# Validity of Cognitive Functions



## funambulist44 (May 7, 2014)

Hey,
Can somebody post a link or provide real evidence that cognitive functions are real and scientifically valid? The only evidence I ever hear for them is anecdotal. I've seen a plethora of articles calling them fake, but not one adequately defending them.
Thanks.


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## reptilian (Aug 5, 2014)

Dario Nardi wants to link it to different brain areas, if that's what you are asking. His current findings arent as fact based as some of the community members would prefer it to be. We will just have to wait for his new book to come out and hope for some hard evidence.


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## Valtire (Jan 1, 2014)

funambulist44 said:


> Hey,
> Can somebody post a link or provide real evidence that cognitive functions are real and scientifically valid? The only evidence I ever hear for them is anecdotal. I've seen a plethora of articles calling them fake, but not one adequately defending them.
> Thanks.


There is none. It's not scientific at all. Socionics has been much less anecdotal, but still hasn't been scientifically tested at all. I think it could be scientifically proven, but it would take a gigantic study to do so.

It's a pet peeve of mine that some people try to pretend that the tests are scientific. It's all an hypothesis.


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## Ermenegildo (Feb 25, 2014)

StunnedFox wrote this about gods, but functions are far more important for most members of Personality Café, so I replaced them with their gods, the functions: 



> *Regarding belief*
> 
> f = there is at least one function
> B(x) = I believe that x is true
> ...


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

Let the record reflect that reckful waited 20 hours before posting in this thread... :tongue:

Contrary to what you sometimes hear, and notwithstanding that there are important distinctions to be made between "hard sciences" and "soft sciences," the four MBTI _dichotomies_ now have decades of data in support of their validity and reliability — and a combination of meta-review and large supplemental study in 2003 (link) concluded that the MBTI was more or less in the same category (if not on a par) with the Big Five in terms of its psychometric respectability.

Anyone who's interested can read more about that — and about several other issues often raised by people claiming to "debunk" the MBTI — in this post and this post (also linked to in the first linked post).

Carl Jung — mystical streak notwithstanding — was a believer in the scientific approach, and Myers took Psychological Types and devoted a substantial chunk of her life to putting its typological concepts to the test in a way that Jung never had, and in accordance with the psychometric standards applicable to the _science_ of personality. Myers adjusted Jung's categories and concepts so that they better fit the data she gathered from thousands of subjects, and by the start of the 1960s (as the leading Big Five psychologists have acknowledged), she had a typology that was respectably tapping into four of the Big Five personality dimensions — long before there really was a Big Five.

Buuut it's also worth noting that, contrary to what some of the function aficionados would have you believe, the scientifically respectable side of the MBTI is the dichotomy-centric side — and the dichotomies differ greatly from the so-called "cognitive functions" in that regard. The functions — which James Reynierse (in "The Case Against Type Dynamics") rightly characterizes as a "category mistake" — have barely even been studied, and the reason they've barely been studied is that, unlike the dichotomies, they've never been taken seriously by any significant number of academic psychologists. Going all the way back to 1985, the MBTI Manual described or referred to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 MBTI studies, and as I understand it, _not one_ of the many study-based correlations reported in the manual were framed in terms of the functions. The third edition of the MBTI Manual was published in 1998 and, as Reynierse notes in that same article, it cited a grand total of _eight studies_ involving "type dynamics" (i.e., the functions model) — which Reynierse summarizes as "six studies that failed, one with a questionable interpretation, and one where contradictory evidence was offered as support." He then notes: "Type theory's claim that type dynamics is superior to the static model and the straightforward contribution of the individual preferences rests on this ephemeral empirical foundation."

Although, like Myers, the official MBTI websites continue to give a certain amount of lip service to the cognitive functions, they've never endorsed the Harold Grant function stack and its associated "tandems" — where INFPs are supposedly Fi-Ne-Si-Te, and you're either an "Ni/Se type" or an "Si/Ne" type (for example). And setting aside that function stack (which has no respectable support behind it), the bigger issue is that official MBTI sources also continue to be _heavily_ dichotomy-centric, and to reflect the fact that virtually _all_ the respectable psychometric support for the MBTI is support for the dichotomies and not the functions.

