and we're off

[syntheid]

So to kick off some discussion, our poll results are showing a high percentage Intuitive people joining, which is interesting because more broad distribution statistics haven broken it down such that Intuitives seem to usually make up about 25% of the population, opposed to the Sensing's 75%. Introverted and Perceiving types are also minorities, but by much less of a gap, so it's kind of fascinating to me that we're sitting at 85.7% Intuitives right now and no one being strongly Sensing.

I find in my personal life, I associate with a lot of Intuitives as well, despite the fact that we're supposedly outnumbered 3 to 1. I believe this is mostly self-selection tactics of being drawn to those similar to myself, but what about you all? Do you find yourself mostly surrounded with and dealing with Sensing individuals in your personal friend group?

On the Enneagram end, we're showing a large preference for 5 in primaries, and 4 in wings, though as there were no 3s, that was mostly just that the 5s were mostly 5w4. So otherwise, we had (in primaries) two 4s and two 9s, with the second highest wing being... 5 (well, technically "unsure" but of those who know, the secondmost seems to be 5). Which kind of leads me to believe there might be something in personality typing that draws in people with 5-leaning personalities-- what do you think? Why do you like personality typing?

Comments

[sakurablossom]

I've always been interested in anything that claims to explain how people behave - either to better understand myself or those I come into contact with.

[tree]

i tend to flock with introverts and intuitives, even online. the poll results didn't surprise me at all. i'd already observed in other communities that introverts and ennea types 2, 4, 5, and 9 are the most likely to be interested in discussing personality typing. perhaps unsurprisingly, those are also the types with which i'm most familiar on a personal level. birds of a feather. :)

[seven]

Although it is always funny to find pockets made entirely of people with minority personality types, it does make sense that 'I's and 'N's particularly would flock together. Especially on the internet, where human interaction is on one's own terms and the laws of time and space have little meaning. I know I appreciate and tend to be closer with people who, for example, don't think I'm weird and wrong when I don't want to go out partying and can follow my random leaps of logic and unrelated associations without extensive explanation.

As far as why I like personality typing? I have to admit that I've always been someone who's looked for boxes to put myself in, since as a good 4 wing, I've always felt that there was something inherently 'different' with me and I didn't fit in. (And the 5 part of me absolutely cringes at admitting that publicly. Hah.) It was a revelation to me when I first got in to the Enneagram (and later MBTI) and found a description that matched me pretty perfectly right in there with all the other normal personality types. It's an incredibly useful tool to me for recognizing how I act at different levels of 'healthy', what is motivating me to act that way, and what I can do to be fulfilled in a way that is meaningful to me and doesn't involve me trying to be someone I'm not.

And then, of course, typing other people became one of my favorite games. Because I find it nearly equally as useful in understanding other people's actions and motivations, as well as helping me figure out how to best relate to them.

...Or, as sakurablossom said far more succinctly, "to better understand myself or those I come into contact with." Hah.

[pseudo_tsuga]

I always liked personality tests because I have no clue how to describe myself to others so I'm fascinated when someone tries to describe me. My skeptic side says they should be taken with a large grain of salt but I still enjoy looking at them, especially the Enneagram. (I'm a 9, by the way)

[clopen]

I think generally there are a lot more intuitive-identified people in these personality typing communities :)
Personality typing is pretty interesting. I stumbled into it because I was trying to figure out what I would be interested in as a career. It hasn't helped much there. But it has helped me to learn how to relate to other people better. I have often felt alone in the world as an N.