. Being inquisitive and open minded has some correlation with intuition because a lot of intuition is based around interpretation, what is there is beyond the cold facts and observations, the connections.

But like with almost everything, open-mindedness/open-endedness has downsides. It can go down a scary amoralistic road. For example, the recent efforts to destigmatize pedophilia (minor-attracted individuals?!)… there’s a very fine line. Let’s be honest, it was most likely idealistic NFs who spearheaded the efforts. Lol

There needs to be less “open-ended” sensor types to help maintain order and stability. So I don’t think being inquisitive/intuitive is necessarily any better than being a sensor.

[aixelsyd]

I get the sense that society has evolved to value inquisitiveness and intuition more than before thanks to the Internet and social media. In other words, intuitives have a bigger platform to project their voice and influence people. Most people in my part of the world use a lot of social nedia. We are no longer tied to tradition nor encouraged to shut up and not ask questions. When people feel free to ask questions and nurture intellectual curiosity, naturally, such people will self report as inquisitive.

Furthermore, Millenials and Gen Z are the most educated generations alive. So I think more people in these age groups will identify as inquisitive due to it being a common trait.

[fjoerd]

I get the sense that society has evolved to value inquisitiveness and intuition more than before thanks to the Internet and social media. In other words, intuitives have a bigger platform to project their voice and influence people. Most people in my part of the world use a lot of social nedia. We are no longer tied to tradition nor encouraged to shut up and not ask questions. When people feel free to ask questions and nurture intellectual curiosity, naturally, such people will self report as inquisitive.

Furthermore, Millenials and Gen Z are the most educated generations alive. So I think more people in these age groups will identify as inquisitive due to it being a common trait.

This is interesting. On average, I think it's true, the younger generations tend to spend more and more years in education, but it seems like the purpose of education has shifted (more and more colleges and uni faculties becoming just higher level trade schools to provide office workers for the service economy), and I have mixed feelings about whether there's a progress or a decline in how educated they become in a broader sense as a result.

Since a very early age, I've always had the impression that, on average, there's a gradual decline in interest in Humanities, in intellectual curiosity that goes beyond practicality, and overall, in general knowledge. This is not a shot at Millenials or Gen Z; if I'm not mistaken, I belong to the Millenials category, and I noticed, even within this group, something was up. Compared to me and my peers, people who were only just a few years older seemed to have a far wider range of knowledge, and they seemed to be far more excited whenever they started to elaborate on their understanding of the world, while those who were just a few years younger, had even less of an interest in any of this than us and were even more tuned into individualism and self-realization in a materialistic sense.

And I think this slow decay can be spotted in the cultural life of our times too, - intellectuals dropping out of politics, journalism taken over by zealots, writers only writing but not reading, filmmakers and other artists giving in their art to serve political agendas and so on. These are surely not signs of a brighter future.

I have a fear that this lack of interest combined with social Fordism or rampant overspecialization are going to lead to the gutting and essentially the end of all political systems based around equal voting rights, democratic participation and the concept of elected officials. In a world of niche experts, democratic decisions are unsustainable and there's no demand for them.

[kuno]

@fjoerd

That’s a very good point. I’d love to think that kids nowadays are becoming more intellectually enlightened, but your post has reminded me that with schools/education systems constantly cutting back on the Humanities, taking away classes like home economics (such classes are very important), and constantly pushing for more scientific classes and trying to get students into more STEM-related fields (at least here in the USA), it seems we’re creating less and less well-rounded students, which I find alarming.

I live in a poor area of the USA which is mostly comprised of Latinos, and about 2 decades ago it was hard to get students here to take education seriously. Therefore, the city’s education system has taken initiatives to push students into more educational programs—most of them particularly geared to encourage the students to pursue STEM-related fields—so now the education levels in my area have improved drastically, and we have more college graduates over here than we did some 20 years ago. Hooray for that! But the majority of these students have only really been involved in scientific or business studies and haven’t delved into the Humanities much. Art classes have been suffering for a long time in US public schools, and history classes have also been very watered down with very basic—and sometimes even dishonest—history lessons.

I score non-inquisitive on Big 5 tests but I know more about US and world history than a lot of my friends do, and that disturbs me. I’m often educating them on a lot of historical events that our schools failed to teach us (perhaps intentionally so), and it saddens me that my generation seems to have such little knowledge about the world around at us (though maybe the advent of the internet age may change that?), whereas my grandparents were taught so much back in their day (though they went to school in Latin America).

