I've been thinking about personality a lot lately. When I was an undergrad, I took the Myers-Briggs Type Instrument (take a free version here). I am an INFJ. An instructor at the time told me that INFJs make up only 1% of the total population. When I first learned this, I was convinced that I'd misread some questions despite the fact that the description of an INFJ sounds exactly like me. In my mind being an INFJ made me inferior to 99% of the population and I spent several years convinced that I could change my personality (I am now okay with this). The result=I became more of an INFJ everytime I took the test. Here's what one site says about INFJs:
People with the INFJ personality type are intense and perfectionistic. They have deep insights into many aspects of life, and usually have very high standards for their own understanding and accomplishments, as well as those of others. They are service-oriented and empathetic to other individuals. The INFJ strives for the ideal in every aspect of their life. An INFJ's feeling of success is centered around their own level of understanding and accomplishment, their usefulness or service to others, and the condition of their personal relationships.Those who know me well know that I am frequently unsure of myself and have an intense perfectionist impulse/fear of failure. Today someone who has done quite a bit of research on MBTI was talking about how when we dislike something (in this case kinds of teaching/teachers) it's really because we see ourselves in that person. According to her (she knew my personality type already) what I really wanted was to be a ESTP:
ESTPs are outgoing, straight-shooting types. Enthusiastic and excitable, ESTPs are "doers" who live in the world of action. Blunt, straight-forward risk-takers, they are willing to plunge right into things and get their hands dirty. They live in the here-and-now, and place little importance on introspection or theory. The look at the facts of a situation, quickly decide what should be done, execute the action, and move on to the next thing.I understand the premise that, especially in teaching, we sometimes unknowingly recreate our own experiences as students for a new generation, but I don't think that we actually want to be the opposite. I don't want to be that person I just described above, just like I don't want to be the people I dislike. In fact when I googled that this afternoon, I read it and it made me nervous. I don't think that that person is a bad person, I just don't want to be that person and I don't like being told that that is what I want. I may want other people to be more like me sometimes, but I work hard to like myself and I don't think it's healthy to tell people what they really want is to change everything about themselves.
It was also suggested in this class that we need to own our other--that thing/person that we have identified that we don't like. According to this interpretation, when we dislike something/one we are seeing part of ourselves. I'm not sure that I buy this. I've worked with people that I don't get along with--they interfere with my learning style, they make me feel more insecure, they take my voice away when I finally do speak up--and I don't think that being able to identify what I dislike in a teacher/friend/colleague is a sadomasochistic process (to borrow B's wording) of torturing myself.
I have at least one habit that I would be more likely to classify in that way (reading Pantagraph comments and knowing that they will upset me because I want people to care about others), but disliking a teacher or student is a different situation. Students don't have the option to avoid teachers for most of their lives. I need a job, so I can't simply avoid those who I dislike. I'm not engaging with them because I fear them, I'm engaging with them because I have to make a living and part of keeping a job means working with/under some people who I dislike.
This is what I need: people who talk about personality theory to recognize the complexities of personality types other than their own.
2 comments:
I'm with you on this one.
Me too. In the business where I work, there's only nominal acknowledgment that "people are different". It can be pretty suffocating sometimes.
I've never taken an "official" MBTI test, but all of the computery ones have told me I was an INFP up until quite recently, when I started getting a few INFJ results, too. I'm not a perfectionist, I'm not so drawn to service, and the INFP quotes always ring truer with me, so I suspect it's the more accurate one.
I'm glad you've come to terms with your INFJness. If I had been told that only 1% of the population were like me, the narcissist in me would have said "Really? That many? Surely I must be more unique..." ;)
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