MBTI: The 16 types in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

Introduction

After finishing the three seasons of the original Star Trek (1966-1969) on DVD, I felt somewhat saddened by the series coming to an end, and I decided to look at the revival, Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), but not without some trepidation: I had found some negative reviews at IMDB, which poured scorn on the series. To my surprise, I ended up enjoying Next Generation as much as the original, perhaps even more so.

The main differences in the two series lay in the time in which they were made. The original Star Trek appeared in the late sixties, during the Cold War (and the Vietnam War), and so the atmosphere is more military, spartan and masculine; Next Generation, on the other hand, came out when the Cold War was winding down and America was becoming more relaxed, free and easy. We see in Next Generation, then, more romantic sub-plots, more female characters, more whimsy and humour, more playfulness. Another difference is that by the late eighties, production technology had improved greatly from the 1960s, and more money was being thrown at the new series: as a result, the quality of the special effects increased dramatically, and in that department, Next Generation still holds up well.

In other respects, Next Generation strays little from Star Trek: it boasts excellent casting, tightly-written and tense plots, and stories with lofty philosophical themes. To me – in part because Gene Rodenberry produced the first few seasons – Next Generation felt as comfortable as a pair of old shoes, and did not compromise the spirit of the original.

How to type Next Generation characters

The Taylor Method

For MBTI typing, you can use two methods. The first of these I call the Taylor Method. Taylor has typed Dr Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy here and Spock and Captain James T. Kirk here. If you want to type the characters on Next Generation, you can avail yourself of Taylor’s Zombies Ruin Everything site, which contains the typings of hundreds of characters from comic books, TV shows and movies. Once you get a feel for the sixteen types as they appear on Taylor’s blog, you’ll find that the same personality types are associated with the same character types again and again in popular culture. For example: if such-and-such a character strongly reminds you strongly of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings or Yoda from Star Wars, then he’s an INFJ.

The Four Letter Method in action: Data and Jean-Luc Picard

The other method I call the Four Letter Method, which borrows a little from Keirsey.

Let us look at two characters who are very much the opposite of the other (Socionics would call the relationship between their personality types one of Conflict): Jean-Luc Picard and Data. After watching a few episodes of season one, we ask the following questions: is the character a Sensor or Intuitive? A Thinker or Feeler? A Judger or Perceiver? An Extravert or Introvert?

Sensor or Intuitive? Does the character live in the mental realm (Intuitive) or the physical (Sensor)? In Next Generation, characters who are Sensors tend to be hand-to-hand fighters who take to physical combat easily: think of Worf, William Riker, Tasha Yar… While Data does not usually engage in hand-to-hand, he is extremely strong and impervious to harm. Much of his dialogue concerns shows a concern with the physical world and his own bodily sensations. This shows Introverted Sensing (Si). In contrast, Picard clearly dwells in a world of ideas, intuitions, absolutes; that makes him an Intuitive, and in particular, an Introverted Intuitive.

So far, we have typed Picard as an Intuitive, N, and Data as a Sensor, S.

Thinker or Feeler? Feelers live in an inner realm of emotions, feelings, meanings, impressions, ethical and moral values, customs and mores; thinkers, an inner realm of objectives which have been calculated in advance and are to be reached rationally. Thinkers are instrumentalist in their world view, Feelers are moralists who either adhere to subjective ethics (what do I feel is good?) or objective ethics (what is best for myself and those around me?). When it comes to Data, he is, without doubt, a Thinker: he is literally a calculating machine. Moreover, he possesses a vast amount of empirical knowledge which has no central, organising principle – which is Jung’s definition of Extraverted Thinking (Te). Data is a Te pedant, and this side of him is used to great comic effect; the writers, in Data, are caricaturing Extraverted Thinking.

Picard, on the other hand, is concerned most of all with values and ideals, and believes in attending to the welfare of his fellow man before anything else. The conclusion then is that he is a Feeler. The combination of Intuition and Feeling, N + F, makes him (what Keirsey calls) an Idealist.

Picard: NF, an Intuitive and Feeler; Data: ST, a Sensor and a Thinker.

