Men who aren't linear thinkers; Women who aren't web thinkers?

[xisnotx]

Something I've been thinking about...

Evolutionarily speaking, there seems to have been a tendency for men to think "linearly" and for women to think "web-like". I guess, I'd characterize it, in the context of time, as men thinking from "second to minute to hour to day to week....etc etc" and women thinking in terms of "day/night or summer/fall/winter/spring". As such, a linear thinker will have trouble understanding the way something can be both one thing and another, depending, within a context, depending on which context is being referred to. And similarly, a web thinker will be hard pressed to accept the validity of universalizing a context and ignoring the discrepencies that may or may not be apparent.

Assuming the truth of the both, my question is about those men and women who fall outside that trend.

Percentage of men who are web thinkers, primarily? Percentage of females who are linear thinkers, primary?

Is there an "evolutionary tendency" going on today that more or less forces each person to develop both thinking styles suffeciently?

Examples of women linear thinkers and men web thinkers?

Perhaps tie it to typology?

And anything else you might want to say...

 

[FDG]

I have no clue why men are characterized as linear thinkers. (some people would now say - you having no clue proves you're a linear thinker, ehhe)

 

[Thalassa]

Are you saying men are more likely to be IxTJs and women to be ExFPs?

Besides, seconds and minutes is a fairly new construct, so it hasn't been going on since time immemorial or anything.

To approach it from a framework that isn't type related, we could say women are more in touch with moon cycles and seasons, well, because of the way their bodies work. Menstruation and pregnancy, etc.

 

[Poki]

Men think with a goal...linear to the goal.

Women think to expand and grow...like a web.

Men think certain ideas are stupid...it does not help to reach the goal

Women think ideas that dont fit have a better place somewhere else...it will reach another goal

"Evolution" would be to actually realize when and where each has its place in everyday life, not switch roles between men and women.

 

[Randomnity]

Men think with a goal...linear to the goal.

Women think to expand and grow...like a web.

Men think certain ideas are stupid...it does not help to reach the goal

Women think ideas that dont fit have a better place somewhere else...it will reach another goal

I am not a man, but I think this idea is stupid.

"Evolution" would be to actually realize when and where each has its place in everyday life

I agree with this. Both types of thinking (regardless of gender) are necessary for success.

 

[Poki]

I am not a man, but I think this idea is stupid.

LOL, I was speaking in general. I do not fit this typical mold much either. Its interesting though how people like to place me in it all the time.

 

[UniqueMixture]

It's affected by testosterone, estrogen, and dopamine levels

 

[durentu]

the corpus calosum is the part of the brain that connects the two halves. Females typically have larger ones than males do.

Evolutionaryily speaking, females have to deal with babies. In caveman times, humans wouldn't have been able to see the connection of 2 events spanning 9 months. So, babies were a miracle and just pops up rather unpredictably. This leads t the belief that females had a mysterious power and males were completely removed from causation. So they were stuck with the babies and their mobility is therefore hindered.

Sitting in an open field with a baby will naturally cause the female to become multi sensory and take on more prey attitudes of defense. It has evolved into modern day multitasking. for the males, the task of hunting and goal setting becomes more important.

that's the general concept.

 

[Poki]

the corpus calosum is the part of the brain that connects the two halves. Females typically have larger ones than males do.

Evolutionaryily speaking, females have to deal with babies. In caveman times, humans wouldn't have been able to see the connection of 2 events spanning 9 months. So, babies were a miracle and just pops up rather unpredictably. This leads t the belief that females had a mysterious power and males were completely removed from causation. So they were stuck with the babies and their mobility is therefore hindered.

Sitting in an open field with a baby will naturally cause the female to become multi sensory and take on more prey attitudes of defense. It has evolved into modern day multitasking. for the males, the task of hunting and goal setting becomes more important.

that's the general concept.

LOL...no, they would have seen it spanning about 270 days. At first they may have attempted to judge it by the size of the stomach, but after many inconsistant results probably found the amount of days to be more accurate assesment.

