4 INTJ Subtypes: Brain Patterns Explained by Dario Nardi (Dominant Creative Normalizing Harmonizing) 

⏲Timestamps 0:29 Creative Subtype - "Creative Enthusiast" 9:00 Dominant Subtype - "Visionary Director" 16:34 Normalizing Subtype - "Unconventional Guide" 24:26 Harmonizing Subtype - "Eccentric Diamond" 32:02 Themes All INTJs Share Regardless of Subtype 34:59 FAQ

I'm definitely the dominant INTJ. I can make quick decision because I foresaw issues and opportunites before others and had created solutions before they became tangible. I was a senior leader in the oil industry. My bosses said that I knew what to do but needed to bring others along. The problem was that I couldn't explain my answer because it came to me in a moment of realization. I learned that I had to make my solution tangible so that others understood where I was coming from. Even if only some calculation or slides.

INTJ-D here. I’m an anesthesiologist. I run our group and the operating room suites everyday at a major urban hospital. I love running the ORs so much I’d do it for free. It’s the most fascinating puzzle to be solved - how to get the best out of every situation and every person, everyday. I’m very good at making rapid decision in high-risk situations that has lots of uncertainty. It makes people nervous, but I LOVE it. Everything else you described is true about me too. I’ve never been so accurately described, ever. Strong work!

Thank you for making this video. I often think/feel like an INTJ that doesn’t quite fit and have tested INFJ many times. Now I know I’m a harmonizing sub-type ❤.

perhaps THE #1 DEFINING THEME of most ANY/ALL INTJs IS that theyre forward-thinking and/or maintain an innovative approach to whatever. ABSOLUTELY. FOR SURE. - INTJ

I’m an INTJ who enjoys working one-on-one with clients, or in any setting in which I’m in the role of coach or consultant (whether formally or informally), where I’m asking them questions, then confidently dispensing the correct advice. No one ever had to model this for me-I could do this as a kid, and have always enjoyed it…it’s very ENERGIZING. I never crave social interaction, but it’s always fun to engage in creative problem-solving for real-life situations-Ni followed by Te just never gets old…it’s stimulating soul food. 🥰 Despite never having had any NT-types in my life, simply seeing people in the media that I resonated with was enough to validate that the things I could do instinctively were a “thing.” It’s essential that we be self-aware, first & foremost, and since INTJs are so brutally-honest, it comes easily to us.

Harmonizing INTJ 5w4 here. Many people have said I give off INFJ vibes, so it is no wonder now. I do recall phases in my childhood when I was more like the dominant subtype, mostly when I felt confident in my local community. (School, friends, hobbies etc.) Unfortunately, being bullied a lot as a kid has made me shift more towards the sensitive, harmonizing side, and I definitely identify with it now that I am an adult. I still use my dominant side in my private life and around people I feel most comfortable with. Perhaps social anxiety plays a role here, thus I feel more comfortable with the harmonizing side of myself. It's super interesting, especially as I would assume these subtypes are almost opposites here. Thank you for this informative video :) Great to get some insights and to better understand myself. 👌

OMG. Retired INTJ, pediatric dentist. Auditory pod casts, you tube, etc. Quick decision making, focus on systems and efficiency. I joke that I have one brain cell, I just have it on turbo charge.

A group of INTJs is called “Not INTJs”

For future reference we could call a group of INTJs a "conspiracy". 😂 I think that's also the collective for Ravens which are known to have a symbiotic relationship with entire packs of wolves. Some might even say they domesticate them. Being an INTJ l, I like this.

Really cool & interesting, thank for sharing. It's possible I am the creative or harmonizing. Joke : Maybe one day we will call Dario the dad of INTJs.

Brilliant interview! Very detailed and insightful. Thank you both.

These conversations with Dr Nardi has been extremely insightful. Thanks Joyce for setting up these discussion and being a fantastic host as well. Looks like I am a harmonizing INTJ subtype.

INTJ-H(armonizing), but relied on INTJ-C(reative) as my younger self. I feel as if I’ve had to put on all the hats at one time or another, but INTJ-H is the fit with least resistance. Oxytocin FTW. Grannycore downtime: cats, plants, books, tea, handicrafts. Majored in anthropology, philosophy, and linguistics. Job I felt most suited to: mediator.

thank joyce for your existence and commitment for interviewing people on these topics - deep appreciation :>

Born an INTJ, but due to my childhood, I moved to a Dominant INTJ.

Excellent !

I'm definitely the Harmonising subtype. I think I might have been one my entire life 🤔 I can truly relate to what was said in the video, esp. the hypersensitivity aspect. Being a 1w2, I've always blamed it on my Enneagram wing and so this presentation was quite informative. Really useful info. Thanks! 🙂

This was *so* enlightening. I relate 100% to the description of the harmonising INTJ and feel that that's my 2-year-fit. No wonder I've been mistyping myself as INFJ.

