8 ms·
Poll: Hacker News (Myers-Briggs) Personality Types
What is your Myers-Briggs personality type?
If you don’t know you can find out at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp or on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/my-type/.
For info on the types, check out profiles at http://www.personalitypage.com/portraits.html and http://typelogic.com/
I am interested to see how much we differ from the average population. The average #s appear in parenthesis after the choices, and were copied from http://www.geocities.com/lifexplore/stats.htm
Obviously only choose one type. (And none of the links above are associated with me in any way aside from the fact that I just copied and pasted them.)
- ynd 18y agoAccurate! I classified myself as INTP after reading the descriptions. My-Type classified me as INTP after I took the test.
- schtog 18y agoYOUR TYPE I N T P Strength of the preferences % 67 75 1 22 i dont get that. 1% thinking but yet RANK of FUNCTION FUNCTION ORIENTATION Dominant Thinking Introverted ( Ti ) Secondary iNtuition Extraverted ( Ne ) Tertiary Sensing Introverted ( Si ) Inferior Feeling Extraverted ( Fe ) The consequences of the orientation and rank of each of the four functions for the INTP type is described in turn below. thinking seems to be the most dominant of INTPs? i myself consider myself a thinker. maybe with a direction towards more practical means though rather than philospoher.
- DaniFong 18y agoENFP, though I really think this test is not as successful as it could be in percieving how we are in different situations. I've tested as ENTP and INTP too.
- dkokelley 18y agoI got INTJ Introverted: 44 Intuitive: 62 Thinking: 62 Judging: 11
- epi0Bauqu 18y agoI was an INTP in high school, and somewhere down the line became an INTJ.
- imp 18y agoInteresting. I've switched the other way. Although I don't think I actually changed at all. I used to think I was pretty organized, but I've come to realize I'm not and I'm more P than J.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- paulhart 18y agoIn theory these are default states - if external factors are removed, what would you revert to? I default to INTP but can ramp up the E as needed (and these days I need it more an more). I can mess with the other values too, but I/E is the easiest for me to play with.
- jwynia 18y agoI/E isn't as much about whether you are "outgoing" or "gregarious", etc. It's really more about whether you: * Process things internally/externally * Get energy from being with people or find being with people "draining" I'm also an I who has learned socially acceptable things like public speaking, participating in group discussions, etc. but a couple of hours in such a group and I'm exhausted while my E wife is energized.
- rglullis 18y agoPrecisely. I'm an Introvert but I can do things like public speaking, having a job interview or giving a lecture reasonably well. Also, I have no trouble to get into a circle of strangers and easily initiate a conversation - as long, of course, it is some kind of interaction where I think it is meaningful. But after some time interacting with people, I just want to go home, get back to the computer, a book, swim for an hour by myself, etc. On the other hand, I have a friend who is an Extrovert, but at the same time he is considerably shy. He craves interaction and is really cool with people that he knows, but it seems that he blocks whenever there is someone new in the room, or in a situation where people might judge him.
- MaysonL 18y agoThose are in increasing order of superiority, aren't they?<gd&r>[INFP]
- tokipin 18y agoi think Linus Torvalds is INFP
- joel512 18y agoINTP
- djworth 18y agoINTP
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- gmlk 18y agoINTP
- ComputerGuru 18y agoType-3 iNTj (44-50-50-22) I used to be an INTP (i think) in high school, but since then I've become a highly social, highly popular but really-geeky geek; which gave me the above score.
- pierrefar 18y agoHere's a trick: do the test twice, about 10-15 minutes apart. When I did, the strength percentages changed, but the actual type was constant. Interesting.
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y agoI went back and took the test again. For each question where I'd hesitated to choose between two options I took the option which I had not chosen the first time. What surprised me was that the type did not change, only the percentages. The description of my personality type (INTJ) was uncanny.
- icey 18y agoI've taken probably 30 of these tests over the years, from all sorts of different places; I've always come out as an INTJ.
- xlnt 18y agoI've gotten INFP, INTP in the past and INTJ (today). Silly thing can't even keep its story straight.
- gnaritas 18y agoINTP
- redorb 18y agoI think mine would change based on how I was feeling that day - does that make me bi polar?
