Writing and Journaling by Personality Type: A Study

Why Writing Habits Reveal So Much About Personality

Writing and journaling sit at an unusual intersection – part practical skill, part creative outlet, part private ritual, and sometimes a way to say things that are too hard to speak out loud. Some people fill notebooks for years without showing a single page to anyone. Others go blank the moment a cursor starts blinking. Journaling in particular has become a widely recommended habit, which raises an obvious question. Does everyone actually find it useful, or does its appeal depend on your personality?

To find out, we created the “Writing and Journaling” survey, asking people across all personality types how much they enjoy writing, how well they think they do it, how often they actually sit down and produce words, and how comfortable they feel handing that work to someone else. We also asked about journaling – who has tried it, who still keeps it up, and whether people believe writing genuinely helps them process emotions. Over 20,000 people responded, and the 12 questions below trace a clear pattern, though not always the one we expected.

Key Findings from the Writing and Journaling Survey

The strongest overall personality divide ran along the Intuitive and Observant line. Intuitive personality types – Diplomats and Analysts – reported more enjoyment, more frequent writing, and a stronger sense that writing is fundamentally about expression. Observant types, especially Explorers with the Thinking trait, sat consistently at the lower end. ISTP personalities (Virtuosos) finished last or near last on almost every question in the survey, often by a wide margin. But that headline hides several more interesting stories underneath it, because different questions activated completely different traits.

Take the split between enjoying writing and actually doing it. Nearly nine in ten INFP personalities (Mediators) said they love or like writing, yet fewer than half wrote frequently and just over a third found producing a single page easy. The trait that predicted follow-through wasn’t the Intuitive or Feeling preference – it was Judging versus Prospecting. In every one of the eight type pairings, the Judging type reported writing more often, journaling more currently, and finding a page less difficult than its Prospecting counterpart. Enthusiasm gets people to the desk. Structure appears to be what keeps them there.

The Introverted and Extraverted traits produced the survey’s cleanest single result, and it worked in two opposite directions. When asked whether they like writing about themselves, Extraverted types agreed most – ESTP personalities (Entrepreneurs) even outranked INFJ personalities (Advocates). But when asked whether sharing their writing feels difficult, every Introverted type agreed more strongly than any Extraverted type did. And when asked whether writing helps them say things they’d struggle to voice aloud, Introverted types led again. For reserved personalities, writing is less a spotlight than a workaround.

Perhaps the most consistent finding is that belief in writing ran far ahead of behavior. ISTJ personalities (Logisticians) were far more likely to call writing an effective way to process emotions than to currently keep a journal. The majority of ISTPs agreed too, despite enjoying writing least of any type. And when asked whether they’d like to reread their thoughts from an earlier period of life, every single type largely said yes – the narrowest spread in the entire survey. Wanting the record, it turns out, is close to universal. Producing it is where personality starts to matter.

Who Enjoys Writing and Who Feels Confident Doing It

Writing is not a neutral activity – for most people it lands somewhere between a treasured outlet and a chore they would rather skip. The split fell largely along the Intuitive and Observant line. Intuitive personality types (Diplomats and Analysts) reported the strongest affection for writing, while Explorers were the least keen overall – although that result at the Role level was driven mainly by two types, with the other two sitting closer to the middle of the pack. Enjoyment, confidence, and actual habit didn’t line up neatly either. Some types who adore writing rated their own skill modestly, and nearly every type wrote less often than their enthusiasm might suggest. The three questions below unpack that gap.

Enjoyment of Writing

When asked how much they enjoy writing, Diplomats topped the charts, with 60% of INFJ personalities saying they love it and ENFJ personalities (Protagonists) nearly matching them. INFP personalities and ENFP personalities (Campaigners) followed closely behind, and all four types overwhelmingly picked either "I love it" or "I like it." For personality types who prize authentic self-expression and spend a lot of time in their own heads, a blank page may be less of a task than an invitation.

At the other end sat ISTPs, where just 14% said they love writing and roughly a third said they dislike or hate it – the only type where negative feelings were that common. ESTPs weren’t far off. Both types tend to prefer hands-on action over sitting still with words. Still, the picture isn’t simply "Intuitive types write, Observant types don’t." Sentinel personalities – the Observant, Judging types – warmed to writing more than the stereotype suggests, and ISFP personalities (Adventurers) and ESFP personalities (Entertainers) landed at a similar level. Analysts, meanwhile, were slightly cooler than Diplomats – INTP personalities (Logicians) were the least enthusiastic of the four.