We are going to have a presidential debate as an intj I wish these two great men with hug kiss

WOW! I have definitely seen and met the first 3 types - including myself. Thinking about the 4th. I'm so glad that Dario mentioned the difference between him as a C and other subtypes. It cleared away all my doubts, I'm not a harmonizing but a C 100%. And it highlighted some significant differences! Wow! I'm working on figuring out how the information processing of our brains work, and I've been making great progress. Hopefully sometime soon I'll have capacity to read some books including Nardi's, and compare my findings ☺

Wow very excited to read the book

Man i’m grateful for this video. i used to get ENFJ during college years but ive always felt that i’m not as considerate towards other’s feelings as an ENFJ but i stopped trying to argue with myself about it. then after college when i started living by myself, i started getting INTJ all the time and even though i can’t relate to the dominant INTJ, i felt seen by this video cause i think im a INTJ-H

Shoulders on point 😋😋 Waiting for Dario's take on the ESFPs

I think my partner, Tim, is a normalizing INTJ Im so fascinated to figure out which ENFP variant I am. The brain studies are soooo fascinating to me. I’ve been putting off buying this book but I think I will have to lol

I want to call it serious love

Cool stuff! Please do entj and intp those are my type and recalibration type.

Dario should make a custom image for his zooom background that has the book showing all the time.

Hey Joyce =) I'd love to see a series on Narcissism and the 16 types. How it plays out in each type. You could even do a bit of a spectrum for each. Like a moderate narcissist versus heavy narcissist. I was just talking to my sister about our mom, who is an ISFJ and pretty clearly has NPD. Seeing it play out for the ISFJ type is pretty wild. I don't know if you have much of an interest or knowledge in NPD but I think it'd be an informative and successful series, as I feel like NPD is very different for the different MBTI types. Xo

Where all the INTJ-D types? ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) definitely molded me into a person who uses my takents to dominate a situation wherever I go. I often succeed and seldom have to flash that dominance - people around me feel my energy without flexing. Martial arts all my kife just one part of it. And what you said was my approach.

I'm seeing myself as all but normalizing. I am creative, and this plus dominate might be my natural type. People tell me I am crazy, but "good crazy", and this has been this way for al of my life. But then I wrapped my head around people until I resonated with the INFJ behavior. So definitely some harmonizing as well. But trained harmonizing that came when my brain did its final maturing. Now I am pretty good with people, unless I am involved myself. I can understand and solve conflicts, but if you involve me as a subject, then I will show the dominant aspect instead.

Insightful, as always. In type assessments ( college, corporate and private) I seem to have INTJ preferences. I have been in managerial roles throughout my career and trained heavily in martial arts during my twenties. I played tabletop role playing games ( D&D, Werewolf the Apacolypse, Buffy TVSRPG) and Warhammer 40k as a hobby throughout my career and still do at 51 now that I have achieved my financial goals and no longer need to deal with the people stress of management and can coast along in a simple job until retirement. I suppose that would place me mostly dominant and normalizing. I hope to get assessed like you did by Dario Nardi for more type clarity in the future. Keep up the good work, Joyce. You, Personality Hackers and Dario are proving to be a formidable force for personality theory advancement.

Joyce said “traditional INTJ” hehehe

Joyce, thank you for the interesting interview. 64 y/o INTJ-female here. I’m personally curious if there is any research on MBTI type and ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) score. Or alternatively, attachment style and MBTI-type.

A Cabal of INTJs.

A group of INTJ’s should be called a parliament

As INTJ-C Socionics Model A Intuitive Subtype is very accurate for me too 🤔 Scarily accurate

Im good with spatial/visual stuff so id say creative. Def not a leader because I just like to observe things. What most intj's have is planning, attention and strong intuition. Not all intj's have a strong passion to do stuff and we are strict with our day to day stuff but not how people should live.

​They seem to me to be the same thing as the OPS social types. 1 - dominant, 2 - creative, 3 - normalizing, 4 - harmonizing. In OPS social types are considered inborn and not subject to change.

Ah, so the Creative Subtype (which I think is more where I lean) might maybe mistype as an ISFP to some, or perhaps look Ne-dominant in some situations? I know I have a kind of "ISFP mode", and although I don't _really_ understand Ne from a lived experience perspective, I find I can do Ne tasks very easily, like randomist humour.

I think I'm some combination of creative and harmonizing. I only really get into the creative space when I'm in the right situation, I'm highly sensitive, and I definitely "switch on" my capacities as opposed to having them all the time. At the same time my thinking is generally chaotic, I don't distinguish the spheres of my life very much, and I express myself through art as opposed to any kind of direct thing. Where can I thrive? Well, I have Pathological Demand Avoidance, so I don't think I can thrive anywhere. Survival is the best we can manage because most of our energy goes into fighting ourselves constantly.

