interpreting your function test results

Disclaimer: This page serves to help you understand the meaning behind your responses. If
you truly understand typology and its merits, I think you'll find the information provided
here—not the results on the function test—to be revealing of your test-taking habits.
Before we start, however, I must make clear to you that not all of your questions will be
answered. This page is an experiment in computer generated meta-analysis—it serves to
automatically interpret your data based on patterns in testing that I have noticed personally.
It remains subjective.
This section is also a work-in-progress! Only the first part has been finished so far. Both
function models currently used (the Grant/Brownsword model and the Myers model) are not
talked about at all. In the meantime… enjoy!
Preliminary
As things are set up right now, you won't be able to return to this page if your browser
session ends or expires. Functionality will eventually be added that will give you a unique
identifier to return to this page.
Introduction
I think what I was most surprised by when I launched this test back in April 2018 was how
easily people accepted it into the personality test world. Many people were confused by what
their results meant, yes, but the format of the test was never fundamentally called into
question—at least, not in any way that impacted how widely the test was shared.
I bring this up because this test has more layers than would initially seem. I think a
typology veteran well aware of what the cognitive functions are would easily recognize the
basic format of the test: a 96 question test that asks 12 questions to test for each of the eight
functions. The mystery, it would seem, is at the very end—when everything finally gets
calculated and the test gives you a few types.
The information for you to understand what this test really means is all out there. It isn't
exactly accessible, though. This website has many disjointed, messy articles about the
meaning of type that I'd written as a teenager, and making sense of the underlying
perspective behind all that can be… an arduous task. The two-year-old "frequently asked
questions" section underneath your results is dense and often superfluous, so it doesn't
surprise me now that people weren't really able to piece together the mystery of the
Sakinorva cognitive function test.
Some people have made serious efforts, though. I've seen social media posts and blog posts
(in many different languages, even) trying to explain in detail what the results exactly
mean, and some people are definitely on the right track. I'm sure some people have even
figured it out—but they certainly haven't set the tone of the conversation. There's an entire
culture created around the cognitive functions, and challenging it isn't exactly easy.
Before continuing, I strongly suggest reading Full context: the cognitive functions to get an
idea of how this function test and the following analysis will look at your results. It may help
you understand what the test really is beyond "a cognitive function test" and will familiarize
you with some of the language used here to describe your results. Bear in mind that this
isn't necessary, but it will aid you in understanding the perspective from which all of this is
passed onto you.
I often read lines about how "the cognitive functions are the real MBTI" or how people "have been reading up and
learning about the cognitive functions for years" and just about always reveal that they have been exposed only to
sources that give one side of the story; what such people often don't realize is that in order to really understand the
cognitive functions, they must be willing to challenge the dogma that proliferates misinformation about what it
means to be you.
There are two things you should try to keep in mind:
1) The actual cognitive functions test doesn’t take your responses at face value, and it
“thinks around” your answers.
 2) This analysis page works the same way.
This analysis page serves to both demystify the results provided to you and to look at them
beyond what they usually mean at face value. Just like the test itself, extrapolation and
guesswork will come into play. This analysis will look not just at what you give it, but also
how you give it. It's not about you, as the answers would tell me, but about you, as the test-
taker filling out a form about yourself.
We should go over the very basics first. You received several different types of results, and
we should try to understand what they all mean one-by-one. We will begin with the two
different function types, starting with your Grant/Brownsword result:

(grant) function type INTP

If you aren't familiar with it, the Grant/Brownsword function model was a model of Jungian
type dynamics created by William Harold Grant in his book From Image to Likeness: A
Jungian Path in the Gospel Journey with Magdala Thompson and Thomas E. Clarke. The
most significant thing about Grant's function model was that it was the first to break away
from the Jungian convention by flipping the third function (for example, an introvert would
have their four functions ordered IEEE, but Grant turned it into IEIE). This is the model
most commonly used today when people talk about "the cognitive functions."
His model was developmental. He specifically uses the term "type development" to describe
how you cognitively develop as you age. Grant divides up type development into four
different periods. Your primary function (Ti) develops from 6 to 12 years of age. From 12 to
20 years of age, you develop your auxiliary function, Ne. From 20 to 35 years old, you
develop Si. And finally—you come to develop your shadow side (Fe) from 35 to 50 years old.
Grant's model was a hypothesis! He acknowledged that it was a departure from Jungian
convention, and didn't anticipate it being widely accepted. It was based on his own
observations in retreat/workshops at the time. Bear in mind, also, that Grant was a Jungian
scholar, but also a Christian man. His work was primarily concerned with the spirituality of
type and sought to show people that their personalities were not fixed, but dynamic and
pointed toward self-development.
What about type? Luckily, Grant wanted to show us a picture of what his hypothetical types
looked like—he included profiles.
I'll now pretend to be Grant. You began developing your thinking from an early age,
organizing your internal world quietly and deliberately. You paid close attention to matters
of logic and reason, searching for clarity and reasonability in the rules you had to follow—
complying to what did not make sense to you was difficult. You rarely shared your thoughts
with others, but you had a select few with whom you communicated, albeit deliberately and
thoughtfully.
Around the age of twelve, you began to develop your intuition, looking to expand your
imaginative realm. This attitude germinated in a social manner, as you found yourself
becoming more outgoing, sharing your ideas often in lively discussion. Though you still
preferred being alone, you found real joy in interacting with others as you began to orient
yourself toward more imaginative ways of doing things and planning out their future. Your
focus drifted away from actuality and more toward the essences of things. You might also
have found it difficult to keep things in order, but you were able to probe for them to your
own satisfaction.
At twenty, you found excitement in discovering the sensory world, which had previously
been of little interest to you. This attitude was directed toward the interior, as it had been in
your early childhood, and you found yourself enjoying activities such as walking through
nature, playing an instrument, or working with your hands. You became more aware of your
image to others, and you could be conscious of what others thought of you.
Around thirty-five years into your life, you began to yield to a newfound sensitivity for
others, driven by personal values. This may have expressed itself awkwardly in its earlier
stages, bringing embarrassment in social situations, but you gradually learned to express
your compassion and accepted that not everything needed to be rational.
The book ends with a concluding observation that dramatizes the turn toward the shadow
side at age thirty-five, evoking images of crisis. What we call the inferior function was not
meant to be as fluid as the turning points between the first three functions in type
development. I take note of this because I took it into account for the algorithm—your
inferior function is added as a negative value at the end.
The test assumes you're somewhere between the second and third stages of type
development, even though many disregard the idea altogether today. I didn't want to single
out results based on age and figured a more universal model would cover most people
anyway. If you'd like, you can maybe try to make out your own standing relative to type
development given your function results. I won't do anything automatic—do your own soul
searching! Here they are again for your convenience:

Ne (extraverted intuition) 28

Ni (introverted intuition) 26

Se (extraverted sensing) 22

Si (introverted sensing) 18

Te (extraverted thinking) 27

Ti (introverted thinking) 38

Fe (extraverted feeling) 22

Fi (introverted feeling) 26

Remember that big chart with all those values next to the sixteen types? Those are
percentage agreement values for your Grant type—your results were compared to each type
outline and then listed in order, from your worst match to your best match. Here is that
chart again:

ESFJ 38.5
ISFJ 41.5
ISTJ 42.25
ENFJ 43
ESFP 47.25
ESTJ 47.75
ISFP 48.75
INFP 51.25
ENTJ 52.25

INFJ 53
INTJ 53.75
ESTP 55
ENFP 56.75
ENTP 64.5
ISTP 65
INTP 67.5
 Here are also the rest of the paraphrased Grant type descriptions, ordered from highest
percentage to lowest. This is a long section, so you'll get a button here to close descriptions,
as well as a "table of contents" to jump to different descriptions.
(collapse/expand all descriptions)