- extantproject 18y agono.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- bigtoga 18y agoI'm ENTJ - just like Madonna and Whoopi Goldberg!
- dmix 18y agoCheck out this site for a quality description about your type. http://keirsey.com/handler.aspx?s=keirsey&f=fourtemps&tab=5&c=mastermind http://keirsey.com/handler.aspx?s=keirsey&f=fourtemps... I'm INTJ which is a Mastermind. Sounds exactly like me.
- tricky 18y agofor all you INTPs out there, have a look at this: http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html I was floored when I found that link. Describes me to a T.
- brl 18y agoI know what you mean. Reading INTP personality profiles online was a life changing experience for me. Suddenly everything made so much more sense.
- watmough 18y ago"Hence, it is common to see INTPs dabbling at many things, achieving competency, just enough to prove to themselves that they could become more proficient if they wished, but rarely actually bothering to refine their skills further. This is a point at which we begin to get a feel for the workings of iNtuition backing up Thinking. The INTP has a whole set of skills which he knows that he would be proficient at, yet other people may know little of this." Yes, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I read this. There's a great book by Radcliffe Hall called 'A Saturday Life' (Info on Radclyffe Hall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_Hall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_Hall) that should be of interest, and also some good pulp SciFi Fantasy that I found pretty comforting while I was growing up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Five_Magics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Five_Magics Master of the Five Magics by Lyndon Hardy about a hopeless wizard trainee.
- louislouis 18y agoWow! Took the test 5mins ago, found out I'm an INTP too. Now reading these comments and links is blowing my mind! lol
- axod 18y agoWhy? Millions of people behave similarly. I don't get why this is interesting... or surprising.
- bouncingsoul 18y ago
- petercooper 18y agoWow, pretty amazing. I test myself every year or two, and other than flipping from ENTP to INTP several years ago, it's been INTP ever since. I'm surprised just how many INTPs there are on here considering the supposedly low prevalence. FWIW, my wife is ESFJ, the polar opposite. It actually works out rather well. It's worth seeing what your SO is too, I wonder if that's a pattern.
- psiphlife 18y agoI'm INTP and my girlfriend is INTJ. I consider myself very lucky to have someone to relate to. We have a lot of the same habits -- e.g. we both stay up too late, are too stubborn, and we try to be completely honest with each other -- and usually this is nice, but sometimes we get carried away. For example, when we met four months ago, we almost completely ignored our school work in favor of getting to know each other. And for the past week we've been going to bed at 5am and waking up at noon. Ugh. :)
- ia 18y agoi'm intj and my wife is esfj. she's going to school to become a therapist, while i'm finishing a cs degree... talk about opposites. but, it works.
- petercooper 18y agoYou're not wrong there. Mine's a nurse! The way I see it, hopefully I can use my brains to bring in some cash while we're young, and she can care for me once I go senile in my 50s from stress.
- tricky 18y agoMy wife is ESFJ, too.
- kaens 18y agoI'm fairly certain that INTP is more the norm when looking at the set of people who would be interested in HN. (Well, obviously. I mean that the stereotypical programmer / hacker-in-the-classical-sense seems like they'd fall close to INTP)
- jaxn 18y agoI am an ENTP. E/I was only a 2 point difference, so I usually say I am an E/INTP. Another question, how many people actually were administered the actual Myers Briggs test vs a web survey or classroom activity? (I took the test via a career counselor 10 years ago).
- rglullis 18y agoWow. 30 points for INTP, 13 for INTJ while I'm writing this. The timing for this poll couldn't be better. Just yesterday I was wondering about three things: - How much of an INTP Paul Graham shows to be through his writing and his attitudes in regards to the development of Hacker News (both the software and the community). - How much of the "initial" community would be INTP. It seems to me that many people came here because of affinity. - Given that INTX are the least common group in the population (less than 5%), and given the way that PG is not willing to change the community "profile", this site is bound to have few users. Not because of elitism, but just because there isn't that many INTXs around!
- wheels 18y agoI've seen these run through various hacker communities in the past and INTJ is definitely the classical hacker, with INTP not too far behind. When testing in high school I tended to test INTP, but I've drifted towards ENTP and now tend to test as a pretty strong extrovert.
- STHayden 18y agomakes me feel a little weird being and INTJ Designer with marginal to crappy hacking ability. Yeay for feeling out of place.