It feels like the quality of education is on the decline, and while education levels might be rising in this country (and perhaps in other countries, too), it doesn’t necessarily feel like true inquisitiveness nor well-roundedness is being encouraged by our education systems. What a shame. And as you mentioned, the political radicalization of so much nowadays is worrisome, as well.

[Sol]

"openness to experience" is expected in strong region
N types should lesser experiment with physical materia (to try new food, for example)
S types - with not clear and lesser predictable situations (lesser play in casino )

[Beautiful sky]

Mine was not too high
My neuroticism was higher

“ They have more experience handling negative emotions, which, though difficult, can also make them deeper, and facilitate empathy and understanding for other people's struggles,”

I understand negative emotions so I can empathize with others easily

[kuno]

Mine was not too high
My neuroticism was higher

“ They have more experience handling negative emotions, which, though difficult, can also make them deeper, and facilitate empathy and understanding for other people's struggles,”

I understand negative emotions so I can empathize with others easily

Out of all the intuitive types, it seems to me that INFj is the one most likely to be less inquisitive, for some reason. I hear that EIIs can be more traditionalist and less imaginative than some of the other intuitive types, though surely this must depend on the subtype—and of course, on the individual. All the EIIs I’ve met are very empathetic and kind at heart, which is what matters most, I think.

And I scored high on neuroticism too, lol. It’s killing me

[fjoerd]

@fjoerd

That’s a very good point. I’d love to think that kids nowadays are becoming more intellectually enlightened, but your post has reminded me that with schools/education systems constantly cutting back on the Humanities, taking away classes like home economics (such classes are very important), and constantly pushing for more scientific classes and trying to get students into more STEM-related fields (at least here in the USA), it seems we’re creating less and less well-rounded students, which I find alarming.

I live in a poor area of the USA which is mostly comprised of Latinos, and about 2 decades ago it was hard to get students here to take education seriously. Therefore, the city’s education system has taken initiatives to push students into more educational programs—most of them particularly geared to encourage the students to pursue STEM-related fields—so now the education levels in my area have improved drastically, and we have more college graduates over here than we did some 20 years ago. Hooray for that! But the majority of these students have only really been involved in scientific or business studies and haven’t delved into the Humanities much. Art classes have been suffering for a long time in US public schools, and history classes have also been very watered down with very basic—and sometimes even dishonest—history lessons.

I score non-inquisitive on Big 5 tests but I know more about US and world history than a lot of my friends do, and that disturbs me. I’m often educating them on a lot of historical events that our schools failed to teach us (perhaps intentionally so), and it saddens me that my generation seems to have such little knowledge about the world around at us (though maybe the advent of the internet age may change that?), whereas my grandparents were taught so much back in their day (though they went to school in Latin America).

It feels like the quality of education is on the decline, and while education levels might be rising in this country (and perhaps in other countries, too), it doesn’t necessarily feel like true inquisitiveness nor well-roundedness is being encouraged by our education systems. What a shame. And as you mentioned, the political radicalization of so much nowadays is worrisome, as well.

Yeah, it's worrying at least to a degree. Most people don't read a book ever again after finishing high school and I've noticed a somewhat new trend that more and more, otherwise highly intelligent people are distrusting of democratic methods, strongly favor expertise instead, and agree with the idea that the general public is too dumb to let them decide anything serious. I've seen quite a lot of op-eds in major publications in the past few years generally advocating for the same thing. This is what I was thinking about when I said gutting fundamental democratic institutions or however I put it. Sad thing is that, from their perspective, they're not even wrong, if the education system cannot teach students how to form a holistic image of the world and pushes them into some highly specialized areas instead, a society full of people like this will only understand their own interests and won't be able to make well-informed decisions outside of those interests, hence the political model naturally becomes unsustainable and obsolete.

[Park]

I don't see any correlation, to be honest.

Personally, I consider myself very inquisitive (no one who knows me would disagree) and at the same time identify with Jung's Si, Socionics SLI, and Myers-Briggs' ST temperament above else.

As far as intuition goes, I'd say I am moderately intuitive, in the sense that I have okay instincts and ability to "sense" and comprehend things that aren't obvious or fully evident or materialized. But the thing is, if I wasn't inquisitive, I don't think I would have this ability either.

