What You Need To Know About The INFP Myers-Briggs Personality Type
The INFP personality type is a person whose life reflects their innermost values — a side of them few will ever see.
On the outside you see a quiet, calm, sometimes playful or serious person. But what sets the INFP apart from other types is the fire inside them, fueled by their values.
Isabel Myers — co-creator of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) — was an INFP. She saw how bringing Carl Jung’s theory of personality could change our lives.
Seeing this as her contribution towards world peace, Isabel dedicated her life to making Jung’s work easier to grasp.
If we just understood each other better…
“What Isabel decided was, if she could give people access to knowing their psychological type, it would be a contribution to world peace”
-Katherine Myers, Isabel Myers’ daughter-in-law
How did Isabel — born during a time when women couldn’t vote — create the world’s most popular personality instrument?
Determination.
Around two million people take the MBTI every year.
How did she make such a successful tool?
Belief.
Isabel believed in the value her work would bring to the world.
Creating a tool used by 88% of Fortune 500 companies was no small feat, and could only get done with a strong sense of purpose.
This is the power of belief.
The INFP’s Superpower: Where They Place Belief
You can weigh things, concepts, and ideas on how important they are to you — giving them a value.
Black Lives Matter.
Stop Asian Hate.
Wearing a mask during a global pandemic.
INFPs think about the importance of every action, idea, and cause. Seeing what matches — and doesn’t match — their values.
This is important because…
I’ll do my best to stand up for equality because…
I’m wearing my wear mask because…
Learning about ourselves and others is important because if we understood each other better, there would be less conflict.
When INFPs decide to bury a value deep in their hearts, they become
quiet champions for that cause.
How INFPs Prefer To Decide: Their First Cognitive Function
Each MBTI type has a unique combination of Jungian cognitive functions.
This combination determines how each type’s brain prefers to take in information and make decisions.
For the INFP, they prefer to make decisions based on their values, what
Jung called introverted Feeling.
Introverted Feeling (Fi) is one of four ways we can decide. Everyone makes decisions using Fi. But for INFPs, these decisions are second nature to them.
One role this decision-making process plays is deciding what we believe in:
Deciding what is important. Deciding what is of value.
“Where they [INFPs] place belief, it is one hundred percent.”
— Linda V. Berens & Dario Nardi, Understanding Yourself and Others: An Introduction to the Personality Type Code
The Neuroscience Of Introverted Feeling
With every decision, your brain cells fire in a certain pattern.
Value-based, introverted Feeling decisions use a part of our brain behind our right temple.
F8 represents a sensor on an EEG, a device used for measuring electrical activity of the brain. This part of our brains light up when we talk about something important to us.
For example, when we say my family, my work, or my beliefs.
F8 also gets active when you decide based on how important something is to you. This area lights up when you list your friends and family from like to dislike — an activity that makes you to decide based on personal importance.
Type Is About Your Brain’s Preferred Way Of Taking In Information And Making Decisions
What hand do you use when you sign your name?
The hand you prefer.
When you use your right hand, there’s electrical activity on the left side.
In handedness, you prefer that part of your brain over the other.
The same is true for personality type.
Areas of the brain that get used more grow stronger connections.
And the stronger the connection, the more likely it’s used.
Just like with handedness.
Introverted Feeling decisions involve a network of brain cells, with F8 being one hub of that network.
Red lines represent a network of brain cells firing together every 1–2 seconds.
For INFPs, introverted Feeling is their dominant hand, they can’t help but use it automatically for their decisions.
Just as you can’t help but use your dominant hand to sign your name.
There are 16 combinations of cognitive functions, hence 16 personality types.
Each cognitive function has a pattern of brain activity linked with it.
While INFPs prefer introverted Feeling for their decision-making, they use extraverted Intuition most to access information about the world around them.
The Side INFP’s Shows To The World: Their Second Function
The extraverted Intuition (Ne) function is the side you’ll to see from the INFP.
Ne is the INFP’s most preferred extraverted function; they use this function most in the outer world.
INFPs use this function when interacting with others, since people are a part of the outside world.
Extraverted Intuition deals with taking in abstract, conceptual information from the environment. With this process, INFPs see the world for what it could be.
This allows them to see possibilities, for themselves and others.
When we use extraverted Intuition to gather information, our brains resemble Christmas tree lights. Our brains enter a brainstorm state where all areas are firing at different energy levels and frequencies.
This out-of-sync brain activity leads to quick and creative responses to the outside world, giving the INFP their playful side.
Communicating With The INFP Personality
It might not seem like it but INFPs are listening to your words, tone of voice, and emotions in a deep way.
INFP brain’s are very active in the areas responsible for hearing, located behind your ears.
T3: Hear content, parse words, and use correct grammar.
T4: Hear voice tones/melodies, detect intent, and weigh ethics.
The red lines above represents an INFP’s network of brain cells wired together and firing every one-to-two seconds.
This network is connects to Fp1 and Fp2, the areas of our brains that have the final say in decisions.
INFPs are listening attentively to the emotions in the tone of your voice. And with deep listening, they tend to know how sincere someone is being.
Combined with the brainstorm state of extraverted Intuition, INFPs intuitively pick up on what others value or the reasons behind why something is said.
Overall, it pays to be sincere and kind when talking to an INFP.
INFPs & Careers: Meaning & Purpose
First of all, it’s important to say that any personality type can be successful in any career. What one INFP finds boring, another finds interesting.
Myers-Briggs types with “NF” in their type code have a core need for meaning and purpose. These types belong to the Catalyst™ temperament.
Careers that are meaningful to the INFP meet this need. This is why they are drawn to jobs as a teachers or counselors; they involve helping people.
“INFPs excel in fields that deal with possibilities for people.”
- Isabel Myers, Gifts Differing
INFPs who lack purpose in their lives will suffer a great deal of stress.
For example, Michael Segovia, an INFP working for the Myers-Briggs Company, was miserable after taking a role dealing with numbers.
Michael was able to reclaim the purpose in his career after switching to a role training others in the correct and ethical use of the MBTI.
Famous INFPs
While it’s fun to speculate someone’s type, we can only guess what their
best-fit type is.
Isabel Briggs Myers
Isabel identifies with having INFP preferences.
There isn’t much guess work when figuring out Isabel’s type. She made the MBTI.
While it is hard to see introverted Feeling, since it is an internal decision-making process. Isabel’s shows in her hard work and dedication in making the MBTI a reality.
“I dream that long after I’m gone, my work will go on helping people.”
-Isabel Myers
Stephen Colbert
Stephen is one of the few famous people we can say is an INFP.
In one of his skits titled, “Who Is Stephen Colbert?” he hires an MBTI master practitioner to find out who he is.
He’s funny and silly— his extraverted Intuition in use. But there are a few times where he shows his sensitive, introverted Feeling side. Like in his heartfelt farewell to John Stewart.
Conclusion
INFPs have a deep inner world that not too many see. And a playful outer side that they show to the world.
While it is hard to see their values — since they’re buried deep in their hearts — they’re shown through their actions. These values come together through taking in and connecting patterns from the world around them.
Quiet and unassuming, with a lot hidden beneath the surface, INFPs are one of the hardest types to truly get to know.