Judger or Perceiver? Jung calls Judgers ‘Rational’, Perceivers ‘Irrational’. One’s dominant function is either a Rational one (Thinking or Feeling) or Irrational (Sensing or Intuiting). The Rational functions allow one to judge, to evaluate, and the Irrational, to perceive a flow of sense-data.

The way Jung describes it, Rationals have a well worked-out world view: a view of how things are and how they ought to be. They have calculated this in advance of their encounters with life, even if they do not have an intellectual bent and are opposed to any sort of introspective activity. In contrast, the Irrational type, says Jung, is not unreasonable, merely empirical: they are grounded in perception, and ‘Their judgement cannot keep pace with their experience’. Jung writes of the Irrational type, ‘Selection among occurrences is not primarily rational, but is guided rather by what just happens’. What this means is: the Perceiver is content to follow the flow of his lived experience, whereas the Judger possesses a world-view and expects others to conform to it.

In other words, a Judger arrives at a town hall meeting with a fully worked-out agenda, and he wants to bring it up at the first opportunity and he expects others to follow it. The Perceiver comes to the same meeting without an agenda and is prepared just to see what happens and react to it accordingly.

You can decide for yourself whether the man in the below picture is a Judger or a Perceiver: 

When it comes Picard, we see that he is a Judger. He does possess a world-view, and holds strong convictions, and can be overbearing when it comes to morals and values – something which Perceiving characters (such Picard’s nemesis, Q) find tiresome. Unlike Picard, Data leads a quiet, placid existence. He prefers to live in the real of lived experience: his life revolves around what is, not what ought to be. He does not seek to impose his views on anyone, and indeed, seems to be without them – he is a man without conviction, one could say. Data’s Judging adversaries – such as his brother, Lore – regard this as a real shortcoming.

Data: an STp, a Sensor – Thinker – Perceiver; Picard, an NFj – an Intuitive – Feeler – Judger.

Introvert or Extravert? Introverts direct their energies inward, Extraverts outward. Introverts pull back from the outer world, and observe what goes on it, whereas Extraverts throw themselves into it and are not given to self-reflection. They tend to attract attention to themselves, even without intending to do so, whereas Introverts avoid it.

Data is an observer of life: there are many things (being an android) that he does not understand about humans. He attempts to engage in human activities – poetry, dancing, acting, music, even relationships – as a means of understanding humans, and all his knowledge of these subjects comes second-hand from his vast store of knowledge on each. He has no first-hand knowledge: he frequently asks other characters, ‘What does it mean to be human?’. The easily agitated and occasionally explosive Picard, on the other hand, participates in life and absorbed in it – in Jungian language, he is absorbed in the Object, i.e., the external world. Picard enjoys acting on the Holodeck because he likes giving forth to the emotion within himself and displaying it for all to see. He shows a theatrical streak. Picard locates his sense of self in the Object, which is to say, the outer world; and as for Data, he finds it in the hidden spaces between himself and the Object – that is, the gaps, boundaries and buffers between himself and the outer world.  

We can type Picard and Data as follows. Picard is an Extravert, an Intuitive, a Feeler, and a Judger. E + N + F + j = ENFj. Data is an Introvert, a Sensor, a Thinker, and a Perceiver. I + S + T + p, or ISTp.

Data, an ISTp in Socionics, would be an ISTJ in MBTI: in the MBTI system, all Introverted Perceiving types become Judgers, all Introverted Judging types, Perceivers. So Data is:

·         an ISTJ in MBTI;

·         an ISTp in Socionics;

·         an ISp in Jung’s system.

Picard is:

·         an ENFJ in MBTI;

·         an ENFj in Socionics;

·         an EFj in Jung.

Because the reader is more familiar with it, I will throughout use only the MBTI notation.   

The Starship Enterprise crew

Throughout I have grouped the personality types in what Socionics calls Quadras. You can read more about Quadras here. 

Alphas

Geordi La Forge – ENTP

The blind engineer La Forge possesses a brilliant and above all inventive mind, and this is a mark of strong Extraverted Intuition, which involves the exploration of possibilities and opportunities. Usually Ne-dominant characters show a remarkable creativity. When this is combined with Introverted Thinking Ti as a secondary function, the Ne-dominant can understands the mechanics and internal logic of each situation as it presents itself. This means that combination of Ne and Ti means that an ENTP character can excel at scientific discovery and invention – think of Tony Stark, Iron Man. 

