I am an ENFP in case you couldn’t tell: alert, hyperbolic, and prone to paranoia. I’ve taken the Myers-Briggs personality test several times, and if you haven’t you should. Even if you think it’s no better than astrology as one of my humbug friends says. I’ve been on another Myers-Briggs kick so I thought I’d share this with you. If you’ve been coming to my site for a while this comes as no surprise. I am a textbook example of an ENFP. From Keirsey.com:
While the shy, seclusive Monastics (Myers’s “INFPs”) devote themselves largely to cultivating inner purity, the high-spirited Advocates (Myers’s “ENFPs”) turn their energies outward to investigate the public world and to develop their social awareness. Keirsey calls the Advocates “keen and penetrating observers,” who “can’t bear to miss out on what is going on around them.” And he has referred to them both as “Apocalyptics” and “Heralds” because of their fervent desire to spread the news of their experience of good and evil.
Brimming with life, Advocates live more spontaneously “in-the-flesh” than Monastics, and at first glance they can be rather easily mistaken for Artisans. But more than simply seeking the excitement of new experiences, Advocates are interested in understanding the significance of things, and more than simply taking people as they find them, Advocates care about nurturing ethical and sympathetic social relationships. To be sure (and unlike the impulsive Artisans), Advocates are serious and conscientious in their relationships, wanting to nourish human potential and to awaken what they believe to be the latent morality in their fellow-men. In a word, Advocates are romantic in their relation to the real world, seeing high drama in their quest for life, and hearing an irresistible call to enlighten those around them.
Although Advocates are thus more public-minded than the Monastics, and more confident in dealing with people, they are only slightly more directive in their private interactions. Like all the Idealists, Advocates want harmony above all else in their personal relationships, and they are far more inclined to “re-form” their loved ones by presenting them with information than by giving them commands. Nevertheless, Advocates can be quite coercive in their role-informative style of defining relationships. Advocates delight in free discussions of current issues — they burn with convictions and bubble with meaningful details, yearning to unveil what they believe to be the “true story” of significant events. At times, Advocates will champion a cause with such zeal that they can be carried away with the rightness of their position, and find themselves preaching to their friends and loved ones, trying fervently to convince them of their point of view. Indeed, in their penchant for investigating and reporting “the truth,” Advocates can quite easily strain their relationships by reading too much into their loved ones’ behavior, by over-interpreting the hidden meanings in their loved ones’ words, and by overstating their own romantic views as apocalyptic revelations.
So, basically, I’m crazy. Crazy like a fox!