A Little Bit of Personality is not Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.  We say so right there in the intro video…and in lots of posts on here, posts with words.  We started there, as we’ve said before, because we were just having fun and we, like so many, presumed that MBTI was a reliable, scientific system.  Yet as we’ve said before, we gradually came to see more and more ways in which MBTI is inconsistent, in which it does not work, in which it encourages and even relies on stereotypes and superficial simplifications of people.  And what was worse, we started to see that many, many people apparently wanted those stereotypes and simplifications.

We started to see how much “personality typing” was used as a petty weapon in infantile campaigns to put down anyone whose mind worked differently.  We cringed more and more whenever we saw four-by-four grids that listed insultingly shallow sets of qualities for each of the sixteen types, and which portrayed some types as clearly better, smarter, more reliable, more successful, more creative, more visionary, more concrete, more compassionate, more practical, or simply of greater worth and value than the others.  Personality typing had become a shallow and subjective mudfight through which people tried to compensate for their own unresolved personal insecurities by putting down others who made them feel inadequate.  Apparently, there are a lot of second-graders online who are quite skilled at writing up passive-aggressive four-by-four grids.

So we went back to the beginning, because we knew there was so much good here!  We, like so many of you guys, had gotten excited about personality typing for a reason.  It was exciting to see how our minds worked, and how others’ minds did too.  It was so cool to try to figure out the personality types of fictional characters, or of historical figures or celebrities we liked.  But now that we had seen how personality typing had become such a putrid and subjective cesspool, we had to go back to the basics to figure out what was good and what was brain-damaging.

We’ve talked about this before, in several posts that use words.  We’ve described how a clarification of basic definitions is one of the first indispensable steps in any effort to replace subjectivity with objectivity.  We’ve talked about how we didn’t have to throw out the baby with the poisonous bathwater, and so we were able to use the brilliant original work done by Carl Jung and by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers (all of whom died long before the internet), without the simplified dangers of modern MBTI.  On aLBoP Phase 2, we go into far greater depth about our scientific process, how we were able to clarify definitions that made Cognitive Typing into a reliable and repeatable hard science, rather than a subjective and dubious soft-science.  But all those posts use words, words that invite you guys to see “Hey wait, this is different. This isn’t what I thought I already knew.”

A Little Bit of Personality is part of a larger endeavor, which we call our “Twenty-Five Year Plan,” a plan to simply help make life better for as many people as we can.  As I’m writing today, we’re a bit more than eleven years in, on the fourth of eight stages.  This is all stuff that’s explained in depth on the full Phase 2 site.  It’s really exciting to us, and though we did not initially expect to use Cognitive Typing or anything like it as a tool in this plan, aLBoP has become a powerful way for us to reach and help so many awesome people!  Yet originally, we didn’t plan to have Phase 2 be a separate website; we were just going to put all the information right here on one site, for all the internet to see.  We’re very glad now that we didn’t.

There is nothing secret on any of our sites, and all the information on all three of our sites (Phase 1 here, Phase 2 Intro, and full Phase 2) is all completely free of charge.  But we realized that we had to separate our content into multiple sites when we saw the bizarre and aggressively cruel reactions of so many people to even the comparatively basic concepts of Cognitive Typing.  I’m not referring to insightful and engaging questions; for instance, a lot of cool people have asked very good questions, like “How do you have a large enough sample size to make sure your conclusions are accurate?” “Why don’t you submit to scientific journals?” “What exactly is your experimental process?” etc.  Those sorts of thoughtful questions are the sort of thing that we’ve had to save for the later websites, because we realized that even the introductory information here on Phase 1 seems to be far too much for some people to read.  Too many words.

We wanted an engaging and active forum where we could talk back and forth with people, instead of only posting articles on a website, but it soon became clear that if we went ahead and put a forum here on Phase 1, open to the internet, then any potential discussion would be buried under arrogant assertions and bitter argument.  In fact, when we started a forum on Phase 2, it was astonishing how rapidly that happened, how quickly it became a toxic atmosphere where thoughtful, intelligent people grew ever more wary to post anything.  If we didn’t do something, our forum was going to become yet another place on the internet where the discourse was dominated by the bone-headedly obnoxious.