ISTP ENTP ENFP ESTP INTJ INFJ ENTJ INFP ISFP ESTJ ESFP ENFJ ISTJ ISFJ ESFJ
ISTP (65)
You began developing your thinking from an early age, organizing your
internal world quietly and deliberately. You paid close attention to
matters of logic and reason, searching for clarity and reasonability in the
rules you had to follow—complying to what did not make sense to you was
difficult. You rarely shared your thoughts with others, but you had a
select few with whom you communicated, albeit deliberately and
thoughtfully.
Around the age of twelve, you began to lose your shyness and found
enjoyment in activities such as collecting and classifying things, and
preferred hobbies that directly involved working with your hands, such as
sewing, carpentry, or playing an instrument. Your ability to handle
practical matters drew you to responsibilities involving managing
efficiency, and you could show a great deal of focus doing them.
At twenty, you began to discover your readiness for creativity. You began
looking into future possibilities, sometimes even in ways that were bizarre
or unconventional. You became less detail-oriented and more forgetful,
but you also found yourself more interested in the potential than the
actual, probing inwardly and even daydreaming to find your imaginative
side.
Around thirty-five years into your life, you began to yield to a newfound
sensitivity for others, driven by personal values. This may have expressed
itself awkwardly in its earlier stages, bringing embarrassment in social
situations, but you gradually learned to express your compassion and
accepted that not everything needed to be rational.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ENTP (64.5)
As a young child, you were absorbed in the world of imagination,
stimulated primarily by the social world rather than in solicitude. If you
were an only child, you might have had an imaginary friend. With other
children, you were often the one who stimulated them with new and
exciting activities, being easily bored by routine, whether in play, work, or
study. You may have been urged to be brought back down to the real
world, and you might have been scolded for your disorderliness. Even as
you did today's tasks, you would have your mind what it would bring
tomorrow.
Around the age of twelve, you began looking inward, becoming more
reflective and turning to the world of logic. You often had difficulty
describing the schemes you'd come up with to understand the world
around you to others, and you spoke frankly and honestly to others—even
if they may have been expecting more sensitivity on your part. You
developed a strong sense of fairness and used it to guide your decision
making.
You now began to find yourself becoming more uncharacteristically
subjective, paying closer attention to the sentiments of others and
becoming more involved with visceral feelings of your own, acting more on
emotional whims rather than you had before with consistent, patterned
behavior. Reactions you would have considered too sentimental now took
the forefront, and people may have began to notice more warmth,
tenderness, and compassion in communicating with you.
Your life up to now had been so indulgent in the possible that your
relationship with the sensory world had gone underdeveloped, failing to
notice the details of the world around you. You now, however, began to
take an interest in this world, picking up sensing-related hobbies such as
sewing, crafting, or learning to play a musical instrument. Punctuality
and neatness became important to you as you also began to reconcile with
solitude, a departure from your tendency toward excitement and activity.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ENFP (56.75)
As a young child, you were absorbed in the world of imagination,
stimulated primarily by the social world rather than in solicitude. If you
were an only child, you might have had an imaginary friend. With other
children, you were often the one who stimulated them with new and
exciting activities, being easily bored by routine, whether in play, work, or
study. You may have been urged to be brought back down to the real
world, and you might have been scolded for your disorderliness. Even as
you did today's tasks, you would have your mind what it would bring
tomorrow.
In adolescence, you began to cultivate your feelings. As you developed
your sense of compassion, your interests turned toward being of service to
others and may have joined efforts to help the disadvantaged and
underprivileged. You might have found yourself more committed to your
traditions. Career-wise, you might have considered looking toward
service-oriented opportunities.
Around twenty, you began wondering whether you had previously began
to shape yourself on the basis of strongly held convictions rather than of
being of service to others, as it had been a turn inward—in contrast, you
began to develop a social attitude that brought you security in your own
convictions and a sense of assertiveness. Though this behavior may have
showed itself awkwardly, you believed the answer was to show more
assertiveness rather than return to submissiveness.
Your life up to now had been so indulgent in the possible that your
relationship with the sensory world had gone underdeveloped, failing to
notice the details of the world around you. You now, however, began to
take an interest in this world, picking up sensing-related hobbies such as
sewing, crafting, or learning to play a musical instrument. Punctuality
and neatness became important to you as you also began to reconcile with
solitude, a departure from your tendency toward excitement and activity.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ESTP (55)
As a child, you were most engaged in developing sensing. You wanted to
collect knowledge on everything and share it with others, needing lots of
stimulation and easily becoming bored. You wanted to know more about
the people and things around you, so you may have been into collecting
and classifying things related to engaging activities, such as sports or
gardening.
Around the age of twelve, you started to look inward, becoming more
attuned to logic in your decision making. You developed a frank attitude,
and people may have been put off by your directness and honesty. You
may have also found yourself subtly taking on a direct role as a manager,
driven by your standards of reason; people may not have always seen
where you were coming from.
Things then begin to shift around the age of twenty. It may have been
difficult for you to enter this stage of development, as the style you had
become used to in your adolescence was directly opposed to a more
sensitive side of you that you were now developing. Compassion, humility,
and vulnerability finally emerged, and you found yourself dealing with
others more tactfully. You also began to express your own feelings
outward more easily—you became in touch with embarrassment and
could be moved to tears.
Having spent most of your life living in the immediate sensory world, you
begin to look to your shadow side in your final stage of type development.
You think more about the future and let go of your detail-oriented nature
—you think less factually and more speculatively. You see yourself
become more creative and detach yourself from tedious worries.
Daydreaming comes more naturally, and you find that you are at your
most inspired when you are alone.