- jkush 18y agoThese are interesting results. I'm an ENTP - which seems to me to be an extroverted version of INTP. If you lump those two together - it seems that the overwhelming people here are very, very similar.
- jonuts 18y agoi'm surprised there are so few extroverts here.. INTJ represent
- jmatt 18y agoI'm a ENTP and rarely post. I am right on the line between INTP/ENTP. I've seen people on the line refered to as an XNTP. I've taken the test a number of times over the years and always end up with the same type. I know I am, as more of an extrovert, just as likely to voice my opinions in any number of different ways. I think if anything this forum provides a way for introverts to voice their opinions.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- davo11 18y agothere are stacks but they're talking amongst themselves at the pub
- krs 18y agoNTs dominate technical fields and most engineers are INTPs, so these results are consistent with what I've seen before. I've learned that your position on the Introversion-Extraversion axis depends on your situation. I'm a lot more outgoing when I'm at work if I can get a few hours in the evening alone to recharge mentally. Oh, yeah. INTJ.
- josefresco 18y agoI got to 25 before I bailed .. what does that say about me? 72 questions you got to be kidding me.
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y agoAnswer the questions as quickly as you can. Your first impulsive response will be the most accurate.
- sah 18y agoMost accurate against what other measure? Has this been tested in some way, or is it just something people say?
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y agoGood question. Actually I'm not sure - I'm just repeating the advice my mother gave me when I asked her. She's a certified proctor for these sorts of things.
- marvin 18y agoAt least three different psychologists have told me that the instinctive response is supposed to be the right one. I think it has something to do with how these tests were developed. Keep in mind that personality tests like these are primarily intended to map out traits of a person's personality in preparation for some kind of psychotherapy. Maybe not so much for Myers-Briggs, I wouldn't know. But the scientific intent of these tests, if you could call it that, is simply to give your therapist an idea of when to start when trying to figure out some deeper issue. (Why you are miserable, unable to work, excessively anxious in specific situations etc.) For that purpose, personality tests are perfectly suitable.
- martythemaniak 18y agoI wonder how much of an overlap there is between the INTPs and INTJs. For example, I always score INTP on these tests, and yet the INTJ profile describes me far, far better.
- brl 18y agoYou really only need one question to test for INTP. Do you have a constant compulsive need to correct people for even very small errors in logical congruency regardless of the social consequences? Can you detect cognitive dissonance from like 100 meters away? Have you ever not really been listening to somebody but somehow still noticed that they contradicted what they just said two minutes ago? Have you already hit the 'reply' button to explain to me that four similar questions is not technically the same thing as one question?
- eru 18y agoNo, I won't explain this to you.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- Jesin 18y agoRead this: http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/light/organization.php http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/light/organization....
- brl 18y agoINTP poster boy here.
- xlnt 18y agoI scored 100 for introverted. Do I get a reward party?
- alaskamiller 18y agoYes. But only you're invited.
- Hexstream 18y agoIs it really acceptable to contract "you" and "are" in that sentence?
- justindz 18y agoMy mom is certified to deliver one of the official versions of the test. When I first took it in Middle School (well, used to be called Jr. High) I scored 1 point in the E column which is the courtesy point you get for being male. Therefore, the only way I could become more introverted would be to have been born a woman.
- sah 18y agoIt's instructive to read the prose about all of the types this test partitions people into. Do it before you see your results. Can you pick the one that describes you ahead of time? They're all flattering and describe experiences that I think most humans have at some point. The sense that something written for a very broad audience applies specifically to you can be deceiving. That's part of why horoscopes are popular. I came out as an ENTP this time (I've scored as an INTP and INFP in the past) but the profile for ISFP also describes characteristics I'd like to think I have. I'm suspicious of things like personality sorters. This one takes the more continuous and multifaceted range of human personality and quantizes it into four binary dimensions. Even assuming those categories represent some kind of tendency for human personalities to cluster around certain traits, are sorters like this helpful? Do they provide some genuine insight you didn't have before? Or are they just a more sophisticated variety of horoscope? You answer a bunch of vague and general questions, and get a vague and general answer. Your input is 72 bits, and the output is only 4 bits. Were those 4 bits really such a mystery to begin with? Would the results be different if the test just briefly described both categories for each dimension, and had you pick the one that sounded more like you? If you can pick your personality out beforehand by reading short descriptions of the personality types, what was the point of answering 72 questions? If you can't, are you still willing to accept that your type really describes you?
