How do you make peace with different personality theories?

[chain]

Do you just pick one and stick to it, ignoring the rest?
Pick and choose the things that make sense to you from different sources, ignoring the rest?
Combine theories and compromise on some things not really matching up?

I'm really stuck with Jung's theory not matching up with MBTI and the cognitive functions stacks. I understand what they are - theories - meant to be thought of and possibly discussed without finding complete certainty, and they're as flawed as everything else. They're not really meant to be this be all end all your personality explained thing even if some people use them as such. But if I can't build a foundation on something solid, how am I supposed to keep on laying the bricks?

 

[Earl Grey]

Do you just pick one and stick to it, ignoring the rest?

Not necessarily. I pick whichever one covers the most ground: can cover more people, is more flexible, and can be explained.
For example, I prefer Enneagram over MBTI, because there is a lot in MBTI that gets strongly tied to outward behaviour.

Ex: in MBTI, tardiness is P, timeliness is J. Indecision is P, staunch decisiveness is J. In Enneagram, motivations can instead show themselves in various ways, and it covers more circumstances / situations than MBTI does due to a lot of its traits being more 'innate'. If anything, stress can help reveal Enneagram, whereas MBTI just hits a dead brick wall, and people try explain it away with grip theory, loop theory, shadow theory, etc- all of which cannot be as conclusively traced as Enneagram and at times even contradict each other. ​

​

I am simplifying, but that is the gist of it.

Pick and choose the things that make sense to you from different sources, ignoring the rest?
Combine theories and compromise on some things not really matching up?

This is a bit trickier. If you alter it too much, it simply isn't its source material anymore. If you buy a kitchen knife and add serrated blades and decorations and whatever to it, hell melt it down and rebuild it, it might be more effective to you, but it isn't what it was anymore. Maybe it's a butter knife, or combat knife, or whatever now. It won't be used and understood in the same way.

If people are going to do that, at least be clear about that. I think that a lot of contradictions and confusions in typology stem not only from its base material being inconsistent, but people interpreting it their different ways and thinking their understanding to be the most correct.

Originality aside, it simply makes it difficult to discuss. For example, with MBTI. How am I to know that if I talk about the MBTI Judging Axis, that you are actually approaching it from the same POV, with the same understanding? Miscommunications lead to more misunderstandings, and the typological system will end up failing to do what it was supposed to do- which is to help people understand others and themselves. At that point, just give up and put it down. You're in a rabbit hole, MBTI for MBTI's sake.

The source material must be consistent for discussion to happen at all. How are we to type anybody if we cannot even agree on the basic definitions of the dichotomies?

It's a more severe example of this:

I'm really stuck with Jung's theory not matching up with MBTI and the cognitive functions stacks. I understand what they are - theories - meant to be thought of and possibly discussed without finding complete certainty, and they're as flawed as everything else. They're not really meant to be this be all end all your personality explained thing even if some people use them as such. But if I can't build a foundation on something solid, how am I supposed to keep on laying the bricks?

What I do about it is to not lose sight of the point of typology at all. At least for me, it matters less what someone is called, it matters more that we understand the basics of what exactly it is we're looking at.

As with the silly chart I posted above, someone, say some dude named John, with a 'Structure Neutral, Ingredient Neutral' POV might insist that a hot dog is indeed a sandwich. You might be a structure and ingredient purist who thinks he is a heathen, sandwiches are sandwiches, you wouldn't bring back a hotdog if someone asked for a sandwich, it's just ridiculous.

However, regardless on what you and John call whatever the hell this thing is:

-if you two can agree that it is what it indeed is- which is a hotdog bun with a sausage in it, drizzled with a condiment of choice, usually mustard- then what does it matter what it is called? You two are referring to the same thing. You two understand the item for what it is.

With people, that is what matters. You might call someone ISFP via the Dichotomies Theory and John could froth in the mouth and insist that they're actually a looping INTJ in grip via Function Theory, but if you two can see and call out the same behaviours and motivations in the person, you have used typology successfully: which is to break down and understand someone's psychology. You are just calling it different things.

