The Myers-Briggs Test
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Friday, March 20, 2026 09:06
VIEWED: 15918
PAGE 5 of 8
Here's the whole thing and where I think it doesn't fit me, anyway.
Of the four aspects of strategic analysis and definition, it is the contingency planning or entailment organizing role that reaches the highest development in Masterminds. Now, I'm very poor a this. Maybe it's because my time-sense is faulty. For example, I know that Christmas is Dec 25, but I can write down the dates day by day, December 21, December 22, December 23 ... and it won't click that Christmas is only 2 DAYS AWAY. So planning and contingnecy planning are really not my thing.
Entailing or contingency planning is not an informative activity, rather it is a directive one in which the planner tells others what to do and in what order to do it. As the organizing capabilities the Masterminds increase so does their inclination to take charge of whatever is going on. I'm actually very uncomfortable with this. I don't like telling people what to do. I do get frustrated when I see things going south and I'll be vocal, but I'm not a take-charge person.
It is in their abilities that Masterminds differ from the other Rationals, while in most of their attitudes they are just like the others. However there is one attitude that sets them apart from other Rationals: they tend to be much more self-confident than the rest, having, for obscure reasons, developed a very strong will. I guess that's me. But of all the people I work with, I'm middle of the range on this one. And while I don't like people messing with what I do, I don't go messing with what others are doing.
Being very judicious, decisions come naturally to them; indeed, they can hardly rest until they have things settled, decided, and set. That's probably me. But while I do tend to that direction of deciding things, I have learned to withold judgement for quite a while - months, even years - until I get what I think is a fair view.
They are the people who are able to formulate coherent and comprehensive contingency plans, hence contingency organizers or "entailers." There's that thing again which I do so baaaadly with.
Masterminds will adopt ideas only if they are useful, which is to say if they work efficiently toward accomplishing the Mastermind's well-defined goals. (Well, this is more tedious than I thought. Anyway, pressing on ...) I do spend time formulating 'well defined goals' - it's what I call designing things - but that's where the fun is. Then I drop it. I'm not an implementer.
Natural leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command of projects or groups, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. I do like to stay off the chain of command.
Once in charge, however, Masterminds are the supreme pragmatists, seeing reality as a crucible for refining their strategies for goal-directed action. In a sense, Masterminds approach reality as they would a giant chess board, always seeking strategies that have a high payoff ... ?? I don't know about this. One example - I'm a union steward. Every few years we 'get' to negotiate a new contract, but most of them time we deal with individual problems as they come up (mostly due to management 
). I consider myself a pragmatist in the sense that I recognize some issues are not worth dying on the hill for. But mostly we fight a rear-guard defensive action and I personally do NOT spend much time trying to optimize and advance every nook and cranny of the MOU.
... and always devising contingency plans in case of error or adversity. NAH
To the Mastermind, organizational structure and operational procedures are never arbitrary, never set in concrete, but are quite malleable and can be changed, improved, streamlined. Yeah, that's fun.
In their drive for efficient action, Masterminds are the most open-minded of all the types. No idea is too far-fetched to be entertained-if it is useful. Masterminds are natural brainstormers, always open to new concepts and, in fact, aggre
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I'm actually very uncomfortable with this. I don't like telling people what to do. I do get frustrated when I see things going south and I'll be vocal, but I'm not a take-charge person.
Sounds like you're about halfway there, but you never actually go as far as to take over control of the projects on your own.
Quote:
It is in their abilities that Masterminds differ from the other Rationals, while in most of their attitudes they are just like the others. However there is one attitude that sets them apart from other Rationals: they tend to be much more self-confident than the rest, having, for obscure reasons, developed a very strong will. I guess that's me. But of all the people I work with, I'm middle of the range on this one. And while I don't like people messing with what I do, I don't go messing with what others are doing.
Well Rue, you've never come off to me here as lacking in self confidence, at least in your opinions.
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Being very judicious, decisions come naturally to them; indeed, they can hardly rest until they have things settled, decided, and set. That's probably me. But while I do tend to that direction of deciding things, I have learned to withold judgement for quite a while - months, even years - until I get what I think is a fair view.
A very desirable trait that we should all strive for.
Well.... I was going to go through them all, but I actually have a half night tonight. Got a big get together with some people I haven't seen in years. It's not all that often that I thrust myself into very social situations, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm actually kind of excited, which rarely ever happens anymore. So I gotta run.
It sounds to me Rue that you might be more like the Man Behind the Curtain, than the Mastermind, but I think they're pretty closely related.
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So, am I an evil scary monster?
Nah.... but your needles and vaccines still scare the crap outta me
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
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Rue, from everything you said, I'm fairly certain you're not an INTJ. The problem is with the J. J's like to decide quickly and well ahead of time if they can. They are generally comfortable with giving orders as long as it fits within their expertise in some way. P's, being informative rather than directive, would rather give someone information and let them infer from it what they think should be done. They also generally feel uncomfortable with decisions made "off-the-cuff". Try giving INTP a read.
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"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
- Abraham Lincoln
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Meh, closer to Green Goblin than Batsie...
As I've noted, imma tinker, damned near a mechanical savant, in fact.
