The Naked Blogger

Swedish scientists, no doubt using scads of EU money, have just invented the "Typealyzer," which analyzes your entire blog in 2 seconds and tells you what sort of personality you have. Here is the result for German Joys:

INTP - The Thinkers

The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

The "INTP" is an abbreviation for one set of results of the Meyers-Briggs Personality Inventory. Like Kevin Drum, I have taken this psychological test before and found it depressingly accurate. INTP means I am an "Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving" type. Here are the good sides of INTPs:

INTPs value knowledge above all else. Their minds are constantly working to generate new theories, or to prove or disprove existing theories. They approach problems and theories with enthusiasm and skepticism, ignoring existing rules and opinions and defining their own approach to the resolution. They seek patterns and logical explanations for anything that interests them. They're usually extremely bright, and able to be objectively critical in their analysis. They love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. They love to discuss these concepts with others. They may seem "dreamy" and distant to others, because they spend a lot of time inside their minds musing over theories. They hate to work on routine things - they would much prefer to build complex theoretical solutions, and leave the implementation of the system to others. They are intensely interested in theory, and will put forth tremendous amounts of time and energy into finding a solution to a problem with has piqued their interest.

Sounds great!  I'm feeling pretty good about my "extremely bright" self, until I get to the many horrible drawbacks:

The INTP has no understanding or value for decisions made on the basis of personal subjectivity or feelings. They strive constantly to achieve logical conclusions to problems, and don't understand the importance or relevance of applying subjective emotional considerations to decisions. For this reason, INTPs are usually not in-tune with how people are feeling, and are not naturally well-equiped to meet the emotional needs of others.

The INTP may have a problem with self-aggrandizement and social rebellion, which will interfere with their creative potential. Since their Feeling side is their least developed trait, the INTP may have difficulty giving the warmth and support that is sometimes necessary in intimate relationships. If the INTP doesn't realize the value of attending to other people's feelings, he or she may become overly critical and sarcastic with others. If the INTP is not able to find a place for themself which supports the use of their strongest abilities, they may become generally negative and cynical. If the INTP has not developed their Sensing side sufficiently, they may become unaware of their environment, and exhibit weakness in performing maintenance-type tasks, such as bill-paying and dressing appropriately.

"Self-aggrandizement"? "Social rebellion?" "Overly critical and sarcastic"? I thought those were features, not bugs! I'm beginning to think this part of the profile was written by my ex-girlfriends. But wait, it's not all cold, sarcastic eccentricity:

The INTP is usually very independent, unconventional, and original. They are not likely to place much value on traditional goals such as popularity and security. They usually have complex characters, and may tend to be restless and temperamental. They are strongly ingenious, and have unconventional thought patterns which allows them to analyze ideas in new ways. Consequently, a lot of scientific breakthroughs in the world have been made by the INTP.

The INTP is at his best when he can work on his theories independently. When given an environment which supports his creative genius and possible eccentricity, the INTP can accomplish truly remarkable things. These are the pioneers of new thoughts in our society.

Ahh, that's more like it. Hate me, love my ideas!

Comments

[Michaelandreas]

The good ol' Myers-Briggs party game! How nice! And they apply it to a complete blog within 2 seconds!

Since a good deal of your blog consists of citations I assume the typological description they assigned to it (if it was not chosen by chance, as I suppose) does not apply to you but instead to Max Goldt, Franz Kafka & Al Quaida.

[Ralph Noble]

Well, imagine if you had been stigmatized as something anal-compulsive like "ISTJ - The Duty Fulfiller" (one of the Typealyzer personality types). How could you have ever lived that down?

You do have an emotional-creative side, as shown by your many postings on the fine arts.

Perhaps that's what brought you to Europe, the traditional refuge of the American artist. After the long slog through law school, then the even longer forced march through a law office, after the many years of being pressed into the mold of the cold, hard-edged, objective, analytical, "we murder to dissect" intellectual, it was time for you to leave behind that barren wasteland and to explore the finer, aesthetic things of life.

Shameless speculation on my part, of course.

[Don]

I'm very dsappointed in you, Andrew. With a attention-grabbing headline like that the least you could do is provide a photo....

[Alexandra]

I am an ENTJ and suspect my husband being an INTP. Difficult personalities, but what would we do without them?

[Golden Gorse]

Shit, this all sounds very familiar.