(close all) (to table of contents)

INTJ (53.75)
In your early childhood, you were drawn to develop your inner sense of
creativity. You might have had an imaginary friend with whom you spent
time in dreamy silence. Few close friends were allowed to share with you
your world of imagination. You were a big daydreamer, and teachers
constantly reminded you to pay attention. You don't remember the details
of this time period very well, as they had not piqued your interest then—
but you do remember the atmosphere and ambience of the feelings you'd
had felt back then.
Around the age of twelve, you began to develop your thinking and greatly
valued logic, analysis and truth. Mediating justice and fairness, you found
yourself able to emotionally detach yourself from tense situations and
bear roles of responsibility. Your orderly objectivity in approaching
problems came off as surprising, especially among your peers who
assumed you simply had difficulty in expressing your feelings.
With time, you became more attached to your feelings: more
compassionate, subjective, and perhaps even more easily offended. This
was a turn back inward in your life. Decisions previously made solely
through reason were now driven also by sensitivity to others' feelings, and
your personal values helped guide you through them. Your feelings may
not have been expressed outwardly, but their depth was felt in your
decision-making.
You now began to experience your last function—sensing—as you started
to notice details around you that you'd left unacknowledged. For the first
time, you'd begun to take pleasure in exercising your senses, whether it be
through playing an instrument, learning a craft, or collecting objects.
You'd engaged in these activities with a newfound precision that
contradicted the disorder you'd been used to, which you now grew
impatient with.

(close all) (to table of contents)

INFJ (53)
In your early childhood, you were drawn to develop your inner sense of
creativity. You might have had an imaginary friend with whom you spent
time in dreamy silence. Few close friends were allowed to share with you
your world of imagination. You were a big daydreamer, and teachers
constantly reminded you to pay attention. You don't remember the details
of this time period very well, as they had not piqued your interest then—
but you do remember the atmosphere and ambience of the feelings you'd
had felt back then.
Around the age of twelve, you became aware of a desire to express
yourself through a mode of feeling, even though you maintained your
predominantly intuitive disposition. You became more aware of the needs
of others, looking to help the poor, the suffering, and the underdogs. You
may have joined groups committed to being of service to others, and you
found it difficult to find time for yourself.
At twenty, you experienced a new desire to become more independent,
searching for autonomy as you became critical of your previous
submission to others. Because this attitude emerged internally, you found
it difficult to express to others how you wished to shape yourself, and they
may have been surprised or offended by the change. Despite perhaps
feeling that this attitude had been developing poorly, you decided to hone
it and allow you to eventually grow; rather than returning to
submissiveness, you wanted to grow further into your assertiveness.
You now began to experience your last function—sensing—as you started
to notice details around you that you'd left unacknowledged. For the first
time, you'd begun to take pleasure in exercising your senses, whether it be
through playing an instrument, learning a craft, or collecting objects.
You'd engaged in these activities with a newfound precision that
contradicted the disorder you'd been used to, which you now grew
impatient with.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ENTJ (52.25)
As a child, you were outgoing and sought to make reason out a world of
directives passed down to you, reluctant to follow orders unless you
agreed with the logic behind them. Your decisions were guided by logical
thinking detached from any need to please those around you, and fairness
took priority. While you rarely did what you did not want to do, you
maintained a strong sense of fairness that led you to do the right thing.
Going into adolescence, you turned to the development of intuition,
looking inward as you expanded your sense of imagination. This phase
was marked by less concern for external management and a greater
interest in internal exploration, sharing plans and goals with others.
Though you may have seen yourself as forgetful and impractical, those
peers who were most grounded could have been surprised by your down-
to-earthiness.
You may have surprised yourself with a turn outward toward the present,
a departure from a future-oriented disposition that employed the internal
imagination to a focus on the immediate present. New interests began to
arise—sports, handcrafts, musical instruments—and you shared them
with others. You found yourself now valuing tidiness, punctuality, and
accuracy, which had once been impossible for you to manage.
Around thirty-five years into your life, you began to develop your feeling.
Through struggle, you found yourself making decisions based on your
personal feelings, sometimes coming off as moody or arbitrary to those
around you. However, with time, you realized your sensitivity for others,
and with awareness and compassion, you found your tune in the world of
feeling, even opening yourself up to vulnerability and finding yourself
occasionally offended.
 (close all) (to table of contents)

