Do You Have a Science Fiction Personality?

[julieandrews]

This essay (Why Do We Read Science Fiction? Does personality influence reading choice?) by Carol Pinchefsky was published on the Intergalactic Medicine Show in September 2006. I ran across it earlier, but my parents got me thinking about personality types again.

The essay says that NTs are pre-disposed to like science fiction. If you don't know what an NT is, then head on over to take the Myers-Briggs Test and find out what you are. NTs are 'intuitive' and 'thinking', but that probably doesn't tell you much until you start reading about the different personality types.

I score on that particular online test as INTJ, though I have also scored before as INTP. I like INTJ, because we are "Masterminds". Gotta love that word! Read more about the Mastermind type. Most of it definitely sounds like me.

Now if I could only work out how to play to my strengths and shore up my weaknesses when it comes to writing. A lot of the descriptions you'll find talk about how your personality type works on the job or in relationships. Does anyone know a good discussion of the personality types as applied to writing? Any tips for not procrastinating and actually producing material would help me greatly!

I suspect one problem I have related to being INTJ is that I'll think of a 'What if?' scenario and then start finding solutions to it. And then I assume that humans aren't dumb enough not to have come up with the solution. Which means I have no problem and thus no story.

So what's your personality type? Any non-NTs out there bucking the trend?

Comments

[birdhousefrog.livejournal.com]

My husband and I are both INTJ's. Knew there was something "special" about you. INTJ's aren't all that common, though they might be in the genre. Sometimes the circumstances you're taking the test under influence how you score, like in a work or personal environment. Or you might not be a strong J, one closer to a midline with P. Me? I'm pretty hard in each category, though I'm trained to do "S" level work when I need to.

But yes, people buck the trend. I think an ISTJ reads a lot of sf, that it doesn't have to be that intuitive N at all. And my sister is ENFP and she reads it. A lot. She reads a lot of romance too, but so do I. Go figure that one.

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

I was a pretty weak 'J', yes. I think it said 11 (out of 100?). Definitely borderline on that last letter. I've never taken an official test. One assumes that would be more comprehensive than the one I linked to.

[birdhousefrog.livejournal.com]

The J vs P split has to do with spontaneity and planning, as much as the terms "judgmental" and "perceptive." If you're someone who makes judgment decisions quickly but also plans and doesn't just, say, decide to apply to Clarion on a whim, you're a J. P's like the idea of doing something on the spur of the moment. Maybe that will help you figure out which side is more you.

I vs E: you're either drained by being in groups of people or energized by them.
N vs S: you're either a "big-picture" person or someone who is detail oriented. Bankers are generally detail-oriented. If you can't copy-edit your stories worth a darn, you're not an S. (But you can learn.)
T vs F: logical, rational orientation or someone who bleeds for what happens to others, whether or not it's rational.
J vs P: among other things, planned vs spontaneous

There's nothing right or wrong about any of the classifications. We are who we are. Your categories can change over the years, though mine don't. You can train yourself to another group if you need to for a career. I find it just helps me understand how other people see the world, that it relates to professions, yes, and to the autistic spectrum and to what the rest of the world calls "normal." I suspect that NT's and ST's like Meyers-Briggs and that some of the other categories react to it as nonsense. It's statistically valid for Americans who grew up in a white-bread, suburban lifestyle. Other backgrounds might not get valid results from the test because of cultural differences and bias in the questions.

[betsywrites.livejournal.com]

INFJ

I think I have taken this in the past and scored differently. Not sure.

[betsywrites.livejournal.com]

"Novelist" is listed as a career option for my personality type, The Counselor Idealist. Woot! Works for me. Thanks, Jules!

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

I found 'librarian' listed for me. It's a field I've considered studying for a long time.

[betsywrites.livejournal.com]

Cool. Hey, UofA has an excellent Library Science program.
You should move here too!

[palmetto.livejournal.com]

INFP. I prefer character-driven stories with a side of science, rather than the other way 'round.

[dwesley.livejournal.com]

I'm an INTP. My wife is an ESTJ, which leads to interesting differences in perspective at home. I totally understand the problem with with the "what if?" scenario. I can spend weeks, running down rabbit holes to make sure that everything is logical and plausible and consistent, only to prove to myself that it would never happen in the "real world". I don't usually require quite so much plausibility in the SF that I read, so somewhere I have to figure out where that line is, where I can say "assume for the purposes of this story that the following is true." But handwaveum has to come in pretty small doses to be tolerable. It's also a little easier to do it with fantasy than it is with SF, because the changes from reality don't have to be plausible, just consistent.