 

[Amargith]

It's affected by testosterone, estrogen, and dopamine levels

Correct. Estrogen has been linked to webthinking, intuition and imagination, while Testosteron is linked to linear thinking, thinking in objectives and using logic to get to their goal. Women therefore are more likely to focus on webthinking and men on linear thinking. Apparently, when a fetus' brain is exposed to predominantly estrogen in the womb (and later in puberty), they create more links between the further apart regions of the brain than others, causing a myriad of options and the ability to hold two different views in their head and agreeing with both of them without going insane. Those that are exposed to predominantly testosteron very much link nearby regions together, making for a cohesive, consistent and decisive, but more limited view on things .

There's even been reported cases of transgendered people who go through with the transformation and notice the difference due to the the hormonal treatments. Men that became female find that they have difficulty deciding as decisively as they used to, and women who become make complain that they miss the 'bigger picture', they used to have.

Though gender does seem to play a big part, it doesn't have to. Charles Darwin was capable of having faith in Science, and his world famous theory, while being a strong believer in God and the Church, reportedly, which at the time were very much linear opposites. He supposedly was a webthinker. (source: Helen Fisher 'Why him, why her')

As for dopamine, it is said that dopamine raises testosterone levels. Those predominantly triggered by dopamine however, are peope who are intuitively more interested in exploring life, and different new sensations. Those predominantly triggered by serotonine like safety and security, and build solid foundations....anyone notice a familiar pattern yet?

Everyone has these hormones in their body, but in different degrees, causing different types of thinking.

 

[freeeekyyy]

I wouldn't consider ISTP men to be linear thinkers, but they are certainly masculine. In the same sense, many ESFJ women seem ver feminine, while not being "web-like" in their thought process at all. Gender differences go beyond MBTI to the most basic level.

 

[FDG]

that's the general concept.

Well, that mostly seems like a general concept you made up, starting by your own fantasy / originally conceived scenario.

 

[Stanton Moore]

I don't know about all that, all this talk of dopamine and hormones, etc; It's all very speculative. I believe in science, but let's remember that what we know about the world is dwarfed by what we have yet to discover...humans are very complex systems, and not given to easy analysis.
As for myself, I'm a non-linear thinker, and a man. rather, I am both linear and non-linear, as are most people. I don't want to be otherwise...

 

[Amargith]

I don't know about all that, all this talk of dopamine and hormones, etc; It's all very speculative. I believe in science, but let's remember that what we know about the world is dwarfed by what we have yet to discover...humans are very complex systems, and not given to easy analysis.
As for myself, I'm a non-linear thinker, and a man. rather, I am both linear and non-linear, as are most people. I don't want to be otherwise...

Actually, they've done tests and research on this. Helen Fisher, the person I referenced, is an anthropologist who took part in setting up the experiments and tests. They did find that those hormones have a serious impact as to how your brain (and in part your personality) forms. A higher amount of one hormone doesn't exclude the presence of another (though serotonine does bring down dopamine a bit, so they can influence each other), and she suggested that you would especially see traits of the two primary hormones present in your system in your personality, whatever your gender.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Actually, they've done tests and research on this. Helen Fisher, the person I referenced, is an anthropologist who took part in setting up the experiments and tests. They did find that those hormones have a serious impact as to how your brain (and in part your personality) forms. A higher amount of one hormone doesn't exclude the presence of another (though serotonine does bring down dopamine a bit, so they can influence each other), and she suggested that you would especially see traits of the two primary hormones present in your system in your personality, whatever your gender.

This is tautological. It seems that humans have other feedback mechanisms in an attempt to reach homeostasis, one's that take place past gestation. That’s one of the shortcomings of laboratory experimentation. Mice are not perfect analogues.

 

[durentu]

Well, that mostly seems like a general concept you made up, starting by your own fantasy / originally conceived scenario.

the chemical perspective isn't the only one. The hormones you describe are implicated in tons of stuff. from love, hate, diseases, mental disorders, personality disorder, weight loss, hair loss you name it. Therefore, while there may be good work and evidence from the chemical perspective, the are structural/evolutionary perspectives to consider.

The truth is more likely that the chemical elements are co-evolutionary with the structural elements because the human body is NOT COMPLICATED; it is COMPLEX. (see cynefin)

The chemistry is valid, but it's incomplete to answer the OP's question.