Maybe the term for a group of INTJs could be a 'streak' or 'ambush'. Biologists use those terms for when a group of tigers forms. Like tigers, INTJs prefer to be solitary and independent. They are both usually quietly doing their thing in the background out from under the gaze of others. When cornered or threatened, they can both be quite fierce and vocal. They are also both vocal when establishing their territory or dominance over others, but only until the others show that they get the message, then the tiger and the INTJ both slip off into the background again. If you want to see an ambush or streak of INTJs, go to a gaming convention like DefCon or a hobby shop that hosts strategy wargames like Warhammer, Mechwarrior, War of the Ring etc. INTJs will come out of the shadows and engage in a little in-person socializing to play these games. This video is so helpful! I am glad that you interviewed Dario, Joyce! This theory really helps to make Meyers Briggs more flexible, more accurately depicting real human behavior and thinking. When I was first introduced to personality theory, it was with MBTI and each of the types was fairly rigidly defined. When I found out about Enneagram, I liked that theory better because it seemed to be less rigid and more realistic in modelling how people actually think and behave. This theory of Dario's helps to make MBTI a bit more like Enneagram in this way. I've always tested as an INTJ but have never really fit the standard description of it 100%. I fit Dario's INTJ-H or Harmonizing variant 100% though. The standard description is more like his INTJ-I In Charge variant. I'm certainly much more like a Harmonizer than an In Charge, or Dominant or Harmonizing INTJ. The way he describes INTJs in general and what each variant has in common certainly fits me, but from the viewpoint of a Harmonizer. When I was a kid, I was very sensitive to sudden changes - in anything really: sound, light, mood, health, humidity, heat, touch etc. Even sudden changes in how other people were behaving, both in person and in a TV show or movie. I have always hated and felt an intense fight or flight response to arguing, especially when it escalates into a shouting match. Intense feelings, especially negative ones like animosity, rancor, jealousy, and the like really hurt me whether they are directed toward me or another person or group. I just find myself needing to get away from it. I'll change the channel if characters start acting in these ways towards each other. I think it is why I like plants so much. Yes, they are competing with each other for nutrients, pollinators, sunlight and room to grow if they are growing near each other, but they do so silently. I don't feel any negativity from plants. I love to get out in my outside garden and to work with my houseplants. It is very relaxing, even if I am doing something drastic such as establishing a new flowerbed. I see plants for the biochemical, living machines that they are, having studied the chemistry, physics and biology of them, but I do still appreciate their beauty and scents. I also really like electronics because they are even more harmonious, predictable and systematic than are plants. It is satisfying to take a box of parts and build a computer, video game console or other device out of them, plug it in and have it work as intended. When electronics stop working as intended, then they become a fascinating puzzle for me to solve. I find animals and humans interesting subjects for study as well, though humans are a bit too unpredictable and mercurial for my taste sometimes. Animals, on the other hand, behave much more predictably according to instincts, biochemistry and reaction to their environment. I think that I understand animals, especially dogs and horses, better than I do people. I grew up on my grandpa's cattle ranch, so I have spent a lot of time with plants, dogs and horses. When I do work with humans,I often find myself trying to figure out how to restore or establish harmony by solving the problems that seem to be causing the negative feelings. Some people I know see me as a consultant or moderator or confidant. Someone who will actively listen, think about what is said and then come up with advice, solutions or empathy that they need. I find interacting with people to be exhausting, but it is because I so often find myself working hard mentally, emotionally and sometimes physically to solve their complex problems. An interesting theory that really improves MBTI. Thanks again.

Wait yellow… are you talking Insights colors? Did Linda Berens Make Insights? I’m Yellow, Green, Blue, Red :). When the yellows at the non for profit I worked at got together, one of us was like Where are Blues, it says that they don’t want to be touched… let’s go hug them :). We had a small party in the corner of the room 😂.

The idea of these brains relations and type seem more than interseting . However, I'd have slighly more of a trust in the concept if the man who handles this had (in my idea) typed himself correctly. After all, that is all I can really somewhat verify as outsider. Maybe he did everything correct apart from that, but still, it makes me more careful than I wish I would be, because the subject is certainly interesting.

How many INTJs don’t or won’t “like” a comment even if you agree with or actually like the comment?…😏

Oh my God have you ever seen me as Wonder woman kissing Wonder woman

So how would something like a hearing defect from birth that can never be fixed affect brain development when the natural personality is INTJ? Hearing has a strong influence on early brain development in multiple areas, and life experiences of both aspects can often create a more unique personality type. The natural INTJ drive is always there, but realizing the mistakes simply because something wasn't heard (or heard correctly) tends to put the individual into a more cautious position. When a subject is known, the confidence is there. When it is a new situation (even a little) it turns into "that's interesting". In the end confidence doesn't matter until after the fact - not even then, really. The right ear is known to operate differently and have a more direct route to the speech center to process spoken words. This individual has this hearing defect (and others, all in the head). It takes a lot longer to process the speech, but it also takes a lot of work for this individual to process the written word - writing is often quick and efficient. There is also a strong sense of INFJ in many situations for this individual - especially with those closest to him in private.

I don't bother with the eneagram or whatever... or four temperments... just use Eastern, Western Zodiac signs, MBTI and neurotype/psychological pathology.... all the rest is a deadend...