As I’m writing this, I have an online game open in the background, where one of my characters is happily crafting food for me.  But I usually play most games with the general chat channels turned off, because while there are a lot of sweet and helpful people in a lot of games, the general chat channels tend to get dominated by the least common denominator.  When we first started our Phase 2 forum, some people were convinced that it couldn’t possibly be any different from anywhere else on the internet, calling us naive for trying to create a place online where people could feel safe to freely share ideas, where the thoughtful majority didn’t have to remain silent or risk setting off the irrational blowhards.  Yet now, on the full Phase 2 site, we have an awesome and active realtime chat forum where everyone feels safe to think, to work through problems, to discuss ideas, to share their lives and make precious friendships.  I’m actually making them wait right now while I write this, but Calise and I thought that this little post was worth taking the time for.  Yet that forum would have been impossible if we hadn’t first created a safe place insulated from the wild, aggressively-asserted opinions and jaw-dropping simplifications on the internet.

We wanted to put all of it on one website, and perhaps we could have, were it not for the apparent fact that the current culture of the internet trains us not to read.  Trains us not to think.  Not to stop and digest.  Not to sit back and make sure we understand things before moving on.  And it certainly seems to train people to post comments before, you know, reading.  We wanted to do videos as well as posts, and we did make a few before moving them away to Phase 2.  We wanted to do podcasts, which are a ton of fun but we only do them for Phase 2.  This is not meant to be an advertisement for Phase 2 (especially because we are very, very, very behind on responding to Phase 2 invites, really sorry about that!), but rather a challenge to read what’s here on Phase 1.  If people can’t do that, then how could they possibly read more anyway?

It’s gotten to the point that I wasn’t sure I should even take the time to write this, because I wondered who would read it?  Not that we don’t have plenty of traffic, but I wondered how many people would do more than skim.  One of our closest friends, whom we met through aLBoP, told us that when he first stumbled across Phase 1, it was a real shock to him because he had to slow down to really understand it all.  He told us that he had grown accustomed to being able to skim most things online, that most articles were fairly simple ideas expressed in way too many words, so he’d gotten used to skimming.  But with aLBoP, he had to seriously re-adjust his expectations; he had to take time and think about the content.  Another of our friends, upon reading the first Super Simple Series post, said “That’s not simple at all!”  We’ve done our best, heh, and we hope that it really is pretty simple and straightforward, but it is also new stuff, not just the same old familiar repetition, so it can’t be simply skimmed.

A couple weeks ago, someone walked up to me and declared that I was an INFP.  I tried to be diplomatic and inviting, telling him that I’d be interested to hear what made him say so, and I asked what definitions of the letters he was using.  He seemed confused and a bit bothered by the question, and said he was just using MBTI.  I still don’t know what made him think that he could so confidently assert someone else’s type like that.  Of course, on aLBoP we do quite confidently assert the Cognitive Types of both real and fictional people, but we can only do so as a result of using concrete, clear definitions that leave no subjective wiggle-room.  There’s no uncertainty about whether someone is a Cognitive Introvert or Extravert; the definitions are very clear, they leave no room for fudging or gray areas, yet they are also not the same soft and elastic definitions of current MBTI.  We have said so, over and over, using words.  And yet we still get comments by people unilaterally asserting “Nope, you typed that character wrong,” based on definitions that we are not using, definitions we cannot use for reasons that we have explained repeatedly.

The problem is in the assertiveness, the astounding certainty with which people treat their own points of view as objective fact.  There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, with re-examining and re-questioning over and over, with constantly re-checking and revisiting even the things that seem the most well established.  Sometimes you might find a mistake, like the time on the Phase 2 Typing Library, when I accidentally put ESTP(ep) Usain Bolt on the library pages for two different Cognitive Types because his picture had somehow got copied over into the wrong folder.  Just this morning, someone pointed out a typo where I had said “our” when I meant “or.”  And we get so many sweet comments where people ask questions rather than assert opinions as fact.  “Why did you type Gandalf as an F instead of a T?” shows a mind that wants to think, to understand, to hear feedback and decide whether or not it makes sense.  Yet when someone flippantly comments “No, Gandalf is INTJ like me,” then that shows such a closed unwillingness to question or examine one’s own point of view.  No wonder current politics are such a nasty echo-chamber.