INFP (51.25)
As a young child, you may have been obedient and considerate, choosing
to please others rather than be a burden. You were likely to spend time by
yourself, as your feelings were directed inwardly. You may have devalued
your own interests, preferring to serve others and be praised. You felt
obligated to keep harmony, taking responsibility whenever conflict arose.
Around the age of twelve, you began to develop your intuition, looking to
expand your imaginative realm. This attitude germinated in a social
manner, as you found yourself becoming more outgoing, sharing your
ideas often in lively discussion. Though you still preferred being alone to
cultivate your feelings, you found real joy in interacting with others as
you began to orient yourself toward more imaginative ways of doing
things and planning out their future. Your focus drifted away from
actuality and more toward the essences of things. You might also have
found it difficult to keep things in order, but you were able to probe for
them to your own satisfaction.
At twenty, you found excitement in discovering the sensory world, which
had previously been of little interest to you. This attitude was directed
toward the interior, as it had been in your early childhood, and you found
yourself enjoying activities such as walking through nature, playing an
instrument, or working with your hands. You became more aware of your
image to others, and you could be conscious of what others thought of you.
Then began an awkward period where you found yourself drawn to
assertive behavior, despite having been used to acting nearly the opposite.
Detached and not desiring to please, you found yourself sometimes hostile
or aggressive, showing resentment or rebelliousness for having been
submissive to domination by others. You were now, however, determined
to stand your ground despite being unhappy with the vigor you'd
displayed doing so. You became less vulnerable to criticism and showed
your own.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ISFP (48.75)
As a young child, you may have been obedient and considerate, choosing
to please others rather than be a burden. You were likely to spend time by
yourself, as your feelings were directed inwardly. You may have devalued
your own interests, preferring to serve others and be praised. You felt
obligated to keep harmony, taking responsibility whenever conflict arose.
Around the age of twelve, you began to lose your shyness and found
enjoyment in activities such as collecting and classifying things, and
preferred hobbies that directly involved working with your hands, such as
sewing, carpentry, or playing an instrument. Your ability to handle
practical matters drew you to responsibilities involving managing
efficiency, and you could show a great deal of focus doing them.
At twenty, you began to discover your readiness for creativity. You began
looking into future possibilities, sometimes being unable to handle minute
details, especially earlier on in development. You became less detail-
oriented and more forgetful, your need for efficiency taking a back seat as
you began thinking more about the future.
Then began an awkward period where you found yourself drawn to
assertive behavior, despite having been used to acting nearly the opposite.
Detached and not desiring to please, you found yourself sometimes hostile
or aggressive, showing resentment or rebelliousness for having been
submissive to domination by others. You were now, however, determined
to stand your ground despite being unhappy with the vigor you'd
displayed doing so. You became less vulnerable to criticism and showed
your own.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ESTJ (47.75)
As a child, you were outgoing and sought to make reason out a world of
directives passed down to you, reluctant to follow orders unless you
agreed with the logic behind them. Your decisions were guided by logical
thinking detached from any need to please those around you, and fairness
took priority. While you rarely did what you did not want to do, you
maintained a strong sense of fairness that led you to do the right thing.
Going into adolescence, you found pleasure in physical activities such as
sports, sewing, or playing a musical instrument, and you enjoyed
collecting things. You were guided by a new internal orientation toward
the sensory, treasuring facts, figures, and experienced knowledge. You
may even have sound yourself comfortable with solitude, and perhaps had
few close friends.
A difficult phase to grapple with, you may have found yourself struggling
to understand your growing tendency to leave behind particulars,
spending more time engaging with ideas. You enjoyed your discovered
creativity, noticing that you would be the one to come up with new,
unique ideas, inspired by engagement and discussion with those around
you.
Around thirty-five years into your life, you began to develop your feeling.
Through struggle, you found yourself making decisions based on your
personal feelings, sometimes coming off as moody or arbitrary to those
around you. However, with time, you realized your sensitivity for others,
and with awareness and compassion, you found your tune in the world of
feeling, even opening yourself up to vulnerability and finding yourself
occasionally offended.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ESFP (47.25)
As a child, you were most engaged in developing sensing. You wanted to
collect knowledge on everything and share it with others, needing lots of