The 17-page report that an ENFJ (for example) receives after taking the relatively recent MBTI _Step II_ test includes page after page of dichotomy-based analysis (including five separate subscales for each of the four dichotomies) and not a single mention of "extraverted feeling" or "introverted intuition" other than a diagram near the end that shows that "ENFJs like Feeling best, Intuition next, Sensing third and Thinking least," and one brief note about tending to use Feeling in the "outer world" and Intuition in the "inner world." _All the rest_ of the ENFJ descriptions in the report — after the brief initial profile, which isn't broken down by components — are descriptions of N (not Ni or Ne), F (not Fi or Fe) and so on, and they're the _same descriptions_ of N and F (and the five subscales of each) that ENFPs receive in their reports (notwithstanding the fact that ENFJs are supposedly "Fe-Ni" and ENFPs are supposedly "Ne-Fi").

Here are the two official MBTI sources backing up the validity and reliability of the MBTI typology in its Step I and Step II incarnations:

Step I: MBTI Form M Manual Supplement
Step II: MBTI Step II Manual Supplement

Those sources refer (directly and indirectly) to a large number of studies providing scientific support for the MBTI, and display lots of the correlations and other relevant data. And there isn't _a single mention_ in either of those sources of any "cognitive function."

But alas, Myers' lip service to the functions created what proved to be a significant _marketing opportunity_ for a handful of MBTI theorists who've made names for themselves in the last 20 years or so by peddling a more function-centric version of the MBTI. And for better or worse (and I think it's unfortunate), both the CAPT and Myers-Briggs Foundation websites have long reflected the attitude that the MBTI "community" is basically all one big happy family, and — within certain limits — dichotomy-centric theorist/practitioners are free to be dichotomy-centric and function-centric theorist/practitioners are free to be function-centric, and everybody can sell their books and hold their seminars and it's all good.

=============================================

As a final note, for any function fans in the audience who may be sitting there going, well, but how can the functions have _no_ validity when it's pretty freaking obvious that Si-doms (IS_Js), for example, tend to have "Si" stuff in common?

And if that's what you're wondering, it's important to keep in mind that typical modern function descriptions, rather than reflecting Jung's original concepts, are essentially jerry-rigged sets designed to match up reasonably well with the MBTI types that purportedly have them as their dominant or auxiliary functions. And as one dramatic example, and as described at length in this post, the description of "Si" you'll find Thomson, Berens, Nardi and Quenk using bears little resemblance to Jung's "introverted sensation" and is instead a description made to match MBTI SJs.

And so yes, absolutely, if somebody's using one of those modern "Si" descriptions, and is looking for the personality characteristics in that description to show up in SJs, then that description will have "validity" to that extent. But it's just _piggybacked_ validity — by which I mean validity that piggybacks off the underlying validity of those two dichotomies (and the personality characteristics that tend to result from the combination of S and J preferences).

The reason Reynierse refers to the functions as a "category mistake" is (1) that 50 years of MBTI correlational data strongly indicates that it's the four dichotomies (which substantially correlate with four of the Big Five factors) that correspond to the real, substantially genetic, underlying "clusters" of personality, and (2) that in _every_ case where the "type dynamics" of any cognitive function model predicts correlational patterns that are in any way inconsistent with, or go beyond, the correlations you'd expect from simple, additive dichotomy effects, those function-model correlations _fail to show up_.

Did you just do a study correlating some "Si" aspect of personality with the types? Good for you. Did you find that the four SJ types ended up together at one end of the correlational spectrum? That's good, too, and indicates that you were working with an "Si" description that had at least some "validity" in that respect. But now, what about the IN_Ps? They've got "tertiary Si," right? Did they show up on the same side of the spectrum as the SJ types (although maybe not so close to the far end) and on the other side of the spectrum from the "tertiary Se" types? No?? Well, don't feel bad. _That never happens._ The notion that INFPs have "Si"-related aspects of personality that they share with ISTJs and that ENFJs (as "tertiary Se" types) don't share with ISTJs has just as much respectable validity as the notion that two people born on the same day have similar personalities because they're both Capricorns.


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## ENTPness (Apr 18, 2015)

reckful said:


> Let the record reflect that reckful waited 20 hours before posting in this thread... :tongue:
> 
> Contrary to what you sometimes hear, and notwithstanding that there are important distinctions to be made between "hard sciences" and "soft sciences," the four MBTI _dichotomies_ now have decades of data in support of their validity and reliability — and a combination of meta-review and large supplemental study in 2003 (link) concluded that the MBTI was more or less in the same category (if not on a par) with the Big Five in terms of its psychometric respectability.
> 
> ...












Best post I've read on this site, hands down.

