jon stewart - INTP?

[shoeless]

probably not. but after watching the o'reilly interview, some of his mannerisms struck me as INTP-ish.

i'm thinking at least NT.

iunno.

 

[Adymus]

Naw, he's an ENFJ.

He is checking himself with a lot of Ti in that interview which is slowing him down a lot. You can kind of tell that he would be able to speak much faster and more energetically if he was not on the defensive.

 

[shoeless]

i've read interviews with other people (i think it might even have been colbert?) about him, describing him as "shy and not particularly funny" before. which to me points to introversion.

...although now that i'm trying to find that interview again and i'm turning up jack shit, maybe i made it all up?

eh, i dunno. i wouldn't at all be surprised though if his tv character was just that -- a character -- and his actual self was something else entirely.

 

[Adymus]

i've read interviews with other people (i think it might even have been colbert?) about him, describing him as "shy and not particularly funny" before. which to me points to introversion.

...although now that i'm trying to find that interview again and i'm turning up jack shit, maybe i made it all up?

eh, i dunno. i wouldn't at all be surprised though if his tv character was just that -- a character -- and his actual self was something else entirely.

Regardless of how he was described by someone, he doesn't display introversion. When he has guests on his show, his body language is mostly toward the guest, and he stays engaged with them, which shows he is being energized by the engagement.
But he is very well developed, and at times Ti checks himself, specifically when defending himself, which slows down his articulation. Barack Obama is another ENFJ who has a similar type of slowed articulation because of their Ti checking to make sure everything the say is sound.

 

[shoeless]

i s'pose. i really don't even watch his show that often. basically only when hell's kitchen isn't on.

oh wellsies.

 

[Decaf]

i've read interviews with other people (i think it might even have been colbert?) about him, describing him as "shy and not particularly funny" before. which to me points to introversion.

That was Stephen Colbert in Behind the Actor's Studio.

Why is that people think introverts can never display extroverted behavior? When we call it shyness we use terms like "coming out of their shell", but if they're an introvert they're doomed to never being able to put themselves out there. The video I made for the youtube video has a comment on it. Just one, and its someone telling me that I'm wrong about being INTP because clearly I'm an ENTJ. Because I don't act shy in my video I can't possibly be an introvert. Its like we're begging to subscribe to a self-limiting philosophy, whether or not the theory itself makes those restrictions for us.

I don't like to type living people that I don't know personally, but I think Jon Stewart's behavior points to introverted.

 

[Adymus]

Decaf, that argument goes both ways, being reserved does not necessarily mean extroversion.
I am not looking at if he is talkative or not, I am looking at how he is using his functions and which ones are stimulating him and which ones are suppressing him.

You really don't have to know a someone personally to read them, personality is not hidden, it's what you engage the world with and it is certain to come up in your behavior.

 

[Decaf]

You really don't have to know a someone personally to read them, personality is not hidden, it's what you engage the world with and it is certain to come up in your behavior.

The problem lies in the amount of information you can gather compared to the information necessary to make an informed decision. The only face any of us know of him is his stage face in a structured program, or perhaps the occasional interview or hosting the Emmies. We fill everything else in using "common sense" (a.k.a. assumptions based on other people we've met and confirmation bias).

Its something they taught us not to do in the MBTI certification program. Even when you're talking face to face with the person and able to ask questions you still rely heavily on the other person deciding for themselves in order to be certain. We're simply not capable of making truly objective judgments about others, and few even recognize the importance of culture and upbringing in how a type portrays itself.

<shrug> The dead, fictional and publicly admitting offer far more, if less interesting targets. For instance Hillary Clinton has gone public as an INTJ.

 

[Adymus]

The problem lies in the amount of information you can gather compared to the information necessary to make an informed decision. The only face any of us know of him is his stage face in a structured program, or perhaps the occasional interview or hosting the Emmies. We fill everything else in using "common sense" (a.k.a. assumptions based on other people we've met and confirmation bias).

