# Enneagram, DISC, Interaction styles and social styles.



## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

So, I was sitting around this morning and I was reading a book on various social styles and interaction styles as a part of trying to figure out my enneagram core and fixes. This book integrated 4 social styles, amiable, expressive, analytical and driver with enneagram. Under analytical are enneagram 5 and 6, under driver are enneagram 3 and 8, under expressive are enneagrams 4 and 7 and under amiable are enneagrams 2 and 9. Enneagram one is located in the center of the map to indicate that ones are most “balanced” against all the different styles. 
From enneagram institute the short-list of the enneagrams are as follows:



The Reformer – rational, idealistic, principle, purposeful, self-controlled and perfectionistic.
The Helper – Caring, interpersonal, demonstrative, generous, people-pleasing and possessive.
The Achiever – Success oriented, pragmatic, adaptive, excelling, driven and image-concious.
The Individualist – The sensitive, withdrawn, expressive, dramatic, self-absorbed and isolated.
The Investigator – Intense, cerebral, perceptive, innovative, secretive, isolated.
The Loyalist – The committed, security-oriented, engaging, responsible, anxious and suspicious.
The Enthusiast – The busy, fun-loving, spontaneous, versatile, distractible and scattered.
The challenger - The powerful, dominating, self-confident, decisive, wilful and confrontational.
The peacemaker - easy-going, self-effacing, receptive, assuring, agreeable and complacent.

According to a 2010 post by @_Liontiger_, the MBTI enneagram correlation according to Personalitycafe data at that point was: 

Type 1: ISTJ, ENTJ, INTJ, ISTP, 
Type 2: ESFJ, ENFJ, ENFP, ESFP
Type 3: ESTJ, ENTJ
Type 4: INFP, INFJ, ISFJ, ISFP, ENFP
Type 5: INTP, INTJ, ISTP, ISTJ
Type 6: ISFJ, ESTJ, ISTJ, ESFP, ESFJ
Type 7: ENTP, ESTP, ENFP, ESFP
Type 8: ENTJ, ESTP, ENTP, ISTP
Type 9: ISFP, ESFP, INFP, ISTP

According to a study among 1500 members of the APT with a total of 964 respondents the data was then ran through an SRTT program developed by CAPT that calculated selection rations and identified the statistically significant ones: 









If we compare all 3 sources, @_mimesis_, @_Liontiger_ and the data from the table above the following is the result:










There are some obvious differences, so to Ocham the data, that which is not supported by all 3 sources is eliminated which leaves us with the final column. This gives us some data to eliminate options by, especially if combined with the percentages obtained from personalitycafe data. 









Based on this, if you’re confident in your JCF type, you can figure out your most likely enneagram options and eliminate those that do not fit. For instance, if you’re an ISTJ, you have an 86.74% chance of being a 1, 5, 6 or 9. 
Of course the trouble is that we cannot neglect the influence of tri-type and wings. For instance, you may have ISTJs who are actually type 6 (a type that correlates strongly with SJ in all 3 data sets) with a well-developed 5 wing, or who are type 1, with a 9 wing another type that correlates strongly with XSTJ. 

Integration patterns and disintegration patterns should also be taken into account as health and stress can influence your enneagram and JCF testing. 

*The Direction of Disintegration *
1-4-2-8-5-7-1-9-6-3-9
*The Direction of Integration *
1-7-5-8-2-4-1-9-3-6-9

As you can see from these levels a health ISTJ type 6, integrates to 9, and can thus come out as a 9, if the person is for instance an ISTJ type 6w5, 1w9, 2w1, you can see how this could potentially create havoc in a typing process. 

DISC integration 
For those who are unfamiliar with DISC; 










My reason for including DISC is that this is an attempt to “map” the enneagram to “most likely type”, social style and interaction style and DISC facilitates this through being mapped with Linda Berens interaction styles and social styles. This further facilitates mapping the enneagram and type to David Keirsey’s temperaments. 
Linda Berens has already compared Interaction styles, DISC and social styles as follows:









So to summarize: 



Chart the course (Berens) – Correlated with with the Melancholic Temperment (Keirsey) and the Analytical style. Correlated with DISC Conscientious in DISC.
In charge (Berens) – Correlated with Choleric (Keirsey) and the Driver style. Correlated with Dominance in DISC.
Get things going (Berens) – Correlated with the Sanguine (Keirsey) and the Expressive style. Correlated with Influence in DISC.
Behind the scenes (Berens) – Correlated with the Phlegmatic (Keirsey) and the Amiable style. Correlated with Steadiness in DISC.

