SJ Types, the Practical Planners: What Sensing Plus Judging Means

ISTJ, ISFJ, ESTJ and ESFJ share two letters that don't sit side by side: S for Sensing in second place and J for Judging in fourth. This site calls the four of them the Practical Planners. This page covers what the two letters mean, which questions on the personality type quiz decide them, what a near-even split does to the result, and how much weight the research says they can carry.

Why these four types make a group

A Myers-Briggs type takes one letter from each of four preference pairs. The Myers & Briggs Foundation describes Sensing or Intuition as "opposite ways to take in information" and Judging or Perceiving as "opposite ways to approach the outside world" (Myers-Briggs Overview).

The Foundation's own overview of type dynamics groups the types another way. It pairs the middle two letters of a type, one way of taking in information and one way of deciding, into what it calls process pairs: ST, SF, NF and NT (Type Dynamics: Overview). By that count ISTJ and ESTJ belong to ST, and ISFJ and ESFJ to SF. This site files the Sensing types by their last letter and the Intuition types by their middle two, which sorts all sixteen types into four groups of four with no type in two groups. The same four types also make up one of the four temperaments in a separate system, the Keirsey temperament model, which lists ESTJ, ISTJ, ESFJ and ISFJ together (Keirsey's overview).

The Practical Planners is a house name, not an official label. It takes one word from each of the Foundation's keyword lists: "practical" for Sensing and "planful" for Judging (The Preferences).

What S and J mean in the framework

Sensing, as opposed to Intuition

"People who prefer Sensing pay more attention to information that is concrete and tangible," the Foundation writes, and "focus on what is, by paying attention to specific details and facts." People who prefer Intuition "pay more attention to the patterns and possibilities in the information they receive." The Foundation's list of Sensing habits includes "Like step-by-step instructions and information presented sequentially" and "Trust experience" (The Preferences). It also says "Everyone spends some time using the Sensing and Intuition preferences throughout their day," so the letter names the one a person leans on more, not the only one they use.

Judging, as opposed to Perceiving

The fourth pair describes "how you like to approach the outside world." "People who prefer Judging like a more structured and organized lifestyle," and "Making decisions, coming to closure, and then moving on is important" to them. Their listed habits include "Like making and sticking to plans" and "Do their best to avoid last-minute stress," while people who prefer Perceiving "like a more flexible and open-ended lifestyle" (The Preferences).

The name comes from type theory, not everyday speech. On the Foundation's account, for people who prefer Judging, "Interaction with the outside world is through their decision-making (judging) mental process of Thinking or Feeling" (The Preferences). Its type dynamics pages call Thinking and Feeling the judging mental processes and Sensing and Intuition the perceiving ones (Type Dynamics: Overview), and explain that "we extravert the process indicated by the last letter" (The Processes of Type Dynamics). So a J says the process a person turns toward the outer world is a way of deciding, Thinking or Feeling. It says nothing about being judgmental.

What the two letters add up to in type dynamics

Together the two letters make one claim about the whole group. If the J means a deciding process is turned outward, then Sensing is the one turned inward, so every SJ type uses introverted Sensing. The first letter decides how high it ranks. People who prefer Introversion "use their dominant mental process in their inner world," and the Foundation's worked example says "if an individual prefers ISTJ, their dominant process is Introverted Sensing." People who prefer Extraversion "use their dominant mental process in the outer world," and the Foundation's list of dominant processes puts ESTJ under extraverted Thinking and ESFJ under extraverted Feeling. For those two, introverted Sensing is the auxiliary process, the one the Foundation says "supports the dominant process" (The Processes of Type Dynamics).

The Foundation's short portraits of the dominant processes describe "how we are on a good day," and the one for introverted Sensing, the lead process of ISTJ and ISFJ, includes "Compares present facts and situations to past experience" (The Processes of Type Dynamics). That is a description from type theory, not a finding, and this quiz doesn't measure the order of processes. It counts each pair separately, so it can say whether your answers leaned toward S and toward J, and nothing about which process leads.

The four SJ types

The other two pairs, Extraversion or Introversion and Thinking or Feeling, decide which of the four a result names. Each line condenses a description the Foundation reprints from Isabel Briggs Myers's Introduction to Myers-Briggs Type (The 16 MBTI Personality Types).

• ISTJ, with Introversion and Thinking, is described as quiet, serious, thorough and dependable, deciding logically what should be done and working toward it steadily.
• ISFJ, with Introversion and Feeling, is described as quiet, friendly and conscientious, steady in meeting obligations, and attentive to specifics about the people who matter to them.
• ESTJ, with Extraversion and Thinking, is described as practical and decisive, quick to put decisions into action and to organize projects and people for results.
• ESFJ, with Extraversion and Feeling, is described as warmhearted and cooperative, working to establish harmony and noticing what others need day to day.

