real people

Homer Hickam: ENFP

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Guest Post by Jessica Prescott, INFJ

October Sky

Dominant Extroverted Intuition (Ne): Homer Hickam is nothing if not a dreamer. He loves new ideas, hates to be cooped up in a small mining town, and, more than anything, longs for a glimpse of the “outside world.” His original (and strongest) motivation to carry out his rocketry project is not a desire to understand how rocket science works, but simply a romantic fascination with the mere idea of rocketry—the idea that human beings can be capable of sending objects up into space. He isn’t shy about sharing his dreams with others, either, but is perfectly willing to blurt out his latest plan at the breakfast table: “I’m gonna build a rocket.” One of Homer’s greatest assets is his optimism—his ability to see possibilities where others see only obstacles. Even though no student from Coalwood has ever won the science fair before, Homer is firmly convinced that he and his friends can pull it off—and he manages to convince them to believe it, too.

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Tyler Hoechlin: ESFP

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Guest post by Occam’s Chainsaw, INTJ —http://systematicthinker.wordpress.com

Tyler Hoechlin ESFP | Actors #MBTI #ESFP

Se: The first thing you recognize about Hoechlin is how utterly physical he is—and by this, I’m not referring to how athletic he looks. I mean how conscious you are about all of his movements, even the small ones. While talking, he engages his whole body in the conversation or in what he’s saying, and there won’t be a moment where he’s just sitting/standing without doing much of anything else; he will either be stepping around, shifting his weight from one leg to another, move his head, smile, gesture with his arms, scratch, make wide movements, wiggle his eyebrows, etc all the time. His eyes are always wide and alert-looking, like he’s constantly scanning his environment for little clues, to suck up as many information as possible from there. He seems to be invested in his surroundings and aware of every small detail of it. He’s clearly an opportunist, willing to try out new things for the experience—according to him, at the age of 8-9, he was offered a role in a commercial and he thought, “why not, that would be fun”. His dominant Se plays a role in the way he acts/depicts characters; e.g. he unconsciously made Derek Hale’s character extremely physical, to the extent that it could be hard for typers who go for stereotypes/are inexperienced/beginners to tell apart Derek’s dom Te from his tert Se, because Hale’s character is also a very strong Se user. Hoechlin’s biggest passion has always been baseball. Continue reading →

Let’s be Real: One INFJ to the Rest of Mankind

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Guest post by Heather, INFJ

I’d like not only to dispel some of the myth and mist surrounding the INFJ legend today, but to cast some light and provide some entertainment as well. There are some frequently repeated assumptions (aka stereotypes) regarding INFJs that have been circulating internet-land for years. These legends affect non-INFJs, it’s true, but they also have a tendency to inform INFJs’ opinions of themselves. It’s the power of suggestion. Particularly when there is a grain of truth to a stereotype, it is both easy and agreeable to say, “oh yes, that’s me,” so long as the stereotype is positive or comical or gives us an excuse for our bad habits.

One of these assumptions that INFJs love to claim for their own is being psychic, otherworldly narwhalicorns. It’s kind of an attractive idea to have about oneself. Particularly when one has felt like something of an alien amongst other humans for most of one’s life, and when one is actually quite clever at reading people. So, let’s be real: INFJs very often know a substantial amount of information about you that they don’t let on to, because first and foremost, they want you to be comfortable with them. No one feels very comfortable if they think you’re aware of their motivations and inner life. So then, where did this mysterious cache of information come from, you may ask. First, INFJs are simply very attuned to people in general. Se is our inferior function, but it is still a function. Because we are sort of ‘set’ to the people wavelength, that is the information we tend to pick up a lot of. This information is fed into our Ni (dominant function), which recognizes patterns and themes and can extrapolate accurate readings based on very little data. Add to this that I at least (sorry guys, I don’t know any INFJs in real life besides myself) amuse myself by studying personality theory, graphology, and Chinese face reading so that I can know even more about every specimen that crosses my path unsuspectingly. Continue reading →

Douglas Adams: ENTP

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Guest post by Emily, INFP

Douglas Adams ENTP | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #MBTI #ENTP

Ne: Douglas Adams had a lot of different interests and was very enthusiastic about them. His storylines are kind of random and sometimes hard to follow. He liked traveling and liked America because of the openness of the culture. Sometimes he was clumsy. He thought life and everything was amazing because of the improbability of it.  Continue reading →

Connor Franta: INFP

Arvid Walton 2 Comments

Official typing, by Arvid Walton

Connor Franta INFP | The Book Addict's Guide to MBTI #MBTI #INFP

Fi: Connor is a genuinely nice person who is deeply affected by acts of cruelty or unkindness. He cares about other people and has a sincere desire to help them, and this is part of the reason that he shares much of his personal life with the public. Furthermore, he has pursued many a project to help people in developing countries (Ex. his Thirst Project to help fund water wells for people in Swaziland). Connor stays true to his own beliefs and principles regardless of what other people think o Continue reading →

J.K. Rowling: INFJ

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Guest post by Danielle, INTJ

Factors to Keep in Mind: Clinical Depression

J.K. Rowling INFJ | Harry Potter #MBTI #INFJ

Ni: With a passion for folklore and imagination, Rowling aspired to be a writer since she was 5 or 6 years old. She has scores of stories in mind, willing to wait years to write all of them. She mentions that once an idea pops into her head it floods her mind. In her account of creating Harry Potter while on a train, she described it as “an explosion of color, and… could see lots of detail about the world.” She hates small talk, preferring to learn about others’ differing opinions and fee Continue reading →

