INTJ Resources and Links

I have consistently found a lot of traffic to my blog with searches related to INTJ. One of the reasons for this, I think, is that there is no good “Index” site for INTJs. One needs to search and then visit a lot of pages in an exploratory fashion to really get what you’re looking for. Hence this post.

Notes:

1. I’m omitting all sites that are primarily commercial in nature or offer too many ads.

2. I’m sure INTJs will love a nice capsule of information like this. Before you leave this blog, if you find this useful, I request you take a moment to comment.

Because as this article states: “if too much feeling is suppressed, INTJs may build up pressure and find expression in inappropriate ways. Their feeling needs to be used constructively, such as through appreciation of other people. Given their talent for analysis, appreciation may be hard for INTJs, but they will find it helpful on the job as well as in personal relationships.”

3. Also, do read some of my posts related to INTJs.

INTJ Personality Profile

The classic profile description and functional analysis. Start here.

Portrait of an INTJ, also must read.

One of the most insightful descriptions at Murray State University.

INTJ on Wikipedia - says it all.

Descriptions of INTJs from a social perspective.

By now, you’ll have some questions. Does introvert mean shy? How to deal with INTJs? How about gender, sex, religion, profession?

Most of these are answered in this INTJ FAQ.

INTJ Relationships

Find out your strengths and weaknesses, and how you’re as a parent or a friend.

A badly designed site, nonetheless has some more ‘academic’ information.

Worth one-time visit, to check out how INTJs can contribute to a team, how they deal with stress, etc.

Worth one-time visit, to check out how Introverts deal with stress.

Introversion

Revenge of the Introverts
“With the continuous enhancement of pagers, teleconferencing, cellular phones, and the development of personal communicators, a growing verbal inferno threatens to engulf the world’s quieter individuals. Yet, silent as they may be, introverts can have a lot to say given the right forum. They’ve found that the internet can help them communicate in their preferred manner; a written dialogue with time to pause for thought and analysis.”
An excellent article that sheds light on why introverts like INTJs prefer email to phone, among other things.

Introverts in an Extroverted World
An excellent article describing challenges faced by introverts, and tips for parents on how to raise an introverted child.

Love

INTJ Love Tips
Few tips on love.

How to love an INTJ - Tips if your partner is an INTJ

Daily Life

Some down-to-earth descriptions of what it means to live as an INTJ. Astounding number of posts, but I don’t think that’s a problem for INTJs!

Forums

A moderately active forum of a community of about 220 INTJs.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Pamela for the excellent Murray State University link.

Feedback

Do please let me know through your comments if you find this useful. If it does prove useful, I’ll expand it. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: intj, mastermind, rational mastermind, personality, psychology, MBTI, personality types

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26 Cognitive Biases You Never Knew You Had

Thanks to Bernie, who empathized with the plagiarism of my poem, I stumbled upon this excellent list!

A cognitive bias is something that our minds commonly do to distort our own view of reality.

More interestingly, “you’ll never be able to truly gauge any of the biases you might be operating under since it’s not possible to accurately observe a system you’re part of.“

I have one suggested addition to the list, which is more a corollary to ”Endowment effect - the tendency for people to value something more as soon as they own it.“ You got it, the Disendowment effect - the tendency for people to value something less as soon as they’ve sold or given it away”!

Also, do you think iNTjs are vulnerable to ”Information bias - the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action?“

Here are the 26 most studied and widely accepted cognitive biases: “26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong“.

iNTj Rational Mastermind & Analyst Style of Thinking in InQ

This is a follow-up to my earlier post about the MBTI personality type - iNTj Rational Mastermind.

I want to move further and explore how MBTI contrasts with InQ, the Inquiry Mode Questionnaire, more popularly known as “Styles of Thinking”. The InQ was developed by Allen Harrison and Robert Bramson, who wrote a book on it: ”The Art of Thinking“.

The fountainhead of the InQ is the premise that most people tend to think, most of the time, in only one way.  And it has been proven empirically:

• 50% prefer a single Style of Thinking
• 35% prefer two Styles of Thinking
• 2% prefer three Styles
• 13% show no preference

The Five Styles of Thinking

Synthesists are integrators. They delight in finding relationships in things which, to others, have no apparent connection. In a group discussion, they are likely to champion an opposite point of view, and are therefore valuable in avoiding “group think.” Synthesists tend to be highly creative people, very interested in change and highly speculative.

Idealists take a holistic view of things, are typically future-oriented and concerned about goals. They care about social values. They are the “big picture” people. Correspondingly, they tend to dislike detail.

Pragmatists’ motto is, ”whatever works”. They are action-oriented. They like to get things done and their approach is often flexible and adaptive. Unlike idealists, their solutions do not have to be the most elegant.

Analysts see the world as logical, rational, and predictable. Their thought process is prescriptive - look for a method, a formula, or procedure to solve any problem. Analysts like to find the “one best way” to solve any problem.

Realists take an empirical view. Their world consists of what can be felt, smelled, touched, seen, heard, and personally observed or experienced. Their motto is “Facts are facts”. They are interested in concrete results. The realist resembles the analyst. Both are factual and focused on concrete facts, but unlike the analyst, the realist will grow impatient with the deductive, drawn-out procedures and endless search for data of the analyst.

Rational Mastermind and Styles of Thinking

Given the above, which InQ Style of Thinking do you think is best represented by the MBTI iNTj Rational Mastermind?

As far as I know, no such correlation has been drawn before. The fact that there are 16 MBTI personality types, compared with 5 InQ Thinking Styles may compound the problem. (This is not an aberration, simply a logical result of the fact that ”personality” has many additional dimensions apart from just “Style of Thinking”).

I venture to say that the Analyst Style of Thinking would most closely correspond with the introvert, intuitive, thinking types (ISTJ Inspector, INTP Architect, and INTJ Mastermind). This is most certainly true in my case - I am an iNTj, and have a very strong preference for the Analyst Style of Thinking.

I wonder what the others out there think - the Composers, Teachers, Champions, and so on?

Some More Good Stuff on iNTj

If you want to know more about the typical daily life of an iNTj - see this blog post. Let me warn you, it’s quite long, but the fact that it has more than 600 comments, should tell you how it resonates with a lot of iNTjs!

iNTj - Rational Mastermind

According to the Jung Typology test, (a.k.a. MBTI, Keirsey Temperament Sorter) I’m a Rational Mastermind, or iNTj.

Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging
89                 38            38            33

More than Keirsey’s description, I found  J. Butt & M. M. Heiss’s take on iNTj to be quite insightful:

- “INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don’t know.”

- ”INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation. To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-)”

How true!