stimulation and easily becoming bored. You wanted to know more about
the people and things around you, so you may have been into collecting
and classifying things related to engaging activities, such as sports or
gardening.
Around the age of twelve, you began looking inward and developed your
feelings and compassion for others. You were not, however, outwardly
expressive of these feelings. You showed great care and sensitivity to the
pain and suffering of others, and found it difficult putting your foot down;
you were tolerant and appreciative. You would often sacrifice your true
wishes in order to please others, even if they were not aware of you doing
so. Conversely, people may have brushed your needs aside, not showing
the same regard for your feelings as you did for theirs.
Eventually, you realized you had to look out for yourself. You developed a
sense of aggressiveness as you began to look out for your own needs and
showed assertion when people tried pushing you around. Though you may
have felt guilt when people used to your gentleness saw this new side in
your behavior, you began to enjoy being in charge of yourself and free to
be who you pleased yourself to be.
Having spent most of your life living in the immediate sensory world, you
begin to look to your shadow side in your final stage of type development.
You think more about the future and let go of your detail-oriented nature
—you think less factually and more speculatively. You see yourself
become more creative and detach yourself from tedious worries.
Daydreaming comes more naturally, and you find that you are at your
most inspired when you are alone.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ENFJ (43)
You were friendly, outgoing, and loving in your childhood and wished to
please those around you, especially authority figures such as your
parents. You showed your vulnerability and were sensitive to the needs of
others, often assuming responsibility for others. Anger may have often led
to self-blame, and breaking the rules may have led to shame and guilt.
You primarily wished to keep everyone happy, and when not bearing the
weight of responsibility, you relished the joy of being alive.
Going into adolescence, you turned to the development of intuition,
looking inward as you expanded your sense of imagination. This phase
was marked by less concern for fostering harmony and a greater interest
in internal exploration, sharing plans and goals with others. Though you
may have seen yourself as forgetful and impractical, those peers who were
most grounded could have been surprised by your down-to-earthiness.
You may have focused less on facts, however, and more on impressions of
the full picture and the ambience associated with it.
You now had a desire to shift away from the future and toward the
present. New interests began to arise—sports, handcrafts, musical
instruments—and you shared them with others. You found yourself now
valuing tidiness, punctuality, and accuracy, which had once been
impossible for you to manage. In the long run, however, you maintained
your preference for daydreaming.
Around thirty-five years into your life, you found yourself in touch with a
shadow side that saw it necessary for you to assert yourself, which you
may have had before but without the same sense of urgency. You became
able to refuse others' demands more easily, and you turned toward the
world of logic: rationality and reasonability became of more importance.
Though you may have been viewed less benevolently as a result of this
shift, you began to experience a new peace around the idea that you could
choose to be generous and had greater control over life.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ISTJ (42.25)
As a child, you enjoyed experiencing the physical world around you,
watching, listening, touching as you developed your relationship with the
sensory. You discovered personal, internal connections to nature,
collecting and remembering facts and information about the world. You
were attentive and dependable, using your understanding of the sensory
to pursue sensible interests and picking up hobbies such as physical
sports, playing instruments, or working with your hands.
Around the age of twelve, you began to develop your thinking and greatly
valued logic, analysis and truth. Mediating justice and fairness, you found
yourself able to emotionally detach yourself from tense situations and
bear roles of responsibility. Your orderly objectivity in approaching
problems came off as surprising, especially among your peers who
assumed you simply had difficulty in expressing your feelings.
With time, you became more attached to your feelings: more
compassionate, subjective, and perhaps even more easily offended. This
was a turn back inward in your life. Decisions previously made solely
through reason were now driven also by sensitivity to others' feelings, and
your personal values helped guide you through them. Your feelings may
not have been expressed outwardly, but their depth was felt in your
decision-making.
As your shadow side emerged, you found yourself becoming more socially
oriented and toward development in areas less sensory: you let details slip
away as you found a new sense of creativity in future possibilities,
dreaming and planning with zest. You discovered your ability to dream,
and you may have felt your previous dependability slip away as you
deprioritized the importance of details in your life.