Its something they taught us not to do in the MBTI certification program. Even when you're talking face to face with the person and able to ask questions you still rely heavily on the other person deciding for themselves in order to be certain. We're simply not capable of making truly objective judgments about others, and few even recognize the importance of culture and upbringing in how a type portrays itself.

<shrug> The dead, fictional and publicly admitting offer far more, if less interesting targets. For instance Hillary Clinton has gone public as an INTJ.

You can gather a massive amount of information off of a person in an interview if you know what you are looking for. Now maybe just a single interview won't do it, but you really don't have to go beyond video clips to accurately type someone.
If you know what Fe looks/sounds like, or what Ni looks like when a person is using it, you can easily spot it in the same way you could spot an accent. The patterns are there, you just have to see them. After that it is all a matter of seeing which ones are giving them energy and with ones are draining them.

Going public isn't enough, you can't rely on people to truly know their type with the kind of tools they are using. But if you can read their functions you'll know if they are what they say they are.

 

[Decaf]

Going public isn't enough, you can't rely on people to truly know their type with the kind of tools they are using. But if you can read their functions you'll know if they are what they say they are.

But that's precisely the behavior that practioners are trying to curb. You can't know whether an emotional outburst is due to passionate feelings on a related subject, an inferior feeling function taking over due to stress, or its based on a decision to appear emotional. Sure, you can make judgment calls, but the evidence is full of all the things we try to avoid in scientific inquiry. The best you can come up with a guess, and from that guess comes our perception of their future actions. We believe we know their motives because we believe we have guessed their motives from a previous exposure.

How much of that video evidence is noise? The more data you are willing to count towards your conclusion, the more noise you introduce. Hesitations, emotional intrusions, unspoken thoughts, etc. There are an enormous number of observations whose causes we can only ever guess at. An introvert experienced on camera may appear to be using whichever extraverted function they know best as their dominant because they have adapted to do so. I think that's why so many people appear to be extraverted when we can't view how they behave when they're not the center of attention. Those who have not adapted as well and still appear in their native introversion act as a trap for confirmation bias, convincing us that those who don't behave that way must not belong to the same group.

Type Theory can not become Chiropracty. We can't treat every observable phenomena as having its root in our pet theory. Some reactions are merely human. Others have their root in the unknowable past of someone we have only just met. Some people are caught up pretending to be someone that conflicts with who they are when they're alone. Those are things you can't know unless you can read minds.

 

[Adymus]

How exactly are MBTI practitioners not guessing? They are basically human MBTI tests, they ask the subject questions, and they try to discern what dichotomy that fits into. Do you realize how easy that is to misread? A person could behave like a certain personality type, and a person could even identify with a certain personality type. But if they don't use the same functions, they are not that personality type no matter how you slice it. You don't have to know their motives or read their mind to read their type, it is displayed outside for you see!

None of that video evidence is noise! There is no such thing as irrelevant information when trying to read a person's type. This is the mentality that pisses me off more than anything about the scientific community, just because you don't know how to sift through the information given, you pass it off as "noise". If you are a human, you are using cognitive functions, and if you are using cognitive functions, then you are using them to think, feel, perceive, and speak. Using cognitive functions exists in "Simply being human", which is why no action that required cognition is ever irrelevant to type.

You are completely missing what I was saying, an introvert can be very well adapted at using their extroversion functions. But it will never be a stimulating task for them, they will be drained by it and this will be noticeable, in body language, the amount of times they have to drift back inside themselves, how long they are staying engaged with the outside, if they are gaining momentum by staying engaged or going back inward, etc.

 

[Decaf]

How exactly are MBTI practitioners not guessing?

Practitioners do not tell you what type you are. Their job is to teach you about type so that you can decide for yourself. No amount of interrogation can duplicate the integrated knowledge of the individual. If something seems likely we might focus on it, but if we try to lead others to what we think they are, we're not doing our job.

None of that video evidence is noise! There is no such thing as irrelevant information when trying to read a person's type. This is the mentality that pisses me off more than anything about the scientific community, just because you don't know how to sift through the information given, you pass it off as "noise".