That left me with;

Analytical – Chart the course – Melancholic – INFJ, INTJ, ISTJ, ISTP – C – Enneagram 6, 5. 

Amiable – Behind the scenes – Phlegmatic – INFP, INTP, ISFJ, ISFP – S – Enneagram 2, 4, 5, 9. 

Expressive – Get things going – Sanguine – ENFP, ENTP, ESFJ, ESFP- I – Enneagram 2, 7, 4, 3.

Driver – In charge – Choleric – ENFJ, ENTJ, ESTJ, ESTP – D – Enneagram – 1, 4, 3, 6, 7, 8.


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

If we group them according to Keirsey’s temperaments: 









The data I found indicates that there are predictable patterns between JCF/MBTI, enneagram, DISC tests, social styles and interaction styles that can help a person improve their accuracy when typing themselves and others. 


When we look at the Personalitycafe data from @mimesis and map it with Keirsey temperaments the data from Personalitycafe comes out as follows: 









From this we can see that quite a lot of the members on personalitycafe do not fit data from the sources used previously in the post. For instance, INFJ are supposed to be in the melancholic temperament, but only 31.94% of INFJs have an enneagram type that show a high correlation with their personality type. This is also the case for ESFJ, ESTP, INTP, INFP, ISFP and ISFJ where less than 50% of the personalitycafe members have a personality type and an enneagram type that have high correlations. 

The most interesting of these is that INTPs score 78.18% choleric enneagrams (5 mostly) while INFJs score higher as sanguine. This is also the case with ESFJ, who despite being Sanguine score mostly as Phlegmatic, INFP who despite being Phlegmatic score mostly as sanguine. This does indicate that something is off, which could be either the misplacement of the enneagram types in relation to the functions, temperaments or interaction styles or trouble identifying the correct type/enneagram. 

Just for fun I threw together a typing process model. 








@Boss, @Animal, @Figure, @Flatlander because I know the 4 of you will kick the shit out of me if I got something wrong. 

Sources: 
http://www.breakoutofthebox.com/flauttrichards.htm
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Warfield2.html
http://www.interactionstyles.com/
http://fourtemperaments.com/Description2.htm
http://www.tracomcorp.com/training-products/model/social-style-model.html
http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/intro.asp#.Uiu1lTv64UA


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Ha. I can't read the images well, but I love the decision tool/flow. If I understand you correctly, it helps deciding rather than testing with a predetermined output.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

Yeah, if the images could be increased in size -- i can't read a few of them, and the ones I can I still struggle to see. But I'm interested in the data. It also generally meshes with my prior expectations but I need to review it more closely.

Thanks for doing all the data crunching.


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

mimesis said:


> Ha. I can't read the images well, but I love the decision tool/flow. If I understand you correctly, it helps deciding rather than testing with a predetermined output.


 
Here's the data again, hopefully it's bigger now. I uploaded it with an external host so click them and follow the link to get the full size version. The point of the process tool is to encourage research rather than taking one of the many bullshit tests and then coming to the forums going "So, I'm not sure if I'm a J or a P or if I'm an I or an E I'm a bit in the middle"


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Scelerat said:


> You have to open the images (right-click, then open) and zoom the crap out of it. For some reason I always have issues when I need to get spreadsheet data onto PERC.
> 
> Here's the data again, hopefully it's bigger now.


Yeah the flow chart is good when you open it in a new tab. 

What happened to e8 ?


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

mimesis said:


> Yeah the flow chart is good when you open it in a new tab.
> 
> What happened to e8 ?


What do you mean happened to it?


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Scelerat said:


> What do you mean happened to it?


I don't see it in the list at the end of your first post. There's a typo I think also (14 > 1, 4 )


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

mimesis said:


> I don't see it in the list at the end of your first post. There's a typo I think also (14 > 1, 4 )


Yeah, 1, 4 and the 8 got cut out when I had to separate the posts. I'm actually very unsure about the 8 in general because it came out as being a little too common for my liking since it's supposedly a rare enneagram. It came out as 37.99% of ENTJs (Generally score very high D in DISC), 16.11% of ESTJ, 11.89% of ESTPs and 7.08% of ISTP. 