Lucien Carr: ISFP

Arvid Walton 7 Comments

 Kill Your Darlings

Lucien Carr ISFP | Kill Your Darlings #MBTI #ISFP

Introverted Feeling (Fi):  Lucien Carr was a rebellious, anti-establishment youth who detested commonality and tradition. Oft times, he was rebellious just for the sake of being differing from the norm, but also to make a statement against living a life that wasn’t your own. “Lu” Carr, as he was known, had a profound influence on everyone with whom he associated, among them, Allan Ginsberg, whom he taught all manner of crass vocabulary. Continue reading →

Leonardo da Vinci: ENTP

Arvid Walton

Leonardo da Vinci ENTP | The Book Addict's Guide to MBTI #ENTP

Dominant Extraverted Intuition (Ne): Leonardo da Vinci was a man of many ideas and of equally many talents. He was constantly devising new machines, and experimented so much with chemicals in his paintings that many of them have deteriorated more rapidly than much older paintings. Da Vinci’s imagination so outstripped current technology that he was unable to build many of the machines he designed (though people today can look at his diagrams and construct accurately, the things that he designed without having ever set foot in our era). Leonardo connected all of his major paintings to theoretical concepts, including the mathematical theories of Vetruvius and the revival of Platonic ideals that was occurring during his time period.

Auxiliary Introverted Thinking (Ti): Da Vinci was was well known for getting so distracted by his ideas that he failed to finish the projects he was working (including those projects he had been commissioned to complete). Da Vinci enjoyed erasing the lines that separated the arts and the sciences. His work is innovative, but also mathematical, scientific. In effort to achieve anatomical realism, he sought out cadavers, which he frequently dissected in order to understand them. Da Vinci was constantly challenging himself, both in the arts, and in the sciences.

Tertiary Extraverted Feeling (Fe): One thing that still fixates art historians on da Vinci’s work was his attention to psychological realism within his portraiture. He gives many of his characters and sitters expressions of ambiguity, but also of realistic emotional states. Leonardo da Vinci maintained an outlook of optimism throughout his life, but did not ponder much on the state of his feelings in his writings.

Inferior Introverted Sensing (Si): Da Vinci built upon the ideas of painters who lived before him. He practiced sketching the great masters and then improved upon their work with his own discoveries. Da Vinci was the type of painter who would get attached to paintings and not want to relinquish them (he did not give the Mona Lisa to the patron who commissioned it, but instead, kept it with him for the remainder of his life).

Louis Zamperini: INFP

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Unbroken

Louis Zamperini Unbroken ENFP

Fi: As a teenager, Zamperini isolated himself from his classmates and put up a tough front to hide the misery he felt inside. Running gave him a way to deal with his feelings and helped him to develop principles that came to define the rest of his legacy. He was always a bit rebellious and liked to define his own morality, rather than relying on Continue reading →

Christopher Nolan: INTJ

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Christopher Nolan INTJ | The Book Addict's Guide to MBTI #INTJ

Ni: His films function as both entertainment and symbolism extreme. They all have strong moral messages He plans his work long term before he ever actually starts working on them as movies. For instance, he planned and wrote Inception for 10 whole years before he got to work filming it. His films are just as much about complex ideas and trying to confuse people as they are about complex characters. All of his movies are puzzles, just as complicated for audiences to figure out as they are for the characters in them. Continue reading →

J.R.R Tolkien: ISTJ

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Guest post by E.J., INTJ

J.R.R. Tolkien ISTJ | The Book Addict's Guide to MBTI #ISTJ

Introverted Sensing (Si): Tolkien’s mother died when he was eight years old, and his memory of her motivated him throughout his adult life. Since her family had abandoned her after her conversion to Catholicism, and her health had subsequently deteriorated, Tolkien considered her a martyr. Her memory was part of the reason why Tolkien became such a staunch Catholic. Continue reading →

C.S. Lewis: INTJ

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Guest post by E. J., INTJ

C.S. Lewis INTJ | The Book Addict's Guide to MBTI

Dominant Ni: C. S. Lewis had a relatively narrow set of interests, primarily focusing on academic topics and especially medieval and Renaissance literature. A high school tutor told Lewis’s father that Lewis could become a scholar, but little else. Symbolism was important to Lewis: his favorite genres of literature (epic poetry, fantasy, and science fiction) were filled with it. He infused a great deal of very blunt symbolism (NiTe) into his own fictional works, especially the Chronicles of Narnia. Many of his other works are philosophical in nature, and C.S. Lewis was fond of discussing ideas with the Mastermind group that he engineered as a college student (the organisation part of this would be Te). Continue reading →

Elly Jackson: ISFP

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Elly Jackson ISFP | The Book Addict's Guide to MBTI #ISFP

Introverted Feeling (Fi): Elly is private about her personal life and lives a completely different lifestyle at home than she does on stage. She often flatly refuses to answer personal questions and says that La Roux is a character that is very different from herself. Her tendency to internalise stress leaves her with physical health problems such as the throat paralysis that caused her lengthy hiatus. Elly’s more recent work is honest and personal.
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Amanda Palmer: ENFP

Arvid Walton 3 Comments

Amanda Palmer ENFP | The Book Addict's Guide to MBTI #ENFP

Extraverted Intuition (Ne): Amanda Palmer doesn’t like to exclude possibilities when she gives explanations and she tends to be accepting of most every type of art she comes across. She sees potential in most everyone and doesn’t believe in tearing other people down with hate or words. She places strong value on maintaining a positive attitude and enjoying the art she creates. She believes Continue reading →