I'm not quite sure what you're complaining about here. Pass it off? When we aren't sure how to sift through the information given we can sometimes refer to it as noise because it makes it hard to define the relationships between observations. Calling something noise isn't dismissive, its cautionary. By saying something is rife with noise I'm saying that the relationships are so complex that too many assumptions must be included to be certain about any conclusions you might come up with. The job at that point is not to bin it, but to break it down. Often that means studying the same phenomena another way or in another, simpler, situation first, so that you can put better context on the original observation. If all of your evidence is of a mature professional, knowingly on camera in front of an audience, then I'm suggesting your context is unclear. We don't have enough information to decide which behaviors are a direct response to conditions and which are innate.

You are completely missing what I was saying, an introvert can be very well adapted at using their extroversion functions. But it will never be a stimulating task for them, they will be drained by it and this will be noticeable, in body language, the amount of times they have to drift back inside themselves, how long they are staying engaged with the outside, if they are gaining momentum by staying engaged or going back inward, etc.

Those are assumptions. What we're talking about here is how we do not agree on their acceptability.

I often express those behaviors, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes I speak with energy when the subject and context are a good fit. Sometimes I gain momentum in a social situation when I work my way through my nerves, or see acceptance in the body language of the listeners. Surviving extraversion exposure is something you can train yourself to be do better, even without compromising yourself.

My argument against these assumptions is that by defining them externally as universal they become self limiting. If that behavior always expresses itself in another person of a group, then you can't then accept that you can mature past the limitations of that behavior. Conversely, I believe that there are many behaviors that are natural for me because of my personality type that are possible to improve upon in ways that aren't simply linear maximization and minimization. With that belief it would be contradictory to also agree with your statements.

 

[Adymus]

Well, I'd say there in lies the problem. It is not up to the person to decide what type they are. I know MBTI claims it is all a preference, and that it is ultimately up to the individual to decide what type the are, but that is complete BS. Our personality type was already decided for us, we have no say in this. You can't leave it up to the subject to be able to know how their mind works especially when basing it off of the simplicities of MBTI. There are so many factors that are going into a person identifying with certain types, culture, upbringing, idealism, development, misunderstanding, etc.

What you are calling noise, I am seeing as recognizable patterns. It's fine if you disagree with whether it is or not, but I have seen this concept proven with all personality types enough to know that it is right. Especially when you can get a group of about three people who all use the same reading technique, look at one person's behavior and get the same type off of them.

I can't help but think you are still missing what I am trying to say. I didn't said an introvert is always going to have poor extroverted functions. An Introvert can develop to be just as articulate as an Extrovert, but they will never be natural extroverts, they will never be stimulated by this, and it will show in how they act. You can pretend that you can mask this behavior all you want, but it is never entirely masked, that is just not possible. I have seen too many introvert try and be wannabe extroverts to not know the difference between the two.

Again, I don't expect you to agree with this, but I am going to keep saying that what I am seeing is there, whether the MBTI practitioners like it or not.

 

[Decaf]

Your certainly appears to me as irrationally self-assured, as I'm sure my hesitance to attach immediate value to observations appears supplicating and overly cautious.

My issue is with the source of your confidence. You said you had proof, but you can't prove an identification method is valid by performing it with results you deem adequate. At best it qualifies for anecdotal evidence.

I may well be missing some of what you're trying to say, but its difficult to view it fully from your perspective when I have strong objections to your illustrations. My issue is the classification. Video evidence of an aware subject does not constitute a random sampling. It has context that removes any realistic reference to "always", "never" and, most importantly, "average".

Lets assume that you can reliably view the average behavior of a subject by sampling video footage. How can you tell the difference between an introvert who has modestly developed their public speaking skills and an extravert who is modestly insecure about their public persona? At some level it seems that to make these distinctions you have to reduce one side of the scale to a stereotype. Otherwise you're never going to be able to isolate behaviors that can have multiple causes, except in the extreme cases.

