# Cognitive Functions: A Failed Theory?



## Arclight (Feb 10, 2010)

I don't think it is stated anywhere that having a preference for one function means you are void of the other. 
The system is based on polar positions and only measures how likely you are to perceive or react within the context of that polar position. 
So if you score 70% sensor you still perceive via intuition 30% of the time or that you prefer, in most cases to value your sensory intake rather than your intuitive intake. 
As for introverted functions and extarverted functions.. Again it's simply a _preference_ for. 

I concur that taking a cookie cutter approach to human dynamics is mostly an exercise in folly.. But I would not say it is a "failure" as much as I would suggest that trying to make that which is intangible , tangible is beyond our present abilities. 
However we can catch glimpses of it and the problem is one of understanding and articulation, not flat out failure.

Polar dichotomies exist.. Albert Einstein actually formulated this in his theory of relativity. 
It works perfectly in the physical world as we know it.. The metaphysical.. Not as well.
Humanity is extremely rich in variation, so simple approaches might tell some, but rarely ever the whole story.
Humanity is also very limited in it's commonality. So there is still some value in seeking that which can be predicted through simple percentile. 

The confusion is our subjective values and preferences cannot find the objective common denominator at least not yet and.. It's possible we never will.
But calling it failure demeans the spirit of human curiosity.. There is no shame in trying. 

Also brain scans reveal that in fact.. There are areas of the brain that indeed pertain to certain functions.


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## MrShatter (Sep 28, 2010)

MadHattress said:


> I appear to observe them as well, and the cognitive functions do fit in well with my understanding of my own type.
> 
> However, I think if it wasn't as dubious as some make it out to be, there probably wouldn't be so much confusion over the topic.


What do you mean by confused? Many are simply ignorant because we're in a non-structured learning environment. (You only learn as much as you're willing to learn.) Not to mention that confusion is commonplace when learning new subject material. So many people are confused by math, yet you wouldn't call it a dubious science. 

As for scientific 'confusion'... the science of Psychology is still a young science (IMO). One, much like Quantum mechanics, we have yet to grasp fully. Protoanalysis is a tentative step, fraught with bias and what not... but I think we can navigate it accurately if we are prudent enough. (And aren't too haphazard in our speculations.)


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

reckful said:


> Framing type with the dichotomies doesn't inherently involve putting people in rigid boxes any more than framing type with the functions, although both systems can be abused along those lines if the wrong person is applying them.


I'd say the function-based system is a more rigid one, since it doesn't allow for borderline preferences, or even differences in strength of preference. If, for example, you're trying to decide whether you're INTJ or INTP, using the dichotomies you can say you're close to the middle of the J/P scale. With the functions, it's either one or the other. You can't be halfway between Ni and Ne, or Ti and Te. Not to mention that OMG INTJs and INTPs have absolutely nothing in common!


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Octavarium said:


> I'd say the function-based system is a more rigid one, since it doesn't allow for borderline preferences, or even differences in strength of preference. If, for example, you're trying to decide whether you're INTJ or INTP, using the dichotomies you can say you're close to the middle of the J/P scale. With the functions, it's either one or the other. You can't be halfway between Ni and Ne, or Ti and Te. Not to mention that OMG INTJs and INTPs have absolutely nothing in common!


I'd say that somewhat depends on whose function model you're working with. Jung said lots of people were essentially in the middle on E/I, and to me that suggests that he must have thought it was possible to exhibit some functional middleness as well, since the functions and attitudes were so inextricably tied together for him.

And he certainly thought that the _strength_ (or "differentiation," or "one-sidedness") of the dominant or auxiliary function could vary a lot from one person to another.


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

Teybo said:


> I don't know about you, but the way I think strongly dictates the way I act. If your cognition and your actions are so disconnected, well, I fear for your mental health!


I agree with this. It does seem to be a common view around here that the way we think and the way we act are two completely different things, with no connections between the two. The dichotomies are about the way we act and the functions are about the way we think and the Enneagram is about motivations and socionics is about god knows what and they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. But really, the way we behave is dictated by our values/motivations/cognition.


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## MrShatter (Sep 28, 2010)

Octavarium said:


> Not to mention that OMG INTJs and INTPs have absolutely nothing in common!


You're the first person I've heard that from


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## bearotter (Aug 10, 2012)

Well from the "MBTI" (what we commonly on the forums refer to as the function model) POV, Fe-Ti axis + Ne-Si axis would essentially mean in one sense, they're pretty much "OMG nothing in common", and if one wants to go there, socionics puts them in totally different quadras as a result of these preferences.


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## Teybo (Sep 25, 2012)

Arclight said:


> Also brain scans reveal that in fact.. There are areas of the brain that indeed pertain to certain functions.


If you are referring to Nardi's exploratory EEG stuff, I'd have to say that you are greatly overstating his "findings". His work is absolutely exploratory, not confirmatory, and stating it otherwise is quite misleading.

First, it's important to acknowledge that what he did was use the EEG to train students at UCLA, and that he was technically not conducting research. From his responses in this thread, it sounds like he did not have IRB approval for human subject research, and as a consequence it will be extremely difficult, probably impossible, for his EEG work to undergo any substantial peer-review. That's an important point, because that leaves us taking his data as he portrays it. I'm not saying peer-review is a gold standard to live by, but when we're thinking about levels of proof, it's worth keeping in mind.

Next, setting the previous technical (yet important) statements aside, two major issues complicate his work. Issue A is that the connection between the EEG data he gathers and cognitive function theory is mediated by whatever typing method he used, and if his method is anything like the test on his keys2cognition website, we should all be extremely wary. Issue B is that his sample size is ridiculously small, and that it is very, very, very, _*very*_ inappropriate to draw conclusions about human cognition from such an absurdly small and unrepresentative sample.

Finally, even taking his work on its own terms and setting aside these problems, his findings sometimes contradict type dynamics. For example, he found that ENTJ's and ENFJ's both displayed similar brain patterns which he characterizes as being related to quick decision making. He also found connections between ESTJ and ESTP brain patterns. These findings are better explained by preference multidimensionality rather than cognitive functions.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

MrShatter said:


> You're the first person I've heard that from


I realize that the "" may mean you were being sarcastic, but I can't resist sharing one of my favorite INTJforum posts, which was made without a trace of sarcastic intent:



> The differences between INTJ and INTP couldn't be greater. ... People who try to figure out if they're INTJ or INTP don't know the first thing about typology. The two types are so different, I don't even see how anyone can think they are one or the other. INTJ: Ni, Te, Fi Se; INTP: Ti, Ne, Si, Fe. It's completely fuckin' different!


And although that post expresses the idea in a more amusing way than most, the general idea is one that I've often encountered. The single most common type-me dilemma at INTJforum (by a pretty wide margin) is "Am I INTJ or INTP?" and the people puzzling over the decision are often people who've spent a considerable amount of time reading up on the types and functions and etc. And yet it's also common to read posts by cognitive function aficionados opining that, sure, there are some similarities _at the surface level_ — you know, the _dichotomy_-related stuff — but those two types are much more different than alike _deep down inside_.


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## MrShatter (Sep 28, 2010)

reckful said:


> I realize that the "" may mean you were being sarcastic,


I wasn't. 

I was ""ing the fact that I am made aware of certain types of undesirable phenomena more by the complainers than the advocates.
I agree.. while their cognitive functions are 'completely different', I wouldn't consider the types totally alien to each other.

It's a matter of standard and distinction I guess.


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## Arclight (Feb 10, 2010)

Teybo said:


> If you are referring to Nardi's exploratory EEG stuff, I'd have to say that you are greatly overstating his "findings". His work is absolutely exploratory, not confirmatory, and stating it otherwise is quite misleading.
> 
> First, it's important to acknowledge that what he did was use the EEG to train students at UCLA, and that he was technically not conducting research. From his responses in this thread, it sounds like he did not have IRB approval for human subject research, and as a consequence it will be extremely difficult, probably impossible, for his EEG work to undergo any substantial peer-review. That's an important point, because that leaves us taking his data as he portrays it. I'm not saying peer-review is a gold standard to live by, but when we're thinking about levels of proof, it's worth keeping in mind.
> 
> ...


 I am in fact referring to research done by Dr Daniel G Amen and the connections I have made to brain activity and functions are my own. Although using his research I think I could make a strong case that the connection is more than casual.


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## MrShatter (Sep 28, 2010)

Heyyyy @Teybo <3


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## bearotter (Aug 10, 2012)

reckful said:


> And yet it's also common to read posts by cognitive function aficionados opining that, sure, there are some similarities _at the surface level — you know, the dichotomy-related stuff — but those two types are much more different than alike deep down inside.
> 
> _


Well anyone who thinks ENTPs are more similar to INTPs than the latter to INTJs because of Ne+Ti preference had best subscribe to something like socionics quadras. Else, one winds up with these crazy perspectives where Ne and Ti are considered independent entities without any connection to a parent called "N" or "i" or "e". If one did acknowledge the connection, then even the function perspective should recognize the flaw with claiming two NTPs necessarily more similar than two INTs. To make that obvious: how do you go from "Ne>Ti" to "Ti>Ne" and how do you go from "Ni>Te" to "Ti>Ne"? What things does one have to flip? Depends on whether one acknowledges the parents or not, i.e. if not, the second option seems unanswerable, the first obvious, but if one does acknowledge it, both are obvious answers, and one sees the issue with the claim of the two INTs being nothing alike. Socionics quadras really in a way attempt to organize everything particularly, in a function+attitude-specific way.


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

@MrShatter @reckful here's a recent thread where a load of people said INTJs and INTPs are totally different: http://personalitycafe.com/intj-forum-scientists/149591-how-many-you-borderline-intj-intps.html


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## MrShatter (Sep 28, 2010)

Octavarium said:


> @_MrShatter_ @_reckful_ here's a recent thread where a load of people said INTJs and INTPs are totally different: http://personalitycafe.com/intj-forum-scientists/149591-how-many-you-borderline-intj-intps.html


I don't believe in Dichotomy borders. I believe the functions play a role in the confusion. For example, Ni doms often score low on J because they have a primary perceiving function. An INTP will score lower on P because his or her first function is a judging function. (J/P score are sketchy and confusing IMO)


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

MrShatter said:


> I don't believe in Dichotomy borders. I believe the functions play a role in the confusion. For example, Ni doms often score low on J because they have a primary perceiving function. An INTP will score lower on P because his or her first function is a judging function. (J/P score are sketchy and confusing IMO)


Are you saying that the people who test as INTJs on the dichotomies are actually INTPs according to the functions?


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## MrShatter (Sep 28, 2010)

Octavarium said:


> Are you saying that the people who test as INTJs on the dichotomies are actually INTPs according to the functions?


No. Let me rephrase. INTPs and INTJs are similar types... and so theoretical 'type me' PerC Member is going to relate to certain aspects of both types regardless. Many reason: "I relate to both INTJ and INTP and so my J/P must be pretty even." Instead I propose that your J/P is not even but that both types have judging and perceiving inside them (Ni/Ne 'P' vs. Ti/Te 'J') And to classify one as a Judger and the other as a Perceiver is misleading. (Auxillary/tertiary can be hard to differentiate too.)