If I were to make some "estimates" I'd think that: 

5 is rarer among ISTJ, but 6 with a 5 wing is dragging up the number of ISTJs with the type to be higher than 1 which is generally more associated with STJ (both E and I).

5 is more common among ENTJ than 6 which is also more correlated with STJ, especially ISTJ. 

1 is a bit too common among ENTJ considering that it has pretty much no correlation with NT and a very high one with STJ, or we have mistyped XSTJ scoring as XNTJ. 

etc. 


Here is my whiteboard translated into smartdraw. 



Light blue data is yours. 

Green data is from the perc member lists from LionTiger. Orange is from the study I found.


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Scelerat said:


> Yeah, 1, 4 and the 8 got cut out when I had to separate the posts. I'm actually very unsure about the 8 in general because it came out as being a little too common for my liking since it's supposedly a rare enneagram. It came out as 37.99% of ENTJs (Generally score very high D in DISC), 16.11% of ESTJ, 11.89% of ESTPs and 7.08% of ISTP.
> 
> If I were to make some "estimates" I'd think that:
> 
> ...


I see. But surely you need to get 8 in somewhere in the decision flow? The interaction/ social styles are pretty accurate aren't they? It seems to me this also transcends health level issues. (at least it seems independent from health level to me) It's a nice map for sure.


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

mimesis said:


> I see. But surely you need to get 8 in somewhere in the decision flow? The interaction/ social styles are pretty accurate aren't they? It seems to me this also transcends health level issues. (at least it seems independent from health level to me) It's a nice map for sure.


8 is in the general enneagram section, I updated the OP to fix the typo + add in the 8 for the relevant types. It's also in the tables, and the map I just linked. For an ENTJ for instance, 8 is the most likely type. It seems to go with the choleric temperament.


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Scelerat said:


> 8 is in the general enneagram section, I updated the OP to fix the typo + add in the 8 for the relevant types. It's also in the tables, and the map I just linked. For an ENTJ for instance, 8 is the most likely type. It seems to go with the choleric temperament.


I think INFJ also takes a special position. Some would argue INFJ being typically type 4. It's probably right about interaction style, but it's also NF.


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

mimesis said:


> I think INFJ also takes a special position. Some would argue INFJ being typically type 4. It's probably right about interaction style, but it's also NF.


Just the idea of an INFJ type 8 made me laugh a little. I'm going to add wings tomorrow to see if it clears a few things up. Some things make sense like INTPs being well-represented among type 5, ISTJ type 5 on the other hand seems a little strange considering 5 is the investigator and would most likely at some point require quite a lot of theory/abstraction, which isn't something XSTJ is known for having a love for. 

I think the various wings can explain quite a bit, such as 6w5 for ISTJ, 2w1 and 4w5 for INFJ etc. 

I also noticed that some of the NFs seemed to be more "spread out" among types. I gave more weight to the Association for psychological type because I figured that their 954 respondents would likely have a higher percentage of correct type than the perc data. 

I'm hoping to get time to look into the typical mis-typings and what types can look like each other to see if that clears it up.


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Scelerat said:


> Just the idea of an INFJ type 8 made me laugh a little. I'm going to add wings tomorrow to see if it clears a few things up. Some things make sense like INTPs being well-represented among type 5, ISTJ type 5 on the other hand seems a little strange considering 5 is the investigator and would most likely at some point require quite a lot of theory/abstraction, which isn't something XSTJ is known for having a love for.
> 
> I think the various wings can explain quite a bit, such as 6w5 for ISTJ, 2w1 and 4w5 for INFJ etc.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I can see your points. Thanks for the great effort.


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

@_Scelerat_ - this is a _lot _of very heady data. I'm going to react to it piecemeal, beginning with this:



> Based on this, if you’re confident in your JCF type, you can figure out your most likely enneagram options and eliminate those that do not fit. For instance, if you’re an ISTJ, you have an 86.74% chance of being a 1, 5, 6 or 9.


From the subject's point of view, you don't have a "chance" at being a type, you already have been a type without having recognized it however long you have been alive, or since whenever it was settled. Any MBTI type can be any enneagram type as well - so there's really no justification for an ISFP, for example, to believe they have an "increased chance" of being a 9 other than from a purely statistical point of view, in that many other self-identified ISFP test that way. An ISFP has a high chance of being a 9 if he/she can trace a day to day pattern of impulses to type 9, and a realistic (though lesser) chance if he/she relates with type 9 descriptions. 

