Your child’s Minecraft style reveals their personality type
Personality type is an important part of homeschooling because personality type provides guideposts to how your child learns and how he or she finds fulfillment.
Microsoft just bought Minecraft and made it an educational site. It’s education for a lot of reasons, but the core reasons Minecraft is educational is because kids are able to learn in exactly the particular way they are interested. It’s a near-perfect opportunity for self-directed learning.
Which means that each kid will express their personality type in the way they use Minecraft. And a fun way to tell what your kid’s type by how he or she plays Minecraft.
ENTJ – This kid gathers the most resources of anyone and then leads a faction to plunder resources from others.
INTJ – This kid builds factories to make resources, so then he can collect resources without doing the work.
ESFP – This kid plays PVP and loves being part of a team of kids that share a common goal — liberal use of the chat feature.
ESTP – This kid is part of a faction. He is the one who gets the work done terrorizing other factions.
ESTJ – This kid aspires to be a moderator and then an admin, then senior admin.
ISTJ – This kid makes intricate maps that work very well for fun game play, but he never plays.
ISTP – This person plays PVP but disappears without any warning when things get boring.
INFJ – This person is part of a faction but gets increasingly annoyed that faction members cannot be trusted. Eventually quits playing.
ENFJ – Plays whatever the other kids are playing. Versatile and competent, the ENFJ makes everyone feel like a better player no matter what type of play they choose.
ENTP – Part of a faction but defects whenever she sees something a better one.
ESFJ – Plays PVP. Not very good at the game, but great at chat, so everyone wants to play with them.
ISFJ – Plays PVP and gives other players their best resources. Gets killed early every time.
ISFP – Makes gorgeous buildings and monuments but is shocked when hackers destroy them.
ENFP – This kid builds mysterious places to go in Minecraft that creep everyone out.
INTP – Joins a faction but only tentatively because this kid can’t stop asking questions before committing to the faction.
INFP – This kid becomes a moderator in order to help people get along – being alone for long hours as a moderator is an extra bonus.
Even without Minecraft quirks, you can figure out your child’s personality type. And after that, you’ll have a much better idea how to educate your child, and how to help your child leverage their particular strengths as they head into adulthood.
The INTJ part checks out. I like this post a lot. It’s so true. Like, I remember telling my sister that I want a career in management. I’d thought she’d be surprised (I was an engineer at that time), but she only nodded approvingly. She said, remember when we played Pharaoh (a city builder) as kids? You were the one with the perfect economy. I would go bankrupt in 5 minutes because I’d built too many wells. But I just wanted everyone to have access to fresh water.
My boys are too young to play on servers, but these descriptions still resonate! I think my oldest is an INTJ (like me), so I would add for that personality type “Plays only in creative mode so he can get all the resources without having to do any work”. My youngest sounds like the ENFJ “Versatile and competent, plays whatever his brother plays”.
Love this! My fiancé got me into Minecraft during our last terribly snowy Boston winter. We’ve never played PVP, but thinking about how we played together, I think it’s pretty true of our types! He (an INTP) wanted to build our characters an intricately designed home and complex underground rail system. I (an INFJ) wanted to help him create his vision, so I just spent the whole time mining for the resources he needed. Occasionally I had to stop and re-route because I was scared of the lava. He also turned off monsters because I didn’t like them either haha. When I finally went above ground, I corralled bunnies because I liked feeding them and having them like me. When he noticed that I was spending so much time mining, he made me a diamond axe to chop faster and a cart that I could take with me to send my resources back to him. As true introverts, we spent hours sitting next to each other with our laptops playing in silence, except for my occasional yelp when I hit lava. Play is so telling for personality type. What a great insight Penelope!
I’ve never played Minecraft, but after reading Kristens ‘s comment, I want to! My partner and I are both introverts, and her description of spending hours on laptops next to each other playing in silence is pecisely how it would look here.
As for type, I’m ISTJ. The description above “makes intricate maps that work very well for fun game play, but he never plays” sounds like how I live my life. I’m awaiting the Quistic ISTJ type course hoping it will help me find a way to engage with the world that’s satisfying, but not overwhelming, helpful to others, and where I’m not misunderstood and pissing people off.
Nailed it for my son, an ESFP. Very funny. Thank you. I on the other hand am an INTJ/INFJ always daydreaming about being something else.
So good.
Type envy is something that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough.
As an INTJ, the greenest-looking grass seems to be on the ENTP’s side.
Logical and imaginative, but social and spontaneous?
Talk about having it all!
Then again, here is the standard frustrating conversation between an ENTP friend and I.
ENTP: You know, I bet I could do [a good and genuinely interesting idea.]
Me: Yes! And you could go one notch higher and [a carefully constructed strategy for taking that idea to its fullest potential right away]
ENTP: Whoah, wait. I don’t actually need to *do* [the idea]. It was just an idea.
Don’t understand that at all.
I don’t play Minecraft, but the INFP description is perfect. We just want everyone to get along while being alone. It would be great to do legal work like that.
I had a law job like that. Staff attorney at an appellate court. I wrote decisions and opinions for various judges with overflow work instead of being assigned to one. It was a congenial atmosphere and very quiet, solitary work. Unforch, it’s a year to year kind of thing and they don’t let anyone stay around too long because that kind of clerkship is supposed to launch your career, not be your career.
Fuck, that’s why I sucked at Age of Empires all along.
I prefer chess…
I haven’t done online gaming in a few decades, and back then I played games like Warcraft 2 and Descent, but I think the INTJ profile seems about right.
My kids minecraft personalities seem correct too! So funny.
I wonder if this can be extrapolated for other games.
Descent, high-five!
Wow, that brought back memories.
Right back at you! :)
This is such a great post.