The questions that decide S and J

Every answer on the quiz counts toward one side of one pair, so only the questions on these two pairs decide whether a result lands in this group. Further down, the page prints every answer that counts as S or J word for word. Here is what each question asks and what its S or J answers share.

Sensing or Intuition

• Learning to cook a new dish (both versions). Following the recipe exactly the first time, or watching someone make it and copying the technique step by step, counts as S. The first of those goes on to riff once you know the fundamentals, so the S marks starting from the concrete case, not refusing to improvise.
• A friend describes you as always in your head (full version only). Answering that it's not quite right because you're very present and observant, or that it's partly true but you're also very aware of your surroundings, counts as S.
• The core of an ideal career (both versions). Building, maintaining or improving real systems and processes, or mastering a specific craft with depth and precision, counts as S.
• Planning a road trip (full version only). Hitting specific spots, or the practical side of when to drive, where to stop and what to pack, counts as S.
• Hearing a detailed factual explanation (both versions). Appreciating the specifics, or following carefully and keeping the key points, counts as S.

Judging or Perceiving

• A project with a vague brief and no firm deadline (full version only). Feeling mildly anxious until there is some structure, or asking clarifying questions and setting a check-in date before starting, counts as J.
• Sunday night (both versions). The week mapped out, or a rough shape for it with flexibility built in, counts as J.
• A last-minute change to careful plans (both versions). Frustration, or brief annoyance before adapting, counts as J.
• The ideal working calendar (full version only). Fully planned in clear blocks, or mostly structured with intentional white space, counts as J.
• A dinner reservation and a better option (both versions). Honoring a reservation made two weeks out, or checking whether it can be rescheduled before doing anything else, counts as J. Going to the better option counts as P, guilty or not.

Three things stand out. Several J answers are mild: a rough plan with flexibility, brief annoyance before adapting, a calendar with room in it. A J here marks a lean toward settling things first, the Foundation's "coming to closure," not a rigid schedule. The career question asks what you'd want from work, which is a preference, not a measure of what you'd be good at. And apart from the reservation, which is about keeping a commitment, no question on these two pairs asks about rules, duty or tradition, though the ISTJ description on the Foundation's page includes "Value traditions and loyalty" (The 16 MBTI Personality Types). An SJ result here reflects answers about concrete detail, plans and closure. It is not a measure of loyalty or of respect for tradition.

How a near-even split shows up in this quiz

On each pair your letter is the side with more of your answers, unless that lead is too narrow to call. If the side in the lead holds no more than a set share of that pair's answers, the pair counts as balanced. The result then shows a lowercase x in that place, and the line for that pair reads "Balanced, leaning" plus the side with more answers and both counts. The code never turns a tie into a letter either: if the two sides ever got the same count, the line would read "Balanced, an even split." The share is a single setting in the quiz's code; the quiz page states it and lists the splits it covers on each length.

Because the two SJ letters sit in the second and fourth places, where an x lands decides whether a result stays in this group:

• An x on Extraversion or Introversion, or on Thinking or Feeling, with S and J as letters. Every type listed as closest to your answers is an SJ type. An xSTJ result lists ISTJ and ESTJ; with both of those pairs balanced, the result lists all four SJ types.
• An x on Sensing or Intuition. The list pairs an SJ type with its Intuition counterpart, such as ESTJ with ENTJ, an NT type, or ESFJ with ENFJ, an NF type.
• An x on Judging or Perceiving. The list pairs an SJ type with its Perceiving counterpart, such as ISFJ and ISFP, and the second always belongs to the SP group.
• An x on both SJ pairs. Four types are listed and only one is an SJ type.
• Three or more balanced pairs. Too many types fit equally well, so the result names none and shows only the split on each pair.

Outside the balanced range, a wide lead and a narrow one print the same letter. The Foundation itself says type theory "does not measure how much of that preference a person possesses" (Reliability and Validity of the MBTI). The quiz prints the counts beside each letter, so you can see whether your S or J came from a wide lead or a narrow one.

What the research says about these letters

Whether a whole type holds up on a retest is a question about every type, not about S and J, so the 1991 National Research Council figures and the publisher's own retest data are covered once, in the science behind the MBTI. What follows is the research that bears on these two letters.

