dreamer

it’s very damaging that 16personalities is the first result for a mbti test when the reality is you can’t quantify cognitive functions like that.

simply put, 16personalities is actually the Big Five / Global 5 with a coat of paint using the mbti letter dichotomy despite the fact it does not use any jungian concepts whatsoever. the result you’re getting is that of the Big 5. see for yourself.

so lets talk about the Big 5 and what it measures. i’m sure you’ve heard of it.

background of Big 5

the Big 5 model by itself is free-floating since you’re only getting percentages for each of the five elements. the Global 5 (aka SLOAN) is a way for you to give a name those results, in letters. there is no “SLOAN” test since it’s just a naming system that uses the results from the Big 5.

it’s explained here but i’ll explain it in simpler terms:

Reserved or Social = Big 5 Extraversion score

Calm or Limbic = Big 5 Neuroticism score

Unstructured or Organized = Big 5 Conscientiousness score

Egocentric or Accomodating = Big 5 Agreeableness score

Noncurious or Inquitisive = Big 5 Openness to Experience score

it’s a sliding scale where 50% marks the tipping point between which letter you use. the notation also changes depending on the strength of each element.

Uppercase letter = Strong tendency

Lowercase letter = Mild tendency

x = In between, on average

|?| = Your strongest element

you need to think of these results as like a statistical distribution. 50% is the average, where going closer to 0% or 100% is more extreme on either end.

there’s no hard rule for what percentile encompasses “strong”, “mild”, and “average”, but personally i’d divide it like such:

0–24 or 76–100 percentile would be strong tendency, use uppercase letter.

25–40 or 60–75 percentile would be mild tendency, use lowercase letter.

41–59 percentile would be average tendency, use “x”.

let’s use my results as an example.

on the IPIP-300 my Big Five dimensions were:

Extraversion - 15th percentile

Agreeableness - 78th percentile

Concientiousness - 64th percentile

Neuroticism - 16th percentile

Openness - 60th percentile

Extraversion is strongly low (15th percentile), so i would use uppercase R for Reserved. it is also my strongest element in either direction so i will put vertical bars around it: |R|

Neuroticism is also strongly low (16th percentile), so i would use uppercase C for Calm: |R|C

Conscientiousness is mildly high (64th percentile), so i would use lowercase O for Organized: |R|Co

Agreeableness is strongly high (78th percentile), so i would use uppercase A for Accomodating: |R|CoA

Openness to Experience is mildly high (60th percentile), so i would use lowercase I for Inquitisive: |R|CoAi

my Global 5 type is RCOAI, with the notation |R|CoAi giving more information about the relative strength of each dimension.

now that’s not to say there aren’t correlations to MBTI types but correlation does not equal causation and there absolutely are exceptions to the norm. also the Big 5 is NOT testing for cognitive functions, which is what the mbti actually uses (even if hidden behind a 4-letter code).

you can see by this, i am a typical INFJ according to these semi-correlations but just barely—had my Openness scored just a point lower i’d be on the fence between RCOAI and RCOAN (the latter of which is correlated with ISFJ). in mbti though, ISFJs have a completely different perceiving axis than me: they use the Ne/Si axis and lead with dominant Si.

that said, i’ll tell you how your ““type”” is calculated on 16personalities.

how 16personalities calculates type

i’ve consistently gotten INFJ-A on 16personalities but that’s because i’m RCOAI. i am indeed an actual INFJ in the NiFeTiSe sense as well, verified by understanding the cognitive functions, and it is merely coincidence.

this is how they score it. ready?

I / E = Extraversion score

S / N = Openness score

T / F = Agreeableness score

P / J = Conscientiousness score

-A / -T = Neuroticism score (tacked on because of course the fuck it is)

so you wanna know how and why so many INFPs (actually FiNeSiTes) test as “INFJs” on that site? it’s when they score high on Conscientiousness (so in the Global 5, instead of Unorganized its Organized).

RxUAI is normally correlated with INFP but RxOAI is normally correlated with INFJ.

that means there is just one dimension that separates the INFP and INFJ result on 16personalities. and the implications are fucking awful. using the MBTI 4 letter dichotomy for a Big 5 test is such a bad move i cant even BEGIN to describe why, but that’s partially why i made this blog in the first place— to rip apart typology myths that are fundamentally wrong or flawed while also offering explanations as to why (and hopefully getting more people to understand it correctly and pass on valid information).

in reality, INFJs and INFPs share absolutely nothing in common functions-wise.

an INFJ’s dominant-inferior axis is one of perceiving (Ni/Se) and their balanced auxiliary-tertiary axis is their judging (Fe/Ti). Ni(Fe-Ti)Se.

an INFP’s dominant-inferior axis is one of judging (Fi/Te) and their balanced auxiliary-tertiary axis is their perceiving (Ne/Si). Fi(Ne-Si)Te.

so what is MBTI then actually??

the MBTI and cognitive functions are not setting out to describe personality traits. they are describing patterns of cognition as feedback between two parts of the same process (the function axes), like systole and diastole of the heart, or a walk cycle with your two legs driving you forward. cognitive functions are not concerned with boxing people in to define motivations or disposition, it just tells how information is assembled and processed in the psyche. this has real value in examining and analyzing why and how people process and discern information the way they do, and how to understand oneself and each other in a deeper way using shared descriptors for how we perceive and judge information. it is especially helpful for me as someone who perceives things deeply but has trouble making sense of those experiences without the semantics to understand and to articulate them. it’s not a tool to box you in, but a tool to explain what already exists. it’s a lot more flexible than you think.

one’s cognition can be split into two divisions: Perception and Judging.

the role of Perception in the psyche is the incidental synthesis of information without discriminating, and the role of Judgment is to differentiate between information sources and organize that information into definite concepts and discrete ideas. this article explains it well.

everyone does both. however, people will have more of a focus on either Judgement or Perception, finding the most compelling sense of “truth” from one of these divisions over the other.

to an INFJ, an ultimate sense of truth is found in their Perception processes (Ni and Se), and their Judgement processes (Fe and Ti) serve to rationalize/make sense of those perceptions.

to an INFP, an ultimate sense of truth is found in their Judgement processes (Fi and Te), and their Perception processes (Ne and Si) serve to contextualize those judgements.

SCUAI

O- 96%

C- 47%

E- 52%

A- 47%

N- 32%