From: ceci@lysator.liu.se (Cecilia Henningsson)
Newsgroups: alt.psychology.personality
Subject: One angry ISTJ.
Date: 9 Jan 93 18:02:40 GMT
Organization: Lysator ACC at Linkoping University

srgcejb@grace.cri.nz writes:
>In fact it is worse than this - the MBTI was developed by INFPs and
>a substantial amount of the material written by INFPs.  The impression
>you get from this is that INFP is where it is all at.  Somewhere I have
>seen a theory that there is a development of type with maturity starting 
>with "immature" types, particularly ISTP an as one matures, develops 
>their N and F functions to finish in old age as a well-balanced INFP.

I started reading this group just a few days ago when there were
repostings of alt.psychology.personality things in sci.psychology,
which I have read for a year or so. Understand that this opinion might
not be very well-informed, but it still has its merits.

Yesterday evening I scrutinized the hard-copies of the a.p.p-postings.
I had a close look at the description of the four variables of the MB
scale.  Trying to figure out what I was, resulted in the artist
stereotype: ISFP. That made sense to me, since I am an artist and
currently attending an art-school.

Next I performed the test that had been posted here. I really did my
best to answer honestly, and not according to what I want to be like,
but how I really am. For instance I think that it's important not to
let people wait, but I know that I often do. When counting the results
I got this result:

I 60%  E 40%     S 70%  N 30%      T 60%  F 40%           J 60%  P 40%

As can be seen, the only trait where there was any real difference was
between Sensing and iNtuiting. That fits quite nicely, as I often get
irritated at how un-observant other people are. The rest fits at least
to the degree of the difference. I have an un-ignorable need to be
alone, I tend to focus on thinking, rather than feeling, and I like to
have things settled.

The last thing I did, was read the long article by Joe Butt about
ISTJ. That's when I got really upset! I felt that the premises
(mostoften the first half of every paragraph) were allright, but that
the conclusions drawn from them were totally wrong. I realise that JB
isn't to blame for this, he is merely telling us about a personality
model.

Just to refute a few of the statements about ISTJs: I am not dutiful,
neither punctual. Saying "just the facts, ma'am" would seem to me as
an insult. I wouldn't let my health suffer because of a duty. Duties
are things taken on deliberately, they aren't godess-given. "We've
always done it this way" seems to me to be a perfectly dumb reason for
not changing something. Churches and the military won't get anything
from me.

I have thought about doing the test once more, but it's not really
being an ISTJ I mind, it's the conclusions drawn from the ISTJ
classification that gets me upset. They seem to be highly
ethnocentric, and coloured by values which certainly aren't mine.

--Ceci
--
=====ceci@lysator.liu.se===========================================
"Newage is hypoallergenic spirituality --
 it's for people who are allergic to the word religion." 
                                      Jon Hay Obermark
Newsgroups: alt.psychology.personality