INTJ Personality Types and Stress
Melissa, MBTI Marketing Manager
Last time we talked about people with preferences for ENFP and stress. This time, we'll cover the personality type INTJ and stress. If you missed the first two blogs in the stress series, they were What Stresses You Out Based on Your Myers-Briggs Type and How to Calm Job Interview Nerves Based on Your Myers-Briggs Type.
Research
Our research team explored the causes and effects of stress within a number of top professions in the U.S. Based on data gathered from more than 800,000 people that have taken the official Myers-Briggs® assessment and information our research team has about personality type and occupations, below are a few common occupations along with insight into the Myers-Briggs personality type most commonly self-selecting into that profession.
Even if you don’t know anyone in these occupations, or you aren’t this Myers-Briggs type and don’t know anyone with these preferences read the below to get a new perspective on things that stress others out, and how they react to it.
Self-awareness always starts with you, but the other side of self-awareness is understanding how you’re different from others.
INTJ Personality Types
People with INTJ preferences enjoy being challenged intellectually and working in a fast-paced, achievement-oriented environment.
They relish the opportunity to work with people who are experts in their field. They prefer to work independently with opportunities to develop their own ideas. Their visionary nature suggests that they tend to enjoy theoretical and conceptual work. Appealing industries for people who prefer INTJ include those in scientific or technical industries.
Common careers that people with INTJ personality types tend to gravitate towards include survey researcher, natural sciences manager, medical scientist, plant scientist, nuclear engineer, management consultant, architect or a manager or supervisor of architects.
But remember, just because you have preferences for INTJ doesn't mean you'll always be successful in one of the above careers. What it does mean is that people with INTJ preferences choose these careers over others because the requirements and work style style best aligns with their personality strengths.
Blog: Using Myers-Briggs Type to Find Your Career Fit
Read the below insights into the personality type (INTJ) that is most common among Psychiatrists (this personality type is also prevalent among Medical Scientists):
Under normal circumstances:
- Independent, logical thinkers
- Innovative problem solvers
- Likely to value conceptual and theoretical structures and explanations
- Insightful about long-range implications and outcomes
- Objectively critical of their own and others’ ideas
- Able to effectively cut to the heart of a problem, simplifying complex issues
- Apt to dislike and avoid noisy, frenetic, disorganized work and home environments
Described by others as:
- Uncannily insightful about people and situations
- Future oriented and visionary
- Intensely focused on whatever they are thinking or doing
- Direct, forthright, opinionated
- Aloof and seemingly unapproachable at times
- Sometimes stubborn and inflexible
Signs of stress:
- Obsessively focusing on some aspect of the outer world
- Losing focus, becoming scattered and disorganized
- Overreacting to what people say or do
- Blaming others for minor mistakes or factual errors
- Coming up with a complex theory to explain one or two isolated facts
Read signs of stress for each Myers-Briggs personality type.
What Causes Stress:
- Being bombarded with facts and details
- Having to adapt to changes in routine
- Encountering obstacles in the outer world—traffic, equipment failures, interruptions, flight delays
- Having to interact excessively with individuals and groups
- Coping with crowds, noise, confusion, chaotic environments
- Dealing with incompetent people, illogical systems
- Being criticized professionally, having your competence attacked, not being recognized
Read what causes stress for each Myers-Briggs type.
Tips for Managing Stress:
- Engage in positive activities that accomplish something useful, such as cleaning out closets, sorting photographs, fixing things
- Take steps to lighten their schedule and stick to their commitment to do so
- Step back and use logic to analyze the situation
- Get closure on some lighter, more manageable tasks
- Remind themselves that it will pass
Read about managing stress for all Myers-Briggs personality types.
Worst ways they can respond to stress:
- Push people away if they offer to listen to them
- Refuse to accept or ask for help with their workload
How others can be most helpful:
- Validate their feelings, even if they seem “over the top”
- Be physically present but don’t offer advice or tell them what to do
- Treat them the same way as always, as if they were their usual self
How others can make things worse:
- Push them for an answer or a decision
- Demand that they socialize
- Offer unwanted help and advice
- Point out that there are alternatives that might work
Want to see more information like this? Learn about your own personality type and stress by taking the official Myers-Briggs assessment and getting access to the information in the personality type portal.