Lately I have started to wonder if MBTI is taken too seriously by people (including me too). I mean, the theory is not even proven to be valid or reliable according to some criticism. So, people are defining themselves according to the theory, judging other people according to it and putting people to boxes. Before I saw no danger in the whole thing. I said to myself that I use the MBTI tool only to understand people but lately I have started to see some dangers related to the whole thing.
Is there even anything behind in the traits, the functions and in the personality types? Is it any different that astrology?
My answer to all of this: I don't know. That is why I'm asking.
Your thoughts on the subject?
It should be established within everyone's mind that there is a distinction between pure typology and applied typology. Pure typology is a study of our unconscious tendencies and what ideas they tend to lead. Applied typology is a study of how our type or our unconscious tendencies lead us to live our lives.
An altogether pure typology is impossible. However some degree of 'purity' can be attained. The following is an example of questions pure typology tends to be concerned with. What cognitive functioning does Thinking tends to lead to. The answer that I see is impersonal judgment. This is a question of philosophy of mind.
From the standpoint of applied typology, one shall ask, how does being a Thinker or having the unconscious tendency towards impersonal judgment affect how one lives. These are the questions of psychology and sociology. We can make some very basic hypothesises to answer such questions. But to attain sound and clear-cut answers, carefully controlled empirical research should be highly vouched for.
Is type pure mythology, akin to astrology?
From the standpoint of pure typology we know the following. There is an unconscious tendency towards Introversion and towards Extroversion. They are antithetical to each other. An unconscious tendency towards Thinking and the antithesis towards Feeling. And so forth for the rest of the pairings.
How do we know that such things exist? No profound erudition is to be found in Jungian pure typology. It is common-sense. It is obvious that some of us are naturally drawn towards action, yet others more towards contemplation. Some towards impersonal judgment, others towards interpersonal, and so forth.
From the standpoint of practical typology, empirical research has clearly demonstrated the possibility of examining how Introversion and Extroversion impact our lifestyles. This aspect of pure typology is most distinctly expressed of all, and for good reasons Jung has cited this as the most prominent of dichotomies. (It should however be noted that by dichotomy we do not mean that all people either gravitate altogether towards an extroverted type or altogether towards an introverted type. This is a continuum. Moderate representatives of type are far more common than radical. )
It is more difficult to carry out empirical studies on Intuition and Sensation, and even more difficult on Thinking and Feeling. These unconscious predispositions tend to be more amorphous and less easily observable than E and I. They could be empirically tested only with great care and under very exacting circumstances in the laboratory.
Another reason why these faculties are not easily empirically observable is because of the following distinction.
For example.
A)Thinking-An unconscious predisposition towards impersonal judgment.
B)Thinker-A person adept at impersonal judgment.
How on earth do we test this in the laboratory? Okay, we collect 50 people who pass their logic exams. Ask them all, are you good at logic? They say yes, we'd be tempted to type them as Thinkers, when in reality some of them may not be Thinking types, but those who merely have learned the skill of dispassionate contemplation.
We may doubt that they are Thinkers because they also appear ostensibly emotional and upon further questions we may discover that their emotions play a bigger role in their lives than logic. (As for example they may tell us that they tend to devote more time to people they know and to public service than to problem solving). This is a difficult problem to solve, as in order to figure out if they are a Thinking type or not, we must see what tendency (Thinking or Feeling) were they unconsciously predisposed towards.
Thus in short, figuring out the true type of a person may be difficult because life has forced them to develop skills we associate with all types. Introversion and Extroversion is easier to test on the empirical grounds because it is more observable in terms of how people choose to live their lives and function on daily basis.
The only reliable way to figure out one's type (or one's natural unconscious predilection) is to observe, not their skills, (as life may have forced them to rely on skills contrary to their natural preferrences) but their thought processes. For example, unconsciously a thinker will favor and gravitate towards ideas associated with impersonal judgment. Procedures akin to psychoanalysis could allow us to figure this out. From the pure empirical standpoint, we would have to see which faculties in the brain are associated with excitement of faculties concerned with impersonal analysis. They should be more distinctly expressed when the Thinker is naturally led to focus on ideas associated with impersonal analysis. At this point, cognitive sciences are not advanced enough.
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In summary, we notice that type is purely an unconscious tendency. Some unconscious tendencies are more easily observable than others. For example, Extroversion and Introversion are more easily observable than thinking and feeling, therefore more easily testable in the laboratory than thinking and feeling. Secondly, some unconscious tendencies bend much more easily than others. Thinking and Feeling is used interchangeably more easily (given that the person has skills of both) than Extroversion and Introversion.
Is type innate? No. Some interaction with the external world is necessary in order to solidify our innate unconscious predispositions. I would assume that by the age of 7 one becomes a solid introvert or an extrovert. I would imagine, that at the age of 4 or 5, through intense extroversion the introvert could be made to unconsciously gravitate towards extroversion or vice versa. Solid N/S preferrenece, I would imagine would not be observed till the age of 8. Thinking and Feeling roughly the age of 10.
All could be changed through traumatic events. Any physical alterations to the brain could also be responsible for this.
It is important to keep the distinction of pure typology and applied typology intact. Theoretical thinkers, especially philosophers are often guilty of being arm-chair psychologists (how people of a certain type turn out for example) or arm-chair sociologists (how people of a certain type tend to behave in a group) or arm-chair astronomers (Hegel proving that there are 6 planets in the solar system), and this leads to many of the evils described in Edahn's post.
The reason for such errors is that pure typology only includes the theoretical framework or tools for us to utilize when dealing with theoretical problems or those of the real world. In themselves they do not offer answers. Hence, the arm-chair theorists tend to lack the sufficient information to answer such practical questions. Such information can derive only from carefully controlled studies of the external world.
Typology is justified on grounds of truism, namely, obviously everyone tends to 'naturally' gravitate towards external world or outer world, abstract or concrete, personal or the impersonal and so on. However, because this is a truism, this does not answer many of the more important and deeper questions of philosophy of mind. And certainly does not answer the practical questions of typology in psychology or sociology (applied typology), which could only be answered satisfactorily through carefully controlled empirical inquiry. For this reason MBTI must be rejected as it insists on the thesis that one will live his life in this particular way because or mostly because he is this certain type.
No, you are not your type. What you are is a question of psychology.