Comparison to the masses is, on its own, a very shoddy way of typing oneself or others for the following reasons:



People often mistype in MBTI, or type without reporting how confident they are in their typing
People often mistype in the enneagram, or type without reporting how confident they are in their typing
Types in both systems overlap behaviorally
Not enough work has yet been done to distinguish what is caused by motivation vs. what is caused by situation or cognitive function (e.g. aggressive CP 6 vs. aggressive 8 vs. aggressive ENTJ)
The enneagram isn't about the descriptions from the enneagram institute. It's about Naranjo's neuroses


Not saying it's not an interesting way of framing type, but we need clearer data to work with, and better divisions cross theory.


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

Figure said:


> @_Scelerat_ - this is a _lot _of very heady data. I'm going to react to it piecemeal, beginning with this:
> 
> From the subject's point of view, you don't have a "chance" at being a type, you already have been a type without having recognized it however long you have been alive, or since whenever it was settled. Any MBTI type can be any enneagram type as well - so there's really no justification for an ISFP, for example, to believe they have an "increased chance" of being a 9 other than from a purely statistical point of view, in that many other self-identified ISFP test that way. An ISFP has a high chance of being a 9 if he/she can trace a day to day pattern of impulses to type 9, and a realistic (though lesser) chance if he/she relates with type 9 descriptions.
> 
> ...


The initial sentence is semantics really, sure the subject is a type regardless of whether they know so or not. However, knowing that out of 10 people that test as X personality type, Y social style, Z interaction style end up with 8/10 being a give type narrows down the initial search grid to the most likely subjects. The reason why I used 3 data sets was to gain a suitable amount of correlation between the different sets, which is the same reason why I used multiple tests. I agree, any MBTI type can be any enneagram, but it strikes me as more of desire for individuality than it does a sound point. 

The fact of the matter is that when typing someone, nobody starts at square one, especially if you've studied type a lot. You start with your initial intuition so to speak and work backwards to verify it, which is putting the cart before the horse and makes you vulnerable to confirmation bias. 

To deal with your list: 
1 and 2. This is why a total of 6 different systems are used, interaction styles, social styles, Keirsey temperaments, DISC, Cognitive functions and enneagram. By seeing where they converge combined with seeing how other types have tested allows a person to reduce the chance of mistype. 

3. Yes they do, and that makes it even more important to differentiate between them. By using the process model correctly, you move from the general to the specific so a lot of the "similar but different" problems end up being reduced rather than compounded. For instance, INFP and INFJ both have a lot of enneagram 4, and both thus share the expressive/amiable styles to varying degrees. However, their cognitive functions are different, so the cognitive functions test have a high chance of catching it. 

4. I think it's an error to try and separate the situation, as the reaction in the situation is ultimately influenced by how you take in and process data (cognitive functions), how that applies to your core fear/motivation enneagram, it becomes Schrodinger's cat with psychology. 

5. The descriptions were used for illustrative purposes more than anything to give a quick intro to those who are unfamiliar with enneagram, using Naranjo so early on tends to intimidate people. I did it the same way with JCF, where it started with Keirsey and moved into JCF. From my perspective it's much easier to identify with (and thus reduce the number of potentials) the "stereotypes" as opposed to the core fears, as this requires a much higher degree of self-awareness and self-examination. In the end, everyone should get to that point, however starting there is like starting with derivatives when teaching someone finance. 

When typing someone else, it's also very difficult to see what the neuroses are and how they manifest in different types and different people, by structuring the thinking process, it's easier to avoid the tendencies I outlined to begin with.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

As much as I can admire the effort put into this, I really don't think it's that easy to say that ESFJ will almost always be a type 2 because most people honestly don't know themselves enough to be able to accurately type themselves both in enneagram and cognition. So the correlations shown in the data up there is a typical extroversion mistake in my opinion, being too focused on the form over the content that determines the cause of the form, meaning that yes, there are correlations between enneatype and MBTI type descriptions but descriptions do not themselves actually indicate that people type themselves properly.