Self-Rated Writing Skill

Confidence followed a different logic than enjoyment. When asked how well they can write, ENTJ personalities (Commanders) were the most likely of all personality types to say "very well," at 41%, with ENTP personalities (Debaters) and ENFJs close behind. Compare that to INFPs – despite loving writing more than almost anyone, only 23% rated themselves at the top level. Enthusiasm and self-assessment clearly aren’t the same thing, and the Turbulent tendency toward perfectionism may explain why some of the keenest writers were the most reserved about their ability.

The reassuring news is that most people felt at least competent. In every type except ISTPs, the majority chose "very well" or "well." ISTPs were the exception, with 41% settling on "so-so" – their most common answer by far. ISFPs also leaned modest, posting the smallest share of top self-ratings of any type. One pattern stood out clearly – Extraverted types were quicker than Introverted types to claim top marks. That’s a reminder that these numbers measure self-belief rather than actual craft.

Frequency of Writing

When the question turned from feelings to habits – how often do you actually write? – the numbers shrank across the board. ENFJs wrote most often, with 58% saying they write frequently or very frequently, followed closely by INFJs, ENTJs, and INTJ personalities (Architects). For most other types, "occasionally" was the single most popular answer. ISTPs again anchored the bottom, and they were the one type where more respondents said they write rarely, very rarely, or never than said they write frequently.

The most telling pattern here is the gap between liking writing and doing it. INFPs enjoy writing nearly across the board, yet fewer than half reported writing frequently. The Judging and Prospecting difference offers one clue – within the Analyst Role, INTJs outpaced INTPs by more than 13 percentage points on frequent writing, even though both types reported similar affection for the activity. Writing seems to reward the personality types who build it into a routine rather than waiting for inspiration to arrive.

Which Personality Types Use Writing to Express Themselves?

Nearly everyone in this survey saw writing as a form of self-expression – but they didn’t all mean the same thing by it. Three questions probed the personal side of writing, and each one produced a different ranking. Writing about oneself as a subject was the least popular idea overall, and Extraverted types tended to warm to it more readily. Treating writing as expression in general drew strong agreement almost everywhere. And when asked whether writing helps them say things they struggle to say out loud, the majority of every single type agreed – with Introverted types leading the way. Put together, these results suggest that writing serves as a substitute voice more than a mirror.

Writing About Yourself

The ranking on this question held a surprise. ENFJs were the most likely to say they like to write about themselves, at 65%, with ENFPs close behind – and ESTPs, at 54%, edged out INFJs. The Extraverted trait seems to nudge people toward this kind of writing, though not in a clean split – ENTPs landed below both INFJs and INFPs. Still, personality types who already talk openly about their lives appear more comfortable putting themselves on the page as subject matter. Only about one in four ISTPs (25%) said they like writing about themselves, the lowest figure of any type on this question.

The Analyst Role divided along much the same line. ENTJs agreed at 57% that they like to write about themselves, while INTJs came in at 39%, with INTPs lower still. That’s a gap of well over 20 percentage points within a single Role, and shared Intuitive and Thinking traits don’t explain it – the Introverted and Extraverted preference does. It’s also worth noting how much lower these numbers run than the two questions that follow. Enjoying writing, and even seeing it as expressive, clearly doesn’t mean wanting to be the topic. For many respondents, the appeal of writing seems to lie in what it can reach beyond the self, not in self-examination.

Writing as a Form of Self-Expression

Here the Diplomat pattern reasserted itself. INFJs were the most likely to think of writing primarily as a way to express themselves, at 85%, with INFPs, ENFPs, and ENFJs close behind. For personality types who value authenticity above almost everything, writing appears to function less as a task and more as a channel. Analysts weren’t far off, either. Roughly seven in ten INTJs, INTPs, ENTJs, and ENTPs agreed that expression is what writing is primarily for – a reminder that rational thinkers still want to be understood on their own terms.

Only two types fell below the halfway mark – ESTJ personalities (Executives) at 46% and ISTPs at 38%. Both combine Observant and Thinking traits, which tend to treat writing as a practical tool – something you use to inform, record, or instruct rather than to reveal. Among Sentinels, the Feeling types agreed a little more readily than their Thinking counterparts, with ISFJ personalities (Defenders) at 65%, a few points ahead of ISTJs. The gaps within that Role are modest, though. What separates the top of this ranking from the bottom is the combination of Intuitive and Feeling traits, rather than either trait working alone.

