Rebel8, I discovered MBTI last year through a post you mentioned your MBTI type (INTJ) in this thread:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/experiences/226778/1/a-grunts-bethel-experience
Many thanks!
Personality types and religious adherence
by EdenOne 22 Replies latest jw friends
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outofthelionsden
I am a INTJ!! I GUESS IM A SUPER RARE female LOL
The INTJ personality type is one of the rarest and most interesting types - comprising only about 2% of the U.S. population (INTJ females are especially rare - just 0.8)
-Unsurprisingly, this personality type can be labelled as the most independent of all types. we are best at independent thinking.
no wonder I left watchtower
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scotoma
The Myers-Briggs test isn't valued highly in academic circles. There are severe flaws in its construction. In spite of this it is very popular because it has a strong promotional organization behind it.
The most widely accepted personality inventory is the FFM or Five Factor Model. It rates people on 5 scales: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to experience.
People who are members of fundamentalists religions are positively correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness and are negatively correlated with "openness to experience".
Traits of openness to experience:
Openness to experience – (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious). Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, curiosity, and variety of experience. Openness reflects the degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity and a preference for novelty and variety a person has. It is also described as the extent to which a person is imaginative or independent, and depicts a personal preference for a variety of activities over a strict routine. Some disagreement remains about how to interpret the openness factor, which is sometimes called "intellect" rather than openness to experience. (Wikipedia)
What this means is that as time goes on JW's will continue to resist change. The brightest and best will leave. When the organization began it tended to attract the people who were more open to an alternative to traditional religious dogma. But now that it is clear that JW's are definitely in the fundamentalists camp they can't attract the more creative types. Remember in the 60's that a lot of hippies came into the organization because of JW's antiwar views and anit-materialistic attitude. Because openness to experience is a highly heritable trait the children of these "hippies" have been repulsed by their parents religion and have drifted away. Whereas Russell appeared open to experience as evidenced by his imaginative excursions (pyrimidology, magic wheat, books channeled by spirit mediums) Rutheford was simply a crank and a dictator. Rutheford was followed by the typical "organization men" Knorr, Larson etc. With the death of Franz bizarre creativity has degraded to mindless "change" for the sake of change.
It is a sad situation. Even the Catholic Church, although rigid, tolerated the Jesuits to carry on their intellectual pursuits. Jehovah's Witnesses have become the worst kind of fundamentalists and take pride in allying themselves with the cruel early reformers that were kicked out of Great Britain and Europe.