Key Takeaways
- INTPs feel worse after comparing themselves to others more than any other Thinking type does. On the questions that measure emotional fallout, their answers more closely resemble those of Feeling types than those of their fellow Analysts.
- INTPs are the Analyst type least convinced that their comparisons are objective. That doubt is consistent with a personality that questions its own conclusions as readily as anyone else's.
- The people INTPs measure themselves against are often people they've never met. They are also the type least likely to say their own social media is an accurate picture of who they are, yet they compare themselves to strangers' profiles anyway.
- Comparison affects how INTPs feel about themselves far more than what they decide to do. The habit of measuring themselves against others can take a real toll on their confidence and produces very little change in direction.
The Analyst Who Doesn't Act Like One
Imagine this. It's late, and someone with the INTP personality type (Logicians) – who is Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Prospecting – is still up, reading a stranger's work online. Maybe they found a paper or a long forum post that directly addresses a problem they've been circling for months.
And all of a sudden they're thinking, "How did this person do that?" which quickly shifts to "Why didn't I figure that out? It's so obvious. I can't believe I missed it." And pretty quickly, they're closing their laptop, questioning their own intellect and wondering why they even bother.
INTPs belong to the AnalystRole (the Intuitive, Thinking personality types), along with INTJs (Architects), ENTJs (Commanders), and ENTPs (Debaters). Across our "Social Comparison" survey, the Analysts stand out as the types least likely to engage in negative social comparison and most insulated from its downsides when they do. The other three generally compare themselves to others less often, feel better about it when they do, and are the most confident that their judgments are fair.
INTPs break from that pattern. They compare themselves more often than any other Thinking type, and on nearly every question that measures how comparison feels, their answers sit much closer to the Feeling types than to the other three members of their own Role.
How INTPs Stack Up Against the Other Analysts
The difference between INTPs and their fellow Analysts shows up in four places:
- Emotional fallout. Asked whether comparing themselves to others usually results in a positive or negative feeling, 79% of INTPs said negative. INTJs came in at 66%, ENTPs at 57%, and ENTJs at 43%. INTPs top the other Analysts on this measure by a wide margin.
- Self-worth. Nearly half of INTPs said a significant amount of their self-worth rests on comparisons to others. For INTJs the figure was 41%, for ENTPs 40%, and for ENTJs 37%. INTPs edged out even ENFPs (Campaigners) on this question.
- Self-judgment. When they compare themselves to others, 76% of INTPs said they judge themselves more than the other person. INTJs said the same at 66%, ENTJs at 60%, and ENTPs at 57%.
- Objectivity. Only 61% of INTPs said they're mostly objective in their comparisons. INTJs and ENTPs were both at 70%, and ENTJs at 74%.
On the first three of these measures, INTPs are the outlier not only among Analysts but also among all Thinking personality types. On objectivity, only ISTPs (Virtuosos) trust their own judgment slightly less.
Why Do INTPs Take Comparison So Hard?
For most Thinking personalities, another person's success registers as information more often than not. It's interesting data, maybe even useful, and is filed away as such. INTPs share the trait but don't seem to enjoy the emotional buffer that it seems to provide for others.
82% of INTPs said that they tend to compare themselves to those they see as better.
Why? Part of the answer is in how INTPs think about their own thinking. This is a personality type known for questioning everything, including its own conclusions. Where an INTJ or ENTJ tends to trust their own judgment once a decision is made, an INTP is more willing to keep questioning themselves.
When that tendency is applied to the comparisons they make of themselves to others, that habit cuts both ways. INTPs may be more honest than other Analysts about the bias in their self-assessments, and that honesty removes the comfortable assumption that their comparisons are fair.
INTPs are also known for overthinking. They'll turn a small decision into a full internal debate and turn restless dissatisfaction into a full dissertation on how things are. Social comparisons feed that loop fresh material.
The analytical firepower an INTP could aim at the comparison usually turns back on themselves instead.
Who INTPs Measure Themselves Against
Most people compare themselves to someone they know. INTPs do too, but by a slimmer margin than nearly anyone.
41% of INTPs said they tend to compare themselves to people they don't know personally – within a hair of the highest rate in the survey.
INTPs are more likely than nearly every other personality type to compare themselves to people they've only ever encountered through their work or public presence – a researcher, a social media personality, or maybe even an anonymous username whose output is admirable.
There's no relationship to soften the comparison, no intimate knowledge of what that person struggled with or how long whatever impressive thing they did took. INTPs just take in the finished thing and measure themselves and their own work against it.
This is interesting because people with this personality type are generally well aware that what they see online is not always an accurate representation of reality. Only 33% of INTPs said that their own social media is an accurate representation others could use for comparison, the lowest of all 16 types.
INTPs know that their own profiles don't tell the whole truth, yet they compare themselves to strangers' profiles anyway.
What Comparison Does to INTPs
For many of the personality types who feel the impacts of self-comparison as sharply as INTPs do, the difficult feelings inspire a push toward some kind of action. INTPs are the outlier here too. The feeling reaches their sense of self but just kind of settles in.
Just 36% of INTPs said that the conclusions they draw when comparing themselves to others play a major role in guiding decisions they make about their future. So while they might feel bad about their lack of progress when reading about other people's success, that self-criticism is rarely channeled into a changed course of action.
Which leaves the late-night INTP roughly where they started, at least on paper. They might close the laptop feeling inadequate, yet they don't do much to change tomorrow's plans. What does change is less noticeable than an obvious decision – it's how capable they feel walking into the next day. And that feeling of comparative inferiority doesn't just turn off when the screen goes dark.
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