Saying the Hard Things on Paper

Does writing let you express things you’d otherwise find difficult to say? This question produced the strongest agreement of the entire group – and the highest floor. INFJs and INFPs both agreed at rates above 91%, but the real story is that the majority of every type agreed, including ISTPs at 55%. Even the personality types least drawn to writing recognized that a page can carry words a conversation can’t. INTPs agreed at 80%, nearly matching some Diplomat types, which suggests that writing offers Thinking personalities a way around the discomfort of expressing feelings face-to-face.

Compare this pattern with the first question in this group and something interesting appears. Writing about yourself appealed most to Extraverted types – but writing as a way to say difficult things appealed most to Introverted ones. ISFPs (81%) and ISFJs outranked ENTPs (67%) here, reversing their earlier positions. For reserved personalities, writing isn’t self-promotion – it’s a safer route to being heard. That may be the most practical finding in the survey – the people who find speaking hardest are the ones most likely to say that writing helps.

Sharing Writing Feels Harder Than Writing It

If writing is a private voice, then handing it to someone else is a risk. These two questions moved from what writing does for people to what it costs them – and each produced a sharp, predictable split, but along different lines. Reluctance to share written work tracked almost perfectly with the Introverted and Extraverted traits. The effort of filling a single page, on the other hand, followed the Judging and Prospecting divide, with structured personality types reporting the least friction. Together, the results suggest that privacy and productivity are separate hurdles, and that a person can easily face one without facing the other.

Sharing Writing with Others

This was the sharpest trait split in the whole survey. Every Introverted personality type agreed that sharing their writing with others is difficult at a rate above 72%, led by INFPs at 81%. Every Extraverted type came in below 58%, and ESFJ personalities (Consuls) posted the lowest figure of any type, at 48%. Role barely registered here, and neither did any other trait pairing. What mattered was simply how comfortable a person feels putting their inner world in front of an audience.

The most revealing figure belongs to ISTPs – 79% of them called sharing their writing difficult. These are the personality types least likely to enjoy writing, least likely to do it often, and least likely to call it self-expression – and yet they guard their pages as closely as the most devoted Diplomat writers. Reluctance to share, then, isn’t a symptom of caring too much about the craft. It looks more like a general preference for keeping personal material personal. There’s also a quiet irony in the numbers – the types most likely to say that writing helps them voice difficult things are the same types least willing to let anyone read it.

Effort Required to Write One Page

Filling a single page struck most people as manageable, though the spread was wide. ENTJs found writing one page easiest, with 54% saying it is not at all difficult, and ENFJs were essentially tied with them. ISTPs sat at the opposite end – only about one in five described a single page as effortless, and more than a quarter called it difficult or very difficult. ISFPs were the next most likely to feel the strain. For personality types who prefer to learn and act through hands-on experience, sitting down to produce text may simply feel like the wrong tool for the job.

The pattern underneath these numbers is the Judging and Prospecting divide rather than Role. Within every pairing, the Judging type reported more ease than its Prospecting counterpart – INTJs again led INTPs by a double-digit margin, and a similar gap appeared between ENFJs and ENFPs, ISFJs and ISFPs, and ISTJs and ISTPs. Planning ahead appears to make a blank page less intimidating. That also explains one of the survey’s odder results – INFPs rank near the top for loving writing, yet only 37% of them found a page easy to produce. Loving the activity and finding it effortless turn out to be two different things entirely.

Personality Types Most Likely to Keep a Journal

Journaling turned out to be a far more common experience than a current habit. Across the survey, the majority of nearly every type said they have kept a journal at some point, yet no single type came close to a majority when asked whether they still write in one regularly. That gap is the real finding here – journals regularly get started and later abandoned. The two questions below show who has tried it, who has stuck with it, and which traits predict each answer – because they aren’t quite the same traits.

Ever Kept a Journal

For most people, having kept a journal at some point was the norm. INFJs and ENFJs shared the top spot, with 81% of each type saying they have ever kept a journal, and every other type except one reported that the majority of its members have tried journaling. That single exception was ISTPs, where 46% said they had ever kept a journal – low compared to everyone else, but still remarkable for the type least likely to enjoy writing. Almost half of them have tried a journal anyway.

What stands out is how much flatter this question is than the earlier ones about enjoyment. ESFJs and ISFJs landed just a step behind INFPs and ENFPs on having kept a journal, despite reporting far less love for writing in general. ISTJs came in at 66% on this question, more than double the share of ISTJs who said they love writing. Journaling, in other words, isn’t only for people who consider themselves writers. It reaches types who would never describe writing as a hobby, which suggests that many people pick up a journal for reasons that have little to do with the pleasure of putting words on a page.