The J function is classified the way it is because Pi synthesizes information while Je attempts to impact reality... leading to traits such as 'organization' and 'planning' when in actuality a Judger might not possess these qualities. (Same goes for a P) (Data collecting + Fi/Ti internal analysis)


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## Dastan (Sep 28, 2011)

It seems that especially the nature of the MBTI introverts is exclusively derived from Briggs Myers assumptions and rather detached from actual observation and sense of reality. I hope that in an unbiased and "inexpert" view it will always sound unnatural and contradictory that randomly all introverted humans always behave in another way than they really are (perceiving <-> judging) and extraverted people not, just because it must be so due to assumptions that don't even stand to reason.

One could defend "well, behavior is not the domain of introverts...", but why that? Why should the orientation, the direction from the object to the subject (if it exists so clearly) not also be visible in actions and behavior. Introverted people behave in an introverted way.


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## JungyesMBTIno (Jul 22, 2011)

Yea, I think where people try to conceptualize what has already been conceptualized even further, you get the nonsense about sensation being feeling and intuition being thinking (I swear that's the consensus on the internet, unbeknownst to most). I forgive it though, because that's how MBTI defines them, not Jung - the misunderstandings make perfect sense and all. Sensation should, frankly, be the easiest function to identify in the real world just because it deals with the real world. The sensation dominant, even from an archetypal perspective, should be the most "real" archetype to identify - I don't find these ones too hard to miss from the archetypal perspective because in our society which devalues intuition (especially Ni) and supports sensation, these probably stand out more than people realize (just read enough internet movie reviews, for one example, and it's often clear that the sensation perspective is valued over intuition - it's all about the lack of potential here and the details of the performance against the script there, what's inexplicable to viewer pleasure here and noticeable to the senses (Se) or reality values in general (Si) there, etc.). Not much focus on what actually does work about a movie against possible notions, etc.


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## ferroequinologist (Jul 27, 2012)

MrShatter said:


> I (appear) to observe the cognitive functions as Jung has described and so I believe they exist.
> Same goes for the frameworks... but I only follow those loosely anyway.
> 
> I don't think observing one's cognition is as dubious a task as some make it out to be.


I'm not sure why people find the dichotomies so difficult to accept. IMO, it makes sense, and the first time I read it, I grasped it. Maybe it's because I have been married 25 years to my enigma (INTP), so see our functions operating in the mirror every day, but here's how I would explain it.

My wife and I both tend to test fairly evenly between our functions, in regards to I and E. As well as the FT or NS, though I'm more unbalanced toward the S vs N, and she more lopsided on the N vs S, but she's like 55%T vs F, and I'm like 55F vs T.

Anyway, we all use all 8 functions every day. The key lies not in how much we use them, nor even how well we use them. The large difference comes when we are forced to decide one way or another. My 9yr old is quite ambidextrous. She writes, colors, plays, eats with both hands with near equal facility, and has since birth. However, when push comes to shove, and she _really_ has to get something done, or if she's struggling, she will chose her left hand over her right every time. Toss a ball to her unexpectedly, and she'll try to use her left hand. 

In life, we balance and use our functions when 'at rest' or not stressed, but when stressed, we have our fall-back functions, and that's where the dichotomies come in. I don't really know how these operate through our lifespan. It's possible that when younger, our weaker functions are less functional, or it may also be that, while we have hard-wired preferences, we haven't developed any of them them much, so it's harder to judge--This latter what I'm guessing, based on our youngest, and my vague memories of our older children. And, of course, extenuating circumstances also play a part in either reinforcing or suppressing various functions.

In any case, I believe that it's because of the simple fact that preferences and use are seldom the same, that it is so difficult to discover these things ourselves, without some effort and time. For instance, an ISFP can be a boss or department manager. All of his natural skills must be suppressed in order for him to do his job competently. And if he is like most people, he never pays attention to these things. He just lives his life full of stress, and feeling unfulfilled for some reason--that was me for many years, in fact. It's only been this past year I discovered this whole shebang, and immediately, I could see all of this stuff in retrospect--the effect my use of cognitive functions had an impact on my levels of stress, dealing with life issues, family issues, the kids, etc. And also why some things I did always seemed to "help" (for instance, going on music binges, where I would zone out from the world for hours, just listening to music--or finding myself sitting outside--in the park near the river, or in recent years, sitting on our swing in our back yard). It also explains why, for instance, I've always struggled with remembering simple things like shopping items, or verbal instructions, or--most embarrassing--people's names immediately after they told me. That's the thing for me. What I read, and what I perceive in my life, and in my wife's, operating in a polar opposite orientation, it all makes sense, but more importantly, I am able to predict how I, she, our children, and others for whom I have been able to discern their personality traits will behave.

It may not be "scientific" in the strictest sense, but for me, at least, it's practical, observable, reproducible and sensible.


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## Zero11 (Feb 7, 2010)

"The fact that the four letter code for a type is empirically solid does not imply that cognitive function theory is also empirically solid. In fact, they are two separate theories which have been packaged together. "


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Zero11 said:


> "The fact that the four letter code for a type is empirically solid does not imply that cognitive function theory is also empirically solid. In fact, they are two separate theories which have been packaged together. "


I'm not sure why you're rolling your eyes, but the statement is basically correct. If you're interested, this 2009 article by James Reynierse — which discusses the empirical support for the dichotomies and the almost complete lack of empirical support for "type dynamics" (i.e., the cognitive functions) — may help you understand the distinction.

As a matter of _opinion,_ you're free to think that the functions are an equally good, or better, theoretical framework than the dichotomies, and you can _speculate_ that, if only the psychological community respected the "cognitive functions" theory more — and accordingly conducted appropriate studies — the functions _would_ turn out to be empirically supported. But as things stand today, as a _factual_ matter, the cognitive functions have barely even been tested, and the results of the few studies that have been done have not been encouraging — and, by contrast, the dichotomies now have decades of studies that provide reasonably good support for their reliability and validity.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

reckful said:


> I'm not sure why you're rolling your eyes, but the statement is basically correct. If you're interested, this 2009 article by James Reynierse — which discusses the empirical support for the dichotomies and the almost complete lack of empirical support for "type dynamics" (i.e., the cognitive functions) — may help you understand the distinction.
> 
> As a matter of _opinion,_ you're free to think that the functions are an equally good, or better, theoretical framework than the dichotomies, and you can _speculate_ that, if only the psychological community respected the "cognitive functions" theory more — and accordingly conducted appropriate studies — the functions _would_ turn out to be empirically supported. But as things stand today, as a _factual_ matter, the cognitive functions have barely even been tested, and the results of the few studies that have been done have not been encouraging — and, by contrast, the dichotomies now have decades of studies that provide reasonably good support for their reliability and validity.


I'd just like to go out of my way to apologize to you.

We've argued in the past and I've made an ass of myself doing so, but I recognize my mistake for it and just wanted to say I really appreciate that you posted that article. I'm reading it as I type this and it brings up many of the points I've been thinking about.

I really just wish more people would read it.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> I'd just like to go out of my way to apologize to you.
> 
> We've argued in the past and I've made an ass of myself doing so, but I recognize my mistake for it and just wanted to say I really appreciate that you posted that article. I'm reading it as I type this and it brings up many of the points I've been thinking about.
> 
> I really just wish more people would read it.


Well, sheesh, thank you. You actually weren't on my Posters From Hell list, but maybe I'd forgotten an exchange or two.

In any case, as I recently told another forumite, apologies are not exactly common at internet forums (as you probably know), and making one speaks well for its maker.

I've never been what anybody'd call a champ in that department.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

reckful said:


> Well, sheesh, thank you. You actually weren't on my Posters From Hell list, but maybe I'd forgotten an exchange or two.
> 
> In any case, as I recently told another forumite, apologies are not exactly common at internet forums (as you probably know), and making one speaks well for its maker.
> 
> I've never been what anybody'd call a champ in that department.


Well, I'm about a third of the way through the article now and it's basically echoing a lot of the things I've recently been thinking. I actually own a copy of the MBTI Manual Third edition, and I went back recently and re-read the chapters on validity and evidence, and this article you posted is correct in everything it is saying so far. It is extremely well-written.

I've actually been pointing out to many people on this forum (and others) for some time now that Jung and MBTI are two completely different things despite one being "based on" the other, and that Jung's theory is itself based on anecdotal evidence, and that furthermore, MBTI isn't even a theory, and has the same issues as the NEO-PR-I which uses the Five Factor Model. Both have strong evidence to support the existence of certain dichotomies, but no explanation as to why these exist has yet been shown that is supported by strong research. At least Jung had a theory to explain his findings, which is provided extensively in the rest of his book on Psychological Types (all the chapters before the chapter on types, which nobody bothers to read).

But with MBTI, it is like saying, I could just make up whatever traits I wanted and then do a factor analysis using a large enough population sample and through a systematic process I can come up with several personality traits that are demonstrably present in the majority of the sample, rule out others that demonstrably are not, thus suggesting the existence of some and not others, but not providing in itself any explanation for the phenomena. So all I have really done is invented a method for showing that these traits exist and these traits don't, and that's it. It's like monkeys mashing keys until they produce a sentence; I can't explain how or why it works. I just "brute forced" it into being, so to speak. The problem is that all I've really done is played a game with words and ideas in order to arrive at the right words and ideas, and that's it (this actually reminds me of Wittgenstein's private language argument).


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

Furthermore, to really explain why I don't consider MBTI a theory at all,

Jung's work essentially concludes that the origin of personality _types_ is something hereditary and biological, and he provides many strong empirical reasons for drawing this conclusion. Thus, he is saying "it is probably biological because of X, Y, and Z." He's stating his conclusion and backing it up with evidence that is, itself, well-founded in evolutionary theory and a general knowledge of biology. So he has a strong biological theory of _types_, _*but it doesn't necessarily point exclusively at the functions he defines.*_ He justifies himself in picking those specific functions by pointing at his clinical work over a lifetime, and is essentially using anecdotal evidence as an excuse for choosing the ones he did. Ironically, if he had just done something like what the FFM (five-factor model) or MBTI did, and done a factor analysis to prove the legitimate existence of these functions he has invented (which in fact, others have done and in doing so discredited the existence of several) he might have had something really complete and powerful.

MBTI makes the mistake of "basing" itself on Jung's already incomplete work, extrapolating further from it instead of just finishing what he started and completing it first, and thus further distances itself from anything resembling a theory. It manufactures the four type-letter dichotomies it uses that have nothing really to do with Jung's _hypothesis/speculation_ about the existence of cognitive functions. Rather, these dichotomies are something else entirely which have legitimate evidence to suggest they exist (much like the FFM does), but suffer a lack of explanation. If you were to interrogate an MBTI specialist about the MBTI types, asking for an explanation, they'll probably tell you it's something biological and hereditary. But, first of all, that biological explanation was Jung's theory of _types_, _*but not his functions.*_ So, while that might be a good explanation for the existence of the MBTI dichotomies, it isn't an explanation for _type dynamics_, which is the explanation that MBTI gives for the existence of its dichotomies.