Worf – ISFJ

I type the sullen Klingon as an ISFJ. Si-dominant types value placidity, comfort and stasis. Extraverted Feeling as a secondary functions means that they like to share the benefits of Si with others. Like many ISFJ types, Worf prizes tradition and family above all. Despite his placidity, he can erupt in explosive displays of emotion, something which ISFJ characters – who can be bullied and exploited – are prone to do when pushed too far. As Jung writes, ISps can take a terrible revenge on those who have wronged them.

Worf shares many things in common with another ISFJ, Colossus from the X-Men – he is super-strong and physically tough, for one. Colossus and Worf give us an instance of the ISFJ type I call the Protective Older Brother.  

Betas

Jean-Luc Picard – ENFJ

I typed Picard before as an ENFJ, which means that Extraverted Feeling is his primary function and Introverted Intuition is his secondary. An Fe-dominant can perceive an emotional atmosphere and put himself in tune with it, and can build upon it and even direct it. The Fe-dominant can envelope an audience, or a crowd, and bring them in to his inner world.

In the ENFJ, the secondary function – Introverted Intuition – serves as a window into that inner world. So what does the ENFJ’s inner world look like? Ni, the function which allows one to perceive the development of events over time and how things become what they always were – think of Nietzsche’s ‘How one becomes what one is’.

So the ENFj’s Extraverted Feeling function envelopes an audience and takes them on a journey into an Introverted Intuitive world of absolutes, ideals and eternal truths. For that reason, Picard, a typical ENFJ does well at making (what the Enterprise characters call) ‘rousing speeches’. This dramatic and occasionally histrionic quality reminds me of another ENFJ character, Optimus Prime from The Transformers. 

Gammas

Dr Beverley Crusher – INTJ

The ship’s medical officer, Dr Crusher shows the following attributes: Introversion (she is not a warm, openly communicative person); Intuition (she is not given to hand to hand combat or any expression of physicality); Thinking (she can organise efficiently and manipulate a great deal of factual information about science and medicine). If she is an Introvert, then her dominant function is introverted, and this, in combination with her being an Intuitive, means that she is an Ni dominant. Her secondary function, then, must be Extraverted, and if, she is a Thinker, she is an Extraverted Thinker. So we can her type her as an INTJ. Crusher reminds me of Storm from the X-Men: Storm is another INTJ heroine. (If you watch the episode ‘Sub Rosa’ from season seven, you’ll see another resemblance – between Crusher and the witch Agatha Harkness from Kirby and Lee’s Fantastic Four. Dr Crusher’s witchy qualities are on full display here. INTJ women characters can often be witches or compared to witches: remember that Storm is frequently called a ‘weather witch’). 

Characters on Next Generation often make note of Dr Crusher’s coldness. This comes from Extraverted Feeling being what Socionics calls the vulnerable function of the INTJ. A free, easy and open Fe emotional atmosphere disturbs and disorients the INTJ. Other characters who value Fe, then – such as Picard – will not get along with the INTJ, in the long run at least, which would not bode well for a romantic relationship between Crusher and Picard.

Deltas

Data – ISTJ

Data, an ISTJ, is Next Generation’s Spock, who is also an ISTJ. The Si-dominant lives in an inner world of comfort, harmony, simplicity, and strives to cultivate a sense of physical well-being. For the ISTJ, the Extraverted secondary function Te serves as a bridge from the outer world to the inner: the Si inner-sense of well-being of comfort and stasis experienced by the ISTJ is impressed upon the outer world with Te’s efficiency and regularity. Spock’s catch-phrase was, ‘That’s not logical, Captain’, meaning: the existing system of Federation procedure is not broken, so why fix it? Spock’s ethos mirrors Data’s.

The ISTJ character is usually the quiet man who lingers in the background and is never noticed. He is outshone by the more flamboyant characters, but nevertheless makes an entire system function smoothly and efficiently. In Keirsey’s system, the ISTJ belongs to the group called the ‘Guardians’.

This doesn’t mean that ISTJs aren’t capable of quirkiness and playfulness: both Spock and Data do that on occasion. This is the inferior function of the ISTJ, Ne, bursting forth into the surface.

