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Personality Studies and Wishful Thinking (or Why Cognitive Functions are Bullshit)

simulatedworld

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In my travels around this message board and my interactions with others and my endless inner speculation on the various ways of interpreting them, I believe I've discovered a few things.

I became interested in MBTI because I liked the way it allowed me to see past my own personal biases by conceptualizing the behavioral attitudes of myself and others in terms of a theoretical, impersonal logic system. Since that's pretty much how I approach everything in my head, it was simultaneously humbling and fantastically interesting to finally be able to label and categorize (dare I say understand?) the highly complex game that is interpersonal interaction. I loved the way it could succinctly sum up quite a few behaviors in just a few words--at last, I'd found an overarching theory to summarize (at least partially) a wide range of varying and confusing data in a rationally consistent manner.

I used to just dismiss every viewpoint that conflicted with mine as illogical, stupid and therefore inferior--until I finally stepped back and realized that hard logic is not the only value system in play, and more importantly, that maintaining logical dominance was not worth sacrificing the numerous benefits of approaching life's many situations with a variety of value systems. I'd been applying the same strategy to every situation, and naively convincing myself that no other strategy was worth paying any attention to. Boy, was I wrong.

It's illogical to hold everyone else to a logical standard, I discovered.


But upon joining this forum and beginning to post and read posts by others, I found that many people seemed to be vastly overestimating the predictive abilities of such a simple system. MBTI is useful when taken for what it is and nothing more: a vague and very general description of four behavioral attitudes and preferences which happen to coincide meaningfully with a number of common externalized behaviors.

It's not really anything new or groundbreaking--it's just grouping similar behaviors in people and giving an arbitrary name to the internal assumptions about others that we all constantly make every day. He's a know-it-all; she's such a control freak; he's so whimsical. At the end of the day, it's nothing more than a sophisticated method of name-calling.

So where does this cognitive function thing come in? How do we make the leap from grouping behaviors and using them to predict similar behaviors in similar situations to actually explaining the internal cognitive processes that result in these behavioral attitudes?

Where does "Bob is a J because he prefers having a plan more often than not" get translated into such amateur psychoanalysis as, "Bob is motivated toward this preference by his Xi function (whose very existence is highly speculative and totally unsubstantiated)"?

How do you know?

I've been told repeatedly that I should forget profiles and change my approach to just functions, and after listening to several people explain the merits of such an approach I must say I disagree wholeheartedly. To make such a claim is to vastly overestimate the value of typology.

It seems to me there are two ways to look at cognitive functions. One is just a restatement of the four MBTI letters (this is what you're getting if you take a so-called "cognitive functions test"), and the other is waaaay overstepping its boundaries in terms of predictive ability.

When I read descriptions of the cognitive functions, I can't help but wonder how anyone could even hope to associate them with particular actions or behaviors in themselves, much less in others. That requires so many more levels of depth of understanding of another person's psyche than is even remotely possible for an outsider that the entire cognitive function system has yet to convince me that it has any value beyond that of a cute guessing game.

It sure would be nice to be able to explain the entirety of human psychology in such a neat little eight-piece box, but that's frankly unrealistic, and anyone who believes otherwise is simply delusional. Any behavior can be caused by any function, and in reality is likely caused by numerous functions acting in concert. This can take so many different forms and appearances, and moreover is SO person-dependent, that functional theory has little to no value in the absence of firsthand information and subjective experience.

And yet, proponents of Jung's functional theory truly believe they can accurately and reliably perceive, dissect and properly interpret the internal motivations for virtually everything everyone does. Sure, MBTI is based on Jung's theories, but it's also developed into a separate and mutually exclusive system. Prince is a Jehovah's witness; that doesn't mean I have to be in order to appreciate his work. Jung may have had a few good ideas that later served as the basis for MBTI, but he was by no means consistently reliable--I mean, the man believed in astrology, for fuck's sake.

Try taking him with a little bigger grain of salt! As always I'm reminded of the parallels with poker:

MBTI looks at a player, notices that he seems to bet in situation x more often than not, and makes a mental note that he probably prefers betting in situation x. This implies that he may also bet in similar situation y, but makes no attempt at explaining the unconscious internal motivations for why he bets this way.

Jungian functional theory looks at a player, notices that he seems to bet in situation x more often than not, and then declares with impunity that he does this because he has an unconscious need to win every pot where situation x occurs in order to prop up his fragile self-esteem.

Can you spot the difference?!