So when people assertively tell us “I’m an ENTJ,” “I’m a Ne dom,” etc, it makes us wonder if they’ve really read much of anything before commenting.  We do not use the simplistic “dom” system because it turned out to be tremendously subjective, with apparent “dominance” depending far too much on potentially cherry-picked factors that are all too easily used to weigh the result toward a preferred conclusion.  As someone once said to us, and as we’ve quoted before, “Personality typing is just horoscopes for people who think they’re too smart for horoscopes.”  In other words, it’s all subjective fluff that can be applied equally well to anyone, of any type, as long as people are eager to adolescently define themselves in a way that parodies the real work of finding oneself.

But then, as soon as we mention that, we get sincere comments telling us that astrology is real too.  Perhaps it is, perhaps it is not; personally, I have seen many, many reasons to believe it is not accurate or reliable in any fashion, while I have not yet seen anything to suggest the contrary, so far.  Yet I have to wonder: what makes someone feel equipped to say that astrology definitively does work, or does not?  As soon as we start treating our own personal experiences as universal truths, as soon as we start treating our own opinions as objective facts, and as soon as we make the incredibly self-centered error of saying “I have no experience of such-and-such, therefore it’s crap,” then we shut off our ability to think, to learn, to approach anything in any sort of rational manner.  That quote about personality typing being mere horoscopes in disguise, displays its own form of narrow and lazy thinking, by asserting that all “personality typing” is this way, painting life with such a broad brush.  It’s this sort of simplistic thinking that leads to racism, sexism, or any other form of prejudice, that says “I’ve seen dumb religions, therefore all religions are dumb,” “I’ve known vile men, therefore all men are vile,” “I only hang around with dishonest people…and I am one myself…therefore nobody is honest,” etc.  It’s a lazy and anecdotal simplification of the complexities of people’s lives, hearts, and hopes.  It’s mean.

But just because the internet trains us to make everything simplistic and skimmable, just because the current online culture trains us to view our own personal opinions as objective fact, that doesn’t make it our fault.  We can learn to see outside our own points of view.  We can learn to recognize the powerful lenses of emotion, pain, and desire which skew and distort how we see every experience that happens to us.  We can explore just how not objective we are, and then learn to grow past that subjective isolation.

This is why Calise and I have had to de-prioritize Phase 1 for a long time, though.  We’ve been working feverishly, constantly, but most of it has not been here on Phase 1.  We did put eight months of work into The People of Stranger Things post, we put so much thought and feeling into it, so much care and planning, for a total of more than fifty thousand words.  There’s a lot of great stuff in there, but it has produced hardly any results.  How can we justify prioritizing the addition of more information here on Phase 1, when people repeatedly show us how little they’ve read of what we’ve already written?

We love our Personalized Typing service, we love seeing people’s faces and hearing about their lives, we love connecting with them, and it’s a great way to find thoughtful, good, decent people.  And yet, over and over, it’s an uphill battle to remind people who order typings that we are not MBTI, that we do not use those definitions, as we’ve said so many times in so many posts.  Whenever we send out a typing, we always caution people that if they look up their Cognitive Type online, then they are going to find things that are very different, and likely demeaning and limiting.  And yet we still get replies of people saying “No I can’t be this type, because here’s what MBTI says about it, and that’s not me.”  The Cognitive Orientation Guidebooks, which we package with each typing, spend a fair amount of time explaining and reiterating precisely how each Cognitive Type is different from the popular stereotypes. We really hoped words would get that across.

Yet we know what the internet culture is like, and we know that sometimes we all need to be reminded that it’s okay to slow down and process thoughts instead of living life through reactions.  Sometimes I find it intriguing to hop between news networks as they cover the same story, to see how differently each network portrays the very same events.  Which bits of video do they show, which do they edit out, and which do they repeat endlessly?  Which adjectives and adverbs do they use, to influence viewers’ conclusions?  What information do they focus on, what information do they downplay, and what information do they conveniently fail to mention entirely?  Like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, the same event and the same data can be interpreted in wildly different ways even when people have the most honest of intentions.  So when people are less honest, when people have an agenda, a worldview, an ideology or attitude that they want to push, how much more careful do we have to be before we draw any sort of confident conclusions?

