PersonalityCategorisations/MyersBriggs

OriginalPoster? DouglasReay asks:

: I read a question on [tribes] and it made me wonder. Is there any data out there on the personality types of people's parents and how those correspond with their own types?

For those not familiar with the Myers-Briggs categories (INTJ, etc) there are thousands of pages out there that [explain them]. There are even some [statistics].

I could ask my mother, if you want. She's a professional counsellor and psychologist, uses the MBTI in her work, and her MA research project was on how /MyersBriggs personality types affect the way a counsellor views counselling - things like "is empathy a state or a process" turn out to be strongly correlated to personality type, for example. --AlexChurchill, ENTP

If you wouldn't mind, yes please. I suppose the corresponding question is, if you want someone to turn out with a particular personality, what personality should you choose for the parents to maximise the chance? --DR

Update (2021) Alex - did you mother ever get back to you with an answer? --DR

That question appears to rely on undefined assumptions. Compare to "if I wanted to have a particular amount of RAM in my computer, what size sledgehammer should I choose?" - MoonShadow

Depends whose warehouse you'd be breaking into. ^_^ --Requiem

: "...And should I go for the toughened steel head or a standard hammer head" --Edith

But if you tack on ", or is there no sensible answer to this question (ie, minimal correlation)" to DR's question, it makes perfect sense. --CH

Did you ever get an answer from your mother? Actually the question is quite relevant now as I am playing Sims2 where that sort of situation happens. --DR

Personally I'd say that there almost has to be some kind of correlation there. It probably isn't a simple linear one though - in fact I would guess that a childs personality wil often be the opposite of their parents. No stats, just gut feeling. If anyone finds stats, I'd be interested to see whether I'm right or not. Of course it's going to be problematice because PersonalityCategorisations are ... incomplete to be polite. HorsePucky? to be less polite. --Vitenka (Useably useful HorsePucky? still smells bad)