INTP vs. INTJ - Comparison
I have often wondered why people are so prone to misidentifying xxxJ and xxxP types at first glance (myself included). This seems to happen the most often with INFPs and INFJs, and INTPs and INTJs. We’ve all encountered that person who believes that they’re an “INFP/INFJ hybrid”. (See: this previous post explaining my pet theory about cognitive function duality.)
So, this duality got me thinking. If:
1. Fi and Fe are opposites, just as other opposite paired functions (Te/Ti, Se/Si, Ne/Ni) are;
2. And they exist to approach the same problem from different viewpoints;
3. Then this is why opposite types can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from one another.
So, the logical next step in the thought process was: how do INTJs and INTPs approach information differently? So, I decided to come up with a metaphor.
To run with my previously-established theme comparing Ni to a pyramid, INTJs are like a mountain. Over the course of time, sheets of sediment are built up, depositing over top of one another, again and again and again. It takes hundreds of thousands of years for a mountain to form; and Ni is similarly slow out of the gate. Igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic rocks pile and press over one another to create layer after layer of solid material. Weather grinds down the mountainside - wind, snow, sleet, hail, and rain all work to hone the mountain’s many layers into a peak.
This is how INTJs work. Their opinions are formed by taking an aggregate of information they’ve perceived over time, and once they have enough pieces of the puzzle to fit together - in other words, once they have enough information - then their brain makes an intuitive leap to the conclusion, and they reach an answer: the peak of their mountain. The summit is the end of their journey, their best guess given all of the complex layers of information that they’ve stored up over time. If the INTJ is like a slowly-forming mountain, and Ni’s conclusion is the peak, then the weather is the INTJ’s internal process of trying to maximize the efficiency of their actions and thought process.
INTPs are the opposite. Where an INTJ will take all of the information already known to reach a conclusion, INTPs will freely discard information that does not balance correctly on their internal scale - this is Ti at work instead of Ni. In this way, if INTJs are builders, then INTPs are more like percolators. INTJs are building up to a conclusion using all of the information in their external world available to them, while INTPs are looking to narrow their conclusion down to one underlying rule or principal based on the evidence that best fits into their internal model.
An INTP will accumulate information and quickly, gradually, and automatically sift and filter it through many layers of internal logic in order to reach the most likely conclusion. INTPs are the rule, and INTJs are the application.
In this way, INTJs and INTPs - who are both incredibly intellectually curious, love learning, and are absolutely devoted to the pursuit of truth, accuracy, and honesty - are remarkably adept at locating the most logical, rational, and reasonable position in a pile of useless, inefficient, and unnecessary rules.
In other words: INTJs and INTPs are crossing the same lake, but they’re using two completely different methods to get it done.
