Temperament

I just took the Kiersey Temperament Sorter test and discovered that I seem to have flipped very decidedly from one quadrant to another — NT to NF. I’m wondering if that’s supposed to happen?

I was thinking it might just reflect a shift in values that’s taken place in the past few years, but maybe a shift in values is part of a shift in temperament.

Of course, I’ve spent my whole adult life moving myself into the perfect job for an INTP — computer programmer. I don’t know what INFPs are supposed to do. Kiersey calls them “Healers.” He says Albert Schweitzer, George Orwell, and Lady Diana are amongst them.

My general impression is that the ideal INFP career path would be healing injured baby animals.

3 thoughts on “Temperament”

  1. The ideal INFP job is designing salutary roleplaying games.

    Years ago I scored an INXP result on the Kiersey. (It’s what you get if your F and T scores are exactly equal, and then they tell you to use the INFP profile.) And I bet I’m more F these days.

    Paul

  2. I’ve been identified as an INFP by no less august an institution than the chaplain’s office of the 51st Signal Battalion (Airborne), Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.

    My ideal situation seems to be working in a home office where none of my coworkers can feel the overwhelming emanations of compassion and tenderness I put off. Sometimes I cry. When the loneliness gets to me, I go find the neighbor’s cat, dip him in a washtub full of high viscosity motor oil, then put on a parka and pretend I’m part of the post-Valdez cleanup effort. The cat struggles, and that makes me cry even more. But then he’s clean and I feel better. I tag him and set him free.

    What I do for work in my home office seems to be irrelevant.

    Career paths I tried that didn’t work (not in chronological order):

    paratrooper, high school database administrator, paid Linux zealot, vacuum cleaner salesman

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