Also, injecting hormones and showing the "affirming result" is a logical fallacy in causality. The cause in human evolution is not the injection of hormones. It is the environmental factor that causes the human body to change in order to supply these different hormones in the current chemistry we have today.

 

[Amargith]

This is tautological. It seems that humans have other feedback mechanisms in an attempt to reach homeostasis, one's that take place past gestation. That’s one of the shortcomings of laboratory experimentation. Mice are not perfect analogues.

Point taken. If it matters, in this specific case, the experiments were done specifically on humans, with MRI's, while specifically activating areas of the brain with questions or thoughts.

 

[Coriolis]

Evolutionarily speaking, there seems to have been a tendency for men to think "linearly" and for women to think "web-like". I guess, I'd characterize it, in the context of time, as men thinking from "second to minute to hour to day to week....etc etc" and women thinking in terms of "day/night or summer/fall/winter/spring". As such, a linear thinker will have trouble understanding the way something can be both one thing and another, depending, within a context, depending on which context is being referred to. And similarly, a web thinker will be hard pressed to accept the validity of universalizing a context and ignoring the discrepencies that may or may not be apparent.

Assuming the truth of the both, my question is about those men and women who fall outside that trend.

Percentage of men who are web thinkers, primarily? Percentage of females who are linear thinkers, primary?

Is there an "evolutionary tendency" going on today that more or less forces each person to develop both thinking styles suffeciently?

Examples of women linear thinkers and men web thinkers?

Perhaps tie it to typology?

There are significant numbers of men and women who fall outside these expectations. In fact, I'm not sure how strong the gender correlation is at all. I would expect someone's thinking style to mirror their MBTI type far more than their gender. That being said:

Estrogen has been linked to webthinking, intuition and imagination, while Testosteron is linked to linear thinking, thinking in objectives and using logic to get to their goal. Women therefore are more likely to focus on webthinking and men on linear thinking. Apparently, when a fetus' brain is exposed to predominantly estrogen in the womb (and later in puberty), they create more links between the further apart regions of the brain than others, causing a myriad of options and the ability to hold two different views in their head and agreeing with both of them without going insane. Those that are exposed to predominantly testosteron very much link nearby regions together, making for a cohesive, consistent and decisive, but more limited view on things .

Might these chemical differences be responsible for the observed gender disparity in types? On the other hand, this disparity is mainly in T vs. F, which would seem less related to linear vs. web thinking than N vs. S. Moreover, based on the highlighted, one would expect NTs to be most balanced with respect to estrogen and testosterone, but most NT types tend to be considered masculine.

The chemistry is valid, but it's incomplete to answer the OP's question.

Though gender does seem to play a big part, it doesn't have to. Charles Darwin was capable of having faith in Science, and his world famous theory, while being a strong believer in God and the Church, reportedly, which at the time were very much linear opposites. He supposedly was a webthinker. (source: Helen Fisher 'Why him, why her')

These observations seem reasonable. The hormonal distributions described seem far more uniform than the actual behavior of real men and women, so clearly other significant influences are involved, some of which have already been discussed.

 

[KDude]

I have no problem seeing the worth of something in another context. I don't know why that'd be feminine or masculine. I'm just not a big purist. I don't define things to the point that they are positive or negative in and of themselves. There are only a few things I might be able to do that with, but I'm not even sure what atm. Typology wise, it's probably typical of percievers in general.

 

[Amargith]

[MENTION=9811]Coriolis[/MENTION] In her book, Helen Fisher makes a difference between 4 personalities, each of them driven by a hormone

* The Explorers (Dopamine) (she even refers to MBTI briefly, touches upon the fact that these differences in personality have already been noted before)
* The Builders (Serotonine)
* The Directors (Testosterone)
* The Negotiators (Estrogen)

She also touches upon the fact that the primary is often coupled with a secondary, giving slight differences in personality. As such, it is possible to be a Negotiator in the primary, as estrogen is most present in your body, but you have as a secondary a Director-streak, due to a quite high amount of testosterone influencing your behavior as well. I'd wager many male NFs fit that bill.


From what I can tell, most SJs would be Builders and serotonine driven in their primary, and most SPs would be dopamine-driven as Explorers. NF seems to correspond with estrogen, and NT with testosterone. This is very generally speaking.