Indicated

You Are An ENTP

The Visionary You are charming, outgoing, friendly. You make a good first impression. You possess good negotiating skills and can convince anyone of anything. Happy to be the center of attention, you love to tell stories and show off. You're very clever, but not disciplined enough to do well in structured environments. In love, you see everything as a grand adventure. You enjoy taking risks for love. And if things don't work out, you're usually not too much worse for the wear! You would make a great entrepreneur, marketing executive, or actor. At work, you need a lot of freedom to pursue your own path and vision. How you see yourself: Analytical, creative, and peaceful When other people don't get you, they see you as: Detached, wishy-washy, and superficial

What's Your Personality Type?

The Myers Briggs personality indicator isn't for everyone. People seem to like it or hate it. Some view it as scientific. Others view it with the same suspicion they have toward astrological horoscopes because their results were wholly inaccurate, or they're one of those people who're lost through the cracks between each category. It's interesting. The dislike toward being put into a box seems almost universal. So why aren't we universally unboxed?

As someone who hasn't yet decided on a set career path, I see Myers Briggs testing as a tentative guide. Here are some of the things I noticed. The following is something that caught my eye as I surfed my way on the topic to an indicator on an American university's homepage:

All Thinking-type women swim upstream in society, and this can be especially problematic for ENTP women. When the ENTP's objectivity presents itself in an enthusiastic, witty, competitive, argumentative woman, she is not likely to endear herself to most men. The ENTP female frequently has a struggle with the traditional female "scripts" that call for a given behavior at a given time. It is the nature of all ENTPs to test the limits of any system or person, especially traditional ones.

Thanks for the warning.

What I noticed in the taking of Myers Briggs test is that I've scored both INTP and ENTP on different quizzes. Then I realized the significance of it. It depends largely on how the questions are posed. While an individual is in full control whether they are iNtuitive or Sensory, Thinking or Feeling, and Perceiving or Judging, he or she loses some degree of agency when it comes to interpersonal relationships, or how Introverted versus Extroverted is decided. The quiz, depending on how it phrases the questions, can decide that for you. There is a significant difference between your level of outgoingness and the ways in which other people react to you in a social situation.

For instance, I can answer a solid No to Are you shy? and definite Yes to Have people ever told you that you were shy?

I may be disinterested in smalltalk, or occupied at the moment, but I am definitely not shy. To decide you know the inner workings of someone you actually barely know, among all other alternatives, really requires a person to be quite presumptuous. And it obviously suggests too much emphasis on superficial appearances. This shouldn't be taken into account in a quiz, and in the real world, it shouldn't be the reason why you weren't promoted to a leadership position due to your race and sex. I am certainly not cautious and fearful simply because my genetic code of a southern Chinese ancestry decided my height was quite alright, thank you, at five-foot-oh.

Comparing the other traits listed for INTP and ENTP, I can say I've consistently found those listed under ENTP to be more accurate. The people I encounter in my life have associated introverted traits with me more than they have extroverted traits. Sheer irony lies in the fact that such assumptions could only come from people that don't know me all that well. Extroverts are actually distinguished from introverts by having a wide network of acquaintances and only a handful of people they consider close. Introverts are said to have fewer friends but to enjoy tighter bonds with the few they do have. So it's not that surprising that there would be separate repeating instances of people mislabeling me. Consider how the stereotypes surrounding Asian women could come into play too.

Of course, this was something I've realized independently. Comparing the results only strengthened this conviction. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that something is amiss when people mistake you for someone else all the time. It's like, What gives? If you've lost your pet Harajuku in Gwen Stefani's cloning laboratory, get off your ass and find her. She's not here.

Now, being an ENTP, I'm not surprised I'm naturally skilled at identifying racism in people's reactions to my physical presence and rebelling against that form of racism among others. Knowing this makes me concerned for people of colour who can't read subtle hints in everyday exchanges, or those driven to internalize the racism instead of seeing passive-aggressive slights as what they are and deflecting them away. I am especially concerned when the whitewashed "accepted" definition of racism often proves to be oversimplified and of little use to people of colour trying to defend themselves on a micro level.