It’s our hope that, by taking a few hours away from other work to write this, maybe this might help nudge aLBoP Phase 1 toward being a site where we can post more information, more Type Heroes, more character spotlights, and just more fun articles.  I’ve been wanting to do an article about Winston Churchill for years now, titled “How an ENFP Saved the World,” because he really did, and yes he was unequivocally an ENFP(ip), but how can I justify taking the time to write that, time I could be giving to other people, when so many readers here on Phase 1 won’t, well, read?  I worry that so many internet skimmers wouldn’t get past the title before firing off comments authoritatively declaring “He wasn’t ENFP!! He was [roll the dice and insert any number of different types here]!”  We owe Gwen and Phil 20 bucks, since someone did indeed leave a comment (one of the many that we decided to leave unapproved) assertively stating that, because Lord Shen has a grand vision, he is therefore INTJ.  Wow.  So that’s how we’re defining these complex variables of human thought and desire, now?  And so none of the other fifteen Cognitive approaches to life can have a grand vision?  Seriously?  Sorry Elon Musk, no ENFJ(ij) for you, you gotta be INTJ I guess.  The all-knowing internet decrees it thus.

We really hoped, and I still do hope, that by bringing the subject of Subtypes here to Phase 1, it would be a quick way to immediately show people “Hey look, see those two little letters in parentheses?  Then maybe, just perhaps, this is something a little bit different from what you’re already used to.”  We hoped that would help the Personalized Typing service more easily show people “Hey this isn’t just MBTI, see?  We’re giving you six letters, not just four.”  There are actually more than six letters, more than eight; it seems to be a magnificently reiterating fractal of complexity, with each new layer of sub-typing adding ever more clearly definable nuance to the intricacy of consciousness, but we figured that the basic idea of Subtypes was plenty enough for Phase 1 right now.  I worry that even by dangling that little hint of more information, it might lead people to leap to conclusions and simplifications.  Fair enough, but I also hope that this can encourage more of you to read a little more carefully, to ponder a little more than you already do, to consider, to question, to dig deep, to see outside your own point of view and become a voice for understanding instead of adding to the cacophonous chorus of cartoony, rigid simplifications.

TL;DR: aLBoP is not MBTI.  But more accurately, if you really want a “Too Long, Didn’t Read,” then why are you even here?  There are plenty of skimmable websites that will be more than happy to let you simplify people into shallow little subjective boxes.  This is not a blog, though it did start as one over on blogspot, but pretty quickly we realized how much aLBoP could help us find and help cool people, honest and thoughtful people, people who are willing to expend the labor of time and energy to earn what they learn.  That’s the sort of person we love to meet.  That’s the kind of person we love to learn from, exchange ideas with, and see how we can help them add to the world in their own way, in their own life.  That’s what we’re all about.

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Hoping to do the entire Super Simple Series in this whiteboard format eventually, so subscribe to the aLBoP YouTube channel so you see when we post more!  Oh, and because I know there will be confusion (which makes sense as I am the stick figure maven), but while I (Calise) am doing the voiceover for this video, it’s Justin doing the drawing.

Much love, as always! <3

Calise and Justin

The post What is Personality?? New Intro Video appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

The new and improved return of Personalized Typings and introducing Cognitive Orientation Guidebooks (COGs)!!!

What are COGs?
Cognitive Orientation Guidebooks or COGs, are aLBoP’s definitive guides to the 16 cognitive types.
Each one includes:

• E vs. I
• P vs. J
• First and Last letter combinations
• N vs. S
• F vs. T
• Middle Letter combinations
• Each type’s unique Cognition Steps
• Type Specializations
• Type Angsts (including all *8* that haven’t been released yet!!)
• Paradoxitype

And averages 10,000 words each!  That’s just under 160,000 words total :O!

How much are they going to cost?

Since these took us months upon months to write, let alone develop theories, most of which can only be found on aLBoP, it would be completely reasonable for us to charge a lot for the COGs.

We’re not going to do that.  In fact, we’re not going to charge anything for them at all!  *gasp!*  That’s right, my friends, these behemoths of cognition are *free to everyone* so that you can learn about not only yourself, but everyone you know… for free

What are you playing at?

The British have much cooler idioms than we do in the States.  We have many hopes with making the COGs free; here are the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

Word of Mouth

If you like the COGs and they’ve helped you, we hope you’ll share them with your friends!  Quote them, email them!  Use your handy-dandy social media!  We’ll have html versions up later and you’ll be able to Pin the crap out of them!  I hope you do

Personalized Typing Packages

We’re using the COGs to overhaul our whole Personal Typing system so now we can type not only you, but whomever you can give us a picture of through the power of Facial Typing!  And the whole thing is now much much faster since the COGs mean we don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every person we type!  And cheaper too, at $15 for the basic package  Want that extra personalized touch?  For $25 we’ll *also* live chat (either text or video) with you for hours about all your cognition questions!  There’s some other options there too, in case you either want to give, or receive a little extra love.