For example, it's as if people feel that if one is a 5, then one has to be an INTx type irregardless of whether they are either a 5 or an INTx type in actuality. Most people who type as 5s are probably not 5s based on my forum experience, as is shown by how few there are who seem to understand type 5, and most people who type as INTx aren't INTx types either. 

The greatest confusion here seems to be that many people associate types with specific stereotypes so type 5 has become the intellectual type for instance, so if someone experiences themselves as intellectual, then they might get type 5 and/or INTx as a result on a test or feel that the descriptions fit them, irregardless of whether they managed to successfully introspect to the point where they can validate and confirm that are indeed an INTx and a 5.

So I'm sorry scelerat, but I think most of your work has been in avail as the data you have been working with is not accurate to begin with, meaning it cannot yield accurate results, either.

tl;dr version is that unless data is capable of processing a decent level of accuracy, there is no point working with it. In my experience thus far, I haven't noticed much of a correlation between say, cognitive functions and enneatype, and the correlations I have noted just lack sufficient amount of data to really prove that there is a correlation rather than drawing early but inaccurate conclusions. 

For instance, I have noted that a great amount of feelers tend to be type 9s, but I haven't noticed any difference between Fe and Fi, or between intuition, sensing, introversion and extroversion. 

Similarly, I have noted that many Ni types tend to be type 7s (specifically gammas), but again, not enough data, and I haven't being able to discern anything else more than ENTJs are for some reason, fairly represented. 

Also, based again on personal experience and observations, I can say that the SJ correlation with type 1 is quite BS, or that the J-letter in general would have a correlation with type 1. The problem of course, lies in the grave misunderstanding of what type 1 is about which has nothing to do with the typical SJ traits outlined by Keirsey. If anything, Keirsey probably more accurately describes a phobic 6 with his SJ description.


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

ephemereality said:


> As much as I can admire the effort put into this, I really don't think it's that easy to say that ESFJ will almost always be a type 2 because most people honestly don't know themselves enough to be able to accurately type themselves both in enneagram and cognition. So the correlations shown in the data up there is a typical extroversion mistake in my opinion, being too focused on the form over the content that determines the cause of the form, meaning that yes, there are correlations between enneatype and MBTI type descriptions but descriptions do not themselves actually indicate that people type themselves properly.
> 
> For example, it's as if people feel that if one is a 5, then one has to be an INTx type irregardless of whether they are either a 5 or an INTx type in actuality. Most people who type as 5s are probably not 5s based on my forum experience, as is shown by how few there are who seem to understand type 5, and most people who type as INTx aren't INTx types either.
> 
> ...


I suppose your criticism and the one from @_Figure_ are somewhat related in their view of the data, or more specifically whether data with limited accuracy is better than no data at all. I suppose what you want to rely upon depends on how confident you are in your own ability. 

For instance, if we eliminate the MBTI types from the data set, the correlation between social styles, interaction styles, temperaments and enneagram is still relevant and mix well with Karen Horney's social styles (withdrawn, assertive and compliant). 

I'm more than willing to accept that there will be mistypes both in terms of MBTI and enneagram, but it comes down to how frequent such mistypings are because your assertion does rely on them being fairly frequent in order to invalidate the data. Of course, people who view themselves in a given one could unknowingly be typing themselves in a wrongful manner, both in terms of MBTI and Enneagram, but again it comes down to how frequent is it, and do you trust some data more than a purely subjective perception?

In essence, what's been challenged is the MBTI types enneagram data based on PERC, which funnily enough the post can do without. Based on social styles, interaction styles, Keirsey temperaments and DISC the types and enneagrams are already placed where they are supposed to be before the PERC data even needs to be referenced. That is provided you don't have issues with Keirsey, Berens, Moulton Marston and David Merril.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Scelerat said:


> I suppose your criticism and the one from @_Figure_ are somewhat related in their view of the data, or more specifically whether data with limited accuracy is better than no data at all. I suppose what you want to rely upon depends on how confident you are in your own ability.
> 
> For instance, if we eliminate the MBTI types from the data set, the correlation between social styles, interaction styles, temperaments and enneagram is still relevant and mix well with Karen Horney's social styles (withdrawn, assertive and compliant).
> 
> ...


