Key Takeaways
- INFPs compare themselves on ability more than any other personality type. Underneath the habit sits one worry – whether they’re doing enough with the talents they already have.
- The person an INFP measures themselves against is usually living a different kind of life. Who they choose as a benchmark shows what they wish for in their own future.
- Of all 16 types, INFPs rely on comparison most when they weigh decisions about their future. When their own plan feels uncertain, someone else’s accomplishments can look more desirable.
- When INFPs compare themselves to others, they tend to focus on what someone else achieved and skip the slow work that made it possible. That overlooked effort is the part worth their attention, because it’s the only piece that shows them how to get there themselves.
What Does Comparing Themselves to Others Do to INFPs?
Self-comparison usually leaves INFPs (Mediators) – who are Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Prospecting personalities – feeling worse, and they do it more than anyone else. Our “Social Comparison” survey confirms this to be true. Roughly 83% of INFPs said they consciously compare themselves to others often or very often, and nearly 90% said the comparison leaves them feeling worse. Both numbers topped the list across all personality types.
The INFP’s evident self-consciousness is what often gets talked about when describing this personality type. The part that doesn’t get as much attention is, we think, more useful.
Look at what INFPs are comparing, who they compare themselves against, and what they do with their conclusions, and a more nuanced picture comes into focus. For most people, comparison works like a mirror. For INFPs, it works more like a compass.
What INFPs Compare (and What They Skip)
INFPs compare themselves on ability more than on any other quality. If you ask people what they are comparing themselves on, many people would say their looks, money, or social status. INFPs are different.
When asked “What category do most of the comparisons you make to others fall into?” 30% of INFPs said ability, the highest share of any personality type. Attractiveness came second at 28%. Intellectual comparisons, the top category for every Analyst type (the Intuitive, Thinking personalities), drew just 18% of INFPs, one of the lowest rates in the survey.
What category do most of the comparisons you make to others fall into?
INFP Survey Data
| Category | Mediators |
|---|---|
| Intellectual | 17.8% |
| Material | 3.24% |
| Social status | 11.2% |
| Ability | 30.28% |
| Attractiveness | 27.96% |
| Other | 9.51% |
Source: Social Comparison
“Ability” is a telling word – it hints at whether they think they or the other person can do something and how well they do it. How can she paint like that?... Why can’t I paint like that? Did he really finish the novel that fast?... Why am I such a slow reader? Have they really started doing the project?... While I’m still talking about it?
INFPs want to believe they’re capable of great things, and they want badly to prove it – if only to themselves. Ability is where that belief gets tested. So when an INFP falls short of the expectations they hold for themselves, they’ll often view someone else’s finished work as additional proof of their own shortcomings.
Who INFPs Measure Themselves Against
The people INFPs compare themselves to tend not to look much like them at all.
When asked “Do you typically compare yourself to people who are very similar to you or are different from you?” 60% of INFPs said “different,” the highest of all 16 types. Every Introverted type showed some version of this, though none went as far. At the other end of the scale, the most similar-focused type sat at 63% similar, more than 20 points away.
Do you typically compare yourself to people who are very similar to you or are different from you?
INFP Survey Data
| Category | Mediators |
|---|---|
| Similar | 40.08% |
| Different | 59.92% |
Source: Social Comparison
There’s a reason INFPs look outward like this. Their Intuitive and Prospecting traits make them naturally curious, and their attention often drifts toward people whose lives look nothing like their own. And because they are so imaginative, they can easily idealize or make assumptions about what they see.
INFPs are likely to admire the friend who left a steady job to train as a woodworker, or an acquaintance who makes a living from what everyone else treats as a hobby. And even though they may not fully understand the circumstances that led those people to those decisions – or how those people are really doing in their private lives – they’ll compare their own lives against what they see.
Over 80% of INFPs also said that they are more likely to compare themselves to people around their own age. Knowing that the person started from roughly the same place but ended up somewhere else – somewhere better – somewhere more admirable – makes the sting of self-comparison particularly painful.
What INFPs Do with Their Comparisons
For INFPs, these self-comparisons are rarely passing thoughts. In fact, they may even become the basis on which they make important decisions.
When asked “Do comparisons to others play a major role in guiding decisions you make about your future?” 43% of INFPs said yes, the top figure in the survey. The next closest came in at 40%, and the lowest at 31%. No type crossed the halfway mark, so comparison stays a background influence for everyone. For INFPs, that background hum is louder.
INFPs can spend a long time waiting for the right path to reveal itself. And in the meantime, they often find themselves feeling stuck, drifting, and worrying that they aren’t living up to what they could be. Many INFPs get caught up in so many ideas and ideals that committing to any single one feels like closing the door on the others. Their life often feels like a cloud of possibilities. When they see someone else doing something concrete – they often see an example that they might want to follow.
There’s a wrinkle, though. When asked “Are you more likely to make comparisons to other people’s choices or outcomes?” 60% of INFPs said outcomes, placing them among the top three types.
So they’re looking at what the person achieved, with little sense of what it took to get there.
A Better Question to Ask for All Personality Types
None of this means INFPs should try to stop comparing themselves to others. Noticing other people is part of how they’re built, and turning it off would be practically impossible. What they can do is change what they take away from it.
When an INFP sees someone they admire doing something impressive, they compare themselves against the more visible outcomes and stop there. The long stretch of ordinary work that got the person to that point rarely makes it into the comparison, but that’s the part most worthy of their attention. It’s the only truly useful information.
Every personality type can use the same move: Look past the visible result to the ordinary work that produced it, and a comparison starts to show you how to reach the same place yourself.
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