COGs will make you want to be Personally Typed even more!

 

While we know you’re smart and tenacious, we honestly doubt your ability and stamina to comb through nearly 1,000 pages of cognitive information to make sure that you and your loved ones are typed correctly!  If you want to try, then go for it; it doesn’t take any more of *our* time!  But I read and see *soooo* many people mistyped online and in person, even plethoras of aLBoP readers.  It’s usually honest mistakes especially over letters like J/P (which pretty much flip your entire cognition process on its head!), and I can always see where the train went off the rails, but I really don’t find it a good use of anyone’s time for me to go around dropping “You’re not really a XXXX” bombs on everyone’s head.  It must be requested of me

 

We want you to be able to read them all!

You and the relationships you have with people in your lives are important to us!  We want you to be able to read and get to know and appreciate*all* the cognitive types, not just your own!  Including any types you’ve struggled with, so you can see where people are coming from and that stereotypes are not all she wrote.

We want you to learn from them!

We’ve seen a markedly huge improvement in the tone and caliber of our overall interactions with the aLBoP audience over the course of the last two years.  A mishmash combination of us making a name for ourselves, misconceptions and stereotypes being pointed out, more amazing people finding us and everyone learning together… what we’re doing actually seems to be working!  *faint*  And on the even brighter side, so many of you have shared with us how aLBoP has helped you understand yourself better and improved your life in various ways, which has in turn lifted and inspired and given us hope for people and the future.  And aLBoP has given us friends, wonderful friends all across the world!!  And if we can have more of that — a better digital culture, the feeling that we’ve been able to help real people, and real life friends — then sign us up!

There are so many good reasons to give you the COGs for free!  So use them!!  Share and read them to your heart’s content!  And let us type you and your friends, your children (toddlers and older are easier, babies are still in beta… in more ways than one), your favorite historical figures or celebrities, the person you have a crush on… everyone, so that you can use the COGs to understand them and love them for the unique people they are!  COGs and Personalized Typings go together like oreos and cream cheese, like nori and rice, like tater tots and ketchup… Time to wrap up and have a food break, Calise?  I think so.  While you enjoy those, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a little “WE FINISHED” party, here at aLBoP headquarters (aka the little house with the red door).  Cause I’m pretty sure my INFJ and I have earned it!

Much love,
<3 Calise (and Justin, her INFJ)

The post They’re Here: Personalized Typing Packages and COGs!!! appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

Give a Little Personality
A Gift Guide by Type

Merry Christmas everyone!  Or whatever you celebrate  Better late than never and as requested, we have a handy little guide for giving gifts according to personality!

Rather than a specific list of individual items, we thought it would be of more value to share with you the principles of what motivates each type and the trends we’ve noticed about what each personality enjoys!  So then this will be useful all year round and not just two days before Christmas

This is our first hybrid post (woo-hoo!) with both a video and written portion (mid-term flashback *shiver*).  Watch the video for our full in-depth versions of what we think each type would like and why (with the option to skip forward It’s a pretty long video), and check out the summaries and full-sized pics below for each type at-a-glance!

ISFJ

Practical Upgrade

Knights often want better versions of the things they already use to do the things they’re already doing.  They want to be more able to protect, serve, and be dependable, fulfilling their personal role in life.  They want an upgrade!  It may seem utilitarian, it may not seem flashy, but it’s what tickles them!

 

ESFJ

Own it, Love It

Charging ahead as a symbol of their group and of the interests and joys they share, the Cavalry loves things that help them celebrate those shared interests.  To that end, they often like clothes (guy Cavalries like to look stylish and put together), and they especially love music as a way to celebrate the style that they and their friends enjoy.

 

ISFP

Meticulous Collection

Explorers love to gather collectibles from the world, whether it be model cars, board games, or foreign food, and then bring them together into their own, personal world that they can treasure.  They want each thing in their protective sphere to be special and important, which can cause their collections to be very specialized; get them something that fits their particular collection, and they’ll feel known and treasured by you.

ESFP

Quirky Camaraderie

Morale Officers want gifts that help them enjoy spending time with the people they love!  These don’t have to be loud or complicated; the point is to hang out and have fun, like with a board game or a great movie.  They may even ask for things that are mainly for others, so they can have fun together!  And they’re usually a little quirky in their interests too, because that makes it all more fun!

