Would you say the extroversion or introversion of the population is normally distributed, with most people in the middle of the range, and a few on the extremes? If so, how do you reconcile that with the Myers-Briggs approach of binning people into the A or B extremes, with no one in the middle?
Although I've read a lot about Myers Briggs, I still am no expert. Also there are a lot of articles out there with differing interpretations. I need to go to the original writings, by Carl Jung.
But one thing I can say about Myers Briggs is that it allows for variation between introversion and extraversion. First of all, an INFJ will usually seem more extroverted than an INTP. Furthermore, one INFJ might seem more extraverted than another INFJ. So I think Myers Briggs allows variation, not only among all whose type begins with I, but even between two people of the exact same four-letter type. In the end, Myers Briggs calls them "preferences."
Myers Briggs for many years seemed to me simplistic. Actually introversion and extraversion was the only thing that I could put a firm finger on, whether I was one way or the other. I consider it a binary trait, maybe even more so than Carl Jung, Myers, or Briggs. Certainly more than you, it sounds like. But that may be because I use the more narrow definition of each, that it's only about where you recharge.
Anyway, the other letters in Myers Briggs seemed to me naive. Am I intuitive or sensing, thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving? Well, I am each of them. It sounded like caricature, not real people. As I read more and more, I found that Myers Briggs meant those words in narrow ways. Thinking doesn't mean thinking, and feeling doesn't mean feeling. Last but not least, not only does the last letter not mean perceiving or judging in the everyday senses, but it doesn't even mean whether you are mainly one or the other. It means which do you extravert? Do you extravert judging or extravert perceiving? Yes, even if you are an introvert, which one do you extravert? And if that's the one you extravert, then the other side is introverted inward, and that's the side therefore that you actually feel is more truly you. Confused yet?
Myers Briggs now seems like some fractal, the more you read about it, the deeper the complexity. There is a whole layer underneath the surface, about "cognitive functions," which is a requirement for even an intermediate level of understanding. It may all end up to be quack science. About the only thing I'm sure of is that we are not blank slates, that at least some of our personality preferences are genetic, and that Myers Briggs tries to nail that down. Whether it nails down too much or not enough or just the wrong parts is another matter.
