I Have Often Wondered...

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

I don't think I'm explaining myself very well. That is what I wish to figure out, but what I was trying to say was this: Doesn't this theory compensate with change by encompassing a set of 16 combinations that you can have with functions? The theory compensates for change through allowing the fluidity of being able to change types at any time. Sorry if I didn't explain that very well the first time.

Absolutely. But it's just not broad enough to capture the whole range of personality.

Easy example. Attachment anxiety. Some people have phobias of losing people in their life. Those phobias get triggered when they become close to people and invest in them. Typology isn't the right tool for accounting for that at all.

 

[ReflecTcelfeR]

Absolutely. But it's just not broad enough to capture the whole range of personality.

Easy example. Attachment anxiety. Some people have phobias of losing people in their life. Those phobias get triggered when they become close to people and invest in them. Typology isn't the right tool for accounting for that at all.

Alright, I can live with that. Next, in the line up. With this problem in mind can the theory be added onto in order to start describing strange happenings such as this. Perhaps instead of just calling something 'unhealthy' figure out which function is 'unhealthy' and then creating a sub-forum, or another set of cognitive functions designed to describe why that unhealthy view towards something occurs. Vague, but it's a start.

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

Hypothetically, is your goal to understand personality, or to fit people into categories? They're different. If you did want to build a cogent theory of personality, why not start with the building blocks and move your way up? To me that would be the most efficient way.

Let's give it a try, shall we? I would prefer a model that can account for the full range of personality traits, including disorders and typological functions. Here's how I would set it up. This is tentative and kinda off the top of my head, so criticize and elaborate away.

Divide personality into 2 fields: content and management.

I. Content: All the stuff that filters into your experience. Includes:
_ A. Sensory input from the 5 senses (sight, sound, taste, touch/pain, smell)
_ _ 1. Feelings: Maybe controversial, but I think feelings are actually physical changes in the body, as tension or relaxation (touch/pain sensation). They break down into two categories:
_ _ _ i. Pleasant (comfort)
_ _ _ ii. Unpleasant (discomfort)
_ _ _ Note: Feelings can also get triggered by mirroring another person, which is essentially sensory input, but a special class because it's more direct and immediate
_ B. Thoughts, which are basically associative, based on current Content
_ _ 1. Unconscious: automatic thoughts and associations
_ _ _ i. From memory: comes in the form of the 5 senses
_ _ _ ii. Needs and fears: Images like an attractive person or tasty food or a wild bear that trigger Management (below). Can be either innate or learned and have varying levels of power.
_ _ 2. Conscious: Hypothetical/analytical mind-stuff that you generate on purpose
_ _ _ i. Auditory/Semantic
_ _ _ _ a. Auditory: the sound of a car alarm
_ _ _ _ b. Semantic: most thinking falls into this category; occurs in strings of words
_ _ _ ii. Visual/Spatial
_ _ _ _ a. Visual
_ _ _ _ _ _ (a) Hypothetical
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ (1) Impersonal: unicorn, the Dalai Lama's brother
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ (2) Personal: Imaging yourself losing and being sad, or winning and being happy
_ _ _ _ _ _ (b) From memory
_ _ _ _ b. Spatial: concerns the relationships between things
Note on moods: Thoughts are constantly triggering other thoughts as well as feelings. Certain thoughts and certain sensory input will trigger lingering thoughts and feelings. The combination of thought and feeling can be called a mood, but I wouldn't give it a separate category. Moods, however, do break down into different components:
_ _ 1. Anger - thoughts: conquer, subordinate, or hurt competitors; feelings: pleasant tightness around the chest area
_ _ 2. Fear - thoughts: loss, self-subordination; feelings: unpleasant tightness in the back and chest, sometimes stomach
_ _ 3. Apathy - thoughts: pointlessness; feelings: [have to think about this one]
_ _ 4. Sadness
_ _ 5. Excitement/Restlessness
_ _ 6. Happiness
_ _ 7. Intimacy
_ _ 8. Beauty/Joy
_ _ 9. Care

II. Management: Content triggers Management "programs" that motivate the organism. The purpose of Management is to modify or retain certain Content. You could generally think of it as resistance or maybe preference. It's the problem solver. In this personality model, Management can be thought of a the Motive component of personality. Motives are triggered by
_ C. Motive
_ _ 1. Modify
_ _ _ i. "Pursue" or acquire
_ _ _ _ a. Compete
_ _ _ ii. "Avoid"
_ _ 2. Retain

I have to think about this more and need a little break.

 

[ReflecTcelfeR]

Fitting people into categories would help greatly when describing and figuring out personalities/disorders dealing with the personality. Irrational feels and what not.

I think the part of this idea that I think we should linger on more is the 'Moods' section. You said, and rightly so, that the combination of thought and feeling create moods. Since this is a combination of both thought and feeling it encompasses in one section what you were expounding upon in the beginning.

I feel that we should start with how thought (I'm assuming we know more about this than feelings, but if not either starting point works) effects mood right now. This would help us immediately figure out how the original cognitive processes that exist right now can reach out to what we are creating. I must away for now. I'll get back to this soon though.

 

[Amethyst]

This is just categorizations of people as a whole...but...

People are like toys, and are always put in 'boxes'. Labels put on the boxes help people see the differences between the boxes and their contents. Even though you look through a box or two and see the similar 'toys', they still stand out in their own way, and might even fit the description given to the contents in the box.

 

[Salomé]

Fitting people into categories would help greatly when describing and figuring out personalities/disorders dealing with the personality.