ISTJ

Pragmatically Curated

Sentinels tend to be quite practical in their interests, yet they also want their possessions to be of the highest quality.  They don’t want gifts for their own sake; they’d prefer to get a few high-quality, practical items rather than a whole bunch of gifts.  Often if they wouldn’t splurge and get something fancy for themselves, like a great meal, expensive clothes, or a really spiffy appliance, they’ll really appreciate getting it as a gift.

 

ESTJ

Specifically Personalized

The Cannon tends to get excited by gifts that help them better shoot forward and help their group run more efficiently and happily, so they usually know exactly what they want, down to the brand.  Surprises aren’t nearly as important to them as getting the gifts that they’ve determined will best help them pursue the needs and interests of their group, even though those interests might vary wildly between different Cannons.

 

ISTP

More is More

Weapon Specialists love getting gifts that help them specialize better in the things they already specialize in!  Whether it be yet another book on their current subject of interest, or yet another skateboard, or yet another weapon, they get excited by tools that help them do even better at the things they specialize in.

 

ESTP

Check This Out!

Spartans love gifts that help them enjoy their individuality!  So they often like cheeky stuff, and anything that helps them stand out while doing what they’re already doing.  They love things that are casually useful, like a cool-looking phone case or a neat water bottle, yet that also make people take notice, as their way of saying, “That’s right, this is me!”

INFJ

Read the World

Paladins take joy in finding the day-to-day usefulness of sweeping, universal principles that others might think don’t apply in real life.  So they love gifts that help them explore meaningful archetypes and principles in their particular areas of interest, whether that be history or math, horror or fantasy or politics or whatever.  Paladin girls especially tend to like fairy tales and Disney, as a way to explore and apply the principles of what makes people and world matter.

ENFJ

Timelessly Personable

Veterans particularly love knowing that they’re known and appreciated by those close to them, so they often like being surprised by getting exactly what they wanted without having to ask for it.  And with their timeless love of people, Veterans tend to enjoy vintage items and classic pieces that help them stand out while fitting in with their group.

 

INFP

Capture the Flame

Rangers love things that help them treasure and experience the things that already inspire them, whether by creating or by enjoying someone else’s creations.  So they may like sketchbooks or nice art, books or writing supplies, or a bit of each!  They love gifts that help them create the perfect conceptual moment, like a cozy window seat with a mug and a good book, or tickets to their favorite show or a museum.  (Want to get a Ranger a book by an INFP?  Try J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, or H.P. Lovecraft!)

 

ENFP

Let’s Make This Personal

Standard Bearers love gifts that help them express their individuality, as if to say, “Look at me, this is who I am, this is why I’m special!”  They want things that help them express the person that is them, like clothes or other items that declare their interests and loyalties.  Inside jokes are especially important to Standard Bearers, since they let them know that your time and experience together meant as much to you as it did to them.

INTJ

Inner Exploration

Dragons like books!  All types can like books in their own ways, but Dragons love using them as tools to explore the wide world and to benefit from the thoughts and explorations of others, so they can make use of it all.  They’ll often love nonfiction, but sprawling or inspiring fictional worlds can excite them as well, as long as they have enough complexity and realism.  Any gift that helps a Dragon learn how to use the world, and which allows them to curl up with their private, soft, cute side, will probably be greatly appreciated.

 

ENTJ

New and Improved!

Crusaders tend to want better, faster, stronger, shinier ways to help them do and enjoy what their group already does best.  Whether it be camping or video games, photography or mountain biking, Crusaders love to shine out as the paragon of whatever they love to bond over with their friends.  So they usually enjoy gifts that equip them to charge at the head of the pack and show everyone how to do it with flair!

 

INTP

Possibilities to Try

Alchemists get excited by gifts that represent interesting ideas, like nifty tools or cool inventions, or books or magazines with concepts that intrigue them.  They love to try *new* things, always seeking another *new* idea of how to make things work, like a cool new tool or book or toy with new uses and ideas they can try out.  While interests may vary between Alchemists, they’ll all tend to love exploring possible ideas and theories about whatever they’re interested in.

 

ENTP

Freestyle Utility

Swashbucklers love tools that help them enjoy and show off themselves!  They tend to prefer open-ended tools that they can use over and over with unlimited possible uses, like a building set, a digital camera, an open-ended video game, or a dress that can be mixed-and-matched with anything.  They also like statement pieces, like a really cool tie or a geeky t-shirt, all as reusable ways of strutting their stuff.