One thing I occasionally get surprised and even flattered by is being told I have awesome ideas and great capacity to think outside the box (happened just recently), which is something I continually feel I'm not sufficiently good at and often admire and look up to other people for. And I mention this because I think it is just another thing people often attribute to intuition in these personality type systems.

[Renna]

There’s Thomason (IEE) and Alive (??) but most people type him as N type, and they seem far from being inquisitive. I personally think they could be static type. In fact all Ne type are static?

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

People do easily confuse and confabulate being intuitive with also being inquisitive and insightful despite them being three very different things.

I don't think I'm inquisitive much at all. And sensing types are often more genuinely insightful than I am. Intuitive means you are ... intuitive, not necessarily those other things. Just probably more proof of how typology can be bullshit.

Intuition + insightful probably has more to do with rational types maybe - not sensing vs intuition. And inquisitiveness without being particularly intuitive or insightful probably relates to the cliched 'nosy unhealthy Ni PoLR LSE neighbor' stereotype, like the "I have a busy day of getting bent out of shape over things that are none of my business in the first place" lady I had in my previous avatar lol. Even though Miley Cyrus took over for now, she is always watching!

[kuno]

One thing I occasionally get surprised and even flattered by is being told I have awesome ideas and great capacity to think outside the box (happened just recently), which is something I continually feel I'm not sufficiently good at and often admire and look up to other people for. And I mention this because I think it is just another thing people often attribute to intuition in these personality type systems.

I also admire and look up to people who tend to have good ideas and can think outside of the box! I'm usually not very good at this, which is backed up by all the times I've been told by people that I'm too rigid, too unimaginative, too black-and-white, etc. Kudos to you for developing your intuition and for being so inquisitive!

[lookin4waifu]

I also admire and look up to people who tend to have good ideas and can think outside of the box! I'm usually not very good at this, which is backed up by all the times I've been told by people that I'm too rigid, too unimaginative, too black-and-white, etc. Kudos to you for developing your intuition and for being so inquisitive!

Better too rigid than too soft

[kuno]

Intuition + insightful probably has more to do with rational types maybe - not sensing vs intuition. And inquisitiveness without being particularly intuitive or insightful probably relates to the cliched 'nosy unhealthy Ni PoLR LSE neighbor' stereotype, like the "I have a busy day of getting bent out of shape over things that are none of my business in the first place" lady I had in my previous avatar lol. Even though Miley Cyrus took over for now, she is always watching!

I sometimes miss that LSE Karen. I guess she's our one true lord. I hope she isn't watching me while I'm on the toilet, though.

[lookin4waifu]

There seems to be a general correlation between inquisitiveness (aka, openness to experience) in Big 5 terms and intuition. However, people often agree that sensing types can also be inquisitive, but I rarely see people suggest that intuitive types can score low on inquisitiveness. Why could this be?

You can say this about any positive vs negative quality between groups that are put on pedestals or have a victimhood narrative and those who are not. POC women can be CEOs too if they want, but it’s rarely suggested in media that straight white males can be underprivileged. Just because something exists in discourse, doesn’t mean it is representative of full reality.


*Sorry let me change my analogy to make it more accurate @kuno . People could say that POC women can be CEOs if they want to, but it’s rarely suggested that a straight white male can’t become a CEO. The reason of course is stereotyping changing discourse.

[kuno]

You can say this about any positive vs negative quality between groups that are put on pedestals or have a victimhood narrative and those who are not. POC women can be CEOs too if they want, but it’s rarely suggested in media that straight white males can be underprivileged. Just because something exists in discourse, doesn’t mean it is representative of full reality.


*Sorry let me change my analogy to make it more accurate @kuno . People could say that POC women can be CEOs if they want to, but it’s rarely suggested that a straight white male can’t become a CEO. The reason of course is stereotyping changing discourse.

That's a very good analogy! I do believe non-inquisitive intuitives exist, and are probably more abundant than we think. I wonder what they're like. Perhaps someone who has mysterious and sudden insights about themselves/their lives or knows how to look into the underlying motives of others, for example, but doesn't really care to learn about a wide variety of topics or doesn't want to explore different places in the world. They may be intuitive in a more "pragmatic" way, if that makes sense, and they primarily function using this intuition, but they never use this ability of theirs to learn anymore than they need to.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

You can say this about any positive vs negative quality between groups that are put on pedestals or have a victimhood narrative and those who are not. POC women can be CEOs too if they want, but it’s rarely suggested in media that straight white males can be underprivileged. Just because something exists in discourse, doesn’t mean it is representative of full reality.