 

[echoplex]

I doubt Stewart's an INTP. My guess would be ENFP. He seems to operate more on sentiment than logic. ENFJ is also possible, and the idea that he's checking his Ti might explain why he slows down when challenged. But then, he's a comedian, and it's hard to tell if he's ever really being serious since the whole thing is just the taping of a show. Even his "serious" interviews are still largely silly, and it seems to me that alot of his humor is Ne-driven, which seems to generate the silliness.

 

[Decaf]

@Adymus - It does appear our styles put us in a naturally adversarial relationship. I just wanted to reiterate that don't think less of you for disagreeing with me. I do recognize that my hesitance prevents me from making use of the theory to the extent that it might benefit me.


As far as being on topic, I'm interested not so much what type Jon Stewart is, but what he speaks to in us. Is it just that he gives us a new perspective? I know I've long ago given up on the hype-filled "serious" news. I prefer the grapevine, and a few select outlets that let me choose what to be updated on. Dry humor is always nice, but there's something about packaging the news in it that is especially appealing. A part of me believes its my morbid curiosity and sense of vengefulness when he makes fools of people no one else is willing to risk their credibility to attack.

What do you think it is?

 

[Adymus]

Your certainly appears to me as irrationally self-assured, as I'm sure my hesitance to attach immediate value to observations appears supplicating and overly cautious.
My issue is with the source of your confidence. You said you had proof, but you can't prove an identification method is valid by performing it with results you deem adequate. At best it qualifies for anecdotal evidence.

I completely understand, I'd look at me the same way if I were you too. I don't have any empyrical evidence at the moment to show you in favor of my methodology, which is why I never expected to persuade you in the first place. However, my confidence comes from my own testing and personal experience. I help organize a group that is currently just a part of meetup, but is based on exploring a new typology model we have been working on. The methodology of reading a person's type I have been talking about is a big part of this. We have actually outlined the exact mannerisms a person displays when using certain cognitive functions. We even take video interviews of people and analyze their use of functions. So far, our work in this has completely matched up with their personality type every time.

Lets assume that you can reliably view the average behavior of a subject by sampling video footage. How can you tell the difference between an introvert who has modestly developed their public speaking skills and an extrovert who is modestly insecure about their public persona? At some level it seems that to make these distinctions you have to reduce one side of the scale to a stereotype. Otherwise you're never going to be able to isolate behaviors that can have multiple causes, except in the extreme cases.

There is a difference between an Introvert and an Extrovert that cannot be bypassed unless they have completely changed their type.
Stimulation from using their introverted functions, and stimulation from using their extroverted functions.
An Introvert will have to disengage from the outside world to gain the momentum to engage it again, and you will see this in their behavior. Looking away from the person, looking down or up, or to the side. Being an introvert who has developed public speaking skills is of course, still an introvert, so they will still need to gain their energy from their inner world.

We actually interviewed an ENFP a couple weeks ago, she had an impressively well developed Te and Si, and constantly checked herself with it during the interview which made her seem much more reserved and serious.
As soon as a question would be asked you can actually see her light up as soon as she started thinking of the possibilities of how to answer that, and then she would slow down again as she put the answer into a concise and structured order. Then after she answered some of the questions, she would go back and give a more free form explanation of what she said (Using Ne that is) and you could actually see a clear difference in how she speaks faster, begins moving her hands more, and just seem more energized when speaking in a more free form and Ne fashion.

I won't claim that this is an obvious difference that can be seen by anyone, but it you have enough experience being able to see the nuance in how the two are different, you'd be able to tell.

But yeah, I can still see why you are hesitant, eventually this will be tested, and I believe it will be the future of typology.

 

[lightspeed]

I was convinced too, after O'reilly, he was an INTP. His ability to shift from a joke, to a serious statement without changing tone of voice, or facial expressions is what did it for me.

 

[Adymus]

I was convinced too, after O'reilly, he was an INTP. His ability to shift from a joke, to a serious statement without changing tone of voice, or facial expressions is what did it for me.

How is that exclusively INTP?

 

[Ink]

ENTP. Ne overdrive, also being able to switch between Ti and Fe easily.