We hope your holidays are just as special and unique as you are (because that’s not cheesy or anything!) and that you are able to celebrate the people you love as you celebrate this special time of year!

Much love!
<3 Calise and Justin

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

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We’re loving your questions and I’ve been hard at work on Group Dynamics: The Avengers!  (I have to say, the video is looking pretty sweeet :D)  Have a lovely weekend everyone!!

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This time we have lots of quotes from a bunch of *different* PPPs, about the common misconceptions people have about Feelers’ relationship with logic, and what defines F in general.  All these quotes happen to be by my INFJ because, even though we read through your emails, determine your type, and figure out bullet points of what you need to hear, together, he has been writing the vast majority of the PPPs themselves to free me up to write blog posts, comments, social media stuff in general, and not go out of my mind with laundry.  Also, he happens to be an excellent writer and has a sexy grasp of principles.  But, you know, that’s why I married him   (Well, that and he’s a good kisser.)

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I haven’t done a comment response post in a while.  I usually just comment back to the person individually, or answer their question in a Q&A, but I when Cody asked me the following question, I started responding and this post ran away from me, in the best way ;D  There is just soooo much to talk about on this subject, and what I’ve written here is just the tip of a large and beautiful iceberg.

Cody asked:
So question for you, what is the difference in your opinion, between an entp male and entp female?

Thanks Cody!  This is an excellent question!  And actually one that I could write posts on forever  There are endless things I could say about the differences in male and female versions of *every* type!  I *love* gender; it’s actually one of my favorite topics ever… which goes along perfectly with your question!

ENTPs are one of the (possibly *the*) biggest gender explorers of all the types.  ENTP’s Type Specialization is “Individual Potential,” starting with ourselves, and *every* choice we make is toward the purpose of further understanding and utilizing what we could potentially be.  Gender and sexuality are such a huge part of that identity and self-potential, of course ENTPs would love exploring that!

Neon pink suspenders FTW!

In practice this means that ENTPs (when we’re not too ashamed of it) are often both uber sexual in our own gender, and/or not afraid to explore the aspects and benefits the other gender has to offer.

So male ENTPs often *really* enjoy masculinity, whether it’s liking goofy “boyish” stuff, reveling in their own impressive sexuality, harmless womanizing, etc., and female ENTPs are often surprisingly girly, whether being flirty and sweet or loving colorful girly clothes that show off their (our) feminine wiles.  For example, people often expect female ENTPs to be hard and stereotypically “T,” (which, can we please review the real definition of “Thinking” please?), and people who think that way are often surprised to hear that I *love* tutus, to the point of mild obsession, and fashion in general; that I had a smiley face collection growing up, and that I cry pretty easily when I’m worried about other people.

But ENTP is a study in contrasts.  We naturally *love* placing two seemingly diametrically opposed things beside one another, in order to bring out and complement aspects of both.  Angles and curves, leather and lace, technology and style, zombies and princesses; when you put two wildly different things together, they accentuate each other’s differences and showcase parts of each that might otherwise go unnoticed.  While that principle isn’t exclusive to ENTPs, when it comes to the conceptual use of individuals, we rock it hard.  (See what I did there?  If you accentuate high language, like technical or science jargon, with low language like slang or goofy idioms, the contrast between the two packs a bigger punch than either alone.  ENTPs tend to be big fans of the effect; Benjamin Franklin did it all the time! :D)

From RDJ’s Facebook page (that he runs himself)

And what creates a stronger, more powerful, playful contrast, especially in the area of self-potential, than gender?  And unbridled ENTPs *love* the interplay between masculinity and femininity — not just between people, but also within themselves.  Whether that’s by just enjoying how the genders are different in the ways usually thought of, or turning them on their heads.

If there were a graph about the types’ relationships to gender exploration, ENTP would be in the crossdressing corner.  (There isn’t, as yet, such a graph, but I would greatly enjoy making one at some point.)  That may seem odd to say, but it is an archetype *everywhere* throughout fiction and real life alike; ENTPs <3 crossdressing.  From Mulan to Mal Reynolds, Robert Downey Jr. to Zack Morris; you see it *everywhere.*

“The Boy is Big” by Calise, age 4 maybe? Yes, I knew how to read.  It was just funny as anything.