Whether S and J go together

The finding most specific to this group is an old one. The 1991 committee summarized work by Carlyn (1977), who found three of the four scales relatively independent. The fourth, Judging or Perceiving, "was related to the sensing-intuition scale with correlations ranging from .23 to .48 in 11 samples," and "sensors tended to be judgers, while intuitors tended to be perceivers in these samples." Carlyn took this as support for the theory behind the instrument, "which posits only three dimensions" (National Research Council, 1991). So in those samples S and J tended to arrive together. In McCrae and Costa's 1989 data, discussed below, the instrument measured "four relatively independent dimensions" (McCrae and Costa, 1989). This quiz's scoring doesn't link the two letters: each question counts toward one pair only, and S and J appear together only when the answers on both pairs put them there.

How well the S and J scales measure what they aim at

The scales did not fare alike. The committee reported Myers and McCaulley's conclusion, drawn from correlational data in 20 studies, that the Extraversion-Introversion scale has good construct validity, then wrote: "In contrast, the S-N and T-F scales show relatively weak validity, with only moderate correlations with other instruments designed to measure similar constructs." Because those findings came largely from high school and college student samples, it added, "caution is advised in attempting to generalize from them" (National Research Council, 1991). Sensing or Intuition, the first SJ letter, is one of those two scales.

Trait research raises a question about the J as well. Robert McCrae and Paul Costa, reading the MBTI against the five-factor model with data from 267 men and 201 women, reported that "The interpretation of the Judging-Perceiving index was also called into question" (McCrae and Costa, 1989). A 2003 study of 900 people by Adrian Furnham, Joanna Moutafi and John Crump found that "Openness was correlated with Sensing-Intuition" and Conscientiousness with Judging-Perceiving, "replicating the findings of McCrae & Costa (1989)" (Furnham, Moutafi and Crump, 2003). That abstract doesn't give the direction of each correlation, but it ties the scales behind the two SJ letters to Openness and Conscientiousness, two of the five factors. The Foundation itself says trait theory and type theory "are measured differently, and this is at the heart of the matter" (Reliability and Validity of the MBTI).

How much a type predicts

On careers, the 1991 committee wrote that the temptation to use data on the types found in particular occupations for vocational counseling "should be tempered by three methodological problems." One of them, a lack of attention to normative data, comes with an example from this group: "12.4 percent of elementary teachers are ESFJs, but the same percentage of a random sample of U.S. women are also ESFJs." Another is that "no evidence has been presented on relationships to performance in those occupations." The committee concluded: "At this time, there is not sufficient, well-designed research to justify the use of the MBTI in career counseling programs" (National Research Council, 1991). Later critiques of the theory as a whole, and the publisher's reply, are in the science behind the MBTI, which also covers where the Judging and Perceiving pair came from.

Common mix-ups

• Judging doesn't mean judgmental. The word refers to the judging processes, Thinking and Feeling; a J says one of them is the process a person turns outward (The Processes of Type Dynamics).
• Sensing doesn't mean missing the big picture. The pair is about which kind of information a person leans on more, and the Foundation says everyone uses both every day (The Preferences).
• SJ is not a rating of reliability. The assessment "sorts for preferences; it does not measure traits, ability, skill, or character," and "There are no better or worse types" (Myers-Briggs Overview). A result here says how your answers leaned, not whether you keep your word.
• This quiz is not the MBTI. It uses the same four pairs but is not the publisher's assessment and has not been tested the way research questionnaires are.

Using an SJ result

• Read the counts on the two SJ pairs before the letters, and if either was close or balanced, read the Intuition or Perceiving description on the quiz page as well.
• Hold the type loosely. For people who finish an official feedback session still unsure of their type, the Foundation suggests a "for-the-moment" type, "a hypothesis to work with," and ways to test it, among them to "observe how you take in information and make decisions in real life" (Verification of Best-Fit Type). A free quiz result calls for at least as much caution.
• Keep it out of decisions about other people. The Foundation says "The MBTI assessment is not designed to be used for hiring purposes" and "Results are never to be used to limit anyone" (Ethical Use of the MBTI).
• For a career decision, or anything touching health or relationships, talk to a qualified professional. The committee's caution about career counseling concerned the official instrument, and a free quiz has less evidence behind it.

If this does not fit you

Start with the two splits that put you here. A narrow S or J, or an x, means your answers sat near the line, and the Intuition or Perceiving description may suit you as well or better. If both leads were wide and the description still reads wrong, look at the situations the questions use: a recipe, a road trip, a Sunday night, a calendar. They may not be where your habits show, and a handful of answers on one day is a small sample of anyone.

The evidence leaves room for that. The 1991 committee judged that "Self-assessment instruments like those represented by the MBTI are likely, at best, to capture a person's current state" (National Research Council, 1991), and the Foundation hands the decision back to the reader: "Ultimately, you are the only one who can decide which of the 16 types you prefer" (Verification of Best-Fit Type). A description can also feel right for reasons that have little to do with the questions, which why personality test results feel accurate explains.