This is going to be a really rough, sketch of a post. But give me an idea with legs, and I’ma run with it.

Yesterday I shared a little of my personal journey with MBTI. Today I started thinking more about how the “shadow” (ie, the converse of our least-used cognitive function) is underdeveloped and somewhat of an Achilles Heel. What is that, more broadly, for people? What are–on a general level–our problems?

To start out, I found this chart of type distribution in the general population. I have no idea how accurate it is (although it seems accurate), but since MBTI is of dubious scientific validity anyway, I’m just going to roll with it for now.

Please note that I am not a statistician. I just like knowing things. I also view MBTI more as a reliable heuristic than anything else.

Anyway. Type frequency:

Type Frequency in Population
ISFJ               13.8%
ESFJ             12.3%
ISTJ             11.6%
ISFP          8.8%
ESTJ          8.7%
ESFP          8.5%
ENFP         8.1%
ISTP      5.4%
INFP     4.4%
ESTP     4.3%
INTP    3.3%
ENTP    3.2%
ENFJ    2.5%
INTJ   2.1%
ENTJ   1.8%
INFJ   1.5%

 

Then I figured out the “shadow” cognitive function for each of the types, binned them with their pairs, and tallied the percentage. For instance, ENJF and ESJF both have Ti as their inferior cognitive function, which would make Te the shadow function.

Here is a really ugly pie chart of the results.

Ugh, this chart is bad. Please don’t hold it against me.

ISFJ and INTJ top out with a Ni shadow at a whopping 25.4% of the population. In fact, the entire “top half” of the chart (which is conveniently going from bottom-up HOLLA TERRIBLE INFORMATION STRUCTURING) is entirely Intuition and Thinking.

That is 65.8% of the population who are effectively incapable of self-reflection or critical thinking.

Now, that’s overstating it. It’s merely 25.4% of the population (“population,” no idea what the sample is) that is nearly incapable of the self-reflection that comes with Ni.

The next 28% is nearly incapable of arranging their thoughts in an objective manner.

If you pay attention to human beings, this is not news. On the whole, we are an irrational, reactionary species. But dangnabbit if this doesn’t help explain why.

I have a lot more sympathy toward people when I realize that they view introspection or thinking in the same way that I view feelings.

This definitely helps explain why things tend toward a small group of “elite” running things for everybody else.

Anyhow, this is a rough first pass, but I want to look a little bit more about how the relative frequency of type is distributed. It’ll help me get more of a handle on global trends (say hey to my Ne, everybody) and I did a small data project at work last week that has primed my appetite for data visualizations (hi, Ti).