calvin

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR UP TO CHAPTER 86 OF THE MANGA

I’ll be honest and say that while Isagi and Bachira’s dynamic in the first arc was cute, it wasn’t anything that stood out to me too much. It seemed like a very typical sports anime type relationship at first. The main character shoots. His friend is there for him and passes to him so he can shine. They have good chemistry. They achieve results together that would be un-imaginably amazing compared to when they were apart. We’ve seen it so many times before already. Kageyama and Hinata, Kuroko and Kagami, Mihashi and Abe; the list goes on.

That all stops when the second selection starts.

A while ago I found a chart that lists mistypes.

As can be seen in the chart, ISTJs very often mistype as INTjs. A lot of folks over on reddit’s r/INTJ chided people over being mistyped ISTJs.

I started reading about enneagram yesterday, and I think that enneagram may help explain why this happens so often.

Ennegram sorts people into 9 enneagram types, called 1, 2, 3, and so on. Each enneagram type resembles another type when growing and when under stress.

According to thought catalog, the most common enneagram for ISTJs is enneagram 1 at 37.5%. 

Some quotes from the enneagram site on enneagram 1s:

Ones are conscientious and ethical, with a strong sense of right and wrong. They are teachers, crusaders, and advocates for change: always striving to improve things, but afraid of making a mistake. Well-organized, orderly, and fastidious, they try to maintain high standards, but can slip into being critical and perfectionistic.

INTJs often think of themselves as perfectionistic and willing to point out the flaws in systems. They are also known for the significance they put on their moral standards. This may make type 1 ISTJs think they are in fact INTJ. 

Ones often persuade themselves that they are “head” types, rationalists who proceed only on logic and objective truth.

INTJs have a reputation of being heavily logical types, providing another opportunity for mistypes.

Ones have a “sense of mission” that leads them to want to improve the world in various ways, using whatever degree of influence they have.

ISTJs are stereotyped as people who want to preserve the status quo, as the quintessential conservative. 16 personalities, the most popular mbti site, calls ISTJs “conservative” and “by the books.” However, if you look to the enneagram, many type 1s seek to improve the world and are dissatisfied with the status quo, causing them to avoid the ISTJ label and instead think of themselves as INTJ.

*For the record, the whole stereotype of ISTJ being conservative is untrue, and especially so for political conservatism.

There is also the issue of enneagram stress.

If you look to the chart below that I stole from the enneagram site, we can see that 1s tend to act like 4s when under stress.

If we look at the description of enneagram type 4s, we can see the following: 

Fours feel that they are unlike other human beings.

While enneagram 1s are under stress, they start to feel like they are unique. And in MBTI, when someone talks about being unique, it’s often the INFJ or INTJ types, the two most rare MBTI types at 1.5% and 2.1% respectively.

It is possible that many ISTJ type 1s who are under stress feel like 4s, and thus think that MBTI explains why they feel so different. Indeed, how can an ISTJ, being the most common type at 11.6% of the population, feel like no one understands them? They determine that their feelings of alienation make it impossible for them to be ISTJ and thus the type 1 ISTJ mistype as INTJ.

Type percentages taken from the Myers Briggs foundation.