But to really drive the nail into the coffin of MBTI here, I want to apply Occam's Razor ontop of everything I just said and point out that the NEO-PI-R has _way_ more empirical evidence to support itself. The Five-Factor Model is much stronger than the MBTI one, and hence, there is absolutely no reason for someone to be claiming the legitimacy of MBTI _even as a method_ when we objectively have discovered better methods as a point of fact. So not only does MBTI fail on a theoretical basis, failing in principal - it also fails in practice by contrast to other more successful models.

The bottom line here is that MBTI, in my opinion, is not legitimate in any way, and should not be taken seriously by anyone who understands the first thing about typology until more research is done that proves either it's theoretical validity or shows empirically that it is more reliable than other similar methods.

It is, for all intents and purposes, one step removed from astrology at this point. It serves basically the same role in people's lives, giving them some playful way to talk about themselves and pretend they are being insightful and wise. It is, at worst, _irresponsible and malicious_ - feeding on the insecurities of the population in order to turn a buck and publish books.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> Well, I'm about a third of the way through the article now and it's basically echoing a lot of the things I've recently been thinking. I actually own a copy of the MBTI Manual Third edition, and I went back recently and re-read the chapters on validity and evidence, and this article you posted is correct in everything it is saying so far. It is extremely well-written.
> 
> I've actually been pointing out to many people on this forum (and others) for some time now that Jung and MBTI are two completely different things despite one being "based on" the other, and that Jung's theory is itself based on anecdotal evidence, and that furthermore, MBTI isn't even a theory, and has the same issues as the NEO-PR-I which uses the Five Factor Model. Both have strong evidence to support the existence of certain dichotomies, but no explanation as to why these exist has yet been shown that is supported by strong research. At least Jung had a theory to explain his findings, which is provided extensively in the rest of his book on Psychological Types (all the chapters before the chapter on types, which nobody bothers to read).
> 
> But with MBTI, it is like saying, I could just make up whatever traits I wanted and then do a factor analysis using a large enough population sample and through a systematic process I can come up with several personality traits that are demonstrably present in the majority of the sample, rule out others that demonstrably are not, thus suggesting the existence of some and not others, but not providing in itself any explanation for the phenomena. So all I have really done is invented a method for showing that these traits exist and these traits don't, and that's it. It's like monkeys mashing keys until they produce a sentence; I can't explain how or why it works. I just "brute forced" it into being, so to speak. The problem is that all I've really done is played a game with words and ideas in order to arrive at the right words and ideas, and that's it (this actually reminds me of Wittgenstein's private language argument).


I really don't recognize the dichotomy-centered MBTI in your description. The MBTI is just as much based on a "theory" as Jung. The "theory" is that there are four relatively hard-wired dimensions of personality — corresponding to a significant extent with Jung's original concepts, but also reflecting substantial adjustments by Myers — and that people with the various preferences (and preference combinations) tend to have certain corresponding personality characteristics. It's true that the "type dynamics" (cognitive functions) theory is a significantly more _complex_ theory — in effect, treating the four dimensions as far more interrelated — but that's no virtue if the added complexity is _wrong_. And that's the gist of the Reynierse article: that the functions are a "category mistake" and that the interrelationships posited by "type dynamics" (whether you're talking about Jung's version or Myers' version) aren't supported by the data.

Myers didn't develop a "completely different theory" from Jung; I'd say she mostly separated the Jungian wheat from the chaff. And as far as Myers' take on "type dynamics" goes, that was mostly lip service. Myers thought the dichotomies were the main event, and the official MBTI establishment remains strongly dichotomy-centric today (including in the MBTI's "Step II" incarnation). And you can read more about that, and find more of my general perspective on the dichotomies vs. the functions, in this long post.

As a final note, in response to your suggestion that anybody can just "make up whatever traits [they] wanted and then do a factor analysis," etc., here's most of what I said in another recent thread:

If you give somebody a type test and ask them if they like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, label them "PCRs" if they say yes, and describe PCRs as people who like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, you certainly open yourself up to _circularity_ charges. But what happens if it turns out that two identical twins who are separated at birth and raised in separate households are substantially more likely to be alike in the PCR department than two randomly-selected people? That's right: you beat the circularity rap.

There's now decades of data that makes it reasonably clear that the Big Five factors ... are tapping into five real, multi-faceted and relatively hard-wired dimensions of human personality. And although, as I understand it, there isn't much twin data that's MBTI-specific (here's one study), McCrae and Costa (probably the most well-known Big Five psychologists) long ago concluded that the MBTI dichotomies are essentially tapping into four of the Big Five dimensions. ...

Another thing worth mentioning on the _circularity_ front is that one of the reasons so many people with reasonably well-defined preferences have such a strong OMG reaction when they first read profiles of their MBTI type is that _the profiles tell them quite a lot more about themselves than they told the test_. When a temperament dimension includes J, K, L, M, N, O, P and Q, you can type people based on a test that just asks about K, M, N and Q and then proceed to tell them much more about "that type" than the stuff that was in the questions. And that's what MBTI tests (including the official test) generally do. The main criterion (by a wide margin) by which an N item (for example) gets picked to be in the official MBTI is its reliability record — based on thousands of tests — in terms of being an item that both appeals to N's (in terms of how the overall test types them) and doesn't appeal to S's. As the MBTI Manual specifically notes, "the content areas of the questions were not meant to cover all domains of the preference."​


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> Furthermore, to really explain why I don't consider MBTI a theory at all,
> 
> Jung's work essentially concludes that the origin of personality _types_ is something hereditary and biological, and he provides many strong empirical reasons for drawing this conclusion. Thus, he is saying "it is probably biological because of X, Y, and Z." He's stating his conclusion and backing it up with evidence that is, itself, well-founded in evolutionary theory and a general knowledge of biology. So he has a strong biological theory of _types_, _*but it doesn't necessarily point exclusively at the functions he defines.*_ He justifies himself in picking those specific functions by pointing at his clinical work over a lifetime, and is essentially using anecdotal evidence as an excuse for choosing the ones he did. Ironically, if he had just done something like what the FFM (five-factor model) or MBTI did, and done a factor analysis to prove the legitimate existence of these functions he has invented (which in fact, others have done and in doing so discredited the existence of several) he might have had something really complete and powerful.
> 
> ...


As further explained in the long post I already linked you to, and as pointed out by Reynierse in that article that maybe you haven't finished reading yet, the MBTI has decades of data in support of its reliability and validity, and it's the same kind of data, gathered with the same kinds of assessment techniques, as the data that supports the Big Five. "Big Five vs. MBTI" is a false dichotomy in multiple respects, but the most important thing to note is that McCrae and Costa are probably the most well-known Big Five scientists and they long ago concluded that the MBTI is essentially tapping into four of the Big Five dimensions — while noting that "Jung's largely untested speculations" were not supported by the data. They also noted that each typology may well have things to teach the other.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> It is, for all intents and purposes, one step removed from astrology at this point. It serves basically the same role in people's lives, giving them some playful way to talk about themselves and pretend they are being insightful and wise. It is, at worst, _irresponsible and malicious_ - feeding on the insecurities of the population in order to turn a buck and publish books.


For quite a bit more from me on distinguishing hard science from soft science from pseudoscience, see this post and the posts it links to.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

reckful said:


> I really don't recognize the dichotomy-centered MBTI in your description. The MBTI is just as much based on a "theory" as Jung. The "theory" is that there are four relatively hard-wired dimensions of personality — corresponding to a significant extent with Jung's original concepts, but also reflecting substantial adjustments by Myers — and that people with the various preferences (and preference combinations) tend to have certain corresponding personality characteristics.


That strikes me as a hypothesis. It's a proposal, but to prove that it is true requires some sort of evidence or observations. Jung observes nature by providing a biological basis for his theory of types. MBTI doesn't really do this for it's dichotomies. It instead bases the dichotomies on the existence of certain cognitive functions. So the dichotomies certainly exist, but not for the reasons provided.



reckful said:


> Myers didn't develop a "completely different theory" from Jung; I'd say she mostly separated the Jungian wheat from the chaff.


Perhaps my hyperbole was over-exaggerated, but I think you knew what I meant, so I don't see the point in engaging this semantic argument.



reckful said:


> As a final note, in response to your suggestion that anybody can just "make up whatever traits [they] wanted and then do a factor analysis," etc.


Again, perhaps I wasn't clear. I wasn't attempting to discredit the validity of these models. I am, in fact, saying exactly what you proceed to say. Perhaps the problem is that I am not making myself clear because I take liberties in the way that I talk. I am not trying to be thorough here. A factor analysis would eventually distill and pare down the existence of superfluous traits until we systematically arrive at the valid conclusion that only certain ones exist. Those traits are the ones demonstrated by MBTI/FFM.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> That strikes me as a hypothesis. It's a proposal, but to prove that it is true requires some sort of evidence or observations. Jung observes nature by providing a biological basis for his theory of types. MBTI doesn't really do this for it's dichotomies. It instead bases the dichotomies on the existence of certain cognitive functions. So the dichotomies certainly exist, but not for the reasons provided.


It's fair to say that, _way back at the beginning_, Myers' dichotomies were more in the nature of a bare "hypothesis," based on both Jung and on a separate typology that Briggs (her mother) had been developing before Psychological Types was published. But Myers then spent much of her life gathering data and adjusting the dichotomies to match it, in pretty much exactly the same way the Big Five has developed its factors. And there's been much more data-gathering since.

And, to the extent that you're suggesting that the MBTI and Big Five somehow just involve relatively shallow surface traits, rather than people's values and other more internal aspects of personality, that's mostly a myth. At the end of the day, Jung's typology, the Big Five and the MBTI all deal, at their core, with _internal_ temperament dimensions and the various ways they end up being typically manifested _both_ internally (by way of values, motivations, thinking processes, attitudes, emotional responses, etc.) and externally (through speech and behavior). And you can read more about that here.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

Also, I remain in disagreement with you about your proposed categorization of science into multiple forms of itself.

There is science, and there is not-science.

Science is really elegant in it's simplicity - it is the observation of nature. That's it. But tied up in what I just said is a can of worms. "What is nature?" - "How do we know we are observing it?" - And therein you get the scientific method. But even that is not set in stone.

I think dividing science into realms such as "soft" and "hard" provides an unnecessary distinction. If something is scientific, then it is scientific. If it is not, then it is not.

But this is also a tangent unrelated to the present topic. If you want to engage me in a debate to try and change my mind on this matter, it would be more appropriate to do it in private, or start another thread about it in another topic such as critical thinking and philosophy, if you anticipate that our debate would be useful to others if held in public.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> Also, I remain in disagreement with you about your proposed categorization of science into multiple forms of itself.
> 
> There is science, and there is not-science.
> 
> ...


You and I (and others) already debated that issue in one of the threads I linked to in this thread, and I don't feel any pressing need to add any more to what I already said there. Rejecting "soft science" as "not science" is essentially putting psychology, sociology, economics and any number of other so-called _soft sciences_ in the same category as astrology, and that, as I told you in that other thread, involves trying to impose a black-and-white distinction in an area where the real world involves multiple shades of gray.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

@reckful, you are continuing to misrepresent what I said.

Why not just ask me what I meant, or ask for more information from me instead of putting words in my mouth?