William Riker – ESTJ

A stern and efficient leader, Riker often unbends and exhibits the warmth, affability, charm of an effective womaniser.

We see Riker’s organisational abilities manifest themselves in the first episode, when he supervises the successful docking of two space ships, a feat which earns him respect of others. The incident displays Riker’s Extraverted Thinking at work.

His fondness for hand to hand combat makes him a Sensor. His clear Extraversion means that his dominant function is Te, which entails his secondary function (which is a Sensing one) is Introverted: with Te + Si, we have an ESTJ.

Deanna Troi – INFP

The ship’s counsellor, the empath Troi is clearly a Feeler and an Intuitive. As an Introvert – perhaps the most Introverted character in the ship’s crew – her dominant function must be Introverted as well. So either she is Ni + Fe (INFJ) or Fi + Ne (INFP) – which is it? This is an important question, as the two types often get confused.

It helps if we take a closer look at the functions. Introverted Feeling can be understood as the function of empathy and rapport-building, and Troi, like all Betazoids, has superhuman empathic abilities which allow her to sense others’ emotions and give them psychological counselling.

INFP women characters can often look mysterious and exotic, and have soulful and penetrating eyes. In this regard, Troi reminds me of another INFP female, the gypsy Scarlet Witch from the Avengers. 

Wesley Crusher – ENFP

Most fans of Next Generation dislike Wesley Crusher and view him as an annoying, stupid character. He calls to mind another annoying character who is always seeking adventure, embarking upon escapades and getting into trouble: Jimmy Olsen. Both Wesley and Jimmy are boyish, quirky, and extraverted, and both exhibit warmth and sympathy to nearly all the characters they encounter. Extraverted Intuition makes one perceive possibilities and sets one on the path to adventure, and Introverted Feeling as a secondary function enables one to relate to the others one meets. 

The latter function can make its user appear childish, infantile, and this is what accounts in part for the juvenile quality of Jimmy, Wesley and most typical ENFP characters. Think of them as children discovering new worlds.

Other characters

That takes care of the Enterprise crew, which consists of eight people and only eight different personality types out of sixteen. Let us see if we can find examples of the other eight.

Alphas:

Eline – ESFJ

Appears in the episode 'The Inner Light' (1992), Season Five

In this episode, Picard goes into a coma after the Enterprise nears a mysterious space satellite. He wakes up with a new identity in a village on a strange planet, and all the residents there treat him as though his past experience of being a Starfleet captain is a delusion. He lives in the village, fathers children on his wife Eline, learns to play the flute, grows old and dies… I won’t reveal the twist at the end.

Eline I type as an ESFJ. What I said before about Picard and Extraverted Feeling – how it surrounds and envelopes the people in a dominant-Fe type’s environment – holds true here. But the ESFJ differs from the ENFJ insofar as that the ESFJ’s inner world – as seen in their Introverted secondary function – is Introverted Sensing. This function, as stated before, revolves around harmony, simplicity, cleanliness and domesticity. So the ESFJ’s Extraverted Feeling draws people into a world of domesticity, harmony and safety. This explains why ESFJ characters usually play the role of the Good Parent – in American TV shows and comics, the All-American Dad or Mom. That element of Eline’s character is shown when she gently nags Picard, who is playing his flute on his back porch, to come inside to the house and leave his shoes by the doorstep. Picard bristles at this, and makes a joke about her bossiness – ESFJ Mom types do show a little authoritarianism in their behaviour.

Kosinski – INTP

Appears in the episode 'Where no-one has gone before' (1987), Season One

An eccentric scientist, Kosinski proposes a novel scheme to boost the Enterprise’s propulsion and asks Picard to submit the Enterprise to an experiment. Picard agrees, even though others have dismissed Kosinski’s theories as unworkable and nonsensical. It goes without saying that once Kosinski’s experiment gets underway, negative consequences ensue.

The dominant function of the INTP, Introverted Thinking, involves the understanding of systems; the secondary function, Extraverted Intuition, enables the type’s Introverted Thinking, its system of classification and comparison, to travel in some unusual directions – Ne lends creativity, even artistry, to Ti.