- tricky 18y agoWho's to say studying the personality types before taking the test won't influence your answers? For many there is quite a disconnect between who you are and who you _think_ you are. The difference is even greater between who you are and who you want to be. I'd bet people who read the prose before taking the test would alter their answers (even if subconsciously) to conform to who they want to be. Tests like these can help you gain valuable insight into your personality and may help you get a handle on others with whom you don't click. If you game the test, you totally miss out on any knowledge it may provide.
- sah 18y agoI'm not sure it really can help you gain valuable insight into your personality. Has anyone measured that value? Do people who have seen their Meyers-Briggs results do better in some measurable way from people who haven't?
- soundsop 18y agoI took a "leadership" course at work recently and it was all based on Meyers-Briggs and learning what your personality type is and how to deal with other personality types. The Meyers-Briggs test and the whole "ecology" around it seems to me a way for some subset of the business training industry to make a buck. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator#Criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator#Cri... for criticism of Meyers-Briggs.
- hs 18y agoINFP when i fall in love, INTP otherwise
- thorax 18y agoI've always tested as right on the border of INTP and ENTP with a slight lean towards the former.
- elad 18y agoHighest scores go to the NT's - ENTJ (20 points right now), ENTP (24), INTG (64) and INTP (71) together represent 76% of the total sample (179/235). It's not surprising though that hackers and entrepreneurs tend to be intuitives and thinkers. INTJ myself.
- sriram_sun 18y ago([E|I][S|N][F|T][J|P]) Doesn't matter. Go write Code!
- misterbwong 18y agoI'm an ENFP now, but the funny thing is I was an ISTJ in high school (about 7 years ago). Funny how a few years can change you.
- Spyckie 18y agowow. now THAT is quite some change. Can you be more explicit in what changed you so much? I'm transitioning now from an INFP to an ENFP, but that's only because I've found some people who I can feel comfortable socializing with.
- misterbwong 18y agoI'm not entirely sure, actually. I went through college, made some really good friends, and got involved in some campus clubs. Being around a lot of people really changed my focus outward.
- hawk 18y agothese two types are actually relatively similar (negatives of each other); they perceive and judge in the same manners but emphasize their parts in opposite orders
- mkn 18y agoBetween the Forer Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect), confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias), and the fact that people routinely retest into different categories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs#Study_of_scoring_consistency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs#Study_of_scoring_c...), I don't place much stock in Myers-Briggs. Add to that the dubious way in which the theory was developed, and I'm completely mystified by the appeal of this system to so-called hackers. It just seems like you could take any 4 either/or categories and have a test that's equally valid. Do you like apples or bananas? Wear corrective lenses or not? Like dogs or cats? Rent your home or own your home? (I'm ACDR, for the record. My type is particularly rare, yet makes up a majority of CEOs and start-up founders. Yay, me!) Can we please put a stop to this nonsense?
- Alex3917 18y ago"It just seems like you could take any 4 either/or categories and have a test that's equally valid." The categories used by the Big Five were actually created using empirical research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Consensus_on_the_Big_Five http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Con...
- nostrademons 18y agoOkay, then on that note, what's everyone's Big Five personality test score? There's an online inventory at: http://www.personalitytest.net/ipip/ipipneo120.htm http://www.personalitytest.net/ipip/ipipneo120.htm Mine is 10 (3-4-4-70-17-57) / 73 (70-61-33-80-74-63) / 43 (52-33-41-35-26-80) / 41 (12-20-53-89-48-28) / 67 (81-50-5-38-87-87) in test order (that's Extraversion/Agreeableness/Conscientiousness/Neuroticism/Openness). Interestingly, that seems like it's about the worst possible personality for an entrepreneur, with super low scores in all the extraversion categories, high cautiousness, high self-consciousness, low self-discipline and adventurousness.
- Alex3917 18y ago
- dmose 18y agoENTJ ...amazed at how accurate the profile is
- cheponis 18y agoYes, just like a horoscope!
