Raised to Fake It: Are INFJ Men Really Rare – Or Just Shamed into Silence?
Whenever I read articles about the INFJ male, they usually say that INFJ males are the rarest personality type, making up around 1% of the population while INFJs overall make up about 2% - 2.5%. While we don’t know the extent to which this is a biological difference, we do know that stereotypes in our culture influence our self-image and put pressure on us to think and behave a certain way.
This pressure, heaped upon us from an early age, teaches us what we need to do and say to be masculine or feminine. Many believe that the different roles between men and women throughout history are as much a product of culture as they are biological. Could this explain why there are fewer INFJ men?
Pop Culture Tells It
“I have lived with a fragile faith built on the ether of vague memories from an experience that I can neither prove nor explain.” Fox Mulder, The X-Files
Humor me for a second. Let’s go back to the 1990s when a popular TV show gripped us with its exploration of the paranormal and challenged us with new gender roles. I am speaking about The X-Files, of course, where the two main characters reversed traditional roles. Dr. Dana Scully was a female FBI agent who based all her analysis on science and reason. Agent Fox Mulder was riddled with his “I want to believe” emotions and intuitions. Scully, a Sensing Thinking type, and Mulder, an Intuitive Feeling type, made the TV team of the decade despite going against the socially accepted archetypes for men and women.
Why do I bring up this TV show? Because Fox Mulder was an INFJ man, and clearly not taken seriously, ridiculed, demoted, put in a basement and rejected, even by Scully. This kind of treatment was more familiar to women than to men who were expected to navigate the world with cold logic and a broad disregard for feelings. Mulder was not seen as masculine, because Intuition and Feeling were the arenas of women, said our culture, and Mulder was bent on being himself regardless.
My point is, the character of Fox Mulder reflects the difficulty INFJ men have in our culture which values Thinking over Feeling and Sensing over Intuition. Let’s illustrate this with more classic TV shows in which the roots of our archetypal male and female roles are apparent.
Truity’s Facets of the Cognitive Function Dimensions
To help us dig a little deeper, let’s look at Truity’s TypeFinder® personality test. In your test results, you’ll see the Myers-Briggs dimensions broken down into facets, or descriptors, to provide a nuanced personality profile.
The ones we’re concerned about here are Sensing, Intuition, Thinking and Feeling. These functions explain how people take in information and make decisions in their everyday lives. They represent the core ways we move through the world — and society has decided which are masculine and which are feminine.
Sensing
Under Sensing (S in the four-letter Myers-Briggs code) we have the descriptors Realistic, Concrete, Traditional, Factual, Practical and Habitual. These descriptors are masculine in the West. And if you’re not sure about that, just think of Dragnet, a popular TV show whose star was the embodiment of our culture’s “perfect male.” The detached and calculated Sergeant Joe Friday was known for the iconic words, “Just the facts, ma’am.” Emotionless and methodical, his investigations left nothing to chance or intuition and were entirely realistic. All the descriptors that Truity lays out under Sensing describe this guy and are decidedly masculine.
Intuition
Under Intuition (N), we have the descriptors Imaginative, Conceptual, Progressive, Insightful, Aesthetic and Adventurous. This one should be easy to identify as feminine if you only consider the phrase “a woman’s intuition,” and realize that women are permitted to go with their “gut” more freely than men. Remember the TV classic Bewitched? Samantha, the enchantress who won our hearts as she always “knew” without any facts, and was always one step ahead of her husband Darrin who wanted to live in the “real world.” Imaginative and supernaturally insightful, Samantha brought adventure and beauty to her home and family.
Thinking
Descriptors listed for Thinking (T) are Objective, Rational, Challenging, Individualist, Self-Reliant and Tough. Here we have more masculine descriptors that remind me of the beloved Starfleet Science Officer Spock whose very essence was self-reliance and self-control. His values were entrenched in objective reasoning as we see in his famous quote “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” And while Spock did wrestle with emotions (after all he was half human), his preference and commitment to a colder, objective approach is apparent in quotes like “Logic is the beginning of wisdom. Not the end of it.” And “Insufficient facts always invite danger.”
Feeling
Within the Feeling (F) function we have Subjective, Compassionate, Agreeable, Helpful, Cooperative and Tolerant. Unless you live off planet Earth, you will know that tradition expects women from almost any culture in history to possess these qualities. The archetypal mother figure Hazel, whose name was the title of the hit TV show, demonstrates this well. Helpful and cooperative are understated when you consider how this maternal housekeeper took care of the Baxter family, providing loving care to everyone, especially young Harold who she treated as her own. She protected and comforted and wore her heart on her sleeve — the quintessential, feminine nurturer.
The Most Rare, or Just Hidden?
Based on these stereotypes, I often wonder how INFJ men can feel comfortable and safe in our culture when their personality is not only considered “odd,” but feminine. And it’s not hard to find INFJ men on knowledge-sharing platforms that express feelings of isolation, especially while in the presence of other men.
This leads me to the question, do we really have fewer INFJ men than women, or do INFJ men hide who they really are under the social pressure they feel to be more “masculine” and fit in?
