On 1984 and Personality Types
I've been wondering whether vegans and animal rights activists were similar in many ways as children.
- If we all took the Myers-Briggs, for example, would there be some part that we'd have in common (let's find out–take the quiz)? I'm an INTJ.
- Were we drawn to the same reading material as children? I wasn't a big reader as a kid, except in one area: satire. Animal Farm was a big favorite. Anything by Jonathan Swift. And of course, 1984. How about you?
- Were you drawn to animals and/or were they drawn to you? I was always drawn to animals, some of whom would run from me. But many animals who had no business approaching me would do so (like many wild ones, and no I didn't have food in my hand at the time). Early on, I was called an "Animal Person" (hence the name of the blog).
- Did you have "pets?" I had a kitty I named Brady, from ages 7-25.
- Were there any "farm animals" in your life? There weren't in mine. Except the ones I ate.
- Were your parents "Animal People?" Mine weren't.
- Was anyone around you a vegetarian? That's a No for me.
I'd imagine that most people over 30 didn't grow up in a home that was particularly sensitive to the needs of sentient nonhumans other than those used as pets. Yet we still decided, somehow, that using animals wasn't right, and some of us knew that (whether or not the idea was completely acted upon) from a very young age.
Maybe there's a personality component that might explain part of it. Maybe not.
But as an INTJ, I'm curious to explore the questions.
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I'm an INFP… which I believe stands for: IDIOT! (or just a socially challenged retard)… which in theory, would be correct.
With regards to my growing up I was drawn to dogs. I had one that I grew up with from the age of 3 who was with me until I was a freshman in college. I recall being deeply effected when my parents called me to tell me they had to put him down. I felt a deep loss as he was my constant companion growing up. I can say with all certainty that I did not know of, or have much exposure to farm animals (growing up on LI will do that to you). Dogs were always drawn to me, even ones deemed "difficult" by their "owners" (as I hate that term when it comes to animals). As I entered my teen years I did start going to the local animal rescue (Bid-A-Wee) to volunteer to walk and bath dogs. I had no other friends that took an interest in that. I didn't do it all the time, but it was my first experience with rescue. Nobody in my family went either. I'm not sure WHY I was drawn to going there from time to time, but it did give me a sense of satisfaction by just helping out and bonding with the dogs there.
If you would have asked me when I was a teen, or even in college (and a few years after), if I would EVER have become vegan… I would have laughed in your face. I was as Omni as you could be. Having a meal meant there was meat somewhere on my plate. My family…ALL of them… were not compassionate animal lovers. Where it came from (my becoming vegan) I don't know. But I do believe that it was ALWAYS somewhere deep inside of me. it took a long time for me to find it inside of myself, but I do think it was always lingering inside. I'm very different then my brothers. I was the youngest of 3 boys and I don't know if it had something to do with how I was treated compared to them, or if is part of my DNA, but I'm a COMPLETELY different person than they are on all levels. We may have grown up in the some home with the same parents, but it's black and white with no shades of gray when you compare them to myself and the things I value in my life and in my vision for the world I'd love to see.
My parents thought at first that my becoming a veggie/vegan was something that would pass. But after a while they accepted it and in fact went out of their way to accommodate me whenever I visted them (they are both passed on in life). My Mom did ask me a few times over the years as to why I seemed to care MORE about animals vs. humans… I don't think she ever fully understood WHY I choose to live as I did/do. My father was a bit more understanding, but that was just his nature to be like that.
The only relative I have that is a vegetarian is a first cousin of mine who's been one for over 20 years. Yet she's someone I hardly know and when I last saw her at a dinner, she ordered a tuna melt! I still to this day can't think of anyone as a veggie when they eat things OTHER than veggies (and grains, etc.)!
So in all truth, I don't know how or why I turned out as I did. How I look at this world through much different eyes compared with those i grew up with (family AND friends). I may never know, but again as I mentioned above, I do think it was always something inside of me that took many many years for to first find and for me to now live as I do.
