Ayn Rand MBTI Personality Type
Personality
What personality type is Ayn Rand? Ayn Rand is an INTJ personality type in MBTI, 1w9 - so/sp - 135 in Enneagram, RLOEI in Big 5, LIE in Socionics.
¶ It's best in this situation to compare Rand's psychology to Aristotle's, who's a prime philosophical example of an ENTJ's way of thinking. ¶ Aristotle's dominant Te notably emerges in his 'Poetics,' where he deals with an Fi concept in a Te way. He standardizes poetry in the most mechanical and systematic way possible. But take Aristotle's systematic style, and compare him to Ayn Rand, who's much more romantically inclined: ≻ Barbara Branden: "[Her work] is both angry and exaltedly idealistic, a tortured hymn to integrity. In it one sees the union of attitudes so marked in Ayn: the union of passionate idealism with a profound scorn for those who are only idealists, who renounce the responsibility of translating their ideals into action and reality." • That quote is probably one of the most accurate depictions of an INTJ that I've seen. Their middle axis is Te/Fi, and both are in the service of the INTJ's dominant Ni. So the INTJ has a much more personal and zealous investment to their work than the ENTJ does. ¶ We can take quotes regarding Aristotle's dominant Te and inferior Fi to further illustrate my points, and you'll see how this vastly differs from Rand's way of thinking: ≻ Jonathan Barnes: "Aristotle’s writings are in any case uncommonly impersonal." ≻ Carlo Natali: "Aristotle’s personality was not morbidly self-expressive in the way that Rousseau’s clearly was." ≻ Alfred Edward Taylor: "Though he composed a separate course of lectures on individual conduct (the Ethics), he … offers an apology for dealing with the … individual … apart from the more general doctrine of the organization of society." ≻ Bertrand Russel: "To the man with any depth of feeling, [Aristotle’s Ethics] cannot but be repulsive." ¶ Now, take these statements about Aristotle's psychology and compare them to Rand's: ≻ Rand: "Love is not self-sacrifice, but the assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love." ≻ Kelley L. Ross: "Few writers convey an irresistible ferocity of convictions as Rand does." ≻ Barbara Branden: "[Before the success of 'The Fountainhead'] Ayn could not know what was to happen - but beneath her pain and despair still existed the bright core of conviction she had carried with her throughout her thirty-eight years: that human beings will ultimately respond to values." ¶ Rand's mindset is much more like Nietzsche's. They both emphasize the virtue of solely pursuing one's own interests (egoism). You can know more about that in this video: https://youtu.be/c-a1W-jqrWY?t=630 - There are of course differences between their egoism, but they contain the same bottom line. Rand's content differs from Nietzsche's, but their structure is similar. They both tend to criticize Fe/Ti philosophers for their ideas impeding the progress of mankind (Te), and both do so in a pithy, non-systematic manner (dominant Ni), unlike Aristotle. • Tom Bowden, a journalist for the Ayn Rand Institute stated: "Although Rand fundamentally opposed Nietzsche’s philosophy, she greatly valued his poetic ability to capture the inner, emotional state of a proud man." ¶ One can even notice their similar psychology in their styles of writing. These styles can even be compared to Plato's, which indicates dominant Ni. All of these works have one thing in common, which is that they all heavily contain allegorical language. These allegories come from Ni's (secondary) characteristic of symbolism. ¶ To clarify my point, take what Jung and Von Franz say about Ni doms: ≻ Jung: "But, since he tends to rely exclusively upon his vision, his moral effort becomes one-sided; he makes himself and his life symbolic, adapted, it is true, to the inner and eternal meaning of events, but unadapted to the actual present-day reality." ≻ Von Franz: "In psychological language we should say that he knows about the slow processes which go on in the collective unconscious, the archetypal changes, and he communicates them to society. … They generally are artists who produce very archetypal … material, such as you find in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra" ∴ But all I'm saying here is the suggestion that Rand is not an Ni dominant—and that she has inferior Fi—seems like a stretch.
Biography
Ayn Rand (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926.
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