Monday, November 17, 2008

Genea-Musings is written by an ISTP

Thomas MacEntee on the Bootcamp for Genea-bloggers blog introduces us to Typealyzer in his post Typealyzer: Analyze Your Blog's Writing Style. Thomas is an ESTP (Extrovert-Sensing-Thinking-Perceiving) in the Myers-Briggs scheme of personality types.

Being an adventurous type, I wondered what type I am, according to my writing. On Typealyzer, you have to put in a web site for analysis, so I dutifully put in www.geneamusings.com. It indicated that my writings on Genea-Musings indicate that I am in ISTP = Introvert-Sensing-Thinking-Perceiving writer. The site says this about my type:

"The Mechanics

"The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters."


The site provides a map of the brain for Thinking (logic, mathematics), Intuition (imagination, symbols), Sensing (order, habit, detail), and Feeling (spirituality, rhythm, memory). I am more Thinking and Sensing, rather than Intuition and Feeling.

Well, those descriptions seem almost right to me. I think that I am: Independent; Problem-solving; Responds to challenges; Think things out; Avoid inter-personal conflicts; Work together with other independents and highly-skilled people; Seek fun and action in work and personal life. Only the last one doesn't fit - I haven't taken many risks by doing dangerous things. I am an aerospace engineer and a genealogist, not a policeman or race car driver.

Then I wondered if this analysis held when I write about my personal life on www.geneaholic.com. According to Typealyzer, my writing there reveals an ESFP (Extrovert-Sensing-Feeling-Perceiving) personality. Hmmm. What happened? Multiple personalities? I write The Geneaholic posts late at night - could that be it - do I change from a thinker to a feeler after the sun goes down?

What about genealogy software programs that produce genealogy reports in an automated way? I analyzed my web site at www.genealogy.com/users/s/e/a/Randy-Seaver/ and found that those writings (which are almost all genealogy reports) reflected an INTP (Introvert-Intuition, Thinking-Perceiving) personality.

If you have a web site that you write on, you too can use Typealyzer to determine the personality profile of your writings. Or you can put in the URL of your favorite writer or blogger and see what they are.

Enjoy... thanks, Thomas for a little bit of blog fodder!

5 comments:

Lori Thornton said...

Apparently my blogging style is quite different than my personal style. I've done MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) many many times over the years and always test at the same thing. Let's just say that this tool is 3/4 in disagreement with MBTI. I'll take the real MBTI over the stripped down version any day.

lyn said...

Randy, I tried this on my Johnson Monroe and Amelia Hooper descendants blog.

"The analysis indicates that the author of
http://jandamonroe.blogspot.com
is of the type:
ESFP - The Performers
[ESFP]
The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions."

lyn said...

Hit enter before I meant to. I don't surround myself with "soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells". I also plan ahead. The only thing that exhausts me are my work outs at the Y.

I think most of the other stuff applies - I never enjoyed being a manager in my working days. Always preferred just being a "techie".

Cheers from Pacific Beach!

Anonymous said...

Mechanic!

- Scientist

MrDolomite said...

My blog came back as an ESTP, but I have always been an ISTJ, so, as with all things on the web, your mileage may vary :) But interesting that it got half of them correct.