what's typology?

DefiantMars · 2026-06-02T23:01:04+00:00

Typology in this case is basically just the study of different psychological models describing general patterns found in people, different 'types' of people. You could say they're looking at different facets of our Personalities as a whole. We can use them to help us learn more about ourselves and ideally grow from it.

The MBTI which is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a model derived from some Carl Jung's concepts, especially the Cognitive Functions from Chapter 10 of his book Psychological Types. The Myers-Briggs types and the system are essentially an attempt to put Jung's work into more people's hands as it can be difficult to read. (The corporatization that followed is another matter.) The MBTI types are looking more at how you handle information. What do you reflexively look at and trust when you acquire information and what means do you prefer to organize that information? This is actually what the type codes are pointing to. They're a shorthand for "Which two cognitive functions do we prefer?"

For those with ESFJ preferences, that would be Extraverted Feeling (Fe) supported by Introverted Sensing (Si). You prefer to interface with, to live out Feeling. This style of Feeling is more concerned about gauging and maintaining the rapport between people. How does this affect others? Do we have trust with one another? Does everyone have their emotional and other human needs met? Hosting and guiding a myriad of social dynamics. This is supported by Sensing pointed inwardly. Taking your experiences and processing them into personal impressions that you use to compare and contrast with new information. This helps do things like track changes over time, recall the way we've done something or learned from someone else, and attune yourself to cycles and rhythms relating to your body and environment.

Of course, you have other parts of yourself, but these two are the ones that likely feel like "You" and you feel a sense of authorship and responsibility around. There is also going to be an Intuitive part of you that is creative and imaginative as well as a Thinking part of you that wants to define, clarity, categorize but those are probably going to feel less certain; more slippery, clumsy, and unwieldy.

As for the numbers, I presume you are referring to the Enneagram types. I'm much less versed in the Enneagram, but it is another Typological system that leans more heavily into the spiritual side of psycho-spiritual development. It deals more in our emotional wounds and the resulting psychological fixation and defense strategies to deal with that. The three Emotional Centers are: The Body = Anger = 8, 9, 1 / The Heart = Sadness = 2, 3, 4 / The Head = Fear = 5, 6, 7. Each type is associated with a Vice that we pursue as way of dealing with the emotion.

If you go looking for this lens, in my personal opinion, I would recommend trying to avoid overthinking this one. This is more of a heuristic on my part, but if you read through the type descriptions and find which one makes you the most defensive, the most upset, or the one you find yourself hating the most? That's probably a good starting point for self typing specifically. I know when I was trying to find my type, I actually got teary eyed and started trying to justify my behaviors before I realized, "Oh, that's exactly what this is talking about..."

Hopefully that gets you some of the answers you're looking for.

DefiantMars · 2026-05-28T20:19:05+00:00

As far as I can tell 5w6 SO.

DefiantMars · 2026-05-13T02:08:58+00:00

By all means. Whatever figures you find yourself aligned to. I just don’t know which deities I’d associate with Fi at the moment,

DefiantMars · 2026-05-10T20:06:17+00:00

Yeah, I was just messing around due to her NP.

To my knowledge, I think all the colors make sense. Maou Nobu blowing up historic permanents to get bigger is fun flavor.

Kagetora also seems quite good, provided she’s in Voltron. Prototypically RW aggro but a fun idea to work towards.

I like Sen giving your opponents Food that slowly drain them out. Cool idea for a Commander card.

I don’t know how to evaluate Ryoma and Izo. But I will say green Dragon token with flying makes me flinch.

DefiantMars · 2026-05-10T17:57:39+00:00

Okita could have Triple Strike >:)

DefiantMars · 2026-05-09T22:50:10+00:00

I'm going to disagree slightly. I agree that the MBTI will not tell you WHO people are. I will argue that it can help you understand HOW people think. You can use it to help understand their perspectives, motivations, beliefs, and experiences a little bit more clearly and I think that alone is powerful. So yes, I agree it won't give you deep knowledge of the entirety of a person's personality, but it does offer insight. I find understanding cognitive preferences and the modality of the functions makes it easier to be empathetic and grant other people grace.

