Socionic Types of Famous People

ANNOUNCEMENT (24 NOV 2008): ALL TYPINGS OF FAMOUS PEOPLE ARE BEING MOVED TO MY PAGE AT WIKISOCION.
The format there allows for much quicker updates and greater ease of productive discussion. There are now far more famous people over there than on the pages here. As soon as all relevant information is transferred to Wikisocion, these pages will be deleted.

Below are celebrities whose types I personally have identified. I present at least three photos of each person, including the source URL of each picture, and usually add my comments and observations. Included are Wikipedia links to biographical info. Read below the chart about my typing process.

More famous people: Celebrity Benchmark List and Benchmark List 2007
A total of 190 famous people whose types socionists more or less agree on. Links to pictures and biographical info of each one. Unfortunately, many of these people are not known outside of the Russian speaking world.

My typing process

Whenever possible, my process of typing famous people includes the following three elements, not necessarily in any particular order or within a certain time frame:

Admittedly, I usually don't research people's lives nearly as thoroughly as a historian would. I wouldn't go as far as knowing the details of their savings accounts or the specifics of their loans. Particularly, I skim the surface and try to understand the person from a very general perspective. I am good at picking up what a person is about based on clues such as, for instance, when different sources place similar emphasis on the same things in a person's personality. I also have learned to recognize fairly easily people's primary, most memorable traits and what the overall purpose or motivation for their activities is. I have tried to logically substantiate my ideas on typing celebrities in my article, "Guidelines for Typing Famous People."

My use of photos in typing
When typing a famous person that has caught my interest, usually the first thing I do is try to find some informative pictures on the Internet. I especially look for natural, unposed photos. Quite often, simply from viewing photos, a hypothesis or two arises naturally through mental associations with people I already know and have typed. I look at the person's overall mood and states of mind and body, their emotional range, and any other information about their personality, temperament, and inner state that I am able to glean from the pictures. Usually I already know something about the celebrity. The impressions that I get from the photos should form a picture that is congruent with what I know of their work and the vibes and messages they send out into the world. If I feel that a whole picture comes together, I think that I have correctly identified the person's type.

Potential typing errors
In many cases I give possible alternative typings where I can see a good argument for another type or am simply not sure my perception of the person is correct. Anyone can make errors — especially with insufficient knowledge of the people they are typing. In general, mistakes can occur as a result of 1) incorrect notions about the person being typed, 2) incorrect understanding of socionic principles, or 3) insufficient personal experience interacting with people of different types, which usually leads to unnecessarily narrow images of certain types. Discussion with other socionists and people who have studied the celebrities well seems to be the best form of quality control. All other things being equal, those who engage in serious type discussions with other knowledgeable people and keep an open mind have the greatest chances of typing accurately.

Please remember!

07/13/2006 Econdude
I am grateful for your site. I don't have a problem with your VI per se, but, I found at least two celebrities typed differently than socionics.com. I consider myself an intermediate "socionist" (I do it for fun). I say that because having conflicting viewpoints on celebrity types is very confusing for an beginning or intermediate socionist. Hopefully more research and agreement can be made, otherwise how can amatuers hope to contribute to the science?

07/13/2006 Author
Thanks for your comment. I should clarify that I don't type using VI ("visual identification") alone, but use a combination of visual and other impressions and study people's work and biography. Unfortunately, there is a lot of controversy surrounding many people's types among socionists, and it's just something to get used to. Socionics.com and my site are just two of many different socionics sites (mostly in Russian) that have their own lists of celebrities' types. Rather than suggest that my typings are "absolutely correct" like many other sites do, I try to be honest about the hypothetical nature of typing famous people and encourage discussion and research, including possible alternative typings where I am not sure or can see cases for other types. I also try to present a full gallery of characteristic pictures and other information whenever possible to make it more informative for readers.