Was it my DNA or my social environment that made me who I am and how I choose to live my life? I don't know…nor do I question it. Theories, nothing more than theories……….
1. INTP: "You are, moderately expressed introvert, moderately expressed intuitive personality, very expressed thinking personality, slightly expressed perceiving personality"
2. Adventure stories, science fiction and classics. Jules Verne was a favorite author for many years.
3. Always liked animals, but can't remember them being drawn to me as a kid. Now, on the other hand, I seem to be accepted by animals much faster than others.
4. 2 budgies
5. No animals except the ones I ate.
6. The parents were very nature interested, but not vegeterian friendly
7. No one
1. INTJ
2. Animal Farm and 1984 were two of my favorite books as a kid.
3. No, I was never drawn to animals. I was mostly indifferent toward animals, except for the dogs I grew up with and on the occasion that I got to visit pigs. I didn’t like to hurt animals though, and as a result, regularly declined to go fishing and hunting into adulthood after trying fishing once or twice when I was around 9 years old.
4. I was always around dogs as companion animals and liked them a lot, but I probably would have been voted “least likely to go vegan” in my family along with my father (if the word was known in my family, which it wasn’t).
5. I grew up in a rural area, where I saw a lot of cows and some pigs (sometimes up close to visit and pat on the head). I liked the pigs. I was somewhat less interested in the cows.
6. My mother was a so-called “animal lover”, but to this day, I can’t get her to go vegan and I’m sure I never will.
7. I was the first ethical vegetarian/vegan I ever knew. I went vegan because the moral arguments made perfect sense to me and because I could empathize with the plight of animals. The combination of logical argument and empathy was overwhelming for me. To this day, I can’t even remotely relate to those who can’t/won’t see what I see as completely obvious.
1. i'm an ESFJ.
2. i read voraciously as a kid, pretty much anything… but i've never read animal farm (nor 1984).
3. i've always been drawn to animals, as long as i can remember. i wanted to be a veterinarian when i was a kid.
4. i have never *not* had an animal companion (or two, or three) living with me. there was a dog in my house before i was born, and i've had dogs, cats, and/or bunnies ever since.
5. i didn't have farm animals in my life, but my grandmother's parents ran a dairy farm back in the day (i.e., the 1920s and 1930s), so i heard stories about how my great-grandparents adored their sweet cows.
6. my parents were both "animal people," but not quite as much as i was. still, i'm sure they fostered it in me, at least in part.
7. i was the first person in my family/social circle to go vegetarian (my sister followed a couple years later), and i'm the only one in my family who is vegan.
girl least likely to,
ESFJ! What a surprise! I'd bet we don't have too many of your type. I wanted to be a vet, too. And a dentist, at one point. Go figure. Dentist have the highest suicide rate of any profession, so good thing (for my husband, the hounds and the cat) I didn't go in that direction.
I don't think there are significant similarities in all vegans, except an ability to swim against the current. However, there might be strong similarities in vegans who read this blog.
Me:
1. INTJ
2. No, I read other stuff as a kid. But animal-themed books had the most impact on me.
3. Yes, I was always bringing home animals. Still at age 32 I have a hard time resisting petting animals. I even pet a wild lizard once on a hike. I couldn't help myself.
4. Yes, we had dogs when I was a baby. "Dog" was my first word. Then we had cats, rats, birds, rabbits… We had a zoo for a while.
5. Not really. There was a sheep who lived in a nearby lot. I used to stop and say hello. He'd come to the fence and let me pet and talk to him.
6. My parents were pet people. And my mom was very open to new things. So at age 6, when I said I wouldn't eat my friends anymore, she went vegetarian, too.
7. I had one teacher who was vegetarian. And my mom had a few vegetarian friends. I wish I had known other vegetarian or vegan children.