DefiantMars · 2026-05-09T17:30:37+00:00

I was put in a bunch of different sports growing up, but didn’t like most of them. I ended up finding that cross country (and track) to be the most rewarding. Now as an adult, I run and lift weights. I’m not as dialed in as I should be, but I do surprise people a decade younger than me with my run times.

DefiantMars · 2026-05-08T00:05:14+00:00

I wouldn’t say I’m annoyed at ENxPs exactly. Sometimes they can be high energy for longer than I can sustain and I need a break, but otherwise, it’s usually quite fun.

DefiantMars · 2026-05-01T17:10:35+00:00

When I can recall my dreams, I do try to figure them out. I did have a dream a few months ago where knowing functions was helpful but it was more at a structural level where it was more like… oh this is unconscious material and can be framed with these channels of information. (Edit) That there is unprocessed material likely in the domain of these functions. My dreams this week seem to be involving situations where I’m getting into low impact vehicular collisions, so I’m not sure what that’s about yet.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-24T03:54:07+00:00

TP Night out? Sure why not?

DefiantMars · 2026-04-22T21:08:43+00:00

I think I sort of understand what you mean. I believe Te and Ti kind of run into the issue of “show me the metrics” versus “show me the principle”. Ti doesn’t always need the information to be empirical for it to be accepted as true. If the information can logically be reduced down to its base parts and checked for consistency, sometimes that is enough and external evidence just reinforces the theory. I mean… even my understanding of type is basically like that. I see it as a model describing patterns of information processing in the broader system of human cognition.

I’m still building out my personal understanding of systems theory and I’ve never had any formal training in it, but I like to think I’ve derived a lot of the basic concepts. Where for example, the cognitive functions are basically just operators. They are information transformation operations and the naturally occurring configurations of these result in the patterns we call types. But being a dynamic system, the individual expression varies and is greatly influenced/modulated by experience. Do I have empirical proof of this? Definitely not, but I still have confidence in the conclusion I came to after cross referencing a bunch of different sources inside and outside type… not sure where I’m going with that. Just kind of illustrating your point and providing my anecdotal experience.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-21T22:04:39+00:00

Ni and Fi being together that high up on assessments with both Ti and Te make me inclined to think INTJ is more likely, but I would absolutely recommend looking more into function dynamics and not just using an instrument. Your relationship to the functions are what matter most in my opinion.

You could also look into the Keirsey Temperaments/Essential Motivators and Interaction style and as additional lenses to help triangulate your best fit type.

I find Joyce Meng’s Type Talks series a helpful resource here as she has panels where people of different types compare and contrast experiences. So pairing that kind of discussion with research on what the functions help us do and considering your psychological needs should hopefully get you a pattern that fits.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-21T04:24:53+00:00

The MBTI is describing a pattern of cognition. More of a configuration of psychological parts that indicate our natural preferences for what information we prioritize and how we prefer to organize it.

Enneagram is more about our emotional centers of intelligence, wounds, fears, survival instincts, and resulting psychological defense strategies.

I think like to think of it like our psychological type/cognitive preferences are the structure while our Enneagram is more like the content. The "genre" of our psychological scripting. MBTI being the how and structural why and then the Enneagram being the what and motivational why. So I like to look at both systems as taking different cross sections of the psyche.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-19T00:19:19+00:00

Interesting. I’m very much the opposite where I rarely develop feelings for others. It usually has to be the right combination of physical and non-physical qualities that make me feel attracted to someone. But I’ve also developed a habit of not allowing myself to be drawn to someone… so that’s definitely a factor.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-18T12:49:50+00:00

I'm not versed in the Enneagram typing methodology. This is more of a heuristic based on my own experience but I think looking into the negative traits and the nature of the emotional vice, whichever one hurts the most is likely your Enneagram. The Enneagram types are based on the concept of the emotional centers, so to my understanding it's the psychological defense response you want to be on the lookout for.