I, for one, think Keirsey had it juuuust right--anything beyond categorization of behavioral attitudes, and you've wandered right over the line into purely speculative pop-psychology drivel. You can speculate as to internal psychological motivations until the cows come home, but without experiencing life through the eyes of another person, you simply do not have the data necessary to make any kind of useful functional assessment of others at all.

There's a reason MBTI is taught in college psychology and business management courses, and Jung is not. If you think the four-variable system is too simplistic or otherwise inferior, it's because you expect typology to do more than it can reasonably be expected to.

Hate to bruise egos here, but you are not "reading functions" in others any more than Taurus with a Virgo rising (or wtfever) is influencing human behavior--no matter how skilled you may be at twisting the data to trick yourself into making it seem internally consistent.
 

Venom

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In my travels around this message board and my interactions with others and my endless inner speculation on the various ways of interpreting them, I believe I've discovered a few things.

I became interested in MBTI because I liked the way it allowed me to see past my own personal biases by conceptualizing the behavioral attitudes of myself and others in terms of a theoretical, impersonal logic system. Since that's pretty much how I approach everything in my head, it was simultaneously humbling and fantastically interesting to finally be able to label and categorize (dare I say understand?) the highly complex game that is interpersonal interaction. I loved the way it could succinctly sum up quite a few behaviors in just a few words--at last, I'd found an overarching theory to summarize (at least partially) a wide range of varying and confusing data in a rationally consistent manner.

I used to just dismiss every viewpoint that conflicted with mine as illogical, stupid and therefore inferior--until I finally stepped back and realized that hard logic is not the only value system in play, and more importantly, that maintaining logical dominance was not worth sacrificing the numerous benefits of approaching life's many situations with a variety of value systems. I'd been applying the same strategy to every situation, and naively convincing myself that no other strategy was worth paying any attention to. Boy, was I wrong.

It's illogical to hold everyone else to a logical standard, I discovered.


But upon joining this forum and beginning to post and read posts by others, I found that many people seemed to be vastly overestimating the predictive abilities of such a simple system. MBTI is useful when taken for what it is and nothing more: a vague and very general description of four behavioral attitudes and preferences which happen to coincide meaningfully with a number of common externalized behaviors.

It's not really anything new or groundbreaking--it's just grouping similar behaviors in people and giving an arbitrary name to the internal assumptions about others that we all constantly make every day. He's a know-it-all; she's such a control freak; he's so whimsical. At the end of the day, it's nothing more than a sophisticated method of name-calling.

So where does this cognitive function thing come in? How do we make the leap from grouping behaviors and using them to predict similar behaviors in similar situations to actually explaining the internal cognitive processes that result in these behavioral attitudes?

Where does "Bob is a J because he prefers having a plan more often than not" get translated into such amateur psychoanalysis as, "Bob is motivated toward this preference by his Xi function (whose very existence is highly speculative and totally unsubstantiated)"?

How do you know?

I've been told repeatedly that I should forget profiles and change my approach to just functions, and after listening to several people explain the merits of such an approach I must say I disagree wholeheartedly. To make such a claim is to vastly overestimate the value of typology.

It seems to me there are two ways to look at cognitive functions. One is just a restatement of the four MBTI letters (this is what you're getting if you take a so-called "cognitive functions test"), and the other is waaaay overstepping its boundaries in terms of predictive ability.

When I read descriptions of the cognitive functions, I can't help but wonder how anyone could even hope to associate them with particular actions or behaviors in themselves, much less in others. That requires so many more levels of depth of understanding of another person's psyche than is even remotely possible for an outsider that the entire cognitive function system has yet to convince me that it has any value beyond that of a cute guessing game.

It sure would be nice to be able to explain the entirety of human psychology in such a neat little eight-piece box, but that's frankly unrealistic, and anyone who believes otherwise is simply delusional. Any behavior can be caused by any function, and in reality is likely caused by numerous functions acting in concert. This can take so many different forms and appearances, and moreover is SO person-dependent, that functional theory has little to no value in the absence of firsthand information and subjective experience.

And yet, proponents of Jung's functional theory truly believe they can accurately and reliably perceive, dissect and properly interpret the internal motivations for virtually everything everyone does. Sure, MBTI is based on Jung's theories, but it's also developed into a separate and mutually exclusive system. Prince is a Jehovah's witness; that doesn't mean I have to be in order to appreciate his work. Jung may have had a few good ideas that later served as the basis for MBTI, but he was by no means consistently reliable--I mean, the man believed in astrology, for fuck's sake.