(close all) (to table of contents)

ISFJ (41.5)
As a child, you enjoyed experiencing the physical world around you,
watching, listening, touching as you developed your relationship with the
sensory. You discovered personal, internal connections to nature,
collecting and remembering facts and information about the world. You
were attentive and dependable, using your understanding of the sensory
to pursue sensible interests and picking up hobbies such as physical
sports, playing instruments, or working with your hands.
Around the age of twelve, you began to look outward toward wider
relationships, finding yourself becoming more outgoing and invested in
group activities. You became attuned to the needs of others, desiring to
please and help. Your guilt and empathy in your honest endeavors to
serve others may have attracted others to confide and trust in you.
In due time, you began to look inward to protect your own interests,
feeling free to deny others' demands. Those who had taken your
generosity for granted may have been dismayed, and you sometimes
wondered if you had become too hardened. Your attitude may have come
across as harsh, but this turn inward allowed you to explore your true
self, discovering new lines drawn between reason and faith. You may even
have kept smaller company, preferring to extend to a trusted few rather
than many.
As your shadow side emerged, you found yourself re-engaging with social
life, a growing preference for imagination taking the lead away from a
grounded present and exposing yourself to a world of speculation and
daydreaming. Your previous worldly worries began to slip away as you
found expansion in this new creativity.

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ESFJ (38.5)
You were friendly, outgoing, and loving in your childhood and wished to
please those around you, especially authority figures such as your
parents. You showed your vulnerability and were sensitive to the needs of
others, often assuming responsibility for others. Anger may have often led
to self-blame, and breaking the rules may have led to shame and guilt.
You primarily wished to keep everyone happy, and when not bearing the
weight of responsibility, you relished the joy of being alive.
Going into adolescence, you found pleasure in physical activities such as
sports, sewing, or playing a musical instrument, and you enjoyed
collecting things. You may even have sound yourself comfortable with
 solitude, and perhaps had few close friends. You became focused on
keenness, accuracy, and attention to detail in your work.
As you entered your twenties, you began to see the world through a more
creative lens, recognizing possibilities in people. Unfortunately, you may
have found yourself becoming more forgetful and distracted as you
focused less on particulars—your worries, however, may have slipped
away along with it as alternative solutions to problems made themselves
clear to you. This was a side of your imagination that was stimulated
primarily through engagement with people, a return toward the outward.
Around thirty-five years into your life, you found yourself in touch with a
shadow side that saw it necessary for you to assert yourself, which you
may have had before but without the same sense of urgency. You became
able to refuse others' demands more easily, and you turned toward the
world of logic: rationality and reasonability became of more importance.
Though you may have been viewed less benevolently as a result of this
shift, you began to experience a new peace around the idea that you could
choose to be generous and had greater control over life.

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Did you relate to Grant's descriptions at all? How do you resonate with the development it
highlights? While it's your own judgment to make, you should note that I never directly test
for Grant's archetype criteria, and that the overlap between the ninety-six questions and
Grant's work is merely coincidental. Remember, the test uses his model—not necessarily his
ideas.
Just like William Harold Grant claims, there is a lot of Jungian influence in his descriptions.
It doesn't translate exactly, and you can etch out more MBTI influence in the particulars of
his descriptions, but Grant, like Jung, does not really differentiate eight different functions
as much as he does four functions with two different attitudes (introverted and extraverted).
Though he himself made more of a connection to Jung's work, Grant's model ended up
becoming popular in the MBTI world, possibly with the help of Alan Brownsword, the author
of It Takes All Types!, who used Grant's XYXY model and may have played a hand in
popularizing it in the Myers-Briggs world.
In the olden days, when Isabel Myers was more focused on redesigning Jung's work, she had
been invested in type dynamics, which sought to link her MBTI to the Jungian psychological
types. It didn't really work, though, and she left this idea unfinished (other psychologists,
however, became deeply committed to trying to link both MBTI and Jung, and it's probably
why type dynamics survives today in what we call the cognitive functions on the Internet).
There weren't any real type "descriptions," and Myers had barely worked out its logistics.
And because this didn't stop anyone from canonizing type dynamics, I decided to pay it
homage by including what we'll call the Myers function type. You can see what you got for it
here:

myers function type INTP

What's it mean? Isabel Myers paid close attention to two particular ideas: E/I and J/P. N and
S are perceiving functions, while T and F are judging functions—similar to Jung. However,
what she did differently was call attention to what gets extraverted. If you extravert
perception, you are P; if you extravert judgment, you are J.
It shouldn't surprise you then that your Myers function J/P is decided by adding together
your two extraverted judging and perceiving functions, and then comparing them.
E/I is then calculated by adding up your introverted functions and your extraverted
functions and comparing them; the same goes with F/T and N/S. That's your Myers function
type—mystery solved!
We don't really have descriptions for Myers functions, unfortunately. There are loose threads
here and there, but as far as I know, nothing concrete really exists out there. So what about
the last thing? What actually is a Myers-Briggs type?
You're better off, honestly, not trying to make ends of that on the Internet. With type
dynamics muddying the waters, it seems like the big feud is over where MBTI stands
between "the letters" and the "functions." If you haven't yet read Full context: the cognitive
functions, this would be the time to do it.
To put it short: this test asks you questions related to what people on the Internet call "the
cognitive functions," but because this concept is a meaningless, amorphous blob of various
subconcepts derived from antiquated sources trying to tie Jung and MBTI together, the most
true way of assessing your type in a way that is logically consistent, streamlined, and largely
universal would be to use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a typology system that sorts
personality to 16 general categories with some room between them.
Right now, I will assume you take MBTI to be "that 16 personality thingy with a type code
that means something." It's not to dumb down your understanding, but to simplify how I'll
talk about it.
Let's first recall your Myers-Briggs type:

myers-briggs type INTP

If you're having trouble seeing it, that's INTP. The first question you'd probably ask is…
what's with the fading? Isn't MBTI just a four-letter code?
The answer is complicated. Modern interpretations of MBTI (see Step II) have been inspired
by the fluidity of scalar psychometric models such as the Big Five, and the four dichotomies
MBTI has historically used are now encouraged to be seen as more fluid—you don't have to
be a total "introvert" or "extravert" but can be somewhere in between (see "ambivert"). All
axes can be interpreted in this way: you can be in between N/S, T/F, or J/P.
You might then guess that the opacity of the four different letters indicates strength along
these axes. For example, having a very faint "T" would mean that you are somewhere in the
middle between F and T but lean very slightly toward T. This would indeed be a
demonstration of the scalar model utilized in Step II MBTI.
However, this is not what the letter opacity indicates on this test. It actually instead
describes certainty of a letter preference. This test does not assume that there are four letter
axes or dichotomies, but rather eight distinct sub-archetypes that can be independently
measured and compared against one another.
Let's take, for example, your P preference.
I'm guessing it looks pretty faint on your screen.
That's because it might as well not be there: the test couldn't really make out a pattern for
you that erred on either side—P or J—and it might as well be either. Maybe you don't really
fit too well into how MBTI created the P/J axis. Maybe you find yourself going back and
forth between them. That's up to you to understand, though, and this test can only tell you
that this degree of certainty exists. It can't tell you much more than that.
Let's apply it to all four of your preferences, then, shall we?

I Almost certain.
N No doubt about it
T Pretty uncertain.
P Extremely uncertain.

The theory behind this is complicated. There isn't exactly a direct precedent for me to do
things this way, and explaining the reasoning behind it would mean getting super verbose
and technical. But in the most simple way I can put it:
The "dichotomies" MBTI uses are all, to some extent, false, as they overlap or are set apart
in ways that make them imperfect opposites. Some dichotomies are worse in this regard
than others—T/F is a poorly constrained axis, while I/E is pretty well-constrained. But
because MBTI is like this, I can't rely on the scalar model, which confines you to a way of
thinking that may not even apply to you. Instead, I just compare the values of the eight
separate letters and put it all together at the end.
Something that the MBTI is not associated with is ability. While ability may affect your four
preferences, it wasn't ever supposed to be an intrinsic property belonging to any of the eight
preferences. The cognitive functions in type dynamics, however, do often deal with ability,
and this test assumes that different abilities are associated with different functions. But
forgetting about the Functions for a moment—what if we just took a look at how you rated
yourself for each of the abilities mentioned in the test?
The results are in, and they say…

It isn't particularly useful to just list your responses as-is, though. We need to instead
compare you to other people who have taken the test—whether they respond similarly to you
may be a better indicator of how distinguished your responses are.

# mean sd z-score
3 3.697 1.071 0.28291316526611
5 3.092 1.285 -0.84980544747082
13 3.686 1.365 -0.5025641025641
18 4.011 1.203 -0.84039900249377
36 3.704 1.326 0.22322775263952
37 3.433 1.284 -0.33722741433022
48 3.635 1.189 0.30698065601346
61 3.275 1.362 -0.93612334801762
64 3.745 1.206 -0.61774461028192
72 2.677 1.415 0.22826855123675
83 3.058 1.331 0.70773854244929
96 3.05 1.355 -0.03690036900369

Unfinished. Next probable update: 2020/10/10.