Becker Characters - Personality Types

Becker was a TV sitcom series starring Ted Danson as Dr Becker, a misanthropic doctor that deeps down cares about his patients and friends, who single handedly operates his own practice in the borough of Bronx, New York City and is a regular customer at a local diner. One of my personal favourite sitcoms of all-time - if you haven't caught it yet, make sure you do!

Here's my analysis of the main characters personality types:

Dr John Becker (Ted Danson) - INTJ (don't think they could spell it out any more - definitely Ni/Te - has the common INTJ pissed off with the incompetence of the world theme to his character ala Dr Cox from Scrubs - Ni/Te sees the flaws in logical systems and is often pissed off because of how much better things could be - also annoyed by the Se details of the world i.e flickering street lamps and noisy people - great character)

Margaret Wyborn (Hattie Winston) - ESFJ (Becker's receptionist who is very motherly, tradtionally minded and stubborn - stereotypical ESFJ)

Linda (Shawnee Smith) - ENFP (Becker's other receptionist - in contrast to Margaret she's kooky, optimistic, impulsive, muddle headed  - has to be a Ne-Fi - never takes things literally and has a lot of typical Si vs Ne clashes with Margaret - a very likeable character)

Regina 'Reggie' Kostas (Terry Farrell) - ISFP (not really sure what type she is, but this is my gut read of her character)

Jake Malinak (Alex Désert) - ENTP (Not that sure of his type either - I'll go with ENTP because he is best friends with Becker - INTJ/ENTP pairs are commonly found together as they are an 'inspirational match' - he also has very quick wit and is very aware of what's going on despite being blind probably from Ne interfacing with patterns of what's happening at present)
 
Bob (Saverio Guerra) - ESTP (I'm going to go with Se dom, given how he clashes with Becker a lot. Definitely comes off more as the sharky tertiary Fe than auxiliary Fi)

Chris Connor (Nancy Travis) - ESFJ (Can't remember her character well enough, but from what I do ESFJ seems most likely - outgoing, nice, polite and ordinary)

Hector Lopez (Jorge Garcia) - ENTP (stereotypical ENTP schemer)

Myers-Briggs Test Mistypes

Whilst Myers-Briggs and Jungian cognitive functions test are presented as the best way of determining your type, the truth is they are not always accurate. In fact I believe the test only to be about 60% accurate (these are not official statistics as there is no objective way of determining someone's personality type) at best and quite possibly less. It is impossible to measure a person’s psyche 100% accurately from a written test. Here are some of the possible reasons why you might get a mistyping from the MBTI test...

...you don’t know yourself and your inner motivations well enough

...you have a well developed personality, have worked hard on your weaknesses and are comfortable making decisions with logic or feelings, being adaptive or directive when required etc. (you will still have a natural preference though)

...you may be a reserved extrovert or an articulate introvert

...you dislike certain aspects of yourself and want to dissociate yourself from these

...you are projecting qualities you wish you had, but don’t

...your development pattern might be abnormal for your type (i.e. your tertiary cognitive function being developed at a higher level than your secondary cognitive function)

...some of the questions were ambiguous and could be the result of a number of different cognitive functions at work

So even if the official test says you or someone else is XXXX type, don't take it as gospel. Consider the possibility and investigate further.

The Extrovert Myth

Another common myth is that all extroverts are social butterflies, high energy, talk a lot etc. again this is not always true. Being extroverted means that your lead and most stimulating way of functioning is to be engaged with the external world – depending on your dominant function, this may be a preference towards engaging directly (ExxJ) with social dynamics (Fe) or structural dynamics (Te) or taking in information (ExxP) via patterns and impressions (Ne) or literal details (Se).

So, ExxP’s are most likely to be mistyped as introverts as their lead way of functioning is taking in external information and their interaction function with the outside world (Fe or Te) is third in their hierarchy. In particular, Ne dominants (ENFP and ENTP) tend to be the most reserved of extroverts and some Ne dominants may be mistyped or misconceived as introverts. This is because we live in a Si dominant society (majority of the population are SJ’s), and as Si and Ne have an antagonistic/repressive relationship. So, Ne dominants may be frequently invalidated by Si dominant or auxiliary users who are directive and prefer to plant down what’s known as fact rather than exploring different patterns and possibilities of the external world (as that is draining for top 2 Si users to do), so the result is that Ne dominants start using more of their inferior Si to repress their Ne so they can deal more effectively with most people and as a result they may find most social interaction to be very draining.

The Introvert Myth

Common belief is that introverts are most drained by being around people and social interaction, however this is not the case with all introverts. In fact many introverts will not find interacting with other people that draining and be highly articulate, well skilled in conversation and public speaking (particularly IxxJ's as they have their external interaction function, Fe or Te, placed second on their functional hierarchy), which can result in them being misconceived or mistyped as extroverts, when they are actually drawing their energy from inside as introverts do.

The truth is that introverts are drained by different aspects of the external world depending on what their dominant (which is what we are most stimulated by) and hence inferior cogntive function (which is what we are most drained by) is:

Si dominants (ISTJ and ISFJ) are most drained by Ne i.e. the different patterns and possibilities of the external world

Ni dominants (INTJ and INFJ) are most drained by Se i.e. the literal physical details of the external world

Fi dominants (ISFP and INFP) are most drained by Te  i.e. the structural dynamics and protocols of the external world

Ti dominants (ISTP and INTP) are most drained by Fe i.e the social dynamics of the external world