Jung remarks that the Ti-dominant finds it hard to explain theories to others in a way that makes sense. That certainly describes Kosinski. Another reason for classifying him as an Introvert, and therefore a Ti-dominant, is that, unlike the typical ENTP character – who has the same functions, but in a different order – Kosinski comes across as a cold, ascetic type who has difficulty relating to other people.

Betas:

Roga Danar – ISTP

Appearance: episode 'The Hunted' (1990), Season Three

In 'The Hunted', the leaders of the planet Angosia III – a candidate for the Federation – ask the crew of the Enterprise to apprehend a dangerous fugitive, Roga Danar. He turns out to be a rogue super-soldier who has been genetically engineered to be the perfect fighting machine. His origin story reminds me of Deathstroke the Terminator’s, another ISTP. 

If you watch the episode carefully, you’ll see that all of Danar’s actions are guided by Introverted Thinking, which is, among other things, an understanding and analysis of systems and how things work. His Ti enables him to escape Starfleet capture several times, and as Worf says to him grudgingly, ‘Roga Danar, you have the cunning of a Klingon’. Ti also makes Danar a free thinker: Ti dominance in a type means that he clings, rigidly, to his own classifications and categorisations, and will not back down at any price. The secondary function of the ISTP, Extraverted Sensing, means that those evaluations are expressed in a forceful, aggressive and territorial manner.

The Traveller – INFJ

An ongoing series regular, the Traveller debuts in the episode 'Where no-one has gone before'. An alien from the mysterious, far away planet Tau Alpha C, he works as an assistant for the eccentric Kosinski. It is revealed that the Traveller possesses strange powers which can move people into other times and realities, and that he is the one who makes Kosinski’s space-travel methods work.

The Traveller early on in the episode divulges his philosophy of space and time to Wesley, and it is this philosophy – and his powers – which marks him out to be an Introverted Intuitive. Ni-dominant types, as Jung says, emanate otherworldliness. Many INFJ characters possess this quality of strangeness: see, for instance, one of the characters from Jack Kirby’s Forever People – the Infinity Man, who, like the Traveller, can move between dimensions. 

The Traveller wants to share the gifts of his Ni, and this shows his Extraverted Feeling, as Fe can be defined as the desire to share what a type values.

Thadien Okona – ESTP

Appearance: episode 'The Outrageous Okona' (1988), Season Two

A pilot of a small cargo ship, Thadien Okona asks the Enterprise for help with repairs while it is making way through the Omega Sagitta system. The brash, handsome and flamboyant Okona quickly reveals himself to be a womaniser and charming rogue who is embroiled in a feud with leaders of two feuding planets, Atlec and Straleb. The swashbuckling Okona evokes Errol Flynn, who cultivated a roguish ESTP persona on and off screen.

ESTP characters often make good con men, and Okona is no exception. Why is this? Extraverted Sensing means willpower, dominance, territoriality, aggressiveness, strength; it also means hierarchy – grading things and putting them in their rightful place. (Se as a valued function leads to an appreciation of the finer things in life – good food, good wine, good music, good art…). A dominant Se expands itself, asserts its dominance over others and probes for their weaknesses; Ti as a secondary function gives them an understanding of those weakness. An immoral ESTP will then take advantage of the other person, and given that Introverted Feeling – subjective morals and ethics – is the ESTP’s vulnerable function, you will often see immorality, or at least insensitivity, in an ESTP character.

Gammas:

Riva – ISFP

Appearance: episode 'Loud as a whisper' (1989), Season Two

One of the oddest characters in Star Trek, Riva is a deaf and mute diplomat and negotiator who is famous and respected for his skill at conflict resolution – he is renowned among Klingons for helping forge a peace deal between the Klingons and the Federation. His effort to mediate between warring parties on Solais V are thrown into chaos after his three interpreters – called the ‘Chorus’ – are killed.

Why type Riva as an ISFP? Dominant Fi can give a type the ability to put himself in another’s shoes and feel as they do: in other words, it gives one empathy. Riva has made a career out of Fi. As a secondary function, Se makes a bridge from Fi to the external world, and conveys his Fi – which is also strongly felt convictions and ethics – to the outer world. Se allows those convictions to be imposed forcefully.

