Is OPS Real

Fallen down the rabbit hole of OPS, have we? Happens to the best of us. Seems great, right? But how do we know it's real?

Well... to be honest... we don't. Not yet at least. I believe that it's "real" and I'll show you why in a minute, but no, the Objective Personality System hasn't been "Sensory-proven" yet. 

The closest a theory ever comes to being scientifically "true" is when it's backed up by observational data, replicable in experiments and yet to be disproven. That's more than can be said of OPS I'm afraid. It's just not there yet. 

Only one typing system is: The Big 5. (And that feels more than a little watery to me if you know what I mean...)

Most personality typing systems don't even bother with science. They might strive for intellectual acceptance, sure, but they never seriously challenge the beast that is scientific method. 

But OPS does! And I would argue they have come a long way. 

Dave and Shan (founders of OPS) have thoroughly studied human behavior, formulated their trademark coins underlying our behaviors - building upon the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (introducing new concepts which further divides the original 16 types into a total of 512) - and mastered the chess game of typing. 

They have managed to objectively type thousands of people (pinpointing the same exact type when typing separately - I think their accuracy is about 90% at the moment) and are now trying to pass their skills onto others. But, as we all know, becoming a master of chess - or anything for that matter - isn't exactly easy. Typing is hard for everyone, even if you're getting taught by a master. "Wax on wax off" and all that...

But is this really enough to convince anyone? It wouldn't convince me, I admit. We just don't have the facts yet. Where's the proof? 

Ni/Ti

Ok... So if there's no proof, how can I be so sure that they're right? As an INFJ Jumper I'm lead Sleep, meaning I'm focused on building self and constantly going over my known information, working on that inner Ni/Ti puzzle. 

In early life, this puzzle is kind of a house of cards, having to be rebuilt so often it's ridiculous. When some piece of random (but undeniably accurate) information comes crashing in like a bowling ball into a deck of pins, ripping the meticulously block-banged logic of our inner systems to shreds, we don't have a choice but to start over. 

But if we manage to keep ourselves open to new information (allowing for above mentioned system crashing from time to time), and learn to trust that Se just enough to get the most important facts right, our systems will eventually become so robust we'll (as Ni/Ti users) find ourselves actually trusting our own inner systems more than some of the "facts" coming at us from the outside. 

Let's take an unrealistic and dumb example: if a reliable source were to tell me that the Earth was actually flat, I wouldn't accept it. This is an over-simplified example, but you get the idea. If the fact doesn't make logical sense to me, if it doesn't fit into my inner Ni/Ti system, it would take a great deal for me to accept it as true. Because now I've come to trust my system. 

And, in reverse, if an idea makes perfect logical sense in the context of my inner system I might just accept it without the need for proof.

What I'm getting at here is that even before I knew what OPS was, even before it existed, I had already laid out some of the puzzle pieces they would later discover and use, albeit under different names. Parts of my inner puzzle exactly matches the one that they're laying right now and they don't even know me. To me, that's just too good not to be true. 

Ni/Ti  vs  OPS

The puzzle-pieces I'm talking about here, my own I mean, are mostly observations on self. Behavioral patterns, tribe reactions to said patterns, personal preferences etc. 

For example, in any given situation, why do I almost always prefer doing nothing to doing something? Passivity always seem to trump activity with me. Why are people always saying I look tired? That I'm slow? That I'm in my own world and that I should come back to reality? Well, that's lead Sleep for ya. 

Why am I so acutely aware of the values and emotions of others when I don't, in the end, let them guide me in my decision-making? Well, that's because of the Jumping. I respect my third function (Ti - Introverted Thinking) over of my second (Fe - Extraverted Feeling). I can't avoid seeing what's going on the outside, in the world of emotion - Fe is too large a window - but that doesn't change the fact that I respect my Ti more. In the end, Di is always king. Which is another way of saying that I, as an INFJ Jumper, am what OPS describes as "Self above Tribe" (as opposed to the "standard" INFJ which is lead Blast and Savior Fe (De) and thus "Tribe above Self"). 

Ni/Ti

Ni/Ti overlapping OPS

And keep in mind that these are puzzle pieces. They all need to fit together. It's not enough to find discrete matching pieces in the different systems, they have to all fit together in the same way in both.

E.g. if I couldn't be sleepy and selfish at the same time (INFJ Jumper: Sleep first = Savior Di = "Self above Tribe") in the Objective Personality System, the entire system consolidation would fail. But luckily (not sure if this is the right word), in OPS, one implies the other - and voilà - it's a perfect fit!

Here, the benefit of the doubt is resting on the logical coherence. Without it the bond of trust is broken and we have nothing. As it is I have yet to come across a single discrepancy in the OP-system! It all fits! (Although I do admit I'm a little foggy on the details of the learning styles).

But hang on a minute here, aren't Dave and Shan saying that we can't see ourselves and that everyone are typing themselves upside down? Why am I trusting my own observations? Surely if my observations are useless the comparison is useless and we're back at square one! 

Well... that might very well be, but the reason I feel confident in this area (self perception), as opposed to almost every other, is (apart from my own, perhaps questionable, conviction) that Dave and Shan actually have mentioned that lead Sleeps tend to be the best at seeing introverted self (while lead Consumes (my second animal btw) are the best at seeing extroverted self) and, by extension, the most likely to actually get their own types right. 

So, provided this information is accurate, I should be able to see myself very clearly. And I believe that I do, to a crippling degree. 

(I often feel deprived of the moment, feeling like I'm watching myself and the people around me from the "outside". Like I'm not really participating in my own existence. Like I'm just an observer. Hey! I am an Observer 😆)

But enough of this! One can't very well go around being objective all day if one wants to get the answers one wants! You'll just have to trust me! 😉

Ok, this is going great.... So... What's the verdict guys? Am I in a cult? 

Hello? 

Hellooooooo?

 

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