- jwesley 18y agoSo I guess this means that most smart, ambitious people are INT
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- jhrobert 18y agoINTP last time I checked.
- mattdennewitz 18y agoINTJ. type loudly, speak boldly on occassion ;)
- rms 18y agoI'm an ENTP but I am very close to the borders for E/P
- ccwu 18y agoINTP
- poppysan 18y agoINTJ - is this good or bad? I am interested now to find out what everyone else is.
- rsheridan6 18y agoFeature request: display poll results as histograms.
- DougBTX 18y agoWhat's up with the percentages? Zero points gets 13%, 6% or 5% depending on the answer, while 122 points gets 1%, and 133 points gets 1%. I'm intrigued to know what the logic behind the percentages is, considering the solution is so simple (points/total*100) I'd love to know how the code was developed to get it so spectacularly wrong. (It's probably the same code which gives you an "Unknown or expired link" message when you try and make a post after reading comments for more than five minutes... get those Reddit guys over here to sort this out!)
- dill_day 18y agoI am interested to see how much we differ from the average population. The average #s appear in parenthesis after the choices, and were copied from http://www.geocities.com/lifexplore/stats.htm
- Jesin 18y agoThe percentages have nothing to do with the results of this poll; they're the percentages for the population in general.
- Jesin 18y agoI've actually been thinking about this a lot lately, and I was glad to see it posted here. This poll also seems to have initiated (in my opinion) some of the best discussions I've seen on this board in a while. Although some polls and "Ask HN"s can be a bit stupid, the good ones are really good. So, yeah, I'm an INTP. I've lately been acting a bit more E than usual, but I'm still definitely I (am all I am). (Why oh why didn't Common Lisp abbreviate integerp?)
- tigerthink 18y agoIMO this site is better for diagnosis. With the yes or no one, I find myself second-guessing the questions. http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html#Inventory http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html#Inven...
- rockstar9 18y agoI wonder why most people are INTP or INTP. I wonder if this says something about entrepreneurs in general or just cs/internet entrepreneurs.
- gruseom 18y agoMyers-Briggs used to annoy me because there were always a lot of questions I could go either way on. The third time I took it I figured out what to do. I divided my answers into two columns. Anytime I had an unambiguous answer, I'd put it in both columns, but if I felt split I'd put opposite answers in each column. I was curious as to whether this would yield interesting results, and it did: I got a 50/50 split in two of the variables (that is, I'm evenly matched in IE and TF), and an extreme bias in the other two (I'm about as N and P as you can get). This matches how I feel about myself pretty well. I found another amusing way to verify the approach: if you combine the opposites to my extremes you get SJ, and the SJs turn out to be my arch-enemies. I read the description of SJ and it makes me squirm and think, why would anybody be like this? These people are neurotic bureaucrats. The world would be better off without them! Edit: I'm joking, of course. SJ is so much my polar opposite that I have a hard time understanding or empathizing with them. I just find it ironically hilarious to read a typology that's designed to foster understanding and find myself dismissing 1/16 of humanity as basically adding no value. Edit 2: As of this moment, the SJs are less than 3% of the respondents to the poll. Evidently I've come to the right place. :)
- davo11 18y agoThat is an amazing result, though not surprising when you think about it, few developers are serious extroverts,though if you're NT and an extrovert it is conceivable. you need to be intuitive to develop large software apps, It is difficult to make software by feeling you need to think and both perception versus judging could be considered valid and useful ways to make software. Most developers would be NT and indeed INT. If nothing else this does seem to indicate there is some validity in the myers briggs tests. The total lack of S versus N is also fascinating. (for reference I started life as an INTP when I first did this 20 years ago, a few years ago I was an INTJ, now today I'm an INFJ, not sure what this means, maybe I'm mellowing with age)
- axod 18y agoThis is only one step away from astrology surely.
- mtrimpe 18y agoINFJ (44/88/62/11) ... I'm the rarest type of all! Quite amazing that there are 21 others like me already. Want to hook up? ;)
- antirez 18y agoI did the test and resulted to be ENFP, and I'm shocked how much the description matched what I really think and how I'm! There was even the detail that I hate bureaucracy so much. Pretty impressive.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- toufique 18y agoAbout as INTP as INTP gets. I'm going to claim that INTP is the optimal personality type ;P