Back in October I did some research amongst myers-briggs personality types. I then read an article (can’t find it know :( ) stating that naturalists are more prone to be introverts. Is that true, and how does that help you in your exploits on Inaturalist, extrovert or introvert? I myself am a INTJ. Just curious if their is a correlation between personalities and naturalists. Are certain types more prone to be naturalists than others?
Of course there is no evidence that personality tests are even accurate.
I think generally people who enjoy spending a lot of time outdoors are also people who find themselves over (or under) stimulated in social environments, so yeah introverted.
The taxonomy aspect of being a naturalist appeals to people who like systems and categorization, which I think falls under Conscientiousness in the Big Five personality system as orderliness, or maybe a combo of Thinking and Judging under Myers-Briggs?
I did it when I was still in the corporate world to have talking points with HR. Didn’t really work out, then I ended up in a world of people who run to the spot where WHS/OHS people warned about the sighting of a snake. :) As with astrology, I read and say “oh yes, definitely my personality” (though, for astrology I just find that being a fire dragon is pretty cool and don’t care about what it is supposed to make me).
Coming from a finance/accounting background, I’m both pleased with the taxonomy and horrified by the constant revisions :D
Astrology indeed. I had not heard of this Myers-Briggs personality taxonomy. I suspect there is a lot of hybridization among these types and it would be difficult to assign a species-level ID for most of us.
I’m maybe the most classic example of an introverted naturalist. I never cared for most stuff (including school stuff) but animals and plants, besides being born in a large city and being more or less forced to do plenty of (team) sports in my youth. Lost many friends due to my passion/occupation (arachnologist) and most family members, including my parents, don’t understand me at all. Never been on any social media (if you don’t count iNat) nor do I own a smartphone (which I find horribly annoying).
But to be really honest, I don’t care and I am happy most people leave me alone. I have a great network of colleagues, a small family of my own and the older I get (I’m 36 now) the happier I am about my decision to stick with nature.
I would say the majority of colleagues in the field of Arachnology are similar to me. I also have the feeling that there are huge differences between fields and the personality of experts/naturalists, e.g. between ornithology and arachnology, maybe related to the popularity of the topics. However, I don’t know any data supporting this.
I feel lucky to have met several other iNat enthusiasts, and think about what kind of personalities compel/attract us to this community. I think we’re all a bit “different” but I find it difficult to generalize that difference by personality type. I’ve met several extroverts (by my eye anyway) for example. I don’t know what the answer is, but I’m not sure extroversion/introversion-related traits are the right dimension for what makes iNat’rs “different.”
I’ve been told that in a room full of introverts, I’d stand out as the introvert. Groups of people can be fun but are kind of like I think roller coasters (shudder) are for some people. Nice but too much for very long. So introversion is probably a major reason I love being in nature. That and the fact that birds and plants don’t get offended by my violating social norms I didn’t know existed. (Birds flying off because of fear is something entirely different and understandable.)
yeah TBH I think its mostly bunkus, and like astrology, just gives people an excuse/chance to be discriminatory about something that has been given unearned legitimacy. Especially in the case of corporations that use personality tests during their hiring process - literally corporate mandated discrimination. I’m not a fan.
Though I do jest sometimes though that my Capricorn-ness is obvious because I think astrology is bunk ;p
I’m definitely an introvert though - don’t get me wrong, I like people, and there are some people I’m so happy to spend time with, but they’re usually people that I know have similar interests and I don’t have to mask hard around. The general public? I have to mask hard, and that shit is draining. Before my current job, I worked in public-facing positions, retail then bars and then liquor sales, and by the end of it I was so burned out from having to publicly mask for YEARS that I couldn’t handle it anymore.
So yeah, throw me in the woods with some of my like-minded friends and we’ll make happy noises in the general direction of mushrooms for hours. Put me in a situation where I have to act ‘normal’ and I’ll probably be annoyed at best and massively uncomfortable at worst.
So, is there a personality type that includes conspecific introversion with allospecific extroversion? That is, introverted among other people but very open and expressive with animals, especially domestic animals? Seems like that’s a thing for many people who consider themselves animal lovers but who are not so comfortable around people. Of course, a personality classification system used by businesses is going to be mainly focused on how one interacts with members of our own species. Unless you’re in the animal care/ training business.
INTP here.
I like Myers-Briggs.
It helps me understand, appreciate and accept different people’s approaches to the world.
I had it described to me as …
See it as 16 rooms in a house.
We can enter each room, but there is a room where we tend to be most comfortable.
But X is used for hybrids in a sense
I type as INTP but sometimes as INFP.
This is denoted as INXP.
For anyone who has never done the test and wants to… though it’s quite different to the blinder ones businesses use, see the “Jung Tests” on SimilarMinds to get a good idea of where you fall : https://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html
Wikipedia will tell you that psychologists consider it pseudoscientific because of that fuzziness and supposedly the Big Five model has more support. Who knows, compared to psychology, ecology seems simple to me haha.