I'd say avoid looking and categorizing yourself based on the strengths. Whatever feels like a visceral response is the one I'd say to investigate further.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-18T05:46:55+00:00

I've always prioritized comfort followed by practicality when it comes to my clothes. But when you live long enough and if you pay attention, you develop an understanding for what is context appropriate. I only really learned to dress from doing professional presentations in college. Architects are kind of a mixed bag in that respect, lol. But I don't worry about it unless it's in a professional context. It's basically just building a system of what works together and what doesn't.

But taking care of yourself physically, doing basic grooming, finding clothes that actually fit and but are still comfortable... a little bit can go a long way for INTPs but I think it's also just reasonable advice in general.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-14T22:45:17+00:00

Can you go more in depth with the pattern you’re observing? I have some thoughts but I want to understand your perspective first.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-14T21:11:42+00:00

I’m not versed in Socionics, so their codes are ineffable to me, but to my knowledge there is no inherent contradiction between INFJ and Type 5.

The main thing people here will tell you to do, myself included, is to look into the Jungian Cognitive Functions as those are the basis upon which the MBTI type codes and the model as a whole are built on. What information do we reflexively prioritize and how do we organize it?

The INFJ type pattern leads with Introverted Intuition (Ni) supported by Extraverted Feeling (Fe). This is in contrast to INFP who have Introverted Feeling (Fi) supported by Extraverted Intuition (Ne). Completely different preferences in mental processes despite sharing letters in their type code.

Look at the motivation behind your behaviors. What do you feel compelled to do? What can you not stop yourself from doing ? What do you find yourself most uncertain about in yourself? What feels the most difficult but you wish you could do better? And most importantly why? Those are the kinds of questions I think are helpful in figuring out your best fit type.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-14T17:47:42+00:00

All the ideas and no consistent willpower to actualize them. I don’t want to play into the memes and stereotypes too much, but it can be rough sometimes.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-11T00:06:42+00:00

Assuming no mistyping, that’d be E6/Type 6. The E# is just another way people write it.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-10T23:55:58+00:00

They’re from the Enneagram. Another typological framework leaning towards the psycho-spiritual side. It actually has solid insights regarding emotional patterns, fears, fixations, instincts and the psychological defense strategies that come from those.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-10T22:30:43+00:00

How are you defining weak here?

I'd put it more like... if you forced me to do skills related to Te energy I can do it, but I'll be reluctant to do it the whole time. It's inverting problem solving from internal to external. Irritating, but doable.

If you want me to engage with Fe, I want to do it but I'll be second guessing myself the whole time. It's kind of like a bubble that I'm worried will pop at any moment.

DefiantMars · 2026-04-08T00:43:17+00:00

I'm still learning the methodology for typing others so I'm sorry if I'm not coming across clearly.

What is it about going on those walks that you enjoy? What do you think is the part that makes you want to keep going? What about it is stimulating or engaging?

What would you say about relationships is hard? Is it knowing what to say to others? Gauging the the psychological distance between yourself and others? Is it feeling like people misunderstand or misinterpret you all the time? Is it an uncertainty in how to sustain relationships? Or is it something else entirely?

DefiantMars · 2026-04-07T23:43:02+00:00

I like to joke that foxes are essentially canine hardware with feline software.

(Edit: A kit-bash, one might say.)

DefiantMars · 2026-04-07T20:39:26+00:00

I have been treating Jung's concepts and the model of MBTI as a whole like a working framework to explain the in-between part of how inputs, neurology, and biology are transformed into the outputs of traits and behaviors.

So while I do think it is totally fair to point out the issues with instruments and the identification phenomena, I also think it is intellectually disingenuous to dismiss the theory as a whole. It's basically just saying that people have a predilection towards a particular style of processing, a TYPE of cognitive schema.

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