Here's a way to sort between INFJ and INFP: Ask yourself how you feel about self-disclosure.
If you're comfortable divulging personal information about yourself (particularly to strangers), you're more likely INFJ. You may not even classify much information about yourself as being "personal" -- depending on the situation, everything is fair game. If, instead, you're inclined to be private and generally tight-lipped about yourself and your personal life, you're more likely INFP.
Let's explain what self-disclosure is: it's a willingness to reveal information about yourself. It's not self-promotion or bragging. It's simply a tendency to reveal personal information in an attempt to build a "bridge" with others to build relationships and increase rapport. It's a way of creating shared experience, shared meaning.
Here's a good definition of self-disclosure from a website:
Self-disclosure is a process of providing information to another individual. The information that is disclosed include one's thoughts, feelings, past experiences, and future plans. ... Other characteristics that help define what self-disclosure is, and what it means, is that it "involves risk and vulnerability on the part of the person sharing the information" (Borchers). ... According to Fisher & Adams, "...all possible knowledge about yourself can be classified into two categories: public knowledge (what other people know) and private knowledge (what only you know)." Hence, when one self-discloses information to another, he/she makes public the private information of him/herself.
Here are the sorts of things that are topics of self-disclosure:
- your beliefs about the world, yourself, and others
- your values (what is important or not, what you like or don't, etc.)
- your emotional responses to events or to others
- your goals
When one self-discloses, the intent is to gain knowledge, or information, about the other person, as well as him/herself. What this objective enables individuals in the relationship to do is "...coordinate necessary actions and reduce ambiguity about one another's intentions and the meaning of their behavior."
When one self-discloses private information about their thoughts and feelings, there is a high degree of vulnerability. The individual self-disclosing is taking a chance of getting hurt. That person may get hurt in a number of ways. Their "true self" may be rejected or exploited. The information that was disclosed may not be responded to in a positive manner, or the information may be used against the discloser, leaving the other person in the relationship to gain power. There is a loss of control associated with self-disclosing that can be very threatening to some people.
Let me explain what self-disclosure is not. It is not leaving people to their own devices to learn more about you. Charlie Chaplin (likely an introverted feeling type) is quoted as once saying, "If you want to understand me, watch my movies." That's typical of an introverted feeling type. Along similar lines, I once asked someone who claimed on their webpage to be INFJ why there was no information about them -- and was informed that I would learn everything I wanted to know by reading the short stories they had written. The truth is, if I am left to INFER who you are -- that is not self-disclosure.
Many people confuse self-disclosure with exposing their ideas. For example, a lot of INFPs enjoy "blogging," where they share speculation with the world about things that are going on.
Technically, this is not self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is not about speculating or working out implications -- it's about bridging with personal revelations, often revelations that are "concrete." Examples of this might include, "oh look! We both drive a Honda Accord!" or "my mother died last year too." It's especially obvious when we "tell on ourselves," by sharing painful stories about ourselves or revealing mistakes we've made. I notice self-disclosure operating when I talk about getting fired from a job, or share an embarrassing moment I experienced at a party. Last night I encountered a woman in a public toilet who had spilled coffee on her white dress, and I found myself babbling about something similar happening to me as a way to create relationship and eliminate the tension of being strangers.
To put a fine point on it, most people tend to self-disclose after they get to know you. INFJs self-disclose as a WAY to get to know you. So the question is how soon it happens in the relationship -- early on for INFJs or later on for INFPs. Are you more inclined to spontaneously share things about yourself to a stranger, or only after you've gotten comfortable with someone?
In my experience, INFPs just don't like sharing too much personal detail about themselves. I noticed once on an email list how I let everyone know I was leaving to go visit Australia for a week. I didn't want anyone worrying about where I'd gone to. The INFP list owner simply disappeared for two weeks, although he was happy to say he'd been on vacation after he got back. I found that to be an interesting difference.
Last weekend I spoke with a trainer who knew type, and when I casually asked him what his type code was, all kinds of resistance showed up and he was uncomfortable saying he had INFP preferences. Another INFP I am conversing with via email has told me all sorts of things about his wife's behaviors, but I don't know her name or how old she is or anything specific about her. She's just a vague impression for me. A domFi I met in person was uncomfortable telling me his name when I asked point-blank what it was.
Some NFPs have a habit of deftly turning the tables and asking others about themselves in order to turn the focus away and shine it on the other person instead so as to cleverly escape the limelight. They may be good at getting others to self-disclose, and prefer to stay hidden in the background, keeping themselves private. On the other hand, I have seen NFPs fall into the "grip" of extraverted Feeling and begin babbling inappropriate information to anybody who will listen -- sharing about affairs, a death in the family, and personal medical matters that might be better left unsaid (at least publicly). So it's not that NFPs can't self-disclose -- but they don't do it as gracefully as NFJs seem to.
This tendency to self-disclose or not shows up readily on many homepage websites. Some owners freely provide their life story in great detail (like mine does) while, in contrast, other sites avoid personal revelation -- so a biography is lacking, a picture is lacking, and no personal details are provided. The owner may be anonymous, or an alter ego (such as their cat) hosts the website, or perhaps there are "under construction" signs posted in the bio section (under construction for the past 5 years, you'll notice). The owner may share lots of opinions, but their personal details are scant or buried. If any self-disclosure is offered, they seem uncomfortable with it, and it's not intended to build a bridge -- it's more like somebody put a gun to their head or shamed them into sharing it.
Of course some of this is related to age. Younger INFPs tend to be more private than younger INFJs, who may get caught up in runaway self-disclosure and not stop talking about themselves. As we grow older, we all tend to mellow a bit around this distinction -- so you may want to consider whether your self-assessment holds true for most of your life.
My husband and I probably have our worst fallouts over this preference -- he hates it when I reveal private information about him without his permission, and I am the eternal blabbermouth. (No doubt he'll scream when he learns I revealed that!) So don't assume I'm saying you should tell all by what I've written here!
Let me be clear: INFJs tend to self-disclose. INFPs like it when others self-disclose, but they usually aren't in a rush to do it themselves. To confound matters further, INFJs self-disclose more than they imagine they do, and INFPs self-disclose less than they realize. Of course, this is all compounded by the fact that the INFJ interaction style tends to be the most *private* of all the types. But when they DO open up, is it marked by a tendency to share about themselves?
For more information about this topic, I direct you to:
Understanding Yourself and Others:
An Introduction to the Personality Type Code
by Dr. Linda Berens & Dr. Dario Nardi