What INFJ Men Say
What do INFJ men say about this pressure? You will find them on platforms like Reddit and Quora revealing a sad theme — INFJ men, living in our western culture, are inundated with values that dictate how a man should act, conditioning them from an early age to adhere to “manly” behavior.
They are taught to fit it to the “masculine” circles that surround them and buckle to the expectations of others if they want to be “one of the guys.” And if they choose to be true to themselves and go against the male stereotype, they often learn from childhood to feel shame. Many feel trapped and unable to be themselves without judgment from others, especially from other men.
Don’t take my word for it. Google it.
Many INFJ Men Mistype as INTJ
It’s no surprise that INFJ men often mistype as INTJ because they feel pressure to be more logical. Societal expectations will often skew test results if the test-taker is not aware of this.
It works like this: if you are late everywhere you go but were raised by parents who were appalled by tardiness, you may answer a question in a way that reflects your parents’ values instead of your own. You may answer “yes” to a question like “Are you mostly on time?” because you believe that is the “right” answer based on your upbringing.
Likewise, an INFJ man may answer questions in a way that reflects more masculine traits like “rational” or “objective,” that align with the function Thinking. He may not be comfortable with his more feminine traits, and he may even reject them. He may test as an INTJ because being a Thinker is more socially acceptable for him than being a Feeler.
The Sigma INFJ Male
In the last decade or so we were introduced to the relatively new idea of the Sigma INFJ. While both men and women identify with the new designation, this label is referring to a role in the hierarchy of malehood.
Sigma INFJs are lone-wolves who are confident and less likely to be people-pleasers, instead operating outside social expectations. They are so comfortable with themselves that they are not interested in what others think of them. They are happy, independent outsiders whose Extraverted Feeling (Fe) — the INFJ’s second cognitive function and the one they’re most likely to use when processing emotions — seems to be, in my opinion, bottled and controlled. Their sensitivity seems to be minimized.
For INFJ men, the Sigma designation before their type letters gives them a “step up” in masculinity. It’s no wonder INFJ men feel more comfortable with this label.
Is this just another way that INFJ men have found to cope with the demeaning ways they have been stigmatized as too feminine? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
INFJ Men: Wonderfully Balanced Between Masculine and Feminine Traits
One of the tragedies about INFJ males in our society is that many don’t realize that they are essentially balanced between masculine and feminine traits, making them some of the most amazing, gifted people you will ever know.
Introverted Intuition (Ni) Balanced by Introverted Thinking (Ti)
The INFJ’s dominant function, Introverted Intuition (Ni), is naturally perceived as more “feminine” because it focuses on instinct, insight and empathy. Because of societal pressure to be more logical and less emotional, INFJ men will sometimes develop their tertiary function Introverted Thinking (Ti). Ti is associated with logic and analysis, so developing Ti gives them a “boost” in masculinity in the eyes of others.
While this might feel like a perk to the INFJ male, the real benefit in developing Ti isn’t in how “masculine” this function is perceived, but in how well Ni and Ti work together.
Ni allows INFJ men to instantly see patterns and understand situations from a high-level perspective. Ti then helps them test and refine those insights through reason. When both functions are strong, INFJ men can intuitively “see” beneath the surface and also analyze those insights with precision — combining intuition and intellect in a rare, powerful way.
The point I’m trying to make here is that while Ni is considered a feminine trait, it’s beautifully balanced by Ti, sometimes more so in the INFJ male. What follows is often a skilled, self-actualized, spiritual ninja who can “see” under the surface instantly and then adjust more deliberately when reason calls for it.
Extraverted Feeling (Fe) Balanced by Extraverted Sensing (Se)
Just as the Ni-Ti duo provides sublime processing balance for INFJ men, so does Fe-Se in a surprising way. These two functions are extraverted in the INFJ and so are more quickly seen by others.
Extraverted Feeling or Fe (traditionally feminine) provides the warmth and connection one encounters when engaging an INFJ. Extraverted Sensing or Se (traditionally masculine) provides the INFJ’s powers of observation. Even though Se is our inferior (least developed) function, that doesn’t mean we don’t use it. It’s still in our primary function stack and remains a conscious process.
Extraverted Sensing is the mental process of actively taking in concrete information through the five senses and reacting to what is happening in the external environment, in the present moment. As with Ti, INFJ men sometimes develop Se because of the societal pressure to be more fact and reality driven. When Fe and Se work together, the result is a warm, socially responsive disposition that is tempered by present-moment observational skills.
So we have, again, both the masculine and feminine working together to round off this symbiotic relationship between personality traits and produce some of the most loving and empowered wizards you will ever find.
A Final Thought
Whether you believe that we are shaped by culture or that we evolved as humans to fulfill male and female roles, we can’t deny that there is societal pressure on INFJ men to fit the mold of stereotypical masculinity. The big question is, how do they deal with it? Is the pressure enough to cause some of the most impressive creatures that walk the planet to retreat? Do INFJ men have to fake it in order to be “man enough” in the West? Or is it really true that they make up only 1% of the population, and really are the very rarest of the rare.
I’ll leave it up to you to decide.