Try taking him with a little bigger grain of salt! As always I'm reminded of the parallels with poker:

MBTI looks at a player, notices that he seems to bet in situation x more often than not, and makes a mental note that he probably prefers betting in situation x. This implies that he may also bet in similar situation y, but makes no attempt at explaining the unconscious internal motivations for why he bets this way.

Jungian functional theory looks at a player, notices that he seems to bet in situation x more often than not, and then declares with impunity that he does this because he has an unconscious need to win every pot where situation x occurs in order to prop up his fragile self-esteem.

Can you spot the difference?!

I, for one, think Keirsey had it juuuust right--anything beyond categorization of behavioral attitudes, and you've wandered right over the line into purely speculative pop-psychology drivel. You can speculate as to internal psychological motivations until the cows come home, but without experiencing life through the eyes of another person, you simply do not have the data necessary to make any kind of useful functional assessment of others at all.

There's a reason MBTI is taught in college psychology and business management courses, and Jung is not. If you think the four-variable system is too simplistic or otherwise inferior, it's because you expect typology to do more than it can reasonably be expected to.

Hate to bruise egos here, but you are not "reading functions" in others any more than Taurus with a Virgo rising (or wtfever) is influencing human behavior--no matter how skilled you may be at twisting the data to trick yourself into making it seem internally consistent.

god dammit you need some Te!!!

here is what you could of posted and called it a day:

It seems to me there are two ways to look at cognitive functions. One is just a restatement of the four MBTI letters (this is what you're getting if you take a so-called "cognitive functions test"), and the other is waaaay overstepping its boundaries in terms of predictive ability.

When I read descriptions of the cognitive functions, I can't help but wonder how anyone could even hope to associate them with particular actions or behaviors in themselves, much less in others. That requires so many more levels of depth of understanding of another person's psyche than is even remotely possible for an outsider that the entire cognitive function system has yet to convince me that it has any value beyond that of a cute guessing game.

It sure would be nice to be able to explain the entirety of human psychology in such a neat little eight-piece box, but that's frankly unrealistic, and anyone who believes otherwise is simply delusional. Any behavior can be caused by any function, and in reality is likely caused by numerous functions acting in concert. This can take so many different forms and appearances, and moreover is SO person-dependent, that functional theory has little to no value in the absence of firsthand information and subjective experience.

And yet, proponents of Jung's functional theory truly believe they can accurately and reliably perceive, dissect and properly interpret the internal motivations for virtually everything everyone does. Sure, MBTI is based on Jung's theories, but it's also developed into a separate and mutually exclusive system. Prince is a Jehovah's witness; that doesn't mean I have to be in order to appreciate his work. Jung may have had a few good ideas that later served as the basis for MBTI, but he was by no means consistently reliable--I mean, the man believed in astrology, for fuck's sake.

Yes, having 64 types would be more 'accurate' and yes having more than 8 functions would probably make it more 'accurate' and yes having functions based on actions rather than cognitive processes might make them more 'accurate'. But after all of that, you would have 30,000 functions for the myriad of actions a human can undertake. the point of the functions is to pinpoint one "desire line or process of thinking" that underlies a myriad of those possible actions.

Its unrealistic to think that a personality system would be very useful if it had the precision that you desire of it (it would be too fucking complicated!).

no one is saying that there is actaully a "Te" organ in the brain! so its not really as psudoscientific as you are making it sound. No one takes the functions as scientific. They just help group and categorize a myriad of actions/thinking styles.

If you took 1000 ESTJs and 1000 ENTJs (who had taken the profile test w/o functions) and had them read through Te Fi Ni Si labeled as A1 A2 B1 B2, I would bet that there would be a statistical significant amount of Te chosen and Si or Ni chosen respectively.
 
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I, for one, think Keirsey had it juuuust right--anything beyond categorization of behavioral attitudes, and you've wandered right over the line into purely speculative pop-psychology drivel. You can speculate as to internal psychological motivations until the cows come home, but without experiencing life through the eyes of another person, you simply do not have the data necessary to make any kind of useful functional assessment of others at all.

I kind of agree. But I personally tend to think of, say, Ti (or T) as a description of a similarity between people who fall into the INTP and ISTP categories, which in my experience is often useful to talk about (if it weren't useful for me, I'd dump it in a heartbeat). You can extract what Ti means from there, whether or not it's actually an explanation for their behavior.

This is very similar to what Kiersey does with grouping NTs, NFs, SJs, and SPs, using temerament to describe similarities between the groups of types.
 

simulatedworld

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I kind of agree. But I personally tend to think of, say, Ti (or T) as a description of a similarity between people who fall into the INTP and ISTP categories, which in my experience is often useful to talk about (if it weren't useful for me, I'd dump it in a heartbeat). You can extract what Ti means from there, whether or not it's actually an explanation for their behavior.