Nowhere did I state that I found MBTI dichotomies or the Big Five to involve "relatively shallow surface traits." You're taking my words to imply that meaning, and they very well might, but maybe you should ask me if I actually meant to imply it.

My point is that all of this only demonstrates a correlation between ideas we have about things, showing the congruence of one framework with another. At some point, something tangible and real needs to be discussed, such as observable behavior. Otherwise, what are we even talking about? What is the purpose of personality type theory? To make people feel happy? To make people feel a sense of confidence or assurance about who they are? Well maybe we ought to just look into developing a drug for that then, or some form of medication that produces the same effect, if that's the only point of all this.

In the end - _what are we trying to do in the actual physical material real world?_

That there are "deep internal aspects of personality" is describing what exactly? People? And what are people? What is a person? I'm trying to get at something concrete here, something I can _physically observe_ existing in nature.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

reckful said:


> You and I (and others) already debated that issue in one of the threads I linked to in this thread, and I don't feel any pressing need to add any more to what I already said there. Rejecting "soft science" as "not science" is essentially putting psychology, sociology, economics and any number of other so-called _soft sciences_ in the same category as astrology, and that, as I told you in that other thread, involves trying to impose a black-and-white distinction in an area where the real world involves multiple shades of gray.


Again, as I in fact stated to you in that debate, I'm not rejecting soft-science as "not-science" and never was. You were putting those words in my mouth because you failed to ask me to explain myself. I'm rejecting the need for a distinction between one form of science and any other form of it.

There is science, and there is not-science. You are the one who appears to believe "soft-science" is "not-science", not I.

Are we done?


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

@_reckful_, I'm beginning to be reminded of why I dislike debating with you. You use a strategy that involves attempting to discredit your interlocutor in order to show the weakness of their side of the argument, and then you proceed to build up your side of the argument in order to prove the point you are making. Your approach to debate is like a military general waging a war. You are playing hard ball and not being very friendly at all.

Maybe you need to step back, tone it down a bit, and be more willing to ask questions. Engage in more of a dialectic rather than a rhetoric. Give me the opportunity to explain myself instead of just trying to nail me to the wall.

Can you do that or should I just ignore this topic and drop it? I'm not in the mood to fence with you. I dislike this extremely aggressive style of debate when it's not about something I am passionate in to begin with.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> @_reckful_, I'm beginning to be reminded of why I dislike debating with you. You use a strategy that involves attempting to discredit your interlocutor in order to show the weakness of their side of the argument, and then you proceed to build up your side of the argument in order to prove the point you are making. Your approach to debate is like a military general waging a war. You are playing hard ball and not being very friendly at all.
> 
> Maybe you need to step back, tone it down a bit, and be more willing to ask questions. Engage in more of a dialectic rather than a rhetoric. Give me the opportunity to explain myself instead of just trying to nail me to the wall.
> 
> Can you do that or should I just ignore this topic and drop it? I'm not in the mood to fence with you. I dislike this extremely aggressive style of debate when it's not about something I am passionate in to begin with.


In reply to my post about hard science vs. soft science vs. pseudoscience, you said this:



Abraxas said:


> Also, I remain in disagreement with you about your proposed categorization of science into multiple forms of itself.
> 
> There is science, and there is not-science.
> ...
> I think dividing science into realms such as "soft" and "hard" provides an unnecessary distinction. If something is scientific, then it is scientific. If it is not, then it is not.



And you'd earlier told us where you thought the MBTI belonged in that regard:



Abraxas said:


> The bottom line here is that MBTI, in my opinion, is not legitimate in any way, and should not be taken seriously by anyone who understands the first thing about typology until more research is done that proves either it's theoretical validity or shows empirically that it is more reliable than other similar methods.
> 
> It is, for all intents and purposes, one step removed from astrology at this point. It serves basically the same role in people's lives, giving them some playful way to talk about themselves and pretend they are being insightful and wise. It is, at worst, _irresponsible and malicious_ - feeding on the insecurities of the population in order to turn a buck and publish books.



And now you're saying:



Abraxas said:


> I'm not rejecting soft-science as "not-science" and never was. You were putting those words in my mouth because you failed to ask me to explain myself. I'm rejecting the need for a distinction between one form of science and any other form of it.



I'm happy to let the other readers of this thread decide whether I was "putting words in your mouth" (instead of "asking you to explain yourself") when I said your characterization of the MBTI as "one step removed from astrology" and "not legitimate in any way" involved, as I put it, attempting to "impose a black-and-white distinction in an area where the real world involves multiple shades of gray."

In any case, anytime anybody's reply to you indicates that somebody took you the wrong way, you're always free to explain yourself without the need for the other person to "ask you to explain yourself."

As for your comparison of my posts to a "military general waging a war": I'm also happy to let the other thread readers decide whether a poster who characterizes the MBTI as "not legitimate in any way," and something that "should not be taken seriously by anyone who understands the first thing about typology" — which means, of course, that your pal reckful must not "understand the first thing about typology" — and a typology that "is, at worst, _irresponsible and malicious_ - feeding on the insecurities of the population in order to turn a buck and publish books" is a poster who ought to be disapprovingly accusing other posters of composing their posts like a "military general waging a war."


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

reckful said:


> As for your comparison of my posts to a "military general waging a war": I'm also happy to let the other thread readers decide whether a poster who characterizes the MBTI as "not legitimate in any way," and something that "should not be taken seriously by anyone who understands the first thing about typololgy" — which means, of course, that your pal reckful must not "understand the first thing about typology" — and a typology that "is, at worst, _irresponsible and malicious_ - feeding on the insecurities of the population in order to turn a buck and publish books" is a poster who ought to be disapprovingly accusing other posters of composing their posts like a "military general waging a war."


I will admit this is hypocritical of me, and apologize for being a hypocrite.

However, I do not redact my opinion, because who I am has nothing to do with the legitimacy of my statement. To try and discredit my statement on account of my own behavior would be an ad hominem by definition.

MBTI is irresponsible and unscientific. Those who take it seriously, including you, have some deep confusions about typology (and apparently science itself) in my opinion, and I stand by that opinion as I did before in our previous debate.

Furthermore, I have never - and this is the last time I will make this statement because I do so hate to have to repeat myself to you again and again - used the term "soft-science" to describe _anything._ *You are the one making that distinction, not me.* Quite literally, I have never used that term to describe anything _in my entire life._ The very first time I read about it I disagreed with it on principal, and have henceforth never even imagined it as a distinction worth a bother. I simply include "soft-science" in "science" and drop the pointless labels.

There is science, and not-science. "Soft-science" is not "not-science" - it is science, plain and simple. The need to distinguish it from "hard-science" is not necessary in my opinion. If a thing is scientific, then it is. Period. So-called "soft-science" *is science, plain and simple.*


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> There is science, and not-science. "Soft-science" is not "not-science" - it is science, plain and simple. The need to distinguish it from "hard-science" is not necessary in my opinion. If a thing is scientific, then it is. Period. So-called "soft-science" *is science, plain and simple.*


As I noted in that other thread, the hard sciences are considered "hard" (by comparison with the soft sciences) because there are, in fact, various _scientific standards_ that apply to them that are widely viewed as being too strict to apply (at least to the same degree) to the softer sciences — with the most striking example arguably being the standard of _falsifiability_. Many aspects of the softer sciences involve "knowledge" that can't be used to make the sorts of this-will-be-the-result-100%-of-the-time _predictions_ that can be made with respect to phenomena governed by the physical laws that make up much of the so-called "hard sciences."


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

reckful said:


> As I noted in that other thread, the hard sciences are considered "hard" (by comparison with the soft sciences) because there are, in fact, various _scientific standards_ that apply to them that are widely viewed as being too strict to apply (at least to the same degree) to the softer sciences — with the most striking example arguably being the standard of _falsifiability_. Many aspects of the softer sciences involve "knowledge" that can't be used to make the sorts of this-will-be-the-result-100%-of-the-time _predictions_ that can be made with respect to phenomena governed by the physical laws that make up much of the so-called "hard sciences."


I don't believe the label is necessary. We can have different standards for different specific studies. We don't need to label them "hard" and "soft." We can have different expectations as well. We don't need the labels. They don't serve a necessary purpose. Now you have all this nonsense in philosophy of science classes with students and teachers debating about what belongs in what category. It's stupid. Have you taken a course in it and you just never experienced this nonsense first-hand? I'm wondering if you just read about it in a book and have merely a conceptual understanding of the principal, or you actually understand the state of the discipline from experience as a consequence of this institutionalized way of looking at science.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> I don't believe the label is necessary. We can have different standards for different specific studies. We don't need to label them "hard" and "soft." We can have different expectations as well. We don't need the labels. They don't serve a necessary purpose. Now you have all this nonsense in philosophy of science classes with students and teachers debating about what belongs in what category. It's stupid. Have you taken a course in it and you just never experienced this nonsense first-hand? I'm wondering if you just read about it in a book and have merely a conceptual understanding of the principal, or you actually understand the state of the discipline from experience as a consequence of this institutionalized way of looking at science.


I don't have much interest in all the different principles and categorization possibilities involved.

When somebody compares the MBTI to astrology, or says things like (and this is you, from that other thread) personality psychology either involves "*physical behavior* observable in nature" or it's just "supernatural speculation," I'm always inclined to note that it just ain't that simple.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

reckful said:


> I don't have much interest in all the different principles and categorization possibilities involved.
> 
> When somebody compares the MBTI to astrology, or says things like (and this is you, from that other thread) personality psychology either involves "*physical behavior* observable in nature" or it's just "supernatural speculation," then I'm always inclined to note that it just ain't that simple.


Which is why I apologized.

However, I am a materialist. So at the end of the day, if we are talking about reality, we are talking about something material. If we are not talking about something material, then we are not talking about reality. And if we are talking about something material, then we can describe how it behaves. If we are trying to formulate a conceptualization about a conceptualization, that is not talking about anything real, it is just playing around with words and ideas. If we are trying to formulate an explanation for some observable phenomenon, then we are discussing behavior.

If you want to talk about how people think and cogitate using nothing but terms and ideas that aren't describing any physical behavior, go ahead. You're not discussing anything real. People do think, but what _is_ a thought in materialistic terms? Does it have any _reality_ in that it is made up of anything material like salt or iron? No. "Thought" itself is made up of ideas, which are made up of ideas - and at some point, it has to connect to something physical, something material, something _real._ And when it does, we are then discussing behavior, because all things in nature exhibit behavior. It seems as if you want to include concepts and ideas in the realm of the "real" instead of acknowledging the difference between _things_ that exhibit behavior, and _ideas about things_. Ideas do not exhibit behavior because they have no casual power. Things cause ideas, it's not the other way around in my opinion. An idea doesn't _cause_ a material/physical thing to happen or exist. Physical/material things cause other physical/material things to happen or exist.

So when I say "supernatural" I was was being derogatory and offensive. It is for that which I apologize, it was rude and inflammatory on purpose. I did not mean to imply that all personality psychology was supernatural, but that some of it was purely conceptual and not "real" in the sense of being about behavior. Some of it does, however, border on being supernatural when people start using it to explain physical behavior in a way that provides no legitimate physical behavior as evidence. In other words, when it is not linking one physical behavior to another physical behavior. Ideas are meant to be the bridge between one observation of nature to another. Even if that bridge is made up of many smaller bridges from one idea to another, at some point, it needs to connect back to something tangible. And when it finally does, if I try to cross that bridge and end up in some magical land that makes no sense to me, I'm inclined to call that bridge "supernatural speculation."


