Celebrity MBTI® Test: Muhammad Ali Personality Type INFJ, Float Like A Butterfly Sting Like An INFJ

Muhammad Ali Personality Type

This week marks part eight of our sixteen part series of blogs where we focus on a different Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® test types and examine a Celebrity throughout history that matches those preferences. Previously, we looked at Jessica Simpson and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test ISFJ type.  Today we will look at the Myers Briggs® test INFJ, which includes Introversion + Intuition + Feeling + Judging, and Muhammad Ali.

Throughout his life, Muhammad Ali has been idolized and called “The Greatest of all time”, though at the same time, he has been vilified by others for his behavior.  Muhammad Ali is a “once in a generation” type of personality, which is quite fitting as the MBTI® INFJ type is the rarest of MBTI personality types, with a statistical representation in the 1%-2% range.

One common misinterpretation of Muhammad Ali is the belief that he is an Extravert.  An Extravert is someone who gains energy from the outer world around them as opposed to Introverts who focus their energy inwardly. Introverts are usually more reserved, while Extraverts are usually more talkative and outspoken. A more appropriate interpretation of Muhammad Ali would be that of an Expressive Introvert (see our MBTI Step II blog Introverted Facets).  Muhammad Ali internalized his intuition whereas he developed complex pictures and understandings of the world around him.  When it came to ideals and issues that were dear to him, such as religion, and the war in Vietnam, he came across as Intense and individualistic.  This can be attributed to his extraversion of his Feeling preference.  When Muhammad Ali had strong feelings about a subject, the world would know it.  This also carried through to his fighting career and his famous pre-fight verbal exchanges with his opponents.  He used his gift of intuition to understand complex meanings and human relationships to his advantage by playing mind games with his opponents.

Another characteristic of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator INFJ type would lead Muhammad Ali into a direct confrontation with the law.  MBTI INFJ’s prefer to lead persuasively by sharing their vision, and are deeply committed to their values.  During the Vietnam era, Muhammad Ali famously revealed that he was a member of the Nation of Islam, and was vilified for his dodging of the draft. His refusal to serve in the armed forces lead to a felony conviction in 1967 (reversed by the supreme court on 6/28/1971).

It is also natural for MBTI INFJ’s to give less attention to their none preferred Sensing and Thinking part preferences of their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality type.   Muhammad Ali was intuitive enough to famously point to his own shortcomings when he stated, “I only said I was the greatest, not the smartest” in his autobiography “The Greatest: My Own Story”.  It even lead to the psychological term “The Muhammad Ali Effect.”

After his fighting years were over, Muhammad Ali continued to show his compassionate and empathic qualities by his continued social activism and philanthropy.  He is truly a one of a kind man coming from an equally rare MBTI type.

If you would like more in depth information on the MBTI INFJ type, or if you would like to find out what your Myers Briggs Type Indicator type is, then head over to our Personality Assessment page and get the MBTI Interpretive Report for an analysis of your type. And don’t forget to check back for our continuation to part nine of our sixteen part series of Celebrity figures and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator types they personify.

Explore Other Celebrity Personality Types

To find out more about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test check out our informational section HERE.

References

Introduction to Type (Isabel Briggs Myers, 1998, CPP Inc.)

To view more celebrity personality types visit celebritytypes.com