What's missing from MBTI but found in a system like Big 5 is the neuroticism dimension (somewhat accounted for by type dynamics theory). I personally think that's a good thing. I think neuroticism is more a function of nurture and it's more appropriate to study it in that context. MBTI is about innate predisposition. So is the Enneagram to some extent but it also describes the interaction between nature and nurture. It's a bit like Google Maps - you can look at an abstracted view (map), real view (satellite) and at different levels of detail. One isn't any better than the other - they are differently useful.

I would prefer a model that can account for the full range of personality traits, including disorders and typological functions. Here's how I would set it up. This is tentative and kinda off the top of my head, so criticize and elaborate away.

Divide personality into 2 fields: content and management.
....

What you've drawn up is just an another classification scheme...after criticizing classification schemes as inappropriate tools for studying personality...

 

[ReflecTcelfeR]

What's missing from MBTI but found in a system like Big 5 is the neuroticism dimension (somewhat accounted for by type dynamics theory). I personally think that's a good thing. I think neuroticism is more a function of nurture and it's more appropriate to study it in that context. MBTI is about innate predisposition. So is the Enneagram to some extent but it also describes the interaction between nature and nurture. It's a bit like Google Maps - you can look at an abstracted view (map), real view (satellite) and at different levels of detail. One isn't any better than the other - they are differently useful.

Mmhmm!

Co-existence! That is until we create another system that is flawless and elaborates perfectly on the entire human psyche!

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

R.

???

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

Fitting people into categories would help greatly when describing and figuring out personalities/disorders dealing with the personality. Irrational feels and what not.

I think the part of this idea that I think we should linger on more is the 'Moods' section. You said, and rightly so, that the combination of thought and feeling create moods. Since this is a combination of both thought and feeling it encompasses in one section what you were expounding upon in the beginning.

I feel that we should start with how thought (I'm assuming we know more about this than feelings, but if not either starting point works) effects mood right now. This would help us immediately figure out how the original cognitive processes that exist right now can reach out to what we are creating. I must away for now. I'll get back to this soon though.

I would prefer to get away from the term cognitive processes altogether. Let's make a brand new personality theory.

 

[ReflecTcelfeR]

I'm down with that.

 

[Wonkavision]

What you've drawn up is just an another classification scheme...after criticizing classification schemes as inappropriate tools for studying personality...

I couldn't agree more.

What a waste of time and effort.

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

I couldn't agree more.

What a waste of time and effort.

Oh, ye of little understanding...

This isn't a classification scheme. It's a model of the building blocks of experience. Since it takes EVERYTHING into account, as opposed to other typological schemes which do nothing like that, it's more comprehensive and able to predict ALL personality differences and quirks, including all disorders.

 

[Wonkavision]

I would prefer to get away from the term cognitive processes altogether. Let's make a brand new personality theory.

I have a new theory.

How about personality FLAVORS?


That'sWhatHeSaid, you're Mint Chip.

 

[Wonkavision]

Oh, ye of little understanding...

This isn't a classification scheme. It's a model of the building blocks of experience. Since it takes EVERYTHING into account, as opposed to other typological schemes which do nothing like that, it's more comprehensive and able to predict ALL personality differences and quirks, including all disorders.

Yeah, I know it's only a rough draft at this point, but I don't forsee it selling like hotcakes.


Keep tilting at those windmills, Don Qixote!

You're an iconoclastic GEENYIS!!!

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

I have a new theory.

How about personality FLAVORS?


That'sWhatHeSaid, you're Mint Chip.

Talk to kyuuei about that. (Really.)

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

Yeah, I know it's only a rough draft at this point, but I don't forsee it selling like hotcakes.

Would you have preferred if we started with a final draft and worked backwards?

 

[Wonkavision]

Would you have preferred if we started with a final draft and worked backwards?

Of course not. But since Ti is heavily involved, I forsee it sputtering out like a fart in the grand scheme of things.

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

Of course not. But since Ti is heavily involved, I forsee it sputtering out like a fart in the grand scheme of things.

Well, you could always try contributing instead of detracting.

If you had to break down the components of your EXPERIENCE, how would you do it?

 

[redacted]

How far can cognitive functions go when catorgorizing personality? And/Or what are the barriers that keep cognitive functions from describing the entire human psyche? Why can this not describe as a whole? I often hear that this puts us in a box, what stops it from putting us in there entirely?

Cognitive functions can describe the entirety of ONE framework for understanding cognition. In that framework, it is all expansive.

But that framework isn't very useful in most situations.

It's just like talking about neurotransmitters -- sometimes it's a nice little framework, but most of the time it doesn't say shit about nuanced personality.

MBTI is just a set of adjectives. If there's a situation where other adjectives have more descriptive power, you should use those.

I see people trying to twist all sorts of nonsense into the MBTI framework -- it makes no sense to me. If you can minimize description length with functions, do it. If not, don't.

 

[redacted]

See, I would totally disagree. Anytime you reference a model, you move from the territory to the map and you begin abstracting who the person is, rather than just "taking them in." You get to know your ideas of who the person is as opposed to the person themselves. That really the opposite of accuracy.

You find this with typology, too. You can pidgeonhole someone (or be pidgeonholed yourself) into some type and then think you really know them. But you only get to know the part of them that's consistent with your expectations and assumptions. You're essentially relating to a role, rather than to the person. If you give up those roles, you suddenly see the person in a more complete light and you actually understand them. You have intimacy.

TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE ALMOST MAKES ME WANT TO LEAVE THIS SITE TRUE!