EDIT: Do'h - didn't see those two, first time around..
(Crafter Artisan) (The Mechanics)
Yeah, that nails it.
As per my MO however, I hand off the designs to those I feel can best produce or use them, such as in the case of the prosthetics, there's a real crack crew of orthopaedic frankensteins up here who do a bang-up job of actually doing the buildwork.
As for plotting and planning, mostly I give structural framework, operational, and tactical advice to others while encouraging them to action, and yes, to some degree of moral grey area, yank their chain a bit to push them to do it.
So in villainry, I'd be the guy who gets the plan from the mad scientist, cleans it up to a real-world workable model, sorts a build plan and cost efficiency schedule, and then hands it off to the outside contractor to build - and then disappears before things get ugly, having little emotional commitment beyond seeing the job done well and the reward handed over to some untraceable carribean escrow and laundry.
It's just not my way to stick my neck out, and my business is my business, and no one elses - one of my sticking points with governmental nosy-ness, as is also well known.
Even on the internet, I use a whole lot of smoke and mirrors to ensure my privacy, because I really, really do not like other people in my space or in my business, but good advice is still good advice, and many of those aliases have quite solid reputations.
I don't care about credit or glory, I just want the job done and done right, and thus make sure such advice gets put in the hands of folk who'll use it well.
If that qualifies me as a Psycho Vig, meh, so be it.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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You know, it gave me INFP wich seems kinda half way there but I'm just not that starry eyed. I tend to be paranoind and sinical. Oh, and lazy. Too much work. That rebellion thing did sound like fun tough.
edit: Took it again and got INTP. Again, I think it's part way right but I'm just to lazy and I don't like math all that much. I understand it. I just don't like it.
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Op: You're fighting a war you've already lost.
Mal: Yeah, well I'm known for that.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
And YinYang... it's okay, you're a lot more like me than you thought. I can usually shut it off, so it's only really scary in my mind about 10% of the time. One of us.... One of us.... One of us.....
<.< >.>
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I also don't see where these results show the positives and not the negatives (the serious results, I'm refering to). I thought mine had quite a few negatives that I definately could associate with as well, which made it all the more believable to me. For example, there are quite a lot of times where I just shut myself off from the entire world, even my close friends and families, for a week or two at a time (barring work, of course... I do like to eat and sleep on a bed). I've got a lot of long weekends having this 12 hour per day job, and some of them are spent in complete solitude. Can't say as to where the casual observer would find this behavior as positive.
Well, that's your interpretation of it, as opposed to the way it was worded.
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While instinctively courting the personal and organizational demands continually made upon them by others, at intervals INFJs will suddenly withdraw into themselves, sometimes shutting out even their intimates. This apparent paradox is a necessary escape valve for them, providing both time to rebuild their depleted resources and a filter to prevent the emotional overload to which they are so susceptible as inherent "givers."
It says that it's needed, rather than "they have a habit of totally ignoring every around them, which is one of the most obvious weaknesses of this type. The big losers." And, of course, to the casual observe this is a negative, but it goes on to say
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As a pattern of behavior, it is perhaps the most confusing aspect of the enigmatic INFJ character to outsiders, and hence the most often misunderstood -- particularly by those who have little experience with this rare type.
Not that I put too much stock into these anyway - I just think human beings are more complex than a test with only yes and no questions.
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I might be an INTP as my J was only 1%.
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The biggest problem with these online test is that questions mean different things to different people. I've found that they're wrong about a quarter of the time if not more. Its much more effective to having someone who's been working with it a while try to talk you through figuring out what you are. Jungian type theory only gives the predominant fundamentals of a person's psyche. Tendancies and preferences you might say. Two INTJ's can be just as different in behavior as an INTJ and an ESFP (though its extremely unlikely). Take it for what it is. Its a tool for putting your own behavior into a context that you might better understand your own motivations. It works poorly when you try to apply the same principles in the 3rd person, so beware.
That said, I've seen marriages and businesses saved by study of this stuff. Its a foreign concept to most people that someone else could have a very legitimate reason for behaving the way they do, and that they might never be able to understand what that is.
_________________________________
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
- Abraham Lincoln
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"I might be an INTP as my J was only 1%." - rue
That's what my J was so it's a toss-up if I'm an iStJ or an iStP (move over Frem).
It was bugging me that I couldn't remember the royalty numbers on the MBTI so I asked my friend about it. Turns out I had grossly underestimated how much money the instrument generates. It was generating four hundred thousand dollars in royalties when it was selling six million dollars a year. Right now it is selling about fifteen million dollars a year so it should be generating somewhere in the neighborhood of a million in royalties.
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I hit one part of one the ISTP descriptions that actually knocked me off the chair laughing.
Many ISTP experience inter-personal problems that come from the fact that they expect human beings to actually make sense.
Truer words have never been spoken...
It cracked my girl up too, she knows the truth of it better than anyone, having run nose-first into it time and time again.
The two primary ISTP responses to inexplicable human behavior.
"But... why ?!"
Or, more commonly.
"WhaFuck?!
People often *don't* make sense, and that just drives us batshit crazy.
-F
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