INFJ: The Advocate Part I

Anna Buckner

When I moved to Bloomington, Indiana in 2014 multiple people asked me what my Myers Briggs type was. I had no idea. No one had cared before I began graduate school. I took an online version of the assessment and got INFJ: The Advocate. Reading the description made me sit a little higher – the portrayal was overwhelmingly positive (I came to realize later that all of the descriptions of the types at this particular site were overwhelmingly positive.)

Sul-Jee and I decided to begin a series of posts where we curate a few artists based on their Myers Briggs type. Admittedly, my type changes almost every time I take the test, but I have felt a strong attachment to INFJ from the beginning, and felt affirmed by this decision after SJ let me know that she and Jon Snow were also INFJs.

After collecting types from multiple artists we’ve featured on this blog, we realized that in addition to Sul-Jee and me, Greg Burak and Benjamin Lowery are also both INFJs. That means that 4 of the 5 contributors to this blog share the same type. So much for diversity. We’re kicking off this series with the INFJ contributors to Command Zine.

To get us started, here is a summary for INFJs from 16personalties.com:

“Advocates indeed share a unique combination of traits: though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in. They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain – Advocates will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity not to create advantage, but to create balance. Egalitarianism and karma are very attractive ideas to Advocates, and they tend to believe that nothing would help the world so much as using love and compassion to soften the hearts of tyrants.

Advocates find it easy to make connections with others, and have a talent for warm, sensitive language, speaking in human terms, rather than with pure logic and fact. It makes sense that their friends and colleagues will come to think of them as quiet Extraverted types, but they would all do well to remember that Advocates need time alone to decompress and recharge, and to not become too alarmed when they suddenly withdraw. Advocates take great care of other’s feelings, and they expect the favor to be returned – sometimes that means giving them the space they need for a few days.”

INFJ: Sul-Jee Scully, Anna Buckner, Greg Burak and Benjamin Lowery

SJ2 Sul-Jee Scully, Success, 2016, acrylic, flashe, tape, and painted paper on linen over panel, 48″ x 42″