This is very similar to what Kiersey does with grouping NTs, NFs, SJs, and SPs, using temerament to describe similarities between the groups of types.

Yeah, definitely. Obviously I find it useful or I wouldn't be here; grouping people according to general behavioral attitudes is the whole point. I just think people are taking it too far when they start describing functional priorities of others, or explaining internal motivations for particular actions/behaviors with particular functions and expecting any sort of reliable accuracy.
 

simulatedworld

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god dammit you need some Te!!!

That's funny--a certain self-described authority on the topic thinks I have an excess of Te, and yet here you are insisting that I need more. Thanks for proving my point about subjectivity of functional interpretation.

here is what you could of posted and called it a day:



Yes, having 64 types would be more 'accurate' and yes having more than 8 functions would probably make it more 'accurate' and yes having functions based on actions rather than cognitive processes might make them more 'accurate'. But after all of that, you would have 30,000 functions for the myriad of actions a human can undertake. the point of the functions is to pinpoint one "desire line or process of thinking" that underlies a myriad of those possible actions.

Its unrealistic to think that a personality system would be very useful if it had the precision that you desire of it (it would be too fucking complicated!).

no one is saying that there is actaully a "Te" organ in the brain! so its not really as psudoscientific as you are making it sound. No one takes the functions as scientific. They just help group and categorize a myriad of actions/thinking styles.

Ummm....I don't want it to be more precise. That's exactly the opposite of my point, which (no offense), I think you missed. The point was that I think a lot of people expect an unrealistic level of precision from it, and it leads to overconfidence in amateur psychoanalysis.

You're using functions in the first way I described--a rehashing of MBTI letters. If you're only using them as descriptions/groupings of externalized behavior, then you don't really need them, because they don't really add anything new beyond the basic preferences described by the four two-letter dichotomies. It's just the same concept reworded.

I don't think anyone thinks there's a "Te organ" in the brain, either; the point was that some people don't know where to draw the line between categorizing external behaviors and actually attempting to explain the inner psychological motivations for the behaviors of others.

In the latter method, you have to cross the impenetrable barrier between the outside world and someone else's inner self--which is impossible. In the former, you're just describing general behavioral attitudes and grouping/labeling them, which is fine.

Your criticisms have already been answered, as I covered this distinction pretty heavily in my post. In your effort to improve its efficiency, did you miss this? From an externalized effect perspective, we could describe this effort as "using Te", but this doesn't actually give us any more information than the basic MBTI lettering. All we know is that we've arbitrarily labeled this particular set of behaviors as "Te", but we don't really know anything about why it's happening.

From an internalized cause perspective, if we called it Te, we would be making a huge leap of faith about the internal processes that caused you to behave in this manner. Do you see the difference? This is the crux of my whole post. I am not criticizing MBTI in general, but rather people who overestimate the predictive abilities of the function system.

If you took 1000 ESTJs and 1000 ENTJs (who had taken the profile test w/o functions) and had them read through Te Fi Ni Si labeled as A1 A2 B1 B2, I would bet that there would be a statistical significant amount of Te chosen and Si or Ni chosen respectively.

Yes, that's because this use of functions is only as an externalized categorization system--just another rewording of MBTI letters. That's not what I was criticizing.

It's impossible to actually test another person's internalized cognitive functions because you can't get around the filter of someone else's subjective experience. The problem isn't that we're categorizing certain behaviors as T or N or I; it's that some people aren't able to stop there and accept the limitations on the system's usefulness. They think it can go further than that, and actually understand the subjective experience of another person with greater accuracy than that person can.

When one is overconfident in one's ability to associate the external behaviors of others with internalized cognitive functions, it leads one to erroneous conclusions about the MBTI type of that person. The problem comes when you watch someone, declare with certainty that you know which functions are responsible for all of that person's actions, and then make an assumption about that person's MBTI type based on your functional reading--when in reality, simply categorizing the person's average behavior according to the four MBTI dichotomies provides a much more accurate and practically useful assessment. But it must always be open to change as newer and more pertinent information becomes available! Anything less is bound for failure.

The issue with the internal function "reading" is that it's impossible to discern which functions are governing the behavior of others with any degree of reliability. MBTI's external behavior categorization system doesn't attempt to do this, hence the reason Keirsey had no interest in cognitive functions.

Do you see the problem now?
 

Eric B

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That's funny--a certain self-described authority on the topic thinks I have an excess of Te,
Just curious; is that someone here, or someone