On top of that, Riva wears long hair and a Jesus beard, and seems to be something of a hippie – like that other ISFP hippie character, the Big Lebowski. (Another hippie character who reminds me of Riva is Isaac, the Christlike ecologist from Denny O’Neil’s and Neal Adams’ famous run on Green Lantern / Green Arrow: I type Isaac as an ISFP).

Lore – ENTJ

Data’s evil twin brother, Lore first appears in the 1988 episode 'Datalore' and goes on to become a series regular. Like Data, he is a Extraverted Thinker with a great organisational capacity, and unlike Data, his Extraverted Thinking forms the dominant function: whereas Data is placid and content, Lore wants to excel and conquer. In his final appearance, he takes charge of a colony of Borg and after cruelly altering them through experiments, hatches a scheme in which he will use his Borg army to destroy all of humanity. Extraverted Thinking Te gives Lore the ability to lead and organise; Introverted Thinking Ni, farsightedness.

As a character, Lore grins a lot. DJ Arendee, the YouTube star and MBTI expert, once said that ENTJs tend to grin a lot so as to supplicate or disarm people, a trait which lends them the appearance of insincerity. US President Ronald Reagan, who was famous for his grin, is typed by Rod Novichkov as an ENTJ. 

Lwaxana Troi – ESFP

Like Wesley Crusher, Lwaxana Troi, Betazoid ambassador and mother of Deanna Troi, irritates and annoys, but unlike Wesley, was intended to be a nuisance by the show’s creators. She is used to shake up things on the staid Enterprise: she is the Life Force. But the character develops over time, and as the series progresses, we see a more vulnerable and sympathetic side to her.

Extraverted Sensing Se in the leading position makes a character forceful, dynamic, aggressive and hierarchical - and also appreciative of fine things. In the ESTP and ESFP types, both Se-dominants, Se manifests itself in different ways. Introverted Thinking Ti in the ESTP allows him to probe for others’ weakness, so that Extraverted Sensing can assert itself to the utmost degree; Introverted Feeling Fi in the ESFP allows him to feel strong emotions, feelings of attraction and repulsion, so that Extraverted Sensing can be enjoyed. Introverted Feeling in the second place allows the Se dominant to discover the sensuality in Extraverted Sensing. That’s something that Lwaxana spends a great deal of time doing.

Honourable mentions

We’ve found instances of the sixteen personality types. Here I will include four more, taken from the Delta Quadra (which is composed of INFPs, ENFPs, ISTJs and ESTJs). I’ve included these characters below as what I think are the best examples of each personality type: in my view, the ISTJ is the most ISTJ one could find in Star Trek: Next Generation, the ENFP is the most ENFP…

Deltas:

Tasha Yar – ISTJ

The security chief of the Enterprise in the first season, Tasha performs the same function as Worf in later episodes. Both of them are Si dominant and both, as a result, like staying put in life: being naturally comfortable and happy with the existing order of things, Si dominants do not show much in the way of ambition, upward mobility. The difference between Worf, an ISFJ, and Tasha, an ISTJ is that whereas ISFJs want to share the benefits of Si, and make others as comfortable and satisfied as they are (even if that means merely sharing Klingon traditions, as Worf is inclined to do), ISTJs want to enforce the monotony and stasis of Si – that is, they want to make others follow the rules and be satisfied with them. This shows the difference between Extraverted Feeling and Extraverted Thinking.

ISTJs can end up playing the part of humourless drones and martinets – think of Judge Dredd or Darth Vader. For most of the time, Tasha appears to lack warmth and humanity. Socionics tells us that Fe makes up the vulnerable function in ISTJs and INTJs, and outward displays of enthusiasm, affection and any sort of emotion – especially when expressed in the context of group behaviour – unsettles both Tasha and the INTJ Beverley Crusher. The INTJ and ISTJ personality types lack Fe: it has been removed from them, you could say, and once presented with it, they cannot cope.

Kivas Fajo – ENFP

Appearance: episode 'All the Toys' (1990), Season Three

A Zibalian trader and obsessive collector of rare objects, Fajo – in an outstanding performance by Saul Rubinek – kidnaps Data for Fajo’s collection aboard the space ship Jovis. Ne as a dominant function bequeaths the ENFP the ability to find opportunities in every direction, Fi as a secondary function can make the ENFP seem childish. (ESFPs, who also have Fi as a secondary function, can often appear to be infantile as well).

