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Comment by lcuff | Hacker News Reader

The scale titles are terrible. Based on Kersey's work, I think of the four scales as answers to four questions:

(1) How do you get your batteries recharged: Extraverts do so by being with people, introverts by the world of ideas. (It's not about your social skills. I'm an introvert who can easily converse with strangers).

(2) How do you take in the world? Details, or larger, vaguer impressions. My wife's friend walks in after a 10 years absence and says "Oh, you got your couch recovered". That ain't me. You could paint the room purple and I wouldn't notice.

(3) How do you make decisions? From the gut, or by thinking about them. Thinking takes a lot longer, from the gut can be quick.

(4) How much need for closure do you have (firm plans vs playing it by ear, filing cabinets vs piles).

Anecdotally, I've found this useful to view myself, my wife, and the world, but it plays a little fast and loose with the science.

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on question (1), there have been scientific researches that shows if you identify as "introvert" or "extrovert", it can be explained by your body's "efficiency" in releasing dopamine [1]

[1] https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/07/brain-chemistry-pla...

One fun intersection of this idea was my inattentive ADHD brain’s response to stimulants. I had identified as an introvert for basically my entire life until I got tested and treated. Suddenly I enjoyed going out, talking to people, and it didn’t drain me to the point of physical pain to interact with people for more than brief periods.

Made me realize a lot clearer that what makes me “me” is my brain and body chemistry that apparently isn’t that hard to change. Super existential crisis inducing.

I think I can kind of relate to the existential crisis, but I have decided that the other side of that coin is that you can intentionally build your own reality. Of course there is still plenty of things about life that you can't control, but you aren't necessarily stuck with some set of fixed personality traits and you can't decide to make something different out of yourself.

I seem to remember reading that introverts are more likely to suffer from depression.

I think the naming is intentional. The titles have to be short and simple, and none can be shameful. If you pick a shameful-sounding title like "neurotic" in the Big 5, few people would willingly admit to it and you certainly can't politely ask about it.

I suspect that in a business setting, "introvert" is also seen as a negative. The other MTBI symbols are confusing enough that nobody is likely to remember them off hand, so they are probably neutral. I would advise against self identifying as an introvert. Also, "conscientious" and "openness" probably each have only one right answer.

In a sales setting, being an introvert is probably a negative. In programming, it’s the overwhelming default I think.

> I'm an introvert who can easily converse with strangers

The 10 Aspects scale [1] has an easy answer to this. You might be the kind of introvert that is high in Enthusiasm and low in Assertiveness.

I've got a lot of people being puzzled when I told them I'm an introvert. They only knew my activated, event mode where I was just enthusiastic about sharing my ideas.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5863998_Between_Fac...

If your 1-4 are in I/E, S/N, F/T, P/J order then I have this instead:

(1 E/I) How much external stimulation do you prefer. this may be socialisation (Fe/Te), but it can be more general than that, to include things like physical sense stimulation (Se), and exposure to external ideas (Ne).

(2 S/N) I largely agree.

(3 F/T) Whether you focus primarily on values: good/bad (F) or facts (true/false) (T).

(4) What you've put for 3. Identical to Kahnmenan's Fast and Slow thinking.

Of course everyone has an expect of both sides of either dichotomy, but it is never-the-less useful to know where someone is inclined to place emphasis.

Yes, that 1-4 was my ordering. Interesting, alternative (external stimulation). As I think about external stimulation though, I wonder if being stimulated by people is fundamentally different from other stimulating things (art, ideas, the stimulation of being in nature). I'm guessing this is an area where the theory could fruitfully get more complex.

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