I usually don’t like these things but I thought this one got it right — both good and bad.
Rational Portrait of the Architect (INTP)
Architects need not be thought of as only interested in drawing blueprints for buildings or roads or bridges. They are the master designers of all kinds of theoretical systems, including school curricula, corporate strategies, and new technologies. For Architects, the world exists primarily to be analyzed, understood, explained – and re-designed. External reality in itself is unimportant, little more than raw material to be organized into structural models. What is important for Architects is that they grasp fundamental principles and natural laws, and that their designs are elegant, that is, efficient and coherent.
Architects are rare – maybe one percent of the population – and show the greatest precision in thought and speech of all the types. They tend to see distinctions and inconsistencies instantaneously, and can detect contradictions no matter when or where they were made. It is difficult for an Architect to listen to nonsense, even in a casual conversation, without pointing out the speaker’s error. And in any serious discussion or debate Architects are devastating, their skill in framing arguments giving them an enormous advantage. Architects regard all discussions as a search for understanding, and believe their function is to eliminate inconsistencies, which can make communication with them an uncomfortable experience for many.
Ruthless pragmatists about ideas, and insatiably curious, Architects are driven to find the most efficient means to their ends, and they will learn in any manner and degree they can. They will listen to amateurs if their ideas are useful, and will ignore the experts if theirs are not. Authority derived from office, credential, or celebrity does not impress them. Architects are interested only in what make sense, and thus only statements that are consistent and coherent carry any weight with them.
Architects often seem difficult to know. They are inclined to be shy except with close friends, and their reserve is difficult to penetrate. Able to concentrate better than any other type, they prefer to work quietly at their computers or drafting tables, and often alone. Architects also become obsessed with analysis, and this can seem to shut others out. Once caught up in a thought process, Architects close off and persevere until they comprehend the issue in all its complexity. Architects prize intelligence, and with their grand desire to grasp the structure of the universe, they can seem arrogant and may show impatience with others who have less ability, or who are less driven.
You can take the test here,
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
Wow. Now, Mr. Architect, you need to read about the Jungian theory behind this test and blast it to bits :-). I read a very interesting article about Jung in an issue of Touchstone Magazine not long ago.
Yeah, that is why I don’t like these tests. The presuppositions that drive them are really quite bad.
I think I will google the touchstone article.
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=11-04-052-b
I read it and it was just about what I expected. Jung was an immoral satanic psycho-creep.
Bret,
I always score as an ISTJ on these tests.
Kyle,
Do you remember how they characterize the ISTJ?
I took it again a few hours later and got a INTJ. So we have the I, T, and J in common.
Bret,
Here is the description from that website:
I got the INTJ too.
The percentages matter in these tests.
I was a high percentage in two categories (I and N) but low and moderate in the other two (12% T and 28% J).
A few year ago I was an INFP, which only goes to show you that a person’s personality changes as they develop their mind and experiences in different ways.
Also, I tried to read Jung’s book on Job, but I couldn’t make it past the first few pages because it was so horribly blasphemous.
Joshua,
Interesting. I didn’t notice the percentage factors.
And yes, I have to think that very few people who develop their minds are going to be guided by feelings. Actually, I don’t think that anybody is really guided by their feelings since feelings aren’t interpretive mechanisms.
But, I could be wrong on that.
Bret
Bret,
As with so many discussions, the conclusion turns on how folks are defining their terms.
Emotions, or feelings, taken in a strictly physical sense, cannot be interpretive mechanisms by definition.
Emotions or feelings taken in relation to the will or affections may be considered interpretive, albeit in an irrational manner–for one tends to use one’s mind to rationalize acting in accordance with one’s will, as opposed to conforming the will to what the mind understands to be true apart from an immediate desire.
I think it is too confusing to try and include the mind, will, and emotions without distinguishing them in particular. Emotions weren’t even considered in Augustine’s time, when men were made up of intellect, will, and sensations, which only provided stimulus for the will and mind to utilize.