As Jung points out, Ne dominants can often be fickle, always bounding from one object of their affection to another, and so give the impression of being promiscuous. ENFPs seem particularly so, as the secondary function Fi shapes itself and conforms to each possibility as it appears. Whereas the secondary function of the ENTP, Ti, says ‘I can understand this’, the secondary function of the ENFP, Fi, says ‘I can sympathise with this’.

In Fajo, we find an instance of the ENFP as Sprite or Imp. He reminds me of two Superman villains, Mr Mxyztplk and the Prankster, both of whom are Imp-like, Sprite-like characters and may be ENFps.

Doctor Katherine Pulaski – ESTJ

In the second season, the gruff, irascible Pulaski temporarily replaces Beverley Crusher (for reasons which are never fully explained) as Chief Medical Officer.

Pulaski fits Jung’s characterisation of the Extraverted Thinker dominant to a tee – Jung says that Te dominants can be found in the fields of social work, medicine and religion as well as politics and business. What makes Pulaski a Sensor as opposed to an Intuitive is that she comes across as pragmatic and down to earth, not given to flights of fancy, or extreme idealism, like Picard, for example. Again, the key words of Introverted Sensing are: homeliness, simplicity, domesticity, comfort, stasis, cleanliness… The ESTJ’s inner world of Si gives the impression of a well-ordered, neat and clean house with old, comfortable, traditional furniture and stylings.

Tam Elbrun – INFP

Appearance: episode 'Tin Man' (1990), Season Three

Like Deanna Troi, Tam Elbrun is a Betazoid, and like Troi, he is a telepath. As I’ve mentioned a few times here before, the dominant function of the INFP, Introverted Feeling, can often be associated with childish, infantile qualities in a character, and a character with FI in the dominant or secondary position will often show those attributes. Elbrun is no exception: he communicates petulance, something he has in common with another INFP hero, Luke Skywalker.

Like many INFP characters, Elbrun devotes his life to the pursuit of inner freedom and self-actualisation. Why do INFPs do this? Fi as a dominant function makes one adopt a highly individualistic set of ethics. This, when combined with Ne, puts one on the path to exploring multiple possibilities for the expression of those ethics.

Additional honourable mentions

These two characters belong in the Alpha Quadra, and are what Socionics calls Duals – two types that are perfectly complimentary. But so far as I know, the two never met.

Q – ENTP

Q, an omnipotent trickster god from another dimension, first appears in the pilot episode of Next Generation and becomes a series fixture. Without a doubt, Extraverted Intuition – which allows one to perceive multiple possibilities and opportunities, and can make one entrepreneurial and creative – makes up the dominant function of Q. In the ENTP, Ne as a dominant function excludes the opposite function Ni, which can give one the gift of seeing ideals, absolutes, eternal truths. (Socionics says that Ni is the ENTP’s Ignoring function, i.e., it is the function that the ENTP can do without and pays no heed to). Q really doesn’t have much use for Ni, and he treats the whole concept of absolute truth with contempt. He is also a dangerously amoral character: Fi, the function of ethics, occupies (what Socionics calls) the Vulnerable function slot. That is, Q doesn’t have a sense of ethics and lacks the ability to ‘feel’ other people and build relationships with them.  

Reginald Barclay – ISFJ

The shy, socially inept, bumbling and cowardly engineer Barclay is an Introvert, a Feeler and a Perceiver. Why do I type him as a Sensor – and an Introverted Sensor? Si means comfort, stasis, monotony and in general being content to be where you are. Like the other Si dominant type, the ISTJ, the ISFJ works quietly in the background, doesn’t stand out and is taken for granted. Jung, as mentioned before, points out that Si dominants can take a terrible revenge on those who wrong them, and one of the recurring themes of the Barclay stories in the series is that Barclay, a powerless character, will suddenly accumulate power and use it to menace the other characters. Brian De Palma’s movie, Carrie (1976), gives us the classic example of a bullied and frightened ISFJ exploding and lashing out. 

For an interesting YouTube mini-documentary on Barclay, see here. 

Mark Hootsen, signing off