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> I am a materialist. So at the end of the day, if we are talking about reality, we are talking about something material. If we are not talking about something material, then we are not talking about reality. And if we are talking about something material, then we can describe how it behaves. If we are trying to formulate a conceptualization about a conceptualization, that is not talking about anything real, it is just playing around with words and ideas. If we are trying to formulate an explanation for some observable phenomenon, then we are discussing behavior.
> 
> *If you want to talk about how people think and cogitate using nothing but terms and ideas that aren't describing any physical behavior, go ahead. You're not discussing anything real.* People do think, but what _is_ a thought in materialistic terms? Does it have any _reality_ in that it is made up of anything material like salt or iron? No. "Thought" itself is made up of ideas, which are made up of ideas - and at some point, it has to connect to something physical, something material, something _real._ And when it does, we are then discussing behavior, because all things in nature exhibit behavior. It seems as if you want to include concepts and ideas in the realm of the "real" instead of acknowledging the difference between _things_ that exhibit behavior, and _ideas about things_. *Ideas do not exhibit behavior because they have no casual power. Things cause ideas, it's not the other way around in my opinion. An idea doesn't cause a material/physical thing to happen or exist. Physical/material things cause other physical/material things to happen or exist.*
> 
> So when I say "supernatural" I was was being derogatory and offensive. It is for that which I apologize, it was rude and inflammatory on purpose. I did not mean to imply that all personality psychology was supernatural, but that some of it was purely conceptual and not "real" in the sense of being about behavior. Some of it does, however, border on being supernatural when people start using it to explain physical behavior in a way that provides no legitimate physical behavior as evidence. In other words, when it is not linking one physical behavior to another physical behavior. Ideas are meant to be the bridge between one observation of nature to another. Even if that bridge is made up of many smaller bridges from one idea to another, at some point, it needs to connect back to something tangible. And when it finally does, if I try to cross that bridge and end up in some magical land that makes no sense to me, I'm inclined to call that bridge "supernatural speculation."



You say, "Ideas do not exhibit behavior because they have no casual power. Things cause ideas, it's not the other way around."

Suppose there are — for evolutionary reasons we may never fully understand — two hard-wired human temperament dimensions that we call S/N and J/P, and the corresponding preferences are much more often alike in identical twins raised apart than in people who are less genetically similar. And suppose that both dimensions contribute to a person's gut-level attitude toward novelty and change, with SJs (in particular) tending to have a hard-wired _aversion_ to changes and new things and NPs (in particular) tending to have a hard-wired _attraction_ to changes and new things.

And suppose that _both_ SJs and NPs are capable, depending on any number of non-temperamental contributing factors in any given circumstance, to either accept or reject change — but that, all other things being equal, the SJ will reject proposed changes substantially more often than the NP because of the contribution that the temperamental aversion makes to the decision.

Is the SJ's genetically-rooted (at least in part) aversion to change not a "real thing"? Especially given the twin data, do we really need to be able to somehow _physically observe_ the SJ-ness and NP-ness and aversion/attraction to change (by way of, e.g., some kind of brain scan) to know whether it's a "real thing"?

And besides being a real thing, is the SJ's hard-wired aversion to change not something that has "causal power" in terms of the resulting behavior — notwithstanding that it's complicated because there are also other causal factors at work?

And if the primary way that the hard-wired aversion to change accomplishes its causal impact on the SJ's behavior is by way of the SJ's attitudes/ideas/thoughts along the lines of "the old, established ways are generally the best," and "change most often leads to disaster," etc., then why would you say that those "thoughts" and "ideas" are unreal, or lack causal power? It seems to me that they're a crucial part of the mechanism, and just as much a component of the relevant brain activity as the one-level-deeper temperamental aversion to change.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

reckful said:


> Is the SJ's genetically-rooted (at least in part) aversion to change not a "real thing"? Especially given the twin data, do we really need to be able to somehow _physically observe_ the SJ-ness and NP-ness and aversion/attraction to change (by way of, e.g., some kind of brain scan) to know whether it's a "real thing"?


No. The real thing is the observed behavior we label as a disposition. The disposition is conceptual, but the behavior we observe indicating it is real. The genetic differences are not real, but the genes themselves determining the conceptual existence of a difference are real. As I said, salt and iron are real. The difference between salt and iron is not. Distinctions _can't_ be real in the sense of a distinction itself being "made of" matter and energy. Distinctions and definitions are always conceptual, not real in the sense I am getting at. But, they are useful because they point us in the right direction, and with enough evidence, we can be reasonable and justify our confidence.



reckful said:


> And besides being a real thing, is the SJ's hard-wired aversion to change not something that has "causal power" in terms of the resulting behavior — notwithstanding that it's complicated because there are also other causal factors at work?


The hard-wired aversion has no casual power. What has causal power is gravity, heat, the human body, the brain, cells, organs, matter and energy, things like that. Physical forces and physical things.

You could, however, define the SJ's hard-wired aversion to change as a physical force or physical thing exerting it's influence on the behavior of the SJ's brain and thus it's body, in this case it's genes, which in turn are part of other physical systems. A biological theory of personality, essentially.


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## Meadow (Sep 11, 2012)

I don't think Big 5 and MBTI are similar in some important aspects. Big 5 has continuums, MBTI has dichotomies. Someone can be in the middle of a Big 5 continuum, MBTI forces a choice and requires the belief that one side of the dichotomy be unconscious, with no proof that it's so. Even if the test result is 50/50, one side of the dichotomy could be dominant and the other side the most unconscious. MBTI also divides each function into introversion and extroversion even though, for example, there is no proof that the function Ne spends more time outside the mind than Ni. From Gifts Differing, from the chapter The Extraversion-Introversion Preference: "The introvert's main interests are in the inner world of concepts and ideas, while the extravert is more involved with the outer world of people and things." Per MBTI's I/E definitions, because both Ne and Ni spring from the outer world then go into concepts and ideas, both are potentially either more introverted or extroverted activities. 

I'd choose Big 5 as the superior method if it didn't represent each factor as equally positive/negative and then call one, as an example, "neuroticism." At least MBTI shows each choice in an equally positive and negative light.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

@_reckful_,

Here is actually a useful image I think explains my position.











And some links.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminative_materialism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviourism


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Meadow said:


> I don't think Big 5 and MBTI are similar in some important aspects. Big 5 has continuums, MBTI has dichotomies. Someone can be in the middle of a Big 5 continuum, MBTI forces a choice and requires the belief that one side of the dichotomy be unconscious, with no proof that it's so. Even if the test result is 50/50, one side of the dichotomy could be dominant and the other side the most unconscious. MBTI also divides each function into introversion and extroversion even though, for example, there is no proof that the function Ne spends more time outside the mind than Ni. From Gifts Differing, from the chapter The Extraversion-Introversion Preference: "The introvert's main interests are in the inner world of concepts and ideas, while the extravert is more involved with the outer world of people and things." Per MBTI's I/E definitions, because both Ne and Ni spring from the outer world then go into concepts and ideas, both are potentially more introverted than extroverted activities.
> 
> I'd choose Big 5 as the superior method if it didn't represent each factor as equally positive/negative and then call one, as an example, "neuroticism." At least MBTI shows each choice in an equally positive and negative light.


The idea that "Big 5 has continuums, MBTI has dichotomies" is mostly wrong. As noted in my previous posts in this thread (with linked articles), the MBTI dichotomies appear to be tapping into four of the Big Five dimensions, and whatever kind of distributions those actual underlying human dimensions turn out to exhibit will be _the same_ for both typologies. Jung himself said that more people were in the middle on E/I than were significantly extraverted or introverted, and Myers allowed for middleness on all four dimensions. It's true that Myers also thought it was possible that there might turn out to be some kind of meaningful middle discontinuity on one or more of the dimensions, but the second edition of the MBTI Manual (which she co-authored) noted that the evidence for that kind of discontinuity was scanty at best — and, as I understand it, most of the data that's been gathered since points more toward normal distributions than discontinuous dichotomies.

You talk about what the MBTI does to each "function" but, as also explained in my previous posts (and the posts they link to, and especially this one), the MBTI has really been centered around the dichotomies from the very beginning. When I compare the MBTI and the Big Five, I'm talking about the MBTI dichotomies, which have a lot of respectable scientific support behind them, and not the "cognitive functions," which don't.

I'm with you when it comes to preferring the MBTI's both-sides-are-equally-OK perspective on the two sides of each dimension to the Big Five's tendency (at least in some cases) to treat one side as the superior side.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Abraxas said:


> No. The real thing is the observed behavior we label as a disposition. The disposition is conceptual, but the behavior we observe indicating it is real. The genetic differences are not real, but the genes themselves determining the conceptual existence of a difference are real. As I said, salt and iron are real. The difference between salt and iron is not. Distinctions _can't_ be real in the sense of a distinction itself being "made of" matter and energy. Distinctions and definitions are always conceptual, not real in the sense I am getting at. But, they are useful because they point us in the right direction, and with enough evidence, we can be reasonable and justify our confidence.
> 
> 
> *The hard-wired aversion has no casual power. What has causal power is gravity, heat, the human body, the brain, cells, organs, matter and energy, things like that. Physical forces and physical things.*
> ...


I don't really understand how you can consider yourself a materialist and at the same time talk as if the SJ's "hard-wired aversion" (and the thoughts that result) are somehow immaterial and non-physical — like the classic "ghost in the machine" that's associated with the _non_-materialist camp.

"You could," you note, "define the SJ's hard-wired aversion to change as a physical force or physical thing exerting its influence on the behavior of the SJ's brain." Um, yeah, you certainly could, right? And why wouldn't you view it that way? If you're a materialist, it couldn't very well be anything else, right?

So if that's what it is, and if the SJ's resulting "thoughts" must also be physical things in the brain — because there ain't no ghost in there, right? — then why would you say that those physical things aren't "real" or can't have "causal power"?

And if we know from twin studies that the aversion to change is a genetically hard-wired thing, but we don't yet have the ability to somehow physically see it in a brain scan, why doesn't measuring it (albeit imperfectly) by way of, e.g., self-assessment tests like the MBTI put us in a more knowledgeable place than we would be if we just threw up our hands and said — in black-and-white fashion — nope, sorry, unless it's something we can see in a brain scan, we need to treat it like it doesn't exist?


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

reckful said:


> I don't really understand how you can consider yourself a materialist and at the same time talk as if the SJ's "hard-wired aversion" (and the thoughts that result) are somehow immaterial and non-physical


"hard-wired aversion" is just a label. The label isn't real, unless you're talking about actual labels that we physically put on things, like stick-ems or something.

Since you seem to just want to argue over semantics, I'm going to ignore this debate now. I've completely lost interest.

I brought in several people I know to read this conversation we just had and they seem to get both the points you made, and my responses, and they seemed to have no difficulty understanding what I'm trying to say. Under advisement, this is just a waste of my time. I'm inclined to agree, and encourage any other viewers reading this thread who haven't already drawn their own conclusions to just walk away from this train wreck.


