10 Things That Terrify ENTPs – According to 300 ENTPs
Ever wondered what the biggest ENTP fears are? Do these dauntless, innovative types seem impossible to startle or worry? In this article, we take a look at what they have to say!
While some fears are universal (things like spiders, heights, and cockroaches) there were certain fears that came up considerably more often among each unique personality type. For example, NT types nearly always mentioned mediocrity as a major fear, whereas this was hardly ever mentioned by the other types. NF types were more afraid of their own moral corruption, which would make sense because their values are so important to them. SJ types were afraid of a loss of security far more than any other temperament group, and SPs hated the idea of losing physical freedom or control.
Today we’re going to talk specifically about ENTP fears. I spoke with 300 ENTPs to determine if there were any fears that were particularly relevant to their type. While some ENTPs said they had no fear, or others simply joked around with me instead of giving me any actual answers, I finally was able to get 300 responses by self-confirmed ENTPs.
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A Disclaimer:
Before I get a bunch of ENTPs mad at me, I have to say that just because you’re an ENTP this does not mean you will automatically be terrified of all these things. These fears just got the most votes; far more than any other fears that were mentioned. For every 10 ENTPs who mentioned fear of being controlled, there was probably one ENTP who said they didn’t fear anything at all. There will be variations from person to person within any personality type.
The Top 10 Things That Terrify ENTPs
1 – Being Controlled or Trapped
Although ENTPs often enjoy many relationships and friendships, they are also very independent individuals. They love the freedom to explore numerous ideas and possibilities and the ability to investigate the outer world for inspiration. Their masterful Extraverted Intuition is always pulling concepts and innovative thoughts from the outside world; to be trapped, controlled, or stifled in any way can make them feel anxious and extremely agitated.
2 – Never Feeling Truly Connected to Another Person
This fear actually tied with being controlled or trapped. ENTPs love a meeting of the minds to discuss exciting ideas and innovations. They love the camaraderie and comfort of close friendships and relationships where they can bounce ideas back and forth. Never feeling connected or free to share ideas with another person can make the ENTP feel like their life is shallow and meaningless.
3 – Mediocrity
ENTPs have great ambitions and innovative ideas that they long to see come to life. They pride themselves onย havingย unique conceptual insights and independent ways of viewing the world. They hate the idea of being stuck in an ‘ordinary’ life and living the 9-5 grind day in and day out.
4 – Not Meeting Their Potential
This concern goes hand in hand with mediocrity because it stems from the same fear. ENTPs want their lives to have meant something, and they want to have made a difference in the world in some way. This could mean inventing something, expanding human knowledge, improving systems, or any other number of things. Many ENTPs mentioned wanting to leave a legacy behind when they get to the end of their life.
5 – Boredom
ENTPs are constantly searching for new ideas and possibilities to explore. They hate to be stifled or have to focus on mundane daily routines. The ENTP wants to be stimulated by new creative options and ideas to think about and discuss and experiment with.
6 – Commitment
While many ENTPs mentioned that they wanted to settle down and find true love at some point in their lifetime, many more mentioned a terrible fear of commitment. ENTPs love to keep their options open, and prefer to keep things open-ended. They like decisions that can be easily changed, so major commitments can cause the ENTP quite a bit more anxiety than they would a Judging (J) personality type.
7 – Stupidity
ENTPs find much of their significance and identity in their ingenious and innovative way of viewing the world and thinking. They have an incredible knack for figuring out new theories and concepts. The mind is of such importance to the ENTP, that they hate the idea of finding out someday that they are stupid or were making irrational decisions.
8 – Loss of A Loved One
Every personality type I’ve surveyed so far has mentioned loss of loved ones in some for another as a major fear. However, there have been differences in how each type has mentioned the fear. INTPs and ENTPs usually mentioned a specific person instead of just ‘loved ones’ in general. Most other personality types mentioned loved ones or friends and family, or INFJs mentioned loss of children specifically.
9 – Incompetence or Inadequacy
ENTPs pride themselves on their ability to be original, inventive and capable. They greatly fear being incompetent, or unable to quickly access their normally ingenious thought process. They also fear being seen as inadequate or stupid.
10 – Insanity
If you look at all of the ENTP fears mentioned so far, you might notice a common thread. Many of their fears have to do with losing mental independence, freedom, and coherence. They long to be original, to stand out, to leave a legacy, and to explore numerous ideas and mental pathways. The idea of losing rational use of their mind is a terrifying prospect for them.
What Do You Think?
Do you agree or disagree with these fears? What are your experiences? Let me know in the comments!
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Right on the money!
Thank you April!!
These are very true for me. And I love the pictures you chose to go with the fears; #2 in particular is very evocative for me. Thank you.
Thank you Laura! I hope this post helped you feel not alone in your fears. It’s great to hear from you!
I am an ENTJ with many ENTP friends. There’s a fear-related thread I’ve observed among these friends that didn’t show up on this list and I was surprised. It’s hard to give the fear a single name, but it’s something about fear of illness, injury and/or death — the idea that “something could go very wrong.” I told an ENTP friend that my daughter had taken up skiing. Her first response, “Please tell her to be careful…she could get hurt.” I have an ENTP family member who freaks out over every ache and pain and researches them obsessively on the Internet, sure that something is amiss. I know multiple ENTPs who get anxious about car and plane crashes.
I realize that, in a sense, we all have these fears, but my experience is that the ENTPs are unusually worrisome. My theory is that their inferior (less adept) sensing function, combined with their dominant N, creates a perfect storm where they project possibilities onto specific negatives.
i’d say your experience of ENTPs is contradictory to the norm. ENTPs do have inferior Si but i’d say that leads to them being the opposite of worrisome. they barely check in with their inner sensations and are amongst the most likely of types to be ill or injured and not even know it. this isn’t to say ENTPs can’t be paranoid because they definitely can, but if the first thing coming to your mind when someone tells you their child is going skiing is “please tell them to be careful” you’re probably not an ENTP – or at least a stereotypical one. an ENTP is more likely to probe where and why and how – in general they offer less mundane responses.
i wouldnt say anxiety about plane and car crashes was a normal ENTP thing either, i mean almost everyone has or has had those fears but ENTPs are usually: 1. very aware of the chaotic nature of life, 2. happy and/or content with said chaos (at least to a higher level than their counterparts).
You are generally right, but I think there is a lot of stereotype traits in your statements. I do agree with ENTJ above that the combination of Ne and inferior Si can generate endless negative scenarios in an ENTP’s head, perhaps much more so in an unhealthy one. But with Ti, an ENTP would most likely be able to counter-check with statistical probabilities and then use their logic to debunk their own fears. It’s precisely because they don’t check in with their sensing side that their sensing function can be all wonky and used in a negative manner. Also, I’m an ENTP and as I got older, the possibilities of freak accidents, plane hijacks, etc. started emerging in my thoughts more often because these possibilities became more real than abstract. So I wouldn’t say they wouldn’t worry, but I would say that a healthy ENTP won’t let these worries get in the way of their awesomeness ๐
I love this. Couldn’t not have put it any better.
100% CORRECT
When I was younger, I tested as ENFP, but the F has changed to T over the years. I could not have come up with a better list.
really it is 100 and 1% correct
Wow amazing to see this and it is mostly all true for me!!
Are all of you entps are cold hearted sons of bitches?
Yes, thank goodness. Someone has to be.
No. Some of us are cold hearted daughters of bitches.
????????????
Well, you sure are in the right place ๐
No, we are actually warm hearted but more theoretical than the sensing and feeling types. We each understanding because we like people, as extroverts. But we can spend too much time being theoretical and not “feel” what is going on.
An injury damaged me physically and effected me mentally. I’ve been a litigator for many years, and loved the courtroom. Even a bad case was a real party if I had a worthy opponent and a quick-witted judge because I always made sure I knew every fact and point of law they knew. My mind is where I live, and you have chronicled so very precisely what I’m now actualizing…..
Wow. This was kinda spot on for me.
Pretty spot on… and, Dear “Anonymous” on July 5th… No – we aren’t cold-hearted sons of bitches. It’s not personal. It’s an ENTP thing… the ability to look at facts objectively.
At least 90 percent true for me
Absolutely me!
Damn, this is actually fairly true about me. Btw don’t hate on ENTP’s, we will make more of a difference in life than any of you ๐
These fears are me all the way. I am a true ENTP!
I am an ENTP. I agree with all of these “fears” and can see where they have played out in my life. Currently I am the caretaker for my husband who has Alzheimer’s. His preferences are INTP, so he has even more issues about being controlled than I do. We have given each other lots of freedom in our 50 years of marriage, but now my life is controlled by his needs and he resents that I am in control of his life. Dealing with day to day routine is difficult and conversing with someone who no longer thinks rationally brings up my fear that I will lose my ability to think creatively–that I will become incompetent and uninteresting. My ISFJ daughter lives close and is very helpful–as you can imagine. Sometimes we struggle with our different styles of caretaking. Do you have references for ways in which people prefer to be taken care of and also how they tend to take care of other people? I can extrapolate from general type information, but it would be helpful for couples in the early stages of Alzheimer’s to have a conversation about how they can navigate the journey more easily.
This list of fears doesn’t really match me. 1 and 2 definitely do, not 3, 4, 5, or 7, yes number 8, number 9 yes to a certain extent, and also 10 to some extent. Number 6 has made me a much better man than I would have been, via my marriage to my wife and best friend of 28 years. I’ll admit that I USED to be scared by it though. So I count 5 hits, and I’m not sure I could come up with 5 truly scary things to replace the misses. One for-sure hit would be living with a tyrannical dictatorship government like North Korea, but that one is actually a version of number 1, so I’m back to 5. Good article though.
Agree.
I am an ENTP who happens to have a fearful-Avoidant attatchment style. I know there is some at least slight coreelation between this type and the thomas edison adhd type people. I mean i took helen fishers anatomy of love/work test and my two role models it gave me where “Steve Jobs” and “John Kennedy” put them together you kinda have thomas edison. one thing i have wondered alot about these personalities are similarities in upbringing. i know for instance i woke up to having two parents with like zero affective empathy and at least confirmed heavy narcissistic traits. (its not the narcissism thats the problem, its the inter generational trauma that distorts the heck out of it that is.) I know too that in people who have fallen into adhd type spectrum somewhere, we often attachment style wise are either anxious-preoccupied or fearful(anxious)-Avoidant. (for anyone reading this, there are some overlap, but i do know its not a clear cut line between any label i drop in this post)
Ive kinda learned that all real fears tend to take place in the context of our attachments.
Ive made sense of my Fearful-Avodiatn attatchment style as such:
Fearful avoidant = Fearfully preoccupied with Failure Rejection Criticism Humiliation in the context of attatchments and by Subconsciously suppressing emotions, identification, judgments thoughts – dismisivley avoidant of the vulnerability it brings as a result of fears of abandonment due to a shaky emotional object constancy. —– To any of these fears we must expect the EGO to jump in to identify/protect us from the resulting shame based identification in the form of a pride based counter identification. we must see both to step out of either one.
hope this helps perhaps a person or two.
OMFG!! Hooooow do they know me so well???!!!! This is why im leaving the freaking south! Ugh! All this bravado around following rules? Ugh! Rules smules!
I personally feel using the word “terrifing” is inappropriate to describing these things. They might be things that ENTPs do not like to tolerate, have a hard time dealing with or do not like but for me personally none of these are terrifying. The terminology makes the ENTP seem fearful when most ENTPs are not that (from my experience).
Oof. Very real. While I wouldn’t qualify a lot of these as fears, I certainly find contention on the topic of too-limiting boundaries, no patience for fools or idle gossip, and boredom is a constant struggle.
But madness? Having no control? That’s the shit that keeps me up at night. Esp after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and the psychotic, narcissistic manic episodes. It’s literally a living nightmare. Too real.
Entp can’t survive in these conditions, so it scares us…
I am actually an ENFP and most of these are some of my fears. (I teeter on the line between ENFP an ENTP, as I only have a slight preference between T and F). #10 has been my worst fear the past year and has caused me much anxiety actually. The need for control is there, and the fear of losing that is astronomical. Hence, I am very fearful of #1. Not so much scared of #5, but being bored is the worst. I always have to find something new to occupy my mind. I’m not afraid of #6 when it comes to relationships; marriage kind of terrifies me but I’m not opposed to settling down at all. Now commitments to other things besides relationships, I like to keep my options open and not make any concrete commitments.
Hi to fellow ENxP.
The only thing I really don’t see as terrifying there :
– Commitment
Unless they are detrimental to mental health or physically yet beatable, bring on the deal.
– Boredom
Not As long as it can be made sure flexibly fun.
Terrified, absolutely terrified by these things.
i aam an entp and i have the exact same fears
I am an entp and they hit the nail on the head!
Damn accurate
Iโm an ENTP and not all of these are exactly terrifying, these are more like โnope, wouldnโt want thatโ rather than โNOOOOO, PLEASE DONโT DO THIS TO MEEEโ,
But maybe if you redo the experiment in a different way it might make more sense. Personally, I think that most people wonโt think of their greatest fear when asked, they would probably think of the thing that theyโre currently afraid of or the first thing they rememberโฆ
This ENTP has no ‘irrational’ fears. I am no ESTP/Tom Cruise that wants to feel the thrill of physical challenges. Youthful experimentation teaches the mature ESTP to pre-plan their stunts and calculate the risk/reward potential. Life experience makes ESTPs better engineers than poets. ESTPs need to see the ball, to be the ball! Visualization for the ESTP needs actual coordinates to trigger the imagination, with the calculation of trajectories to follow.
ENTPs borrow the conceptual perspectives of others to visualize scenarios. I can watch LAWRENCE OF ARABIA twenty times and know absolutely that the discomfort of the desert has no value for me. Yet, like an ENFP, my feeling of empathy viscerally reacts to every displayed emotion. I become Lawrence through the powers of my intuitive projections and compare/contrast his experience with all the other heroes I’ve met in literature and history.
My library of books & videos is extensive. My tours of YouTube are constantly seeking the novel moment. I consume dictionaries searching for the right words or phrases to communicate uniquely, which is the best quality of my introverted thinking perception. The validity of my fears has been thoroughly vetted, laughing/crying at the thought of their power over others. Unconsciousness scares me because the unthinking aren’t kidding. FEAR IS THE MIND-KILLER!
As an ENTP in a committed relationship for 10 years now, I would have to say that my biggest fear, or should I say trigger, is loosing the ability to be myself freely without constantly being told how I feel, or that I’m a lying, spiteful, inconsiderate, evil ยขโฯยฃ! Always there to be the person you lean on to cry to and be there for you no matter what your flaws are, but always told to shut up, not aloud to have an opinion of my own that is different from yours because that is somehow disrespectful? When it seems to be the other way from my perspective. Don’t threaten me with violence because I refuse to be your puppet, or because I won’t admit to things that I didn’t do. I’m not flirting with someone just because I tell them to be themselves, be true to yourself when you speak to me. But I am not your property to be there for you, to give myself to you, to defend you, while constantly being the only one to defend myself. Throw me out to the wolves and I will survive, but I am a sigma female, I know that the only thing in this world I have control over is me, my thoughts, and my actions. Try to take those from me and it will not go in the direction that you were trying to manipulate me into, I’m far from stupid, and I’m not afraid of violence. I can show my crazy when you think threats will get me to back down, and I can also make someone who came in my presence distraught and ready to cause complete chaos, forget what they were distraught about, and they will leave my presence with a different way to look at things, that they can use to better walk their path. Just don’t think that I have to walk yours. They may cross from time to time. I’m not a princess in distress needing a knight in shining armor to save her, I’m a queen and can save myself from the obstacles this world puts in my life. I’ll listen to your opinion, but I refuse to hear your judgement you place on me. Respect is earned, not given because you demand it. You command it by how you conduct yourself, not by controlling others.