ESFPs and calculus

[mattj]

I was wondering if people here could help me shed some light on this.

Are all ESFPs bad at calculus? (ESFPs have thinking second-last and intuition dead last, not a very good recipe for calculus.)
In high school I had a friend, very intelligent, who had a terrible time in calc. I tutored her, and I consider myself a good tutor, but she wasn't "getting" the concepts. Annoyed the hell out of me because I was doing the best I could, she was doing the best she could, it wasn't working, and I had no idea why. I tutored a couple of other friends with no significant problems.

It's only now that I realize that her ESFP-ness was a factor. I have two other ESFP friends, all intelligent, all bad at math in a way that can't be explained by lack of intelligence of lack of effort. Recently found a fourth ESFP person and asked him, "Say did you have an unusually hard time in calculus?" And he was like, "Yeah, how'd you know? I had to take an easier course and it was still incredibly hard."

So that's a good sign. Does anyone here know of:
(a) a counterexample, an ESFP who was good at calculus?
(b) any people in the real world that have thought about using Myers-Briggs in an applied way to help people? (specifically I"m interested in education, but really anything applied would be interesting too.)

[Zephyrus055]

In my High School Algebra class, there was a woman who I suspect was an ESFP who just did not grasp ahold of the concepts very quickly.

On the other hand, my uber intelligent ESFP sister was outstanding in school. She was good at math, reading - everything. I don't think she made it to Calculus, but she sure was successful in Geometry and Trig etc.

[Dolphin]

I am tutoring a ESFP girl that’s in sixth grade right now.

It is a real pain to try to get her to do basic math like addition/multiplication. She is really awful when it comes to finding number patterns too.

But as far as the concepts behind algebra she is actually very good at them. She somehow understands that you follow the order of operations and when it is addition you subtract from the other side. It didn’t take me long to teach her those concepts.

She still takes about a minute to add things like 10+8. She doesn’t seem to understand the concept of 0. Or that anything times 1 is itself.

But she might be an exception.

I do use the MBTI to get past the communication barrier. N’s need to know the why and S’s seem to need to know how. There is some cognitive differences between types. P’s tend to find their own solutions to problems while J’s are okay with the first method they are taught (as long as the method is restrictive and rule based). Applying emotions to objects may sound weird, but it does seem to work for feelers. I don’t concentrate too much on the MBTI when teaching though.

[Winterpark]

Considering the fact that they have a preference for Te over Ti, I 'd say that they are probably already in advance before say ESFJs. It might take time for them to comprehend concepts and patterns but with a little more interest and time invested they could do fine, I think. Calculus(and Math in general ) has never been a big interest of mine, but I have never had problems with it and it's been fun doing it.

[SuperSirElephant]

My Calculus teacher last year was definitely an E and an F. She probably had a dominant F. Therefore, her T would be the least well developed. I'm not sure about S vs. N.

Obviously, she is actually very good at math, otherwise she wouldn't be teaching Calculus. I've had teachers that I didn't consider to have as much math ability as I do, but this was definitely not the case. While personality type is a factor in how you learn, I think math is a bit of a complicated issue. Your mental functions don't necessarily reflect your ability as much as they simply reflect the way you prefer to take in information and the way you prefer to make judgments. I read on CAPT that F and T are two of the more misunderstood functions, and are not really a reflection of intelligence.

[Serotonin]

See she can calculate the double-differential of the function that explains the rate of cocaine absorption into her nasal mucus membranes, equate that to zero, and find the point at which she reaches her "cruisy phase".

SPs can have a real natural ability with intellectual pursuits if they apply themselves in the moment. This clashes horribly with the SJ style of teaching though. An SP really can't "study" for exams.

[April]

See she can calculate the double-differential of the function that explains the rate of cocaine absorption into her nasal mucus membranes, equate that to zero, and find the point at which she reaches her "cruisy phase".

This is very funny. :)


My ESFP friend needs graphs to understand pretty much every Calculus concept. I would try to explain something in words, and she'd just say, "Draw it!" So maybe that would help the ESFP that you work with, Dolphin.

[Imen de Naars]

I need visualization in order to understand math concepts.

If I do not visualize, I can do the calculations and apply the rules, but I will eventually forget the concept.

[Hypnos]

This is very funny. :)


My ESFP friend needs graphs to understand pretty much every Calculus concept. I would try to explain something in words, and she'd just say, "Draw it!" So maybe that would help the ESFP that you work with, Dolphin.
My ESFP brother had a problem with surfaces of revolution and bounded surfaces. When he was learning, I told him what the surfaces looked like (sometimes using insect carapace metaphors), and he got the hang of it -- didn't need help again.

He's very smart, but that kind of reasoning just wasn't "on his radar."

[distraction tactics]

Not an ESFP, but where math is concerned, I've noticed the tendency in myself to understand the concepts and steps required to get from point A to point B, but would sub-consciously rather 'mix it up' a bit resulting in a complete trainwreck. It's almost an artform.

(Who knows, maybe one day I'll accidentily unify general relativity and quantum mechanics.)

[Edmond Zedo]

Pretty sure there's one in my class, she doesn't seem to be that lost, but it seems to be more of a memorization thing for her than one of understanding.