Taking one of those 16 personalities tests

July 4, 2026.

The first time I heard about the 16 Personality Types test was in 2020, when my group of friends at the time started taking it. I took it on this famous website called 16personalities—the one where the personality types are divided into groups of four with distinctive colors, so distinctive that back then we’d identify each other by our colors: “Hey! You’re the yellow one,” or “the green one,” and so on.

The first time I took it, I found out I was an ISFP.

ISFP
ISFP is one of those little yellow ones.

Then I took it again because I wasn’t sure about the result, and it came out as INFJ.

INFJ
The one that looks like a wizard.

Anyway, I spent some time accepting that I was an INFJ, but I didn’t really feel comfortable with the result. So I started digging a little deeper beyond the inaccurate tests and began researching cognitive functions. The first time I heard about these cognitive functions was on the Personality Database website, a site where users discuss the MBTI types of celebrities, fictional characters, and so on. It caught my attention that several users, beyond simply saying whether characters were INTJs because they were quiet or ESFPs because they talked a lot, were discussing more complex issues beyond just being extroverted or introverted—in this case, cognitive functions.

So, after watching a few YouTube videos on the subject, I was able to understand a little bit about how they work.

There are 8 cognitive functions; each MBTI personality type has four of them, and based on their order, we can determine our MBTI type.

I’m not going to go into detail about all of them, but my main functions turned out to be Fi and Ne. According to the Type In Mind website:

Fi - Introverted Feeling
Although it’s referred to as “Feeling,” Fi isn’t about internal emotions, but rather values that come from within. FiNe types may experience a deep well of emotions, but this isn’t the root of Fi. It’s a decision-making process that’s very interested in determining its own moral code and what the FiNe’s gut instinct tells them is right—which is often based on how they’d like to be treated themselves. They tend to be very considerate of others and may take a long time to mull over their own beliefs to ensure they feel right. The process of refining these values can take quite a bit of time and requires mental solitude. Fi generally holds authenticity in high regard and is repulsed by anything that seems fabricated or shallow.

Ne - extroverted iNtuition
Ne is the main way FiNe’s take in information. This means they use their intuition to find patterns, underlying principles, and ideas, and to form connections as they talk, write, or create. Ne flourishes when given new, interesting concepts to consider and consistently seeks out new inspiration from the outside world. For the FiNe, Ne is paired with Fi and “serves” it in the sense that it comes after it in terms of preference. This means that Ne will most often be used to explore values and ideals in all of their facets. Because Ne is extroverted, it primarily works by engaging with outside sources. This may look like having discussions with others who are also open to exploring the possibilities of a topic, or doing a lot of self-expression through writing or an art form.

Well, you might be wondering what all this means. Well, considering that Fi and Ne are my primary functions, that means I’m actually an INFP.

Yay!

INFP is perhaps the most famous MBTI type of all, mostly because of its bad reputation—all thanks to 16personalities.com.

It turns out that many people who take the 16Personalities test get an INFP result, even though they’re totally different from a true INFP. Plus, there are a lot of stereotypes surrounding this personality type—that we’re super sentimental, crybabies, fake, and so on. And yes, maybe many of us are like that, but not all of us fit the same mold.

So, to wrap things up, I decided to take an MBTI test—one that wasn't 16Personalities, and one that focused more on cognitive functions—so I found this test on sarkinova.net

sarkinova.net
I took it in Spanish, just to be sure I understood the questions.
sarkinova.net results
And finally, the results

In fact, my primary functions were Fi and Ne, followed by Si and Ti.

The INFP functions are Fi, Ne, Si, and Te, and even though Ti came out highest for me, it doesn’t matter because my primary functions are Fi and Ne. Other results I got were ISFP—which I also got the first time I took the test—and ENFP.

Another thing I liked best about this test, compared to 16Personalities, is the fact that there are no A’s or T’s. Basically on the 16Personalities test, I might have been identified as INFP-A or INFP-T, but these final letters seem to be irrelevant.

To wrap things up, if you like this kind of thing as much as I do, it’s best to learn about cognitive functions before taking a test—at the very least. The questions on tests like 16Personalities tend to be more general, just like their results—they’re things like: “Do you like animals?” “Do you like to draw?” “Do you cry a lot?”—things like that, and any personality type could do that.

But really, this is all just a fun test, and even though it might help you understand yourself a little better, there’s no real consensus that says these tests are 100% valid or accurate. At the end of the day, the human mind is too complex to be summed up in just four letters.

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