Interviews -- Matthew Knight

Matthew's interview is embedded below:

First, a brief disclosure. All of the other interviews that I have analyzed publically on this blog to date (and all of the other ones that I am working on) are not interviews with people that I have had any prior contact with outside of the World Socionics Society facebook group. Other people from the socionics community have interviews, but I have avoided analyzing them in public. There are several reasons for this but the most important reason is pedagogical: This blog is meant to be pedagogical and my previous typings were based virtually on the interview alone. Now of course, this has drawbacks as well as benefits -- it is certainly possible to make mistakes in interpreting someone when all you know about them is a one hour interview -- but at the same time it is useful to make observations drawn from sources that are immediately visible to any viewers, so that intrepid viewers may watch them and make different conclusions.

This is to say, I met Matthew in person a few months before this interview to discuss socionics and we have talked virtually and in person a few times since then. My knowledge of Matthew therefore precedes my watching this interview, as does my opinion of his type, and my personal conversations with Matthew have served to strengthen this opinion. I will focus primarily on the content of his interview here, and if this interview were not excellent I would not be analyzing it given that I have personally met Matthew.

I can say with some confidence that it is likely I would draw the same conclusion of Matthew's type from just this interview. But: the strength and confidence of my opinion would certainly not be as high as it is from the interview alone. And perhaps, although I will go on to criticize the interviewer's analysis a little bit, my perspective has something to do with that criticism.


Some observations follow.

• Long-winded -- gives many long and descriptive expositions of his view of people and scenarios he encounters 
• Shows a pretty dynamic range of gesticulations and always doing something with his hands, occasional "head-in-clouds" thoughtful expression.
• Interview is littered with many long tangents. Easily talks for considerable lengths of times without necessarily soliciting external input. As a consequence he really puts quite a lot of himself in the interview.
• Fairly neutral tone with little voice modulation including on emotionally charged topics: "its a show on these people who are basically pedophiles, basically hearing what they have to say", "Thankfully out of college, it was a miserable experience I'd rather not talk about it"

Overview of thematic content.

• Describes a disconnect with the poetry, abstract identification of the population of INFPglobal, finds no value in William Shakespeare's works, and especially found no value in the not-obvious abstract symbolism of most poetry.
• Shows glimpses of an attitude of "openness" -- "I would need to go back to poetry to see if I can find anything in it", "I found it interesting to try to figure out why these people would engage in these compulsive behaviors even while they have a family and kids and so on"
• Describes the ideal job of designing industrial products which combine artistic transmission and function. Emphasizes the importance of design, personal creativity, and aesthetic.
• Talks a lot about products and services and his professional career and his career choices. Focuses on a lot of specific details of his experience and requirements of his work.
• Does not talk about other people or personal relationships at all except where asked directly, and his comments are terse and mostly discussing difficulties in dealing with people at a close distance.
• Focus on self improvement and structured exercise regimen

My typing of Matt is LSE. I agree with the interviewer that Matt's main focus is on Te -- discussing products and services, discussing his work life, and discussing the specific aspects of nearly anything else. The other observations and themes also play to this typing -- a characteristic dislike of material that is too abstract and doesn't have any concrete meaning, the "ideal job" combining design aesthetics and building practical products, the description of openness, and so on. Matt's emphasis is on Te+Si+Ne, delta values.

There is also a certain conservatism (not political) present as a minor undercurrent in Matt's discourse -- he describes the usefulness of his own pursuits as well as the usefulness of the pursuits of others, and the ethics of, for instance, designing video games that would exacerbate others' addictions as well rather than helping them foster a more useful craft. The occasional discussions of the importance of self-improvement and self-directed organization is also a reflection of this dynamic. An orientation to self-improvement is somewhat common in LSEs, and usually absent in SLIs.

Given that I think Matt is LSE, and the interviewer thinks he is SLI, there is only so much that I can criticize the interviewer's observations. In particular, I agree with his identification of Te+Si values, and that Matt's main focus is on Te. We can also see that Matt has a great deal of energy and industry, and that his main weakness is in the area of interpersonal relations which he avoids discussing to any extent in the interview.

However, the interviewer makes some (in my opinion) bizarre comments to poorly justify the typing of SLI instead of LSE, which I want to touch on briefly -- I discuss this at length in many places, but I think the reason is a stereotypical and poor view of delta STs, and especially LSEs. In particular, the interviewer describes Matt as hands-off, lacking a forceful orientation and willingness to organize groups of people characteristic of LSEs. This is an erroneous characteristic of LSEs in my opinion. By contrast, with Fi suggestive and unvalued Se, I think that LSEs are hesitant to be "bossy" and demanding in the way the interviewer describes. Instead, Matt's hands-off attitude coupled with the very light conservatism and belief in practical crafts, and perhaps seeing other people as misguided and wasting their time *not* learning practical crafts -- is the prototypical LSE behavior. In contrast the behavior the interviewer is describing is more characteristic of Se ego types, and perhaps Se estimative types.