1. I'm an INFJ. Which explains why I won't answer the rest of the personal questions. Just kidding.
2. I read voraciously as a kid.
3. I was drawn to animals, and they were drawn to me (I was told so). I was very sensitive toward all animals (non-human/human) – and could become quite emotional over a mistreatment or injustice toward one. I have always especially hated physical violence of any sort.
4. As a child, I had many companion cats/kittens (14 at one point).
5. I lived in the country, but was not in close contact with farm animals.
6. No, my parents weren't "animal people" (at least not in my definition of an "animal person").
7. I didn't know any vegetarians until I was a teenager, which is when I first became a vegetarian.
I'm an INFJ. I had lots of "pets" as a kid: one dog, two cats, several turtles, and numerous chickens. I enjoyed catching lizards, frogs, and toads, examining them, and letting them go. If there were any vegetarians around me, I was only vaguely aware of it. It took me a long time to start thinking about meat as having come from an animal.
Okay, so I may be an INFJ. But is there a category for someone who immediately responds to most of the questions with "That depends…"?
When I became vegetarian at the age of six, I had my father as an example, though he never preached about it.
Pets. Lots of reading, particularly science fiction.
Angus,
Funny you should say that. It's really the IN I had a theory about, and less that than the I. If I answer a mere two questions differently, I'm an FP rather than a TJ. I'm 1% J and 8% T, as I recall, which is very weak. 56% I, though, so that's the only one that is remotely strong, but still far from overwhelming.
I'm choosing to believe this is all because I'm balanced. Nice spin, eh?
1. This time I scored INFP, other times I've score INTP. Just depends on the day, I guess, but it's always one of those two.
2. I was (and still am) an avid reader as a child. Anything I could get my hands on, I read. Primarily I like fiction, specifically fantasy. In fact, I read so much, that my teachers would come and take my boos AWAY from me.
3. I was always drawn to animals, and they were always drawn to me–with the exception of cats, who have always been hit or miss.
4. I've had pets my whole life, cats from 0-6, dogs from 6-present.
5. No farm animals, at least not really. A family friend had a sort of farm. It had animals on it, but she didn't kill/eat them, they just sort of lived there. She had a flock of turkeys that roamed the property; the male turkey was tame and would let you feed it and pet it, the rest were wild. They all just went wherever they felt like, no cages or barns for them. She had a bunch of chickens, again, she didn't kill/eat them, but she did sell their eggs. And she had some goats and horses. She might have had pigs, I can't remember. Anyhow, I would babysit for her sometimes, and I'd be around the animals then, but it wasn't with any sort of frequency, just once a month or so. I once saved one of the chickens that had gotten loose from one of her eight or nine rescued dogs she had…
6. I grew up with just my mom, who most certainly is not an animal person.
7. I was the only vegetarian I knew.
1. ENFJ
2. Big on sci-fi and horror as a kid
3. Always liked animals, fascinated by them. Can't really say whether I was unusually well-liked or trusted by them.
4. I've had cats in much of my life, and dogs for a little bit of it.
5. Very few, though I had a great uncle who had a farm. I honestly don't recall the animals on it, though. I remember those sorts of animals more from the exploitation fest known as the American Royal. I did do a fair amount of horseback riding at summer camp, and that sort of thing, but that's about as close as I personally got.
6. Mom always seemed to love horses. Allergies kept her away from our animals, but she always tolerated them for us. Dad was fine with animals, but didn't go out of his way to have animals around.
7. Not that I knew of, and I had never even heard of veganism (that I can recall) before the day I decided to go vegan.
1. I'm another INFJ… there does seems to be a pattern here…
2. Nancy Drew – and comics
3. – 6. I always loved animals and grew up around them. An earliest memory is being around 5 and on my mother's childhood farmhouse in France. My mother lived an impoverished youth. The house was basically a large room with small divisions for sleeping areas. The floor was brick throughout – no electricity or plumbing. Anyway, there were chickens in and out of the open doorway and windows. There were lambs and goats on the pasture as well as 10 or so cows. I guess mostly for milk and butter… (and then "meat").
