I've lately gravitated to using a single key diagnostic for reading people: what behavior that you're normally capable of collapses under stress?
You need the two sets of observations under distinct conditions to use this obviously, but it's one of the least noisy tests.
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Typical relaxed --> stress transitions:
INTPs lose foxy curiosity and turn into
INTJ caricature hedgehogs.
ENTPs lose capacity for affection/intimacy and turn into weak Field Marshal ENTJs
Using Myers-Briggs for convenience (the test isn't dependent on a specific mdoel)
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Here's where I think you're wrong. I don't think that people under stress fail into the nearest adjacent MBTI category
Perhaps under microstresses?
I see way more tendency for people to cross into a different macro quadrant in the 2x2
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I think it's pretty messy, but the general rule seems to be something like TiNe flips to TeNi etc. iirc that's the calculus they use. I don't use their inference mechanism, just the language/labels
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Probably both the phenomena we're talking about happen. When I first read your post I immediately thought "this sounds like enneagram-ish dynamics" and I recalled situations where I've seen people forced to perform/function way outside of their most intelligent roles
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Yeah enneagram handles this more naturally/natively, but is less fun as a vocabulary, given its numbers/letters schemes
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