A simple way to bridge the gap in this theory disconnect is to simply ask the person to explain what they mean when they say "But Madison is sooo J!" and what behaviours and motivations make up their decision. Perhaps it's because she is punctual and uses 9000 to-do lists, or perhaps something deeper. If you two agree on the observed motivations and behaviours, you are simply having a translation issue. If not, you're doing MBTI for MBTI's sake and are likely shoving and forcing Madison into the definitions in order to for her to fit.

A rose by any name is a rose. I consider it a waste of time to debate the technicals unless it leads to actual understanding of the subject material (which, in this case, is the theory and the person both).

 

[Coriolis]

Do you just pick one and stick to it, ignoring the rest?
Pick and choose the things that make sense to you from different sources, ignoring the rest?
Combine theories and compromise on some things not really matching up?

I'm really stuck with Jung's theory not matching up with MBTI and the cognitive functions stacks. I understand what they are - theories - meant to be thought of and possibly discussed without finding complete certainty, and they're as flawed as everything else. They're not really meant to be this be all end all your personality explained thing even if some people use them as such. But if I can't build a foundation on something solid, how am I supposed to keep on laying the bricks?

The different theories approach personality in different ways. No one can completely describe or explain a person. Then again, people are too complex to be explained by any combination of theories like that, but each can help to illuminate some aspect of how we operate. As @Arcturus explained, you cannot mix and match from the theories piecemeal. You can, however, consider multiple theories, each for what it has to offer. Enneagram is especially focused on our motivations: why we do what we do. MBTI is focused on our cognitive processes: how we process information and make decisions. There are systems like socionics that I dismiss entirely, finding that they add nothing beyond the others, but that is my personal preference.

An easy mistake with any system is to focus too much on observable behavior, easy to do since that is what we can actually see. This is especially common with MBTI which is often reduced to a parlor game by superficial questionnaires and people looking for easy answers. If we focus on the function dichotomies, however, while understanding that everyone uses every function in some manner or other, it can help us appreciate different ways of thinking and looking at the world. Yes, this will not align perfectly with Jung. For starters, he had no J/P axis, which leads many people to take issue with the system as a whole. While MBTI may be based on Jung's work, however, it is not Jung, but rather Myers and Briggs' application of Jungian theory to the practical task of helping workers identify best-fit occupations. This practical focus led to some expansion and adjustment of the original theory.

As Arcturus explains, as long as one can clearly state one's reasoning, in any system, there should be minimal confusion even if you do not agree with someone else's assessment. A type system basically provides a framework and a common vocabulary for discussing the topic and the example of specific individuals. Considering someone through the lens of multiple systems is a bit like looking at a mechanics problem in spherical vs. cartesian coordinates. The physics is the same, but the shift of coordinate systems can make certain things easier to see.

 

[GavinElster]

@chain

Good question. I'm quite sure the answer is something like what you describe. I would view any given model as a rule of thumb -- Jung's ideas and their derivatives belong in a realm I'd call "philosophical psychology," rather than truly empirical psychology. He did give a reasonable bit of rigor in making the definitions and elaborating on the ideas, but how to turn them into a model is considerably less clear. I also think the way Jung thought of things really wasn't in terms of pinning down a model with the 8 function-attitudes, so much as he generally thought you had an overall attitude, say introversion, and your functions that were developed/conscious tended to be deployed in that attitude.


I also think it pays to understand why Jung's original details on the attitude of the auxiliary leads to such troubles. The real source of most of the confusion is that, unlike all the other dichotomies Jung thought of, which he truly treated as dichotomies: I/E, N/S, T/F, the irrational-rational one ended up being a case where he recognized that people can be somewhat middle-ground, owing to the fact that N can pair with T and so on. However, it also pays to note that in the "purest" types, he suggested the irrational function is underdeveloped in a rational dominant, and so on, and would take on the attitude of the unconscious (extraversion in the case of an introvert).

However, I can't say that, the way Jung thought of e/i, that it's all that unnatural to imagine those being a bit like rational-irrational: orientation to the outer and inner world, I mean, it's tough to do without either complementing the other in a sense.
I/E in the sense defined by the Big 5 may not be as complementary, but that wasn't exactly Jung's focus, even if elements of that made it into his version. So I don't find the Pe/Ji and Je/Pi models unreasonable either.