Anyway, I used to sleep walk and one night I was found in the barn crawling under these many cows. The story is that they all shuffled gently from side to side to avoid harming me. I crawled in between their legs and under their massive bodies as onlookers stood silent for fear of spooking them. It was the "big news" in the village – a "miracle" that I wasn't crushed.
I always felt a connection to cows – even as an omni… The killing part just never "registered". I'd often pull my car over to watch them graze. I helped a young steer once who's head and hair were tangled in the barbwire fencing… There was blood – and he was happy to be freed. But my numb brain never connected the two.
At least not until about 5 years ago – For whatever "reason", I pulled my car next to a small herd of cows grazing by a country road. Maybe there were 6 or so in the group. One in particular approached me -in a very curious, yet determined manner. Her intense brown eyes "looked" at me in a way that sparked me to question – "why am I eating you"? Then Bingo! OMG! I WAS eating her!!! And all the other "hers and hims"! The "flesh" and the animal (and their personhood) all finally connected for me! I became a "vegetarian" from then on. 🙂
I think the mind, when left to it's own discovery, never stops working on certain "problems"… For me – I was trying to figure "something" out, that had to do with (the eating of) "the animals"… But it was never on the forefront of my conciousness. I think more people would get the same message I did – if they were given the opportunity to meet the "cows, pigs and chickens". We all know they are wonderful beings – we just have to convince the rest of the world of such…
7. Yes, I was a self-made vegetarian, the only one I ever knew.
1. INTJ most of the time
2. Voracious reader — as a kid, I read 1984 and lots of other SF/F. Now I read mostly academic stuff.
3. Animals seem to like me well enough, although I wouldn't say we were "drawn" to each other.
4. A dog and two rabbits when I was little, two more rabbits after that, and then two cats just before I moved away from home (haven't lived anywhere that allows pets since then, although we're considering trying to adopt a rabbit now).
5. Nope.
6. Not really.
7. Not until my college girlfriend, who converted me.
I could be wrong on this, but out of this small sampling:
82% of us are I's.
91% of us are N's.
64% of us are F's.
73% of us are J's.
Let me throw off your numbers.
1) ISTJ though as close to an ISFJ as possible. The problem I have with the I/E scale is that like everything most humans do, it's defined strictly in terms of humans. Do you like parties, being around people? If not, you must be in your own world. I love interacting with the outside world; I just don't happen to think it revolves around people.
2)Started reading very early with Dr Seuss, remember lots of Hardy Boys, never read most other standard kid lit, still read as much as possible.
3)Don't remember any animal draws either way in childhood. Now I'm very drawn to them.
4)Always a dog as a pet, also remember turtle, hamster, and chameleon. As an adult I've been a cat person.
5)No farm animals.
6)Parents weren't really animal people, though there were a couple small stuffed critters around which my father had shot earlier in life.
7)No vegetarians.
I tested as INTJ as a kid (I idolized Spock) but now I test as INFJ. I only score 1 point of extroversion, and that is because the question is badly phrased (more friends vs. fewer friends). I would read anything fantasy, science fiction, or animal story (but I was always bored and disappointed that most of them focused on the people who owned or otherwise interacted with the animal rather than the animal him- or herself). I was drawn to animals but they weren't particularly drawn to me, only the super friendly ones (just like humans). We were adopted by a stray dog and later we got some pound cats, and I have rarely been without cats since. We used to live on a farm that didn't grow anything much but did keep some of the Hare Krishna temple's spare cows (cows are sacred) for a while (their contribution was to make cow pies to fertilize our vegetable garden). My parents and everyone at the Hare Krishna temple were lacto-vegetarian. My parents are now vegans. I don't think I know any other vegans IRL. I met a few other vegetarians at college though.
I mean the one I vs E question was badly phrased on the test that my psychology major roommates gave me, not the version linked here. I have taken this test many, many times.