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## Meadow (Sep 11, 2012)

reckful said:


> The idea that "Big 5 has continuums, MBTI has dichotomies" is mostly wrong. As noted in my previous posts in this thread (with linked articles), the MBTI dichotomies appear to be tapping into four of the Big Five dimensions, and whatever kind of distributions those actual underlying human dimensions turn out to exhibit will be _the same_ for both typologies. Jung himself said that more people were in the middle on E/I than were significantly extraverted or introverted, and Myers allowed for middleness on all four dimensions. It's true that Myers also thought it was possible that there might turn out to be some kind of meaningful middle discontinuity on one or more of the dimensions, but the second edition of the MBTI Manual (which she co-authored) noted that the evidence for that kind of discontinuity was scanty at best — and, as I understand it, most of the data that's been gathered since points more toward normal distributions than discontinuous dichotomies.
> 
> You talk about what the MBTI does to each "function" but, as also explained in my previous posts (and the posts they link to, and especially this one), the MBTI has really been centered around the dichotomies from the very beginning. When I compare the MBTI and the Big Five, I'm talking about the MBTI dichotomies, which have a lot of respectable scientific support behind them, and not the "cognitive functions," which don't.
> 
> I'm with you when it comes to preferring the MBTI's both-sides-are-equally-OK perspective on the two sides of each dimension to the Big Five's tendency (at least in some cases) to treat one side as the superior side.


With a google search of Big 5 and MBTI, Big 5 is referred to as a continuum and MBTI is referred to, either implied or outright, as a dichotomy. From my experience and from discussing the issue with a relative/psychologist, when a Big 5 test is given the person isn't labeled with 5 letters, rather where someone tests on the continuum is an inherent part of the way the person is treated. For example, someone on the far side of neuroticism would have a different plan of recovery than someone in the middle. Once the MBTI test is given, from that point on their actual score is discarded and the dichotomies are all that are referred to. So from that respect, Big 5 is treated more as a continuum, MBTI as a dichotomy. Since I'm not an expert, if what I've read on the internet and have been told is wrong, then you're likely correct, they're both dichotomous. And yeah, sorry, I haven't read your links since I haven't had much time recently, so maybe I should.

I agree that the underlying human dimensions seem to be the same for each method, they just treat them differently in that Big 5 has them stand alone and MBTI has add ons, such as type dynamics and MBTI's, not Jung's, version of functions, which though they might be accurate, I believe might be mislabeled with regard to introversion and extroversion. I didn't mean to say you were mistaken when it comes to comparing the categories of the two methods, just that there are differences that need to be discarded, which aren't typically, in order to have a good comparison.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Meadow said:


> With a google search of Big 5 and MBTI, Big 5 is referred to as a continuum and MBTI is referred to, either implied or outright, as a dichotomy. From my experience and from discussing the issue with a relative/psychologist, when a Big 5 test is given the person isn't labeled with 5 letters, rather where someone tests on the continuum is an inherent part of the way the person is treated. For example, someone on the far side of neuroticism would have a different plan of recovery than someone in the middle. Once the MBTI test is given, from that point on their actual score is discarded and the dichotomies are all that are referred to. So from that respect, Big 5 is treated more as a continuum, MBTI as a dichotomy. Since I'm not an expert, if what I've read on the internet and have been told is wrong, then you're likely correct, they're both dichotomous. And yeah, sorry, I haven't read your links since I haven't had much time recently, so maybe I should.


It sounds like you may be under the impression that "dichotomy" is a word with a definite meaning, and that that meaning necessarily includes the idea that there's an empty middle zone, but that's really not the case. As I recently explained in another thread:



reckful said:


> The idea of a "dichotomous" scale can mean somewhat different things, depending on who's using the term, but I'd say the principal defining feature of a _dichotomous_ scale involves neither the shape of the distribution curve nor whether there's some kind of empty zone in the middle, but rather whether it's a scale where the 0 goes in the middle (or at least somewhere midstream), and the people to the left of the 0 have more and more (as you move left) of something (or some cluster of things) and the people to the right of the 0 have more and more (as you move right) of something (or some cluster of things) that can meaningfully be said to be the _opposite_ of the stuff on the left side. As I understand it, the history of personality psychology has mostly involved _non-dichotomous_ scales, where the 0 is located at the left end and the scale simply measures whether a person has more or less of something — and I think reasonable people can disagree about the extent to which the Big Five characterizes its dimensions in dichotomous or non-dichotomous terms. Neuroticism sounds to me like a non-dichotomous scale, and I'd say most of the Agreeableness descriptions I've seen make it sound more like a unidimensional cluster of people-oriented stuff that a person simply has more or less of — without there being an "opposite" side of the scale where, as you move in that direction, people have more and more of some other thing.
> 
> Jung certainly viewed E/I, S/N and T/F in dichotomous terms — and he arguably viewed J/P that way as well, assuming you associate J/P with Jung's "rational" and "irrational" types (J-doms and P-doms). As for me, I've always thought the dichotomous (mirror-image) quality of the MBTI dimensions is part of what makes them so fascinating — not to mention what makes them the source of (as Jung noted) so many hard-to-bridge divides between people of different types. But that said, and going back to a time well before I'd thought about half the possible sources of T/F messiness I've talked about in this post, I've long wondered about whether it really made sense to view T and F as "opposites" to the same degree that E/I, S/N and J/P (at least arguably) are.



In any case, though, regardless of what any particular MBTI person's _theoretical_ position might be on the issue of whether it's possible to be in the middle on any of the dimensions, what will matter in the end is what the facts turn out to be — and, to the extent that the MBTI does a good job of characterizing what personality characteristics tend to be associated with any preference, its value in that regard certainly doesn't hinge on what the exact shape of the distribution curve turns out to be. And similarly with the Big Five: if most Big Five theorists posit a continuum but it turns out that one or more of the dimensions actually has an empty middle zone, that won't have any significant negative impact with respect to the worth of all the aspects of that dimension that the Big Five descriptions got right.


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## chaoticbrain (May 5, 2012)

Is Dario nardi's work not evidence of the functions ? Not to mention CT which has very consistent visual signals for what each types mannerisms/expressions look like. Regardless what evidence is there for MBTI ?


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

chaoticbrain said:


> Is Dario nardi's work not evidence of the functions ? Not to mention CT which has very consistent visual signals for what each types mannerisms/expressions look like. Regardless what evidence is there for MBTI ?


I haven't read his book but, as I understand it (from people who have), even Dario Nardi doesn't claim that his study was anything more than a tentative, exploratory one. It involved 60 subjects and didn't come close to providing sufficient data to respectably validate any of the functions. I've heard he's hoping to get funding for more studies but, as I understand it, Neuroscience of Personality hasn't received much serious attention (and Nardi's left UCLA), so maybe don't hold your breath.

I wish him luck, but I think he's working with a flawed framework.

Like the Big Five, the MBTI _dichotomies_ have decades of studies behind them. For more on that, see this post; and for more on the differences between hard sciences, soft sciences and pseudosciences, see this post and the posts it links to.


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## IDontThinkSo (Aug 24, 2011)

MadHattress said:


> Thoughts?


The MBTI is flawed, though the Jungian functions aren't (except that N is - imo - more a direction than a condition).

E/I and J/P scales are wrong, a single J/P scale cannot evaluate the function/orientation balance and put shadow processes back to their real place. Consequently, the E/I scale won't take all processes on board either.. 

Last but not least, all 16 types are wrong.

There's still a simple dynamic that limits the number of types to 64. Here are the 4 "ENTPs" http://personalitycafe.com/blogs/idontthinkso/four-entps-what-mbti-wont-tell-you-14242/


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

IDontThinkSo said:


> The MBTI is flawed, though the Jungian functions aren't (except that N is - imo - more a direction than a condition).


When you refer to the "Jungian functions," do you mean the functions as Jung conceived them, or the so-called "Jungian functions" that reflect Myers' substantial changes to Jung and have been adjusted to more or less match the 16 MBTI types?

For example, virtually all the function-centric MBTI theorists today (Thomson, Berens, Nardi, etc.) work with a conception of introverted sensation that matches up pretty well with MBTI SJs but bears almost no resemblance to what Jung called "introverted sensation." Do you think Jung's original concept shouldn't have been changed and, if so, do you think Jung's description of the introverted sensation type corresponds reasonably well to a substantial percentage of the adult population?


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## Gravitas (May 27, 2010)

IDontThinkSo said:


> The MBTI is flawed, though the Jungian functions aren't (except that N is - imo - more a direction than a condition).
> 
> E/I and J/P scales are wrong, a single J/P scale cannot evaluate the function/orientation balance and put shadow processes back to their real place. Consequently, the E/I scale won't take all processes on board either..
> 
> ...


I agree with you on the function/orientation balance.. there is little to no factual basis for the hierarchical order of the functions. 

Yet, I dont quite understand the '64 types' referenced in the link, versus.. say 1024 if you're going to take it to its furthest extent. For instance, wouldnt I be a N>E>P>T? 

hahaha.. all it needs is an I


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## Gravitas (May 27, 2010)

reckful said:


> I wish him luck, but I think he's working with a flawed framework.


You think that function-centric MBTI theory is flawed? Isnt it just semantics? A 'function centric' just thinks of me as an Ne Ti, versus thinking of me as an ENTP.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Gravitas said:


> You think that function-centric MBTI theory is flawed? Isnt it just semantics? A 'function centric' just thinks of me as an Ne Ti, versus thinking of me as an ENTP.


I'd say there are lots of differences, as well as the fact that the functions are most commonly embedded in a modern model — e.g., INTJ = Ni-Te-Fi-Se — that is non-Jungian in major respects, hasn't stood up well in the limited number of attempts that have been made to validate it, and tends to downplay and/or all but ignore the things that N's have in common and NFs have in common and INs have in common and so on.

As one example of a difference associated with the two perspectives, a dichotomy-centric person (like me) is led to expect an INTJ and an INTP to have more in common with each other than either is likely to have with most of the other types, while function-centric people are often heard to exclaim that they can't understand how someone could be confused about whether they're an INTJ or an INTP because _look at the functions_. And meanwhile, at the factual (albeit anecdotal) level, I'm here to tell you that "Am I INTJ or INTP?" is by far the most common dilemma encountered in type-me threads at INTJforum.

If you're looking for a more complete explanation for why I favor the dichotomies over the functions — and expect the functions are on their way out — you'll find it in this long INTJforum post.


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## Erbse (Oct 15, 2010)

reckful said:


> [...]


For what it is worth, after having read Jung on "Introverted Thinking" there wasn't any doubt left in regards to his accurate display of my nature.

Chances are many people on here are mistyped to begin with, as that is the flaw with any self-assessment where the user gets to pick what he wants to be and makes it try to fit like a diehard. Aside from that you get a lot of unhealthy idividuals as representation of their type, caught in their cognitive (for what is worth) rigidness (prison; in my mind anyway) while the balanced perhaps make up only a very minority aside of mistypes and unhealthy folks.