I like where socionics was going, which is that in the end, NT types have both T functions strong and both N functions strong. What I don't like is the rigidity with which they tried to pin down exactly how that idea pans out (I also think it's better to see the IE/function attitudes more in the abstract and less in terms of the kinds of "descriptions" making it into common use of intertype).

Personally, the rule of thumb I use on the attitude of the auxiliary is this (although there should always be room for types that don't fit this rule of thumb): perhaps it works out ok if the attitude is opposite the dominant in the sense of "practical" use, but in an "ultimate" sense, i.e. the perspective that's most real, one takes the attitude of the dominant for all the functions.
One place this comes up in socionics, say, is that ILI is said to focus more on Te than Ti, because they find it captures the more fluid nature of their Ni best -- stating "facts" as is in a way that reflects the intuition, and committing very little to particular systems. However, they ultimately have an I-orientation, where introversion means the focus is more on the nature of the mind determining the course of cognition than on the idea that the cognition is trying to capture a mind-independent reality. So in this sense, maybe at the "ultimate" level, there are no "objective facts." Maybe they'd say there really are just Ti-systems made by the mind--even the Te facts that are considered. But in a practical sense, to operate, since they are ultimately an Ni type, it pays to see the T as Te for them.

It's kind of like someone behaving as if they have free will even if they don't really think it exists at the "ultimate" level.

Another source of imprecision is that people aren't often clear on what it really means for the attitude of the auxiliary to "be" something. Keep in mind Jung's original writings mainly described the attitude of the ego/conscious, not that of a function -- it's more like the conscious functions might serve the ego, and the unconscious functions serve the unconscious. So I feel Jung was amply clear on what it would mean for the dominant function to have an attitude, but in a sense, he wasn't at all clear on what it means for the aux to have an attitude. If anything, in the examples (Nietzsche being an infamous one) where he ascribed two introverted function-attitudes, it's almost like he thought of both N and T as being so strong as to be primary and secondary dominant types! Even if one thought that the T looked like Te in an ILI, the fact that it is serving Ni as the "boss" still means it is introverted. Perhaps it "behaves" like an extraverted thinking in a sense, though, but is in reality in the dominant attitude.


I don't think one can use systems interchangeably, but one can definitely build a system using ideas from all of them. I dislike when someone smooths over that socionics is different from MBTI and Jung, but I also find it missing the point when people think they can be used entirely separately with no tension, because the truth is the fundamental 4 dichotomies considered by all of them are in fact essentially the same or overlapping so much as to be unreasonable to view as totally separate entities.

Where things differ is more in how they describe the consequence of being say INTP... socionics would say that leads to ILI/INTp, MBTI to TiNe...I feel like Jung would say NiTi. The way people try to view the theories as having 0 tension / no reason to fuse them into one is they forget the original 4 dichotomies and focus on the 8 IE/function-attitudes and try to type people separately in them. I don't think that really works in the end.

Perhaps I can entertain that, if someone is somewhat mixed on the 4 dichotomies, or one or many of the 4, it might make sense for them to have aspects of one socionics type and aspects of one Jung-type or one MBTI type, but even that type of claim ought to be filled with caveats.

 

[Pionart]

They're all right and wrong.

The foundation should be the 8 cognitive functions, and you figure out how they work from there.

I never bothered too much with learning specific systems. I just tinkered around with the letters until I had something of my own.

 

[SensEye]

I find MBTI very good in the general although a bit weak in the specific. So none of that Te/Ti (or what have you) nonsense for me. I've never really delved into that because it seemed to start to fail to describe me right off the hop.

I can't seem to get consistent results from enneagram (I tend to get 5w4, 4w5, or 9w1). So that's confusing , although maybe the whole system is as accurate as MBTI overall. I don't see anything superior about it though, so it's not going to supplant MBTI in my mind.

It seems a few more type systems might have sprung up that I'm not even familiar with (e.g. that FELV etc. type stuff I see mentioned around here).