We've Been Contaminated?

Coming up this new school year (which is officially in full swing for me as of today) I'm going to be working on a new project for my blog involving the Myers Briggs Personality types. 

These are all 16 types. Look familiar? 

I'll be finding one guy and one girl from all sixteen types and interviewing them through some sort of recording thing. Whether that's a Skype call with an audio recording program or an in person interview with a fancy mic, I'll be getting the person's real voice. That way you can get a feel for how each type talks differently. Do they think out loud? Are they indecisive? How are they deciding upon their answers? 

I'm then going to create profiles for each person and stick them somewhere on my blog (I haven't decided upon the location yet, maybe they'll get their own dimension!).

The interview will be uploaded to my SoundCloud and I'll release a transcript of the interview as well probably through a public google drive. 

It's going to be incredibly fun and I'm beyond thrilled to be starting this ^ ^ It's going to be a learning experience on personality types for both me and all the readers. If you're into that, be sure to subscribe through blogger or email if you're old school like me ;) 

Because this project has been on the forefront of my mind, I began picking apart a few things. One of them being that personalities aren't really allowed to be a set rule book. 

Last June I started writing an essay called "We've Been Contaminated." My central thesis was that our raw personalities we're born with have been contaminated by our surroundings. Fears, insecurities, people who we live with etc. But I scrapped the essay because it felt wrong. 

After some long nights of thinking, I figured it out. Contaminated is the wrong word. All of our experiences, good and bad have shaped us. Ours fears, preferences to types of music, the people we chose to spend our time with, they all shape us. You just can't call it contamination. 

I know two ENFJs quite well. They're both amazing people but in their own way. They grew up very differently. One is a twin, the other isn't. One enjoys sports, the other is more into the arts. They're both driven but in different ways. Similar things irk them but some of those things derive from different life experiences. 

I'm not saying that if you had both girls grow up in the same environment (same family, friends school, everything) that they would turn out the same. The truth is that we all have blends of a few personality types. 

I'm an INTP. A pretty solid one at that. When I read the INTP description, I'm a little scared at the accuracy. However, I'm adventurous and hate to not get things done like an ISTP. 

This is me...

But so is this XD

I tested one of my friends and came up with three different types. We had to read more detailed descriptions before honing in on the one that was the most accurate. 

It's become an important thing for me as an interviewer to treat each person that I interview as a new and fresh individual. There's no such thing as a true INTP or ENFJ. Some might be more true to the description than others but that's to be expected. There aren't sixteen types of people in the world. There are seven billion and they're all incredibly unique. 

I have a friend who's a psychologist. She told me that personality types are like world cultures. Cultures have traditions, ways that they greet each other, ways they eat food, they have their own views on what's disrespectful and what's respectful, and they just generally will live their lives differently from the next culture. 

My cousins came from Holland. They told me that Canada is very laid-back. We had to scratch our heads at that one because to us, our lifestyle is all go, go go. 

Even though, these cultures are all very different, that doesn't mean that the people inside live according to their culture. All of them have their own lives, morals, schedules, beliefs and traditions. To say that everyone in Canada loves hockey, lives out in the boonies and feeds the moose in their backyard would be totally unfair. So the types are like the cultures. One type, some similarities but a lot of unique people within them.

If you follow my interview project—and I hope you will!—keep these things in mind. If you use the interviews as references, that's all they are, references. If you listen to an interview with an ESFJ and then meet one in person, don't be shocked if they're different people. 

Do you know your personality type? Have you met someone with the same type? What was that experience like?