As such you've broad spectrum of what specific cognitive functions may present themselves as and Jung has kept them rather short. Additionally, and only naturally, Jung, too, could have only defined the other functions through his own dominant, as such never truly having an insight as a healthy owner of any function in question that wasn't his own. All in all however I think he's done a tremendous job, though.

Still, these days I rather not get into these things with others anymore, as I find the Jung's functions, or ideas of said should remain within his self-build framework, as that's where they make the most sense and shine the most. It is only natural that things, when taken out of context often times lose their deeper meaning or usefulness as a whole.

As Jung's grand goal was to access the state of 'self' he did a magnificient job at creating a framework basing on universal balance, all while including the human psyche in it as well and giving us tools to get there, that's if we want anyway. Big 5, MBTI, Socionics and probably most other typologies don't do much for an indepth peace of the individual or individuation as such but stereotype (arguably superficial) on a not completely false level - at least I've never got the impression that those things truly wanted to help me on a level which I was digging for.

Now, this isn't to say I'm discrediting anything or anyone, but merely some corner points which may be worth someone's consideration. Invitabely most systems probably have their use and viability depedent on the angle you take on them and what you're trying to accomplish.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Erbse said:


> For what it is worth, after having read Jung on "Introverted Thinking" there wasn't any doubt left in regards to his accurate display of my nature.


In describing Ti, Jung was describing it as he thought it tended to manifest in Ti-doms and, contrary to Myers, Jung thought of J-doms (the "rational types") as the kinds of people who nowadays test J when they take the MBTI.

If you're an MBTI P, then I think Jung would have said your lead "perceiving function" (S or N) was your dominant function. Jung's Ti-doms are really the MBTI I_TJs — and especially INTJs, since Jung actually put much of the concrete/abstract component of (the modern view of) S/N in his conception of E/I.

All that said, though, and as well illustrated by the long (600-post) thread at INTJforum devoted to results on Nardi's cognitive functions test, _all_ INTs tend to relate pretty strongly to typical Ti descriptions, notwithstanding the claim that INTJs are really "Te types" (and, if you're interested, you can read more about that in this post and this post).

Without doing any post-stalking, I'd venture to say that if you tend to come out N (and P) on the official MBTI and other dichotomy-based MBTI tests, my guess would be that you're probably a mistyped INTP. And in case you've bought into the myth that Berens and others were peddling about ISTPs having a tendency to mistype as N's, when that concept got put to the test, it failed miserably. The study showed that an STP is less likely to get mistyped on S/N than on any of the other dimensions and, in general, that N's mistype as S's substantially more often than S's mistype as N's.

Whenever I encounter an internet forumite who tests as an N on the official MBTI and/or most dichotomy-based MBTI tests but has concluded they're ISTP based on _cognitive functions analysis_, I assume the odds are high I'm dealing with a mistyped N.

My $0.02.


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## IDontThinkSo (Aug 24, 2011)

reckful said:


> When you refer to the "Jungian functions," do you mean the functions as Jung conceived them, or the so-called "Jungian functions" that reflect Myers' substantial changes to Jung and have been adjusted to more or less match the 16 MBTI types?
> 
> For example, virtually all the function-centric MBTI theorists today (Thomson, Berens, Nardi, etc.) work with a conception of introverted sensation that matches up pretty well with MBTI SJs but bears almost no resemblance to what Jung called "introverted sensation." Do you think Jung's original concept shouldn't have been changed and, if so, do you think Jung's description of the introverted sensation type corresponds reasonably well to a substantial percentage of the adult population?


I mean the basic concept, abstract/concrete thinking, logical/emotional judgment. Not the explanation.. I think Jung missed some parts of the big picture and though I doubt I grasped it myself, here's my current $0.02 ..

SI describes two different things : cognition - protection. Cognitions are all what we learn without/before understanding it.. a color, a sound, a word, a book. It doesn't require for understanding to be known. Understanding = structure of cognitions and logical/emotional links. N = using those structures as new cognitions to build new cognitive structures, N is metacognitive. NI is an abstraction of SI, it protects the old cognitions by creating new confirmation-biased cognitions.. Some kind of conditional-perfect-thinking, I guess you know what I mean.




Gravitas said:


> Yet, I dont quite understand the '64 types' referenced in the link, versus.. say 1024 if you're going to take it to its furthest extent. For instance, wouldnt I be a N>E>P>T?




64 types since there is only one variable for each preference. 


With NE dom, the variable is the NI/SE axis. NE literally means : "I love NE, I hate SI, and combinations are more or less bearable, depending on my function/orientation balance". So there are two subtypes of NE, NE>NI>SE>SI and NE>SE>NI>SI. In the end, each MBTI type contains 4 types = 64


Could you rightfully score N>E>P>T ? High preference for FI (low T), NI (low P despite the high FI), extroversion (despite the high FI/NI), well it doesn't follow from its premises.


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## thegirlcandance (Jul 29, 2009)

MadHattress said:


> My two cents is that, ultimately, I think that all personality theories are artificial constructs created to attempt to measure the human mind and personality, which aren't something that can always be empirically measured. So even though studies can't uncover evidence of cognitive functions and there certainly isn't a part of the brain devoted to a specific function, it's entirely possible that they do accurately measure something about cognitive processes.


Agreed. After doing a lot of study with this, I eventually realized that the cognitive functions that are described are very conceptual and abstract by nature. Because of this, the problem that is consistently run into is testing. I really don't think there's an MBTI test out there that actually produces a fairly low % error. To discover type, its easier to study it and read about each of the functions, how they surface, and what each general type can look like.

But yet, after all, isn't that what all of psychology ultimately is anyway? Its philosophy not science. The only "science" component is in psychiatry, medications, and "personality disorders" but even then it was the health insurance companies and psychotherapists that were the influence of creating such "disorders". The influence was more of creating a means of classification rather than any concrete valid research. For that reason, I see it as being very subjective. The chicken certainly came before the egg in this aspect.

I find it funny that you posted this article cause I saw another article a while back written by a lady who was comparing MBTI and Enneagram. She was trying to claim that MBTI has more "valid research", while Enneagram is very conceptual and harder to pinpoint. I kind of chuckled to myself reading that because I wasn't so sure where she was getting information to make those claims, as I've seen more people arguing that MBTI lacking validity due to the difficulty in creating a fairly adequate assessment.

Personally, I've felt that both MBTI and Enneagram take an equal amount of time to really figure out and understand your type preferences, with Enneagram possibly being a step harder. To some degree, I've found it to really be an intuitive knowing, while I also feel that a high level of self-awareness to really know and recognize it.... hence, the ultimate reason why assessment has such a high % error. Chances are if your taking the test, you're lacking the self-awareness to know your type. Yet if you already knew your type, then you wouldn't be taking the test.


That all being said, I know that these are adequate concepts that do truly exist, it's just a matter of framing them into the correct wording so that people best understand and recognize it in themselves. (And I say "know" rather than "believe" because I've seen it in action within myself with both MBTI and Enneagram... and belief implies doubt).


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

thegirlcandance said:


> I saw another article a while back written by a lady who was comparing MBTI and Enneagram. She was trying to claim that MBTI has more "valid research", while Enneagram is very conceptual and harder to pinpoint. I kind of chuckled to myself reading that because I wasn't so sure where she was getting information to make those claims, as I've seen more people arguing that MBTI lacking validity due to the difficulty in creating a fairly adequate assessment.


Yikes. As somebody once said, you're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts.

Like the Big Five, the MBTI now has decades of studies — albeit, like the Big Five, "soft scientific" studies — that provide respectable support for its reliability and validity. For more on that, see this post; and for more on the differences between hard sciences, soft sciences and pseudosciences, see this post and the posts it links to.


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## thegirlcandance (Jul 29, 2009)

reckful said:


> Yikes. As somebody once said, you're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts.


The irony is that, ultimately (I'm talking in a very broad big picture), even "facts" are heavily subjective.


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

thegirlcandance said:


> The irony is that, ultimately (I'm talking in a very broad big picture), even "facts" are heavily subjective.


Well, at this point, in my heavily subjective universe, you're just being silly. :tongue:


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## IDontThinkSo (Aug 24, 2011)

The sole purpose of Enneagram logic is to rationalize its predictions, the logic is inter-type, not intra-type, the scientific method cannot be applied due to lack of ... a real typology. lol

The Jungian typo is a scientific hypothesis, though the scientific method cannot be applied due to lack of experimental facilities.


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## thegirlcandance (Jul 29, 2009)

IDontThinkSo said:


> The sole purpose of Enneagram logic is to rationalize its predictions, the logic is inter-type, not intra-type, the scientific method cannot be applied due to lack of ... a real typology. lol
> 
> The Jungian typo is a scientific hypothesis, though the scientific method cannot be applied due to lack of experimental facilities.


I'm curious as to how you're seeing Enneagram as inter-type and not intra-type cause in terms of Enneagram I see it as being one of the same. Like, it is intertype, so therefore it is intratype.


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## thegirlcandance (Jul 29, 2009)

Erbse said:


> As such you've broad spectrum of what specific cognitive functions may present themselves as and Jung has kept them rather short. Additionally, and only naturally, Jung, too, could have only defined the other functions through his own dominant, as such never truly having an insight as a healthy owner of any function in question that wasn't his own. All in all however I think he's done a tremendous job, though.


Yes and that's the problem with most typologies. There has to be several people who write it in their own unique words of the functions in order to really get the point across to most of the population. I actually feel like that's why INFJs tend to be more likely to really get into MBTI and support it's theory because Isabell Briggs herself was an INFJ, so her descriptions would make most sense to other INFJs. I can't remember now which type Carl Jung was... or if anyone REALLY knows for that matter, but it would make the most sense that others of his type preferences would better understand his wording as well.



> Still, these days I rather not get into these things with others anymore, as I find the Jung's functions, or ideas of said should remain within his self-build framework, as that's where they make the most sense and shine the most. It is only natural that things, when taken out of context often times lose their deeper meaning or usefulness as a whole.
> 
> As Jung's grand goal was to access the state of 'self' he did a magnificient job at creating a framework basing on universal balance, all while including the human psyche in it as well and giving us tools to get there, that's if we want anyway. Big 5, MBTI, Socionics and probably most other typologies don't do much for an indepth peace of the individual or individuation as such but stereotype (arguably superficial) on a not completely false level - at least I've never got the impression that those things truly wanted to help me on a level which I was digging for.


Well, the trouble with any personality theory is that, well, we are humans and humans create stereotypes for themselves and others. In that regard, it can do more harm than good -- especially if its being used in a workplace when a manager tries to give assignments according to type rather than to simply better understand one's self and other people. Then it's just crossing the line into (what I call) "personality-ism", as similar to racism, sexism, etc.

Sometimes I'm not really fully sure where the benefit is of learning such systems. It's been a bit beneficial in learning how to best study or how to differentiate curriculum materials when I was teaching, but even that felt to some degree as a bit pointless. Yet, I have been drawn to it and have studied this extensively for some reason, so maybe there is some deeper benefit that I'm just not aware of yet.

That being said, I have found some more immediate benefit in learning Enneagram... and boy was it crazy to catch myself in my own irrational fixation(s) when reflecting upon relationship dynamics. Some work with it has made me wonder if the enneagram typology can help to make a person more aware of their own shadow (as described in Jung's version of the psyche).


