Disgustingly syrupy and sweet. Less a bad thing, more too much of a good thing. Less Pepsi, more Coke. Less grandma, more networker. Less southern hospitality, more Stepford wife. Less coach, more Richard Simmons.
The prevailing “self-classification” test in the US for years has been the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Built off Carl Jung’s theories, the MBTI sorts each person’s personality along a series of four dichotomies, resulting in one of 16 possible options. Although the test has been critiqued for years, it’s maintained its popularity through the years. You’ve most likely heard someone dropping their four-letter code in some conversation. ”I care about the rules. I’m a dutiful ISTJ!”
Recently, there’s been a new challenger to the throne of popular self-assessment tool: the Enneagram. Eschewing MBTI’s 16 types, the Enneagram proposes 9—but its main difference is in how it builds those types. While MBTI focuses on traits (what a person is), the Enneagram builds around motivations as well (what a person is trying to be/achieve). This adds a bit more texture to the profiles than the MBTI ones.
Is it a little wonky? Sure. The Five Factors model is still probably the best commonly understandable test. But it lacks the appealing simplicity of one-of-thismany types tests like the MBTI and Enneagram. (Spoilers: people are complex.) Even with those caveats, the Enneagram is still helpful as a self-diagnosis tool, just like MBTI (more on that in a minute). If one of the main purposes of this life is to improve, more self-knowledge is helpful. Plus, being able to discuss one’s personality and challenges with others is immensely easier with a common frame of reference.*
Speaking of that! The best part, to us, of the MBTI’s ubiquity has been the fun applications that have propagated, especially on Tumblr. Our personal favorite is the “User Guide” series, like this one for INTPs:
Software:
Your INTP is programmed with the following traits:
Ti: Your INTP will want to analyze everything and understand everything.
Ne: Your INTP likes to think up new possibilities and sees a lot of potential in their peers and surroundings.
Si: Retrospective thinking is programmed to help your INTP solve new problems by using previous knowledge.
Fe: Although the lowest of the traits, your INTP still has emotions and can be largely affected by the emotions of the people in their surroundings. Will generally get along with peers but can unwittingly make offensive comments. Will feel bad about it later.
...
Feeding:
Your INTP unit will usually eat normally but will sometimes ignore their diet to pursue intellectual hobbies. Keep trying to argue that food is necessary despite their arguments that they feed on knowledge.
The whole list of guides are available on that site. Also fun are sites like Funky MBTI in Fiction, which attempt to figure out the MBTI types of fictional characters. These sites do it better than the 16-box “Which [property] character are you?” images because they actually try to figure out the cognitive stack for each character.
Wanna give it a try? Here’s a free Enneagram test and links to the type descriptions. For MBTI, here’s a good quick test. You should double-check that against the type descriptions here.
*Finally, an important request: please, for the love of all things, let’s not be know-it-alls when we think know someone’s type or know them because we know their type. We’re all strangers and pilgrims on this journey. Humility and gentleness may not be in vogue right now but that doesn’t mean they’re not important.
PsychologySelf-knowledgeMBTIEnneagramType thyselfUser manualsPsuedoscience or Sue doing science?