Key Takeaways
- ENFPs compare themselves to their friends more than any other personality type. The person they measure themselves against is usually close to their own age and a lot like them.
- Among Intuitive types, ENFPs are especially likely to compare appearance and social standing. Money and possessions rarely come into their comparisons.
- ENFPs are affected by comparisons they aren’t aware of making as often as by the ones they make on purpose. That sets them apart from other Extraverted types and means a lot of their comparisons happen below the surface.
- ENFPs tend to see the outcomes in other people’s lives before they see the choices behind them. Since they often compare themselves to their friends, they can ask how that friend got there and turn their comparisons into something to learn from.
Who ENFPs Compare Themselves To
The typical ENFP benchmark is a friend their own age whose life could pass for theirs with a few details changed. When we asked whether people compared themselves more often to friends or to family, 89% of ENFPs said friends, the highest figure of any personality type. Age came into it as well, with 78% choosing people around their own age. And ENFPs were one of only five types where more than half (51%) said they compared themselves to people similar to them.
Some of this is simple arithmetic. ENFPs collect friends the way other people collect podcasts, and their circles tend to be wide and varied. More friends means more benchmarks.
Their Feeling trait adds something else. ENFPs want to be liked, and they put a lot into the people they care about. So when a friend they’ve cheered on pulls ahead, the comparison comes wrapped in affection, and an ENFP can carry it around for a while before recognizing it for what it is.
What ENFPs Compare On
At Friday’s dinner, the ENFP watches their friend tell the whole table how the new job came together and notices how excited and at ease they seem doing it. When we asked ENFPs what they compared themselves on most, a lot of them named how someone looks or comes across in a room.
Appearance was the top category for 29% of ENFPs, more than for any other Intuitive personality type. Social standing came first for 13%, the highest among Intuitive types. Material comparisons, meaning money and possessions, came in at 3%, the third lowest of all 16 types.
Most of what catches an ENFP’s attention happens in real time, and a friend’s confidence is the sort of thing they end up focusing on. The salary bump might come up later over dessert, if they register it at all. On the drive home, they’ll still be thinking about the way their friend talked about the new role, like someone who finally knew where they were headed.
And in the back of their mind, they’ll start thinking about how they still don’t know where their own path is taking them.
Do ENFPs Compare Themselves to Others Without Realizing It?
Three-quarters of ENFPs (75%) said they consciously compared themselves to others often or very often, the highest rate among Extraverts. We also asked how often people felt affected by comparisons they weren’t aware of making. ENFPs gave the same answer – 75%. Every other Extraverted type reported fewer unconscious comparisons than conscious ones, by anywhere from two to 16 percentage points.
For ENFPs, that means a lot of social comparison happens below the surface. They never consciously decided to compare their career path to their friend’s while celebrating that friend’s new job. But the ENFP still leaves the restaurant feeling a little behind – and they can’t pinpoint when the feeling started.
ENFPs are quick to pick up on small cues, like a friend’s tone of voice or how relaxed they look. But before the ENFP notices what’s happening, those cues can turn into fuel for comparison. And without knowing why, the ENFP ends what was an otherwise lovely night feeling self-critical.
How ENFPs Can Turn a Comparison into a Conversation
A majority of ENFPs (61%) compared themselves to other people’s outcomes rather than the choices behind them, the highest rate of any personality type. They see their friends glow over a new job and confidence in their career path and skip over the decisions that led there.
ENFPs are perfectly positioned to turn this pattern around, however. Because most of the people they compare themselves to are close to them, they can open up a conversation and learn how that person managed to do what they did.
“How did you know it was time to switch jobs?” is a simple question and can turn comparison into a learning opportunity (and self-criticism into possibility). The answer will probably have less to do with luck than the ENFP assumed the night the group chat lit up.
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