I didn't look too much into this to be honest, because tables tend to make my head hurt for some reason. And I'm not acquainted enough with the interaction styles and so on to comment on that, so my criticism was thus specifically aimed towards what I felt I could comment on. With regards to Keirsey, that criticism applies there too since Keirsey relies on external information about people e.g. behavior rather than internal motivations e.g. cognition.


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

ephemereality said:


> I didn't look too much into this to be honest, because tables tend to make my head hurt for some reason. And I'm not acquainted enough with the interaction styles and so on to comment on that, so my criticism was thus specifically aimed towards what I felt I could comment on. With regards to Keirsey, that criticism applies there too since Keirsey relies on external information about people e.g. behavior rather than internal motivations e.g. cognition.


I would recommend Willingham, D.T. (2007). _Cognition: The Thinking Animal, (3rd ed.), by Daniel T. Willingham_


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Scelerat said:


> I would recommend Willingham, D.T. (2007). _Cognition: The Thinking Animal, (3rd ed.), by Daniel T. Willingham_


I have the book, it's recommendable as a whole, but I'm not sure what you specifically refer to.


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

mimesis said:


> I have the book, it's recommendable as a whole, but I'm not sure what you specifically refer to.


In this case I was referring to 2 things, the goal of cognitive psychology and the role of behavioral observation in cognitive psychology. Behaviorism was ultimately a step too far in one direction, however if the goal of cognitive psychology is to explain behavior, and behavior is the outcome of cognitive processes, then the research must ultimately start with an observation of a behavior, and work backwards into the brain. 

My issue was with what I perceived as a wholesale rejection of behavioral observation as a research method and as a part of cognitive psychology.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Scelerat said:


> My issue was with what I perceived as a wholesale rejection of behavioral observation as a research method and as a part of cognitive psychology.


Yes, and I will keep rejecting it because I don't think what's important is the behavior as much what underlies the behavior. Do you understand the difference in focus? We can have a bunch of people all seemingly acting the same way, but the reaso why do can be vastly different. Therefore I find behavior a a type descriptor entirely pointless because it contains no real data. it registers the symptoms, but not the cause.


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## mimesis (Apr 10, 2012)

Scelerat said:


> In this case I was referring to 2 things, the goal of cognitive psychology and the role of behavioral observation in cognitive psychology. Behaviorism was ultimately a step too far in one direction, however if the goal of cognitive psychology is to explain behavior, and behavior is the outcome of cognitive processes, then the research must ultimately start with an observation of a behavior, and work backwards into the brain.
> 
> My issue was with what I perceived as a wholesale rejection of behavioral observation as a research method and as a part of cognitive psychology.


I see. Welll, the least I could say is that your process model is a Te way of problem solving, not truth validation.


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## Scelerat (Oct 21, 2012)

ephemereality said:


> Yes, and I will keep rejecting it because I don't think what's important is the behavior as much what underlies the behavior. Do you understand the difference in focus? We can have a bunch of people all seemingly acting the same way, but the reaso why do can be vastly different. Therefore I find behavior a a type descriptor entirely pointless because it contains no real data. it registers the symptoms, but not the cause.


So, without being able to outwardly observe the result of cognition, how do you suggest that we get data to support a hypothesis?


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## Typester21 (Nov 18, 2017)

This is a beautiful masterpiece that I want framed in my therapy office and at home! Seriously....
It matches what I've seen to be true.


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## lametaoist (Mar 25, 2017)

The main point is that the data is not valid. Because the tests are not consistently normed, validated, and administered by trained professionals, the is no way to establish consistency of results. Regardless of what meaning we want to draw from the data, we have no way of being sure whether it accurately reflects anything. 

Starting with invalid data is a waste of time because any conclusions that are drawn are largely irrelevant. They may be true, but they just as easily may not be. 

The conundrum is that there is no way to find valid data. There are a handful of personality scales that have higher psychometric validity, like the Millon Inventory of Personality Scales (MIPS), and the Big 5, but they don't tend to lend to specific typologies. It's an important note that the more rigorous and empirically validated the test is, the harder it is to create a typology from it. These tests only measure dynamics of personality. 

Yes, when we look at the type descriptions, it seems like there should be overlap. But that just means that there is overlap in descriptions. We have no evidence that these personality types actually exist in real form. It is equally possible that the originators of the personality types all read Jung's original writings, and elaborated from there, and that's why there is similarity. The similarity may have nothing to do with actual people, as much as the way in which we have all been taught to view people.


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