*Sorry let me change my analogy to make it more accurate @kuno . People could say that POC women can be CEOs if they want to, but it’s rarely suggested that a straight white male can’t become a CEO. The reason of course is stereotyping changing discourse.

str8 white male hierarchies feel very bell curve-ish and rollar coaster-y or something. when the top dawg str8 white male has power, he has power- and the libtards are right about that, but when the str8 white male is just some gas station employee/coal miner that faps to porn in his mother's basement when he isn't working - he doesn't have a lot of power either and the other side is right about that as well. So like a typical libra-rising overly diplomatic IEI, I think both people are right.... but in this case, I mean I grew up in a kind of run-down rough area and not like in some spoiled urban fag city (despite how I can come across at times) so I also roll my eyes when somebody goes on and on about 'white privelege' etc. I think the spoiled & priveleged urban ppl should do more for the good natured blue collar str8 male loser- but then again, it also requires str8 men to be better bottoms and receptive of the help.

[lookin4waifu]

str8 white male hierarchies feel very bell curve-ish and rollar coaster-y or something. when the top dawg str8 white male has power, he has power- and the libtards are right about that, but when the str8 white male is just some gas station employee/coal miner that faps to porn in his mother's basement when he isn't working - he doesn't have a lot of power either and the other side is right about that as well. So like a typical libra-rising overly diplomatic IEI, I think both people are right.... but in this case, I mean I grew up in a kind of run-down rough area and not like in some spoiled urban fag city (despite how I can come across at times) so I also roll my eyes when somebody goes on and on about 'white privelege' etc. I think the spoiled & priveleged urban ppl should do more for the good natured blue collar str8 male loser- but then again, it also requires str8 men to be better bottoms and receptive of the help.

I feel targeted, but true

[Park]

I also admire and look up to people who tend to have good ideas and can think outside of the box! I'm usually not very good at this, which is backed up by all the times I've been told by people that I'm too rigid, too unimaginative, too black-and-white, etc. Kudos to you for developing your intuition and for being so inquisitive!

I've been told I'm too rigid, as well, in the context of relationships and not changing my mind about things I feel strongly about. But I've always been naturally curious/inquisitive, except when it comes to people and their personal affairs.

Intuition is a weird one. My gut feeling is almost always spot on and I feel like I've made some huge mistakes in my life when I've gone against my "inner voice" and relied too much on logic, rationality, and/or my stubbornness instead.

[fjoerd]

That's a very good analogy! I do believe non-inquisitive intuitives exist, and are probably more abundant than we think. I wonder what they're like. Perhaps someone who has mysterious and sudden insights about themselves/their lives or knows how to look into the underlying motives of others, for example, but doesn't really care to learn about a wide variety of topics or doesn't want to explore different places in the world. They may be intuitive in a more "pragmatic" way, if that makes sense, and they primarily function using this intuition, but they never use this ability of theirs to learn anymore than they need to.

I have an ILI friend. While he's curious and knowledgeable in the fields he chooses to explore (to the point that he sometimes looks more of an expert than the professionals who make a living in the field), his general approach to life is to against traffic and curse everyone who gets in the way. U-turn? Does not compute. Something didn't play out the way I imagined? How come? There must be a hidden conspiracy somewhere under the surface.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

I feel targeted, but true

takes one to know one, so we can be str8 white male losers together! Well I'm not very str8 but like I said before, I admittedly enjoy the tone of str8 porn better than gay porn much of the time because it understands the true aggressive/animalistic/instinctive energy of sexuality better rather than simply relying on boring aesthetics. But when it's two dudes in the str8 porno way- yeah I might never leave my house and have a lifetime supply of tissue boxes on back order at amazon.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

I sometimes miss that LSE Karen. I guess she's our one true lord. I hope she isn't watching me while I'm on the toilet, though.

Something about her is sweet and endearing to me even tho she's gonna call the authorities on us being gay. I'm tempted to dress up as her in drag and march in a LSE pride parade.