It’s actually a love I felt *insanely* guilty about growing up, though I don’t remember a time before it was an interest of mine.  Not as much “what would I be like as a boy,” although I certainly have thought a lot on that one (crossdressing became mostly an impossibility for me after puberty), but enjoying how juxtaposing men with feminine situations, clothing, etc. brought out and explored a side of masculinity that otherwise would have gone unseen.  A side which, as a straight girl (something I was unsure of over the years), who really really really likes men, I really wanted to see.

I often say that ESTPs tend to act like little boys, whatever gender they are, while ENTPs tend to *think* like teenaged boys, whatever gender they are.  Obviously, that demonstrates that the things we tend to think of as being “boy” things to do or think are stereotyped, but the principle still holds true.  While ESTP girls tend to like running, jumping and brashly goofing off in ways we tend to think of as masculine (though ESTP girls can be very girly too, when they want to be), ENTP girls, just like ENTP boys, tend to really like thinking about things like technology and sex, and love sarcasm and irony just as much as ENTP boys do.

Aaah!  Painfully awkward 16th birthday pic! Please scroll back up and look at the other pic after this one, bc this one is just sad.

Even though, growing up, it was often implied my love of girly stuff and my sweetness meant I *couldn’t* be analytical or good at being a Thinker (O_o why?!), on the flip side I so often felt *bad* at being a girl.  My tendency to say whatever came into my head, no matter how awkward it was and my ingenuousness in general, meant that other girls tended to treat me like I was “doing it wrong,” and boys paid little attention.  My lack of fashion sense with a new set of curves that I had new clue how to use certainly didn’t help, and my (albeit hidden) aforementioned gender exploration certainly didn’t help my lack of feeling feminine.  There was one aLBoP commenter that said there was no way Mulan could be ENTP because she was way too awkward; clearly they didn’t know me in highschool  I know ENTP girls, and T girls in general, often feel that way, like there’s a “right” and “wrong” way to be your own gender, and it’s really a shame.  I know often male Fs feel the same way.

Although, interestingly enough, though I don’t say it in public as often, I like to tease ENTP guys of being such girls sometimes too, and I mean that with the most love possible

My INFJ was recently practicing interacting with the world in a way that brought out his ENTP Paradoxitype, and after trying it for a while commented that one of the ways in which it was difficult was that it was like, “being half turned on, all the time, by the whole world at once.”  I immediately yelled, “Yes!!”  It’s nice, after a whole life of feeling that way, flirting with the whole world at once as a way to understand and explore it, and feeling guilty for that fact, to have someone say that that was a normal side effect of that sort of emotional vulnerability.

For all the seeming braggadocio that ENTP men can have, that really reflects an emotional vulnerability and exposure to the world that usually leaves them remarkably soft and sweet on the inside.  It’s been amazing to me the open and genuine ways in which healthy ENTP men care about other people, often to the point of getting very emotional as I do, about the people they care about and the ways they’re treated.  It’s a shame to me that that’s thought of as being less masculine or analytical in our culture, because ENTP men are just one example of how masculine that trait can be.

In that same vein, feeling bad at their fourth cognition step of Action through introverted Sensing, often makes both gender ENTPs feel like screw-ups that nobody could be proud of.  In response to this, we sometimes want others to show us that no matter what we do wrong, they will still want us and care about us anyway, even to the point of pushing people away emotionally, secretly hoping the other person will “chase” us, running just slow enough to get caught.  While stereotypically, that’s something that women do, playing “games” to get the other person to show they care, I’ve seen plenty of male ENTPs–both fictionally and irl–do that exact same thing.  (Obviously, as with all the type trends I talk about, that doesn’t mean *only* ENTPs do that, but just that it’s a common thing for ENTPs–myself included–to do, and that those are the collective *reasons* for ENTPs specifically to do it.)

Encapsulated uber-sexual and gender exploration in one.
Read post here.

And so, like I said, a study in contrasts.  In any way shape or form, we like to explore both “What am I?” and “What would I be if I weren’t me?”  We like to hop back and forth between pushing the limits of our own gender (the uber sexuality I talked about), and blurring our lines with the other gender.  Simple in principle, complex in application, ENTP men and women tend to be very similar in the *why*s of choices, and yet often very different in what those individual choices are.  Gender is our fav, and yet the different ways we choose to explore it may differ wildly, especially by gender itself.

Thanks for your question, Cody!  Obviously I had fun answering it ;D

Much love,
<3 Calise

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