“It’s good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled. And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”
Bruce Banner’s personality type is pretty straightforward except for one large, green thing.
If we take just the Bruce Banner side of his personality, he’s pretty much your classic Logician. He’s that Introverted, slightly scattered, brilliant, theoretical, and experimental science guy.
Intuitive
Bruce Banner is innovative and often lost in a theoretical world, instead of living in a more concrete reality, so he easily tracks as an Intuitive type.
Thinking
For him, thinking and science have become the only way he can really establish control in the world – and his Thinking trait gives him the stability he needs to hold things together.
Prospecting
As a Prospecting type, he can be a little all over the place in his approach to both life and science. He’s a man without a clear plan for anything except to avoid losing emotional control at all costs.
Introverted and Turbulent
From the 16Personalities perspective, Banner’s personality type is that of a Turbulent Logician (INTP-T). Hopefully, a lot of explanation of his Turbulent Identity isn’t needed. Anyone who gets angry, loses complete control, and then broods excessively over the consequences is pretty darn Turbulent. And his ongoing efforts to control his anger, leading him into hiding, are a world-class example of the Introverted, Turbulent Constant Improvement Strategy.
Before we pass final judgment, though, let’s quickly consider what Bruce Banner was like before his now-infamous gamma ray experiment. Did that cause any change in his personality to what we see now? We can’t be sure. However, even then, the science-minded Bruce Banner thought it would be a great idea to test his cutting-edge gamma ray treatment on himself. That pretty much sounds like a Turbulent Logician, so not really a big change there.
The Hulk
What about the Hulk? Does he have a personality type?
Banner: So you’re saying that the Hulk, the other guy, saved my life? That’s nice. It’s a nice sentiment. Save it for what?
Stark: I guess we’ll find out.
Banner: You may not enjoy that.
Stark: You just might.
Well, the Hulk is not a complete personality. From the Hulk’s classic origin story, he represented a side of Bruce Banner that he had always attempted to control and bury. The Hulk began as a personification of rage unleashed on the world. (Most of us have had a few days like that, so he’s not hard to relate to.)
The Hulk does have something of a personality that’s different from Bruce Banner’s, but he is what we’d think of as a personality fragment. That the Hulk does start developing something of his own identity suggests all sorts of messed-up things going on in Bruce Banner’s psyche.
But if we were to take the Hulk by himself alone, we’d have to call him a really, really angry Adventurer. The Hulk is all emotion-based, all real world-based, and beyond that, he’s pretty much all directionless Turbulence with a dash of directionless brooding thrown in. So, the closest we could get in the 16Personalities framework would be a Turbulent Adventurer (ISFP-T) personality type.
Conclusions
“That’s my secret, Captain. I’m always angry.”
The moral of Bruce Banner’s story? Don’t douse yourself with radiation – and don’t make a Turbulent Logician angry.
More seriously, though, the ultimate message may be that those sides of ourselves that we don’t like are still parts of ourselves. Trying to suppress or separate ourselves from them might just turn them into monsters.
When typing fictional characters here at 16Personalities, the type we present is determined only by what we’ve seen of the characters’ behaviors and actions in the movies or books in which they appear. Ultimately, they are fictional and are used as a way to help others better understand aspects of personality type.
This personality typing is based on the character as portrayed in Marvel’s Avengers movies dating from 2012–2018, the 2017 film Thor: Ragnarök, and the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk.
So, do you have your own thoughts about Bruce Banner’s personality? Let us know in the comments below!
Further Reading
Captain America: The Defender (Avengers Personality Series)
Rocket: Not Just a Raccoon with a Machine Gun (Avengers Personality Series)