Current Journaling Habits

The numbers dropped sharply when the question shifted to the present tense. ENFJs led again, with 38% saying they currently write in a journal on a regular basis, followed by INFJs at 35% – and that was the ceiling. Not one type reached 40%, and ISTPs fell to 9%, meaning fewer than one in ten currently keeps up the practice. Set that against the previous question and the pattern is hard to miss – for most types, more than half of those who have ever kept a journal no longer write in one, and in some cases the drop-off is far steeper. Among ISTPs, roughly four out of five journal-keepers have stopped.

Who does keep going? The Judging and Prospecting traits offered the clearest answer in this section. In all eight type pairings, the Judging type reported a higher rate of current journaling than its Prospecting counterpart – a clean sweep. The widest gap appeared between ISTJs and ISTPs, where the Judging type journaled at more than double the rate. The Feeling trait added a further boost, which is why Diplomats and Feeling Sentinels filled most of the upper half of the table. Wanting to record your life may spark the habit, but routine appears to be what sustains it.

What People Believe Writing Does for Them

Whatever people thought about their own skill, habits, or willingness to share, they overwhelmingly believed that writing helps sort out feelings – and that a written record of an earlier chapter of life would be worth having. These are questions about value rather than behavior, and that distinction matters. Plenty of respondents who reported almost never writing still endorsed both ideas. The results below show where that belief runs strongest, and where the usual trait divides finally start to fade.

Writing as Emotional Processing

Agreement was close to universal among Diplomats – 96% of INFJs said writing is an effective way to process emotions, and INFPs, ENFJs, and ENFPs all landed above 95%. But the Feeling trait carried this question well beyond that Role. ESFJs reached 92% and ISFPs 90% on the same question, placing them ahead of every Analyst type. The clearest single comparison sits inside the Explorer Role – ISTPs came in at 58%, more than 30 percentage points behind their ISFP counterparts, even though the two types share Introverted, Observant, and Prospecting traits. The Feeling trait, not Role, did most of the work here.

Even so, that ISTP figure is a majority, and that’s the more surprising result. ISTPs enjoy writing least of any type, yet most of them still credit it as a way to work through emotions. The same disconnect shows up among Sentinels with the Thinking trait – roughly four in five ISTJs called writing an effective way to process emotions, though only about a quarter of ISTJs currently keep a journal. Across the survey, belief in writing’s emotional value ran far ahead of the habit itself. People seem to understand what writing can do for them long before they sit down to do it.

Revisiting Past Thoughts

Wanting to go back and read your thoughts from a certain period of your life turned out to be the most evenly shared wish in the survey. ENFJs led, with 91% saying they would like to reread their thoughts from an earlier period, and INFJs, ENFPs, and INFPs all followed within a fraction of a point – but the floor is what stands out. ISTPs, last on nearly every other question, agreed at 69%, and no other type fell below 75%. The spread from top to bottom was about 22 percentage points, well under the range we saw on the emotional processing question. Curiosity about one’s own past appears to be close to a human default rather than a personality preference.

The usual trait gaps narrowed here too. ESTJs, who were among the least likely to see writing as self-expression, agreed at 81% that they would like to reread their old thoughts – within a few points of ISFPs and INTPs. Even the Feeling advantage shrank to single digits in some pairings. That points to a distinction worth noting – many respondents may not want to write, but they would happily have written. The appeal isn’t the act of journaling at all. It’s the record – evidence of who you were, kept in your own words, available whenever you want to look back.

What These Writing and Journaling Findings Mean

Read as a whole, this survey describes a gap rather than a hierarchy. People across every Role and Strategy – the broader groups the 16 types fall into – believe that writing has value. It helps sort out feelings, a record of the past feels worth having, and some things are easier on paper than in conversation. Where personality types diverge is in the follow-through. Judging types build the habit and keep it. Intuitive types find the activity pleasurable. Feeling types trust it emotionally. Extraverted types are comfortable being the subject, while Introverted types are comfortable with the page but not with the audience.

The single most striking result may be how universally people wish they could revisit their own past thoughts. Even ISTPs, who finished last on nearly every other question, mostly shared that wish. Far fewer people are actively building the archive they say they want – for most personality types, the most common relationship with a journal is having kept one and then stopped.

The data suggests that writing plays a different role for different personalities – a genuine pleasure for some, a practical tool for others, and an emotional outlet that even reluctant writers recognize. What the numbers don’t show is any type dismissing writing outright, and that may be the quietest and most consistent result in the whole survey.