MBTI and Gender

[David Nelson]

Gender is often only an afterthought when different personalities and traits are discussed. Given that the cognitive functions and personalities are usually favouring the psychology of one sex or the other, how do people see this manifesting? For eg. is an INFJ male more cognitively feminine than an ENTJ female? As INFJs are supposed to be the best at reading people and females are supposed to be better at this than males, is an INFJ male better than most women at doing this or just similar?
I suspect gender and MBTI both play a big part in personality, but is it hard to disentangle them?

 

[Asa]

For eg. is an INFJ male more cognitively feminine than an ENTJ female?

No. This involves an entire discussion on gender studies I don't want to get into. Any class on gender studies, even thirty years ago, would explain why.

I suspect gender and MBTI both play a big part in personality, but is it hard to disentangle them?

MBTI does give percentages for males and females in their official results. For example, the male INFJ population is lower than the female population, and the label "rarest" applied only to the male population. Until recently, when ENTJ overtook INFJ as the rarest type, INTJ females were the rarest according to the official MBTI. INTJ males were more common than either INTJ females or INFJ males.

There could be a lot of reasons for this tied to gender politics, but gender politics describe a society's view of gender, not traits that occur in nature. This wouldn't be a discussion about MBTI.
The biggest flaw in MBTI is that people take the test on themselves so as long as our society views certain traits as gendered, people will choose those traits due to self-flattery. This doesn't mean, for example, that men are less empathetic or that people who believe they have empathy actually do. Societal pressures of different kinds weigh in as well. Being introverted was once considered a flaw. Now people boast about it and the newest results are showing a shift: an extroverted type is rarest now.

ENTJs are 1.8% of the population. 2.3% are men. 1.5% are women.
ENFJs are 2.2% of the population. 1.4% are men. 2.8% are women.
INFJs are 2.3% of the population. 1.4% are men. 3.1% are women.
INTJs are 2.6% of the population. 3% are men. 2.2% are women.
ENTP are 4.3% of the population. 5.1 are men. 3.6% are women.

After ENTP there is a big jump in the percent of the population for each type.
Currently, ENTJs are rarest overall, while INFJ men and ENFJ men are tied for rarest by sex. INFJ females aren't even close to "rarest".

 

[Wyote]

I don't think type is specifically tied to being "more" or "less" or "better" at any particular thing.
Generally there seems to be a leaning towards a preference of feminine and masculine balancing for Ni doms.
We try to manifest some sort of overall neutrality which is different from other types, generally.
Though probably this is more about going against convention in some way.
I think Ni doms mainly are system breakers, going against whatever injustices are perceived within the structure of existence.
So, as a society leans towards neutrality you will probably see Ni doms breaking away from that,
manifesting hyper femininity/masculinity or whatever other option seems to instill justice within the system.

INFJs all act different in nuanced ways, based on how their upbringing has painted their own perceptions.
Being Ni dom does allow some ease of fluidity in different ways. We are not beholden to structures or upholding traditions.
But we're also not about rocking the boat most of the time. It's only when we look around and see nobody else doing shit that we start to break/fix things.

 

[David Nelson]

I don't think type is specifically tied to being "more" or "less" or "better" at any particular thing.

Agree with all of your last post but this confused me. Isn’t that the whole point of type to define strengths and weaknesses?

 

[Wyote]

Agree with all of your last post but this confused me. Isn’t that the whole point of type to define strengths and weaknesses?

I think it defines the "strengths" and "weaknesses" of the cognitive functions, based on your own personal perceptions of your self and environment.
It's a good method of personal orientation, but leaves a lot out as far as the greater reality and truth of many things.
The better you understand reality, the more accurate and truly reflective of strength of cognitive traits your results will be.

That said, I think in psychology itself there are better markers for personal development than mbti.
We've only scratched the surface of the complexity of the human brain and mbti is a very simplistic snapshot of a few elements.
Though a very helpful one, for sure.

 

[aeon]

Agree with all of your last post but this confused me. Isn’t that the whole point of type to define strengths and weaknesses?

I never saw it that way, because I don’t tend to think of temperament in terms of being more or less than—just different.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Wyote]

temperament

There's the word I was looking for.
Agreed, mbti is about temperament, not ability.

 

[David Nelson]

I never saw it that way, because I don’t tend to think of temperament in terms of being more or less than—just different.

Cheers,
Ian

I see what you mean but I was asking about gender bias in relation to MBTI and gender. Not easy to quantity I admit but not impossible in theory at least. But if we compare the same cog function in different positions in the function stack, there is a qualitative and quantitative difference in how that function is manifested. It will also be affected by the other functions it is associated with.

 

[aeon]

I see what you mean but I was asking about gender bias in relation to MBTI and gender. Not easy to quantity I admit but not impossible in theory at least. But if we compare the same cog function in different positions in the function stack, there is a qualitative and quantitative difference in how that function is manifested. It will also be affected by the other functions it is associated with.

I think you’re onto something, but I’m not one to really consider it.

Your thread led to me taking a dozen online “guess my gender” tests, and my suspicion was confirmed. I am...

phenotype: male
genotype: confirmed XY
what do I think I am? a man
am I comfortable with that? yes, no lack of congruence
does my internal definition match my culture: I don’t think so
what do strangers think I am: male
what do friends think I am: a goof
what do silly online tests think I am: female, sometimes unsure
what do more clinically-rigorous tests think I am: decidedly female

So very many things are gendered in the world that don’t need to be, and it either makes no sense to me, or it leads to me becoming agitated.

Romance languages that gender inanimate objects—ffs. And the French—they do that, and only actually vocalize half of the glyphs used to represent their language in print. Very effed up, lulz.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[David Nelson]

I didn’t mean to get into the whole gender definition stuff. Was just wondering how MBTI varied with gender. I guess it’s complicated on top of the complexity of gender itself.
I have heard some say that differences in gender are not as great as many believe them to be. There are some obvious differences but beyond that more similarities and differences based on personality type.