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## Teybo (Sep 25, 2012)

thegirlcandance said:


> Yes and that's the problem with most typologies. There has to be several people who write it in their own unique words of the functions in order to really get the point across to most of the population. I actually feel like that's why INFJs tend to be more likely to really get into MBTI and support it's theory because Isabell Briggs herself was an INFJ, so her descriptions would make most sense to other INFJs. I can't remember now which type Carl Jung was... or if anyone REALLY knows for that matter, but it would make the most sense that others of his type preferences would better understand his wording as well.


Katharine Briggs identified as an INFJ. Isabel Myers -- Katherine's daughter and the principal creator of the MBTI including the test itself -- identified as an INFP. Jung's own type, at the time of his writing of Psychological Type, is probably most "accurately" stated as Ti-Ni-Fe-Se. The most faithful translation of this typing into MBTI is likely INTJ, given that Jung considered Ti dominants as having primarily Judging characteristics, rather than Perceiving characteristics as Myers asserts. I've seen others argue for INFJ and INTP as well. There's no disputing that he was an IN__ of some sort.


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## Erbse (Oct 15, 2010)

thegirlcandance said:


> Yes and that's the problem with most typologies. There has to be several people who write it in their own unique words of the functions in order to really get the point across to most of the population. I actually feel like that's why INFJs tend to be more likely to really get into MBTI and support it's theory because Isabell Briggs herself was an INFJ, so her descriptions would make most sense to other INFJs. I can't remember now which type Carl Jung was... or if anyone REALLY knows for that matter, but it would make the most sense that others of his type preferences would better understand his wording as well.


Personally, I quite absorb Jung for most part and have no struggle following him in most his tangents, for as long as it doesn't get too spiritual for my taste. All in all Ti seems like a reasonable guess to me, alternatively Ni maybe. As for his MBTI type, I couldn't care less really - point being, bluntly put, he and I seem to be on the save wavelength in terms of our understanding of the world in terms of cognition.



reckful said:


> In describing Ti, Jung was describing it as he thought it tended to manifest in Ti-doms and, contrary to Myers, Jung thought of J-doms (the "rational types") as the kinds of people who nowadays test J when they take the MBTI.
> 
> If you're an MBTI P, then I think Jung would have said your lead "perceiving function" (S or N) was your dominant function. Jung's Ti-doms are really the MBTI I_TJs — and especially INTJs, since Jung actually put much of the concrete/abstract component of (the modern view of) S/N in his conception of E/I.


I'm aware of the J/P flipping within the MBTI for introverts, but that's really their own fault, if anything. Then again, it's easy to understand when taking a look at the functions or more precisely having understood Jung in terms of rational vs. irrational.

Admittedly some awkward chosen words, as they hold a negative connotation and doesn't fly well with most people, as no one would like to be called 'an irrational'. 



> Without doing any post-stalking, I'd venture to say that if you tend to come out N (and P) on the official MBTI and other dichotomy-based MBTI tests, my guess would be that you're probably a mistyped INTP. And in case you've bought into the myth that Berens and others were peddling about ISTPs having a tendency to mistype as N's, when that concept got put to the test, it failed miserably. The study showed that an STP is less likely to get mistyped on S/N than on any of the other dimensions and, in general, that N's mistype as S's substantially more often than S's mistype as N's.


I've arrived as ISTP on these forums and made it my home for the early parts of my PerC times. However, I've long moved past MBTI and settled for Ti-Dom / Fe-Inferior, as such either INTP / ISTP. Perhaps INTP is more realistic than ISTP but as far as I'm concerned it's a moot point and not contributing to anything larger that'd serve me any good - as such I never bothered swapping.

As you may have noted I discarded the Aux and Tert, for good reasons on top of it. I often find myself pointing out that Jung explicitly noted that most people are *not* differentiated enough to fall into a type, by his systems' standard anyway. Additionally he's hardly said anything concerning a aux functions, let alone a tertiary. In regards to the aux he's also noted that it is *highly unlikely* that the aux would make it to a conscious state, if anything that spot is usually reserved for the dominant, differentiated function.

The conclusion to be drawn thus is, to me anyway, that A.) Many aren't differentiated in the first place. and B.) That it is extremely unlikely for anyone (or most anyway) to consciously experience their aux function. So from a Jungian perspective (which seems a lot more strict than MBTI as a result) many would most likely find themselves to be typeless.

Thus I've arrived at the conclusion to see MBTI more of temperamental system as well, rather than something set-in-stone - especially with its preset function order which often times is even taken as an hierarchal establishment. It's like a pseudo-sandbox that was handed to people so they can tinker around with it for the sake of it, but nothing that really serves any greater purpose than just that - running in circles chasing shadows arguing about hot steam where no real value is to be found, no matter how many laps you run. Alternatively that may never been its purpose but yet again mistaken by people and used to their own agenda, whatever that may be or they hope to accomplish with their function crusades.


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## IDontThinkSo (Aug 24, 2011)

thegirlcandance said:


> I'm curious as to how you're seeing Enneagram as inter-type and not intra-type cause in terms of Enneagram I see it as being one of the same. Like, it is intertype, so therefore it is intratype.


Describing how the types work together doesn't explain how they work. Why this geometry ? Why 9 types ? Where does they come from ? From 3 centers ? How does it makes sense from a cognitive standpoint ? Why are 5-6-7 the thinking center ? What about the directions of integration ? Why is 4 linked to 1 and 2 in such a way ? And what are the real definition for each types ? Most of them are contradictory.


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## MrShatter (Sep 28, 2010)

IDontThinkSo said:


> Describing how the types work together doesn't explain how they work. Why this geometry ? Why 9 types ? Where does they come from ? From 3 centers ? How does it makes sense from a cognitive standpoint ? Why are 5-6-7 the thinking center ? What about the directions of integration ? Why is 4 linked to 1 and 2 in such a way ? And what are the real definition for each types ? Most of them are contradictory.


It's really a whole wishy washy balling mesh. Much like the color wheel. The distinctions are human preference.

(8w9 vs 9w8 + subtypes + Cognitive functions + tri-type) 
It doesn't really begin or end anywhere. 
We've just found this aspect to the psyche and are organizing it accordingly.

Y'know humans & the number 3!... :laughing:

There is a correlation with the time perspectives, present, future, past.


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## IDontThinkSo (Aug 24, 2011)

Or the Tychonic system... 

damn my english is awful, look at all those outrageous mistakes, I'm ashamed :crazy:


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## thegirlcandance (Jul 29, 2009)

IDontThinkSo said:


> Describing how the types work together doesn't explain how they work. Why this geometry ? Why 9 types ? Where does they come from ? From 3 centers ? How does it makes sense from a cognitive standpoint ? Why are 5-6-7 the thinking center ? What about the directions of integration ? Why is 4 linked to 1 and 2 in such a way ? And what are the real definition for each types ? Most of them are contradictory.


The symbol comes from pythagorean theorem... which Pythagorus developed in 540 BC. Helen Palmer also references it to having had influence from the Sufi traditions as well, which is as old as 6,000 years ago. She talks about it more extensively and detail in the beginning of her book "The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and Others in Your Life".

The main differences is that enneagram has nothing to do with cognition, which is what makes it so different from MBTI or Jung's functions. And, realistically, why should it be? There are many more dimensions of ourselves than processing information and learning. There are emotions, thoughts, the shadow, and other aspects that are often stuffed back into our unconscious. After all, that is what psychological study has been gradually working towards understanding more of. The Enneagram is talking more about our habits... what is our common behavior patterns and how do we prevent ourselves from growing and evolving into better people, which is something that the MBTI lacks.

I don't fully understand all of it yet, because it's very in-depth and can be rather tedious and take a long time to really understand all the types and the various "layers" within it: wings, instinct variants, tritype, integration, etc. I don't really see the enneagram as contradictory, but rather a lack of really understanding the system by the critic due to lack of study.


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## IDontThinkSo (Aug 24, 2011)

thegirlcandance said:


> The main differences is that enneagram has nothing to do with cognition, which is what makes it so different from MBTI or Jung's functions. And, realistically, why should it be?



*cog·ni·tion* (k







n)_n._*1. *The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.
*2. *That which comes to be known, as through perception, reasoning, or intuition; knowledge.




I don't know what "the shadow" is, but everything else is cognitive - at least in this material universe of ours...



thegirlcandance said:


> There are many more dimensions of ourselves than processing information and learning. There are emotions, thoughts, the shadow, and other aspects that are often stuffed back into our unconscious. After all, that is what psychological study has been gradually working towards understanding more of. The Enneagram is talking more about our habits... what is our common behavior patterns and how do we prevent ourselves from growing and evolving into better people, which is something that the MBTI lacks.


True, the MBTI lacks.. well it lacks balls. The balls to admit the unacceptable ; some personalities, some preferences, some combinations are healthier than the others, some are open doors to wisdom while many others are beyond help and endangered by our evolution, along with their political, moral, philosophical stances. 



thegirlcandance said:


> I don't fully understand all of it yet, because it's very in-depth and can be rather tedious and take a long time to really understand all the types and the various "layers" within it: wings, instinct variants, tritype, integration, etc. I don't really see the enneagram as contradictory, but rather a lack of really understanding the system by the critic due to lack of study.


Those layers are purposely confusing and ambiguous, it's rather obvious. They can add an infinite amount of layers, it's not limited by a specific hypothesis. Someone doesn't fit ? Add a layer. Something doesn't work ? Add a layer. Add layers ad libitum.. until no one can understand that there's nothing to understand.


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## thegirlcandance (Jul 29, 2009)

IDontThinkSo said:


> *cog·ni·tion* (k
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I guess if it's all cognitive then medications have no effect on the brain then..:wink:
Look up Jungian psychology... or even as far as humanistic or integral psychology. It'll blow you away as to how much can be included psychologically in our material universe.




> Those layers are purposely confusing and ambiguous, it's rather obvious.


Everything is confusing if you haven't put forth the effort to understand it.


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## IDontThinkSo (Aug 24, 2011)

Unlike pills [wink back], confusion is an attribute of the idea, nothing is confusing but the perception of everything.

Whatever, the enneagram is a house of cards and circular reasonings, understanding its exact structure doesn't worth the trouble, in my opinion.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

Theories are like scientific poetry.

It's all about finding the right words to describe nature.

You see, art is as much a part of science as science is a part of art.

If you draw a house and say, "this is a picture of a bicycle," nobody will understand you.

However, if you draw a house and say, "this is a picture of a castle," only those who lack imagination will not understand you.


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## thegirlcandance (Jul 29, 2009)

Abraxas said:


> Theories are like scientific poetry.
> 
> It's all about finding the right words to describe nature.
> 
> ...


You could even go so far as to say that the MOST creative would understand if you drew a house and say "this is a picture of a bicycle" because they realize that words are only symbols.


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## Abraxas (May 28, 2011)

thegirlcandance said:


> You could even go so far as to say that the MOST creative would understand if you drew a house and say "this is a picture of a bicycle" because they realize that words are only symbols.


And then the artist goes, "what? No, it's a bicycle. IDIOT."

>A typical day on PerC.


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