#I'm fine with exaggeration but be minimally accurate

[envolvenuances]

anticomunism will have some of you making the stupidest memes...

besides opposition to the sex trade being a basic non negoatiable principle for radical/authoritarian leftists. I'm honestly fascinated by the idea we don't have families and lineages so many gringos have seemed to have formed. or that we don't value labour. I know actual radical leftists are hard to find in the global north nowadays to the point you all convinced yourselves social democrats are left but c'mon.

[idealnerds]

Hi! I had a question about something I'm confused on I've heard that the Myers Briggs types don't change at all through our lifetime but I've seen ENFP answer on here that they DO change, and I looked it up and I actually did find a few people that said they somtimes can, but I guess I just wanted some clarification on what you guys think of that because I know the theory still says they don't? Idk, I just never heard that they can until now and I just want to know the argument behind it. Thx!!

Hello, Anon! Of course I can clarify! I expected we might get this question sometime eventually. So first off…

WARNING: This may be a long post. Disclaimer!: Neither of us are MBTI experts by any means, and are just hobbyists. I am currently studying psychology with the intent of becoming a therapist in the future, and a lot of my focus has been on personality theories. I THINK that in the past I may have misspoken on some of our questions and maybe said something like types can change “all the time,” or some junk, but hey, I’m an ENFP, and sometimes I mindlessly exaggerate, so I’ll smack myself on the wrist for that one, and will be better about it in the future. I am one of the people on the side of the argument that types can change, however, I think they change very rarely for people, and I think that more often than not, the maximum times that you might change type in your life is like, twice. Likely after reaching maturity, and then maybe much later after reaching old age. But I believe that most people, once their personalities develop, likely stay the same until, well they stop living. I also do not think that our types can change drastically, but one letter may shift at a time. It’s probably impossible that you would ever move from ENFP to ISTJ in one life period. Now, the Myers Briggs theory does state that the types do not change, but here’s the thing: MBTI Theory is A) never 100% accurate, and B) still just a theory. Myers and Briggs were simply theorists, and developed a theory. They did not discover a fact, and sadly they did not do their research within a large spectrum of people, but smaller groups that they had constant access to. Therefore they could not study a wide range of people with vast possibilities of experiences that might effect their personality. Because personality type is not an exact science, there is never a way of knowing for certain what is possible when it comes to our cognition. 

This being said, time and experience both have huge effects on our cognition whether we like it or not. Just puberty and menopause (and whatever the male equivalent of that is) have the capability of changing our perspectives, and traumatic experiences can do a WHOPPER on the mind. Mental illness can change our physiology, a well as trauma, and over time these things can erode our minds to take different shapes when it comes to reaction and complex thought. These variables can subtly effect our personalities, and over time, might cause them to change a bit, which can effect us in subtle ways until our types shift. For the third part of my argument, I will explain a conversation I had a few years ago with a friend of mine who is a mathematician and studied statistics and percentages a lot during his time in school. It should be noted that this guy hates Myers Briggs and thinks it’s a load of malarkey, but he brought up some good points with me when we spoke. The MBTI is based on a long list of percentages, and a limited list at that. With only 75ish questions, the idea behind perfectly understanding someone’s cognition is very minimal in the huge spectrum of the mind and how it functions. On top of this, because calculations are developed through percentages of these questions, it means that the data given have the ability to fluctuate. If your percentages can change over time, then mathematically, your type has the potential to eventually change as well. All this being said, I will very willingly state that none of this means that I am CORRECT in my opinion regarding personality change. There are many other variables regarding this subject that I am likely not education on, that may prove my thoughts on it wrong. To be totally honest, my INTJ might even disagree with me, and that’s fine. However, when someone comes to our blog and questions if their type may be changing, it feels very wrong of me to say “Nah, your personality type will never change, you’re gonna be the same until death,” because, as a future psychologist, it feels arrogant. I have too much respect for the brain to put it in a box. So this is currently where I stand on it, and I am totally open to having my mind changed, but here are a few last thoughts from yours truly.

I have spoken with a few psychologists who believe that Myers Briggs types are solid and never change, but when I probed a little bit and said “Really, never?” they said the one thing that any experienced psychologist would say and responded with, “When it comes to psychology, never say never.” The mind behind the personality is such an amazing and complex thing with lots of variables that effect it, and I just… man I love it so much.

I hope this mops up some confusion for you, Anon. - The ENFP