(Although, sadly, I think many on this site _do_ in fact believe that two people born on the same day have similar personalities because they're both Capricorns, so your point may be lost on them... I especially find it funny when these people claim in the same breath to be "Te users" who trust empirical fact and hard evidence.)


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## reckful (Jun 19, 2012)

ENTPness said:


> Best post I've read on this site, hands down.


Thank you, sir.

Just in case you're interested in reading more about the bogosity of the Harold Grant function stack (and its associated "function axes"), you can find quite a lot of discussion in these three posts:

Harold Grant & the tandems
What it means to have validity
The tandems vs. the real MBTI

For more on the dichotomies vs. the functions generally, see these posts and the posts they link to:

Myers vs. the Cognitive Functions Crew
J/P and function-flipping


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## Aer (Apr 12, 2015)

funambulist44 said:


> Hey,
> Can somebody post a link or provide real evidence that cognitive functions are real and scientifically valid? The only evidence I ever hear for them is anecdotal. I've seen a plethora of articles calling them fake, but not one adequately defending them.
> Thanks.


Scientifically prove to me Kant's philosophy is real. 

Its not meant to be scientifically valid, it's just a system of classification for subjective experience and understanding people. It was made though the thought experiments and observations of a psychiatrist. 

Here's how to prove it in a way though reasoning. There can only be four ways of the mind to work. 1. Taking thing in though senses. 2. Taking things in though impressions, intuitions, understand things with analogy or abstraction, seeing past the literal. 3. Judging things by logic and reason. 4. Judging based on impressions and feeling. 

These four functions (S N T F), are either focused subjectively (inside yourself) or objectively (In the world). That's it! Simple! 


P.s. Reading internet articles is like eating "health food." They promise quality information, but give preprocessed information in a easy to take in format that Is just letting you know what their opinion is. Go read a real book or some scientific papers and then think about them critically. 

You can't think if you need to google everything. You're much better of reading Jung's books on the subject to understand what he is trying to teach.


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## The Dude (May 20, 2010)

funambulist44 said:


> Hey,
> Can somebody post a link or provide real evidence that cognitive functions are real and scientifically valid? The only evidence I ever hear for them is anecdotal. I've seen a plethora of articles calling them fake, but not one adequately defending them.
> Thanks.


I like the skepticism. 

1. Nardi used an EEG (I think that is it) to show a variety of brain responses based on type when they were asked to do a variety of tasks. 

2. Other scientists using fMRI's have discovered two types of extraversion and four types of introversion. While they don't line up exactly with Jung's observations they do show a variety of cognitive processes. 
Science Has Discovered There Are Actually Two Kinds of Extroverts ? Which One Are You? - Mic
Which type of introvert are you - Business Insider 

3. The MBTI is based on Jung's theory of personality which is centered around cognitive functions. The functions are needed for a system based on Jung's work.


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## Apple Pine (Nov 27, 2014)

The validity is not needed. It's the process of studying this abstract theory, what's really beneficial.

I'd say the theory itself is just a tool. Like, it won't be really useful when going to a shop at all.

Tool that helps with: noticing your behavior + improving your reasoning + logic thinking + more aware of emotional side + finding people that share similar interests + etc. Still, if one is ISTJ, you can kinda guess how he's going to behave etc.

I am not really sure who created this, or this, who edited Jung's work etc. It doesn't matter. If it works - cool. Let's use it, or improve it, if possible.


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## Mikhail (Aug 26, 2015)

If you talk about cognitive functions as little boxes that do specific things, than no, you probably won't find any studies on that, because most likely they don't exist. "Cognitive function" is an abstract concept after all. What matters is if it's a valid concept or not. That is, if there is a specific way to group certain observed natural phenomena, so that it could constitute the meaning of that concept and would allow you to make valid statements about reality using that concept.
Attitude psychology separates attitudes into cognitive, emotional and behavioral. Behavioral attitudes are basically the force of habit, so when dealing with new things and novel situations you mostly use cognitive and emotional attitudes, which can be linked to Jung's Thinking and Feeling respectively. The meaning of Sensing and Intuition depends on your understanding of them (they are pretty mysterious ). My view of them is that Sensing is the perception of forms, Intuition is the perception of patterns. I don't think it requires hard evidence to see that human perception can be split into these 2 broad categories.
So the question with cognitive functions really is not whether they exist, but what meaning you put into them, what meaning you put into extraversion/introversion, and whether there is a preference for one function over the others and for one attitude over the other in each individual. The last question of the 3 comes down to 2 more questions: whether the dichotomies are valid, and whether the dichotomies can be explained as preferences of certain cognitive functions. reckful already showed above that the dichotomies are pretty valid. The dichotomies have to be explained by _some_ preferences in mental processes. So those 2 questions in turn come down to one: whether those preferences in mental processes can be explained in terms of cognitive functions, whatever meaning you put into them. That's an open question, I don't know the answer.

That's 2 cents from my Te.


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## Mikhail (Aug 26, 2015)

Mantas said:


> The validity is not needed. It's the process of studying this abstract theory, what's really beneficial.
> 
> I'd say the theory itself is just a tool. Like, it won't be really useful when going to a shop at all.
> 
> ...


A wrench is a tool. "Cognitive functions" is a hypothesis, a theory, or something similar depending on your view of it. You use it to make predictions, judgements and decisions. If the theory is wrong, you'll make wrong predictions, judgements and decisions.
You might as well have said that Quran is a tool for understanding the world, your place in it, human relations and ethics. You can apply it to build a solid constructive set of ethical principles, or to justify terrorism and murdering innocent people. Nice, versatile tool.


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## Simpson17866 (Dec 3, 2014)

Mikhail said:


> A wrench is a tool. "Cognitive functions" is a hypothesis, a theory, or something similar depending on your view of it. You use it to make predictions, judgements and decisions. If the theory is wrong, you'll make wrong predictions, judgements and decisions.


 The hypothesis that cognitive functions can be ordered in some ways but not in others certainly leads to wrong predictions, judgements, and decisions, but that's not a problem with the functions themselves.

If the cognitive functions

Si = focus on past memories
Se = focus on present stimuli
Ni = focus on subconscious hunches
Ne = focus on conscious brainstorming

Ti = focus on short-term logic
Te = focus on long-term systems
Fi = focus on personal values
Fe = focus on community standards​
are "useless" because they are not scientifically, biologically, medically objective, then *any* adjective used to describe people (short-tempered, religious, hard-working, imaginative, compassionate, adventurous, impulsive, materialistic) is also useless.

None of these adjectives are *100%* accurate for every single moment of a person's life, but that doesn't mean that any of them are 100% useless, and neither are cognitive functions when used correctly (stacked in the order that the person *actually* uses them, rather than the orders that look pretty).



> You might as well have said that the Bible is a tool for understanding the world, your place in it, human relations and ethics. You can apply it to build a solid constructive set of ethical principles, or to justify terrorism and murdering innocent people. Nice, versatile tool.


 I'm not sure I follow; is that supposed to be an argument for or against?


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## Mikhail (Aug 26, 2015)

Simpson17866 said:


> are "useless" because they are not scientifically, biologically, medically objective, then *any* adjective used to describe people (short-tempered, religious, hard-working, imaginative, compassionate, adventurous, impulsive, materialistic) is also useless.
> 
> None of these adjectives are *100%* accurate for every single moment of a person's life, but that doesn't mean that any of them are 100% useless, and neither are cognitive functions when used correctly (stacked in the order that the person *actually* uses them, rather than the orders that look pretty).


These are labels. I don't like labels. I do believe they are pretty much useless. The problem I see with them is not even that they aren't 100% accurate, but that their meaning is too generic, so it's almost impossible to apply them to an individual person without making false predictions and implications. I do notice patterns in other people's behavior and I do utilize that knowledge, but I don't have to give names to those patterns and I don't like to generalize.
I don't know how to translate that to cognitive functions. Again, it depends on your understanding of cognitive functions.


> I'm not sure I follow; is that supposed to be an argument for or against?


Against the idea that you can justify using a wrong theory by calling it a "tool".


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

Mikhail said:


> These are labels. I don't like labels. I do believe they are pretty much useless. The problem I see with them is not even that they aren't 100% accurate, but that their meaning is too generic, so it's almost impossible to apply them to an individual person without making false predictions and implications. I do notice patterns in other people's behavior and I do utilize that knowledge, but I don't have to give names to those patterns and I don't like to generalize.
> I don't know how to translate that to cognitive functions. Again, it depends on your understanding of cognitive functions.
> 
> Against the idea that you can justify using a wrong theory by calling it a "tool".


Are these not labels?

Mikhail
INFP
Male
LII
Generation Y


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## Mikhail (Aug 26, 2015)

PaladinX said:


> Are these not labels?
> 
> Mikhail
> INFP
> ...


Mikhail is not a label, it's my name. The rest are, and I don't think they describe me well. I put some of them randomly just to mess with people's perceptions.


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## Cmart (Oct 17, 2013)

Mikhail said:


> These are labels. I don't like labels. I do believe they are pretty much useless. The problem I see with them is not even that they aren't 100% accurate, but that their meaning is too generic, so it's almost impossible to apply them to an individual person without making false predictions and implications. I do notice patterns in other people's behavior and I do utilize that knowledge, but I don't have to give names to those patterns and I don't like to generalize.
> I don't know how to translate that to cognitive functions. Again, it depends on your understanding of cognitive functions.
> 
> Against the idea that you can justify using a wrong theory by calling it a "tool".


So because you don't "like" them is basically your only reason for not wanting to use them in any form? Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it can't be used to fairly accurately describe people and their behaviors or thought patterns. There are, what, over 7 billion people on this planet? If we just throw labels out there, people will fall under them. Are there going to be exceptions? Yes. But the fact is, we CAN use these things.


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## Mikhail (Aug 26, 2015)

Cmart said:


> So because you don't "like" them is basically your only reason for not wanting to use them in any form? Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it can't be used to fairly accurately describe people and their behaviors or thought patterns. There are, what, over 7 billion people on this planet? If we just throw labels out there, people will fall under them. Are there going to be exceptions? Yes. But the fact is, we CAN use these things.


I gave my reason in the same quote. Read again.


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## Worriedfunction (Jun 2, 2011)

Apple Pine said:


> The validity is not needed. It's the process of studying this abstract theory, what's really beneficial.
> 
> I'd say the theory itself is just a tool. Like, it won't be really useful when going to a shop at all.
> 
> ...


And if it doesn't work? :airguitar:


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## Apple Pine (Nov 27, 2014)

Worriedfunction said:


> And if it doesn't work? :airguitar:


Then look for the alternatives, or people that benefited from it, so they could give you some tips.


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## Worriedfunction (Jun 2, 2011)

Apple Pine said:


> Then look for the alternatives, or people that benefited from it, so they could give you some tips.


I don't think anyone benefits from this.


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## Apple Pine (Nov 27, 2014)

Worriedfunction said:


> I don't think anyone benefits from this.


Elaborate.


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## Worriedfunction (Jun 2, 2011)

Apple Pine said:


> Elaborate.


Much like the myths of childhood and anthropomorphic animals and magic, typology is something that damages a psyche.


And while many of the more realistic-thinking eventually move beyond the illusions of those myths there are those who remain stunted and cloistered by the comforting lie. These people never develop and spend entire lifetimes clinging to the hope that what they believe is true.


Simply put: it is limiting and damaging. The best that can come from typology systems is a temporary, illusory safeguard to the self. But it IS only temporary. Eventually, understanding of assumed reality must be developed for growth and a fulfilling existence.


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## Apple Pine (Nov 27, 2014)

Worriedfunction said:


> Much like the myths of childhood and anthropomorphic animals and magic, typology is something that damages a psyche.
> 
> 
> And while many of the more realistic-thinking eventually move beyond the illusions of those myths there are those who remain stunted and cloistered by the comforting lie. These people never develop and spend entire lifetimes clinging to the hope that what they believe is true.
> ...


Everyone interprets reality. Creates illusions, so they could avoid the reality. It's a defensive mechanism. 

That's basically what we do through our lives. A system like MBTI directs the understanding to the different direction. It could help, it could damage. 

If you say MBTI doesn't help anyone, then what helps?


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## Worriedfunction (Jun 2, 2011)

Apple Pine said:


> If you say MBTI doesn't help anyone, then what helps?


Attempting to understand oneself through conscious efforts of self-inspection on an individual basis. I'm only outlining the general template though, the methodology is up to that person.

Learning your pitfalls, your habits of the mind. After all personality is just habit of the mind, albeit one that might be too automated in it's formation to be fully altered. But you can alter weaker areas, perhaps turn them round and make them strengths.

Paying attention to biological factors is extremely important too. Deficiencies in certain hormones or chemicals can have a wide array of effects on a person. 

And on an even deeper level; the realms of neurology. I think at least attempting to gain some understanding of the human brain, the different areas and the different influences, both conscious and unconscious, is key to growing as an individual.

This is just the shorthand of what I think helps.


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## Endologic (Feb 14, 2015)

Apple Pine said:


> Then look for the alternatives, or people that benefited from it, so they could give you some tips.


_*I love your signature. That cat is so chill, but also so cute! :typingneko::starbucks:*_


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