[ynajem]

Hey, I was wondering if all the "character types" --be it MBTI or Global 5 or whatever-- were part of a person from infancy, or if it's something that's developed based on environmental factors.



For example, I raise a child who's an introverted thinker, with all sorts of toys and things that an introverted thinker might like as a child (ie legos, connectable toys, a telescope, etc.). But if I gave that child things that an introverted feeler may prefer, whatever that may be, would he grow into an introverted feeler instead? Or is it unchangeable, and the child just stays introverted thinker nonetheless?

[zynthaxx]

People (many feminists, for example) do, in effect, claim that a person's interests are environmentally based. My personal opinion is that I simply wasn't that interested in "social" toys to begin with, but on the other hand loved tech-related toys. So I'd claim that type is hard-wired into the brain, even if you can mold behavior in different ways.

[Tove]

A bit of both, I'd say. I don't think someone's personality is fully inborn, but there can be some characteristic's you've inherited or simply manifested on your own. However, environment probably plays a great role. The culture you were raised in, the people who raised you, how you were shown the models of things like love, affection and expression, what kinds of experiences you had during your infancy... It's all very important. The years of our childhood we don't necessarily even remember shape us a lot. For example, I think that two people born with similar qualities but brought up in entirely different environments would turn out to be very different people.

We get a lot of basis for our personal world view, ways of communication, expression etc. from childhood and the things we were exposed to. A neglected child who was never shown or taught the concept of love, who never had a solid parent figure or any attachment, is likely to never even learn the concept of love as a feeling, and end up developing a disorder of some sort, such as RAD. In these cases, the original qualities and characteristics of a child would be overshadowed by the trauma and damage caused to their psyche during infancy.

[jeffbobs]

Yeah it seems to be a bit of both, If u throw behaviorism into the mix, you can claim that by about age 2-3 we have learnt certain reactions to certain stimili, and we have been programmed by behavior to think in certain ways, which in turn become our dominant function and way of dealing with things. so theoretically, changing ones controlling behaviors could change their personality

[Word Dispenser]

I had a mix of everything when I was a kid, and there was no negative connotations attached to any kind of toy. I gravitated towards barbies and dolls, imaginary friends.

Trucks and cars were interesting, and I certainly played with them, but there was no level of interaction with them that I could experience with barbies. I could make little stories. It's like a prototype of the sims game, lol. I loved to play in my sandbox, too.. And my best friends were boys from down the road, so I'd be playing army games with them, and pretending to be superheroes.

I don't know, I think I've always had the potential to have these cognitive function tendencies, since my first memories, and the stories my parents have told me about the way I was when I was a kid. 2 and 3 year old, just running outside to explore, scaring my parents witless.

[Sonny]

MBTI, cognitive processes: Innate or as close to as possible, parents types do not influence their children's types so the environmental argument falls down to me or you wouldn't have INTJ parents raising ESFP kids etc. The only observable pattern in "what type are you, what type are your parents" threads is the complete randomness of them all.

Enneagram, motivations: Environmental, developed in early childhood, naturally ones MBTI etc will influence motivations which is why MBTI and Enneagram show commonly occurring mixes.

[mushr00m]

Well the first function or dominant function I presume is hardwired into us whether that be highly environment influenced, I personally think there is something down to the gene's in the individual before they were even born. Then as the child gets older, they develop their secondary or auxilary function with the tertiary being developed later in life but it is still present from birth(I think), just not developed. Im not sure if the individual naturally falls into a default mode/type or if they try on a few different styles/functions and too see which is more comfortable. Interesting discussion, id like to where this goes.

[DreamStepper]

When I was a child, my parents always kept me around friends. I was always around people and it sucked. My parents tried to mold me into an ESFJ. There was one day where I had had enough... I ruined relations with those friends and then began to play video games at my house... Alone. I stayed alone all of the time. I loved it though.

[Worriedfunction]

Oh hello there Mr Nurture...meet Mr Nature.

Id say it is a balance between persona and cognition. However I think a lot of people grow up with unhealthy psychological baggage because they were indoctrinated or influenced to behave in a certain way, but that might not sit well with their actual way of thinking. Or it might not sit with what actually energises and enthuses them.

So people essentially come into conflict with what is natural to them. Of course natural is...a risky word to use because it can also imply hedonism and impulsiveness, but in fairness the definition of some functions is all about self control, or rather a person with a strong preference for that function would tend towards self control.

For me it is that balance between finding an outlet for your self-expression within a reasonable consideration towards others.

Of course this is probably part of what influences people to find out about this stuff in the first place. The human brain tends towards catagorisation and spotting difference between things, it can hardly be a surprise that someone would build these differences up into a complete picture of someone else and their difference in relation to that individual as part of a comparison.

I suspect this was part of Jung's motivation for his theory, amongst many other things. Of course his own thoughts on the subject are much much more well developed than mine and far more in-depth.

[LiquidLight]

Yea Jung basically argues its a combination of nature and nurture. Because in his theory the complexes are the primary engines of the psyche, the complexes must take form from individual experience. If the complexes are 'feeling-toned ideas' than any ideas that aren't innate or instinctual (from the collective unconscious in his wording) must come from the outside, so while everyone may have some instinctual idea about, for example, what good nurturing is, the form of that consciously will come from (probably) your parents or primary caregivers. Just like everyone has an instinctual drive to reproduce, but who you find attractive, how you go about reproducing, and so forth, are definitely influenced by your interactions in the real world.

Even if you were born with four functions (which is sort of what MBTI insinuates) it really wouldn't matter because its like being born with say five fingers on your hand. It means nothing if you haven't been educated with what to do with those fingers beyond base level activity. We can't know if they have good penmanship or play a great guitar or do fantastic woodwork, all we know is five fingers. All the other stuff is the result of nurture. Personality type is the same, even if you were born with all four functions in tact (and there are some ideas that support that at least on a temperamental level introvert babies tend to withdraw from objects and extraverted babies tend to be drawn to objects) the character of the person, their persona, who they are, who they become, will of course all be nurture.