MBTI × Philosophy · A research-based inference
MBTI와 철학 성향
There's research showing extraverts are quicker to say people are still responsible even if everything is determined. We chained together six papers from psychology and experimental philosophy to sketch how the four MBTI letters might connect to Thought Map's five big questions.
Here's what six research papers suggest about each type. The last column shows the two Thought Map philosophers closest to each type using just these three leanings. It's just for fun — your actual result comes from your answers.
| Type | Free will | Is morality objective? | Right action | Might be close to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ESTJ | Leans pro | Leans realist | Mixed | Aristotle, John Locke |
| ESTP | Leans pro | Leans realist | Leans consequentialist | David Chalmers, G. E. Moore |
| ESFJ | Leans pro | Leans realist | Leans deontological | John Locke, Robert Nozick |
| ESFP | Leans pro | Leans realist | Mixed | Aristotle, John Locke |
| ENTJ | Leans pro | Leans anti-realist | Mixed | Harry Frankfurt, William James |
| ENTP | Leans pro | Leans anti-realist | Leans consequentialist | Daniel Dennett, William James |
| ENFJ | Leans pro | Leans anti-realist | Leans deontological | Bernard Williams, John Rawls |
| ENFP | Leans pro | Leans anti-realist | Mixed | Harry Frankfurt, William James |
| ISTJ | Leans skeptic | Leans realist | Mixed | Buddha, Eric Olson |
| ISTP | Leans skeptic | Leans realist | Leans consequentialist | Buddha, Derek Parfit |
| ISFJ | Leans skeptic | Leans realist | Leans deontological | Buddha, Eric Olson |
| ISFP | Leans skeptic | Leans realist | Mixed | Buddha, Eric Olson |
| INTJ | Leans skeptic | Leans anti-realist | Mixed | Paul Churchland, Spinoza |
| INTP | Leans skeptic | Leans anti-realist | Leans consequentialist | Paul Churchland, J. L. Mackie |
| INFJ | Leans skeptic | Leans anti-realist | Leans deontological | Nietzsche, Bernard Williams |
| INFP | Leans skeptic | Leans anti-realist | Mixed | Paul Churchland, Spinoza |
'Right action' is only filled in when T/F and J/P point the same way. How we got here, and how much to trust it, is explained below ↓
This page is not a study comparing MBTI and philosophical views directly — we couldn't find one. It's an inference built by linking research on ① MBTI and the Big Five personality traits with research on ② the Big Five and philosophical intuitions. The effects are small, and your MBTI can't tell anyone what you actually think.
Researchers don't use MBTI as-is. But there is solid work comparing it to the Big Five (extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism), the most widely validated personality model in psychology. And there are experimental philosophy studies on how the Big Five relate to philosophical intuitions.
Put those together and you get a chain: MBTI letter → Big Five trait → philosophical intuition → Thought Map question. Below, every link comes with the original paper and how strong the evidence is.
Psychologists Robert McCrae and Paul Costa gave both the MBTI and a Big Five test (the NEO) to 468 adults (267 men, 201 women) from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (McCrae & Costa 1989). Here's what they found.
| MBTI scale | Matching Big Five trait | Correlation (men / women) | Strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| E–I | Extraversion (higher on the E side) | .74 / .72 | Very strong |
| S–N | Openness (higher on the N side) | .72 / .69 | Very strong |
| T–F | Agreeableness (higher on the F side) | .44 / .46 | Moderate |
| J–P | Conscientiousness (higher on the J side) | .49 / .46 | Moderate |
We've flipped the signs from the paper's scoring direction so they're easier to read. Corrected for measurement error, E–I vs. extraversion and S–N vs. openness come out close to 1 — they're basically measuring the same thing.
The same paper found no support for the idea that the 16 'types' are genuinely different kinds of people. The four letters work better as four independent sliding scales. So everything below goes one letter at a time — 'the more I you are, the more N you are' — not 'INTJs are like this.'
Here's how research on the Big Five and philosophical intuitions maps onto Thought Map's five questions. The badge shows how strong the evidence is.
The more E, the more you lean pro–free will (compatibilist); the more I, the more free-will skeptic
Adam Feltz and Edward Cokely first reported that more extraverted people are more likely to have compatibilist intuitions — that people can be free and responsible even in a deterministic world. Ten years later they meta-analyzed 25 studies on this effect (17 published, 8 unpublished, 2,811 participants in total). The average effect is small (z = .19, 95% CI .15–.24), but it held up across materials, countries, and labs, with no sign of publication bias. It was strongest in emotionally charged cases like murder (z = .22) and weakest in low-emotion cases (z = .09).
The more S, the more you lean moral realist; the more N, the more anti-realist
A review of experimental work on moral objectivism by Thomas Pölzler and Jennifer Cole Wright (2019) reports that people lower in openness to experience tend to have more objectivist intuitions — that moral questions have objectively right answers (Feltz & Cokely 2008; Goodwin & Darley 2010). Since S–N overlaps so strongly with openness, S types may lean realist and N types anti-realist. It rests on two studies, so we rate it moderate.
The more F and J, the more you lean deontological (lines you don't cross); the more T and P, the more consequentialist
In two preregistered studies, Dillon Luke and Bertram Gawronski found that people higher in agreeableness and conscientiousness were more sensitive to moral norms — rules worth keeping even when breaking them pays off (Luke & Gawronski 2022). Agreeableness lines up with F, conscientiousness with J. But all of these links replicated in an online adult sample while only one of six did in a student sample, and the MBTI overlap is only moderate, so this chain is weak. We don't make a call for mixed combos like TJ or FP.
No evidence found for an MBTI link
We couldn't find reliable research tying physicalism vs. dualism or personal identity to the Big Five. In a survey of 314 professional philosophers, David Yaden and Derek Anderson (2021) found personality and demographics offered little to no help predicting philosophical views. These two questions are something Thought Map's own data will have to answer.
Every extra link in the chain shrinks the effect. Even E–I, the best-supported one, multiplies out to roughly .13 (about .7 for MBTI vs. extraversion, times about .19 for extraversion vs. compatibilist intuitions). That's not 'E types are compatibilists.' It's 'there might be a few more compatibilists among E types.'
Spotting a difference that small takes data from hundreds of people. That's why Thought Map asks for your MBTI (optional) when you start, and stores it anonymously with your five scores. Once enough people have taken part, we'll publish whether these inferences actually hold up.
Bibliographic details were checked against each journal's official DOI registration (Crossref). We couldn't locate the original record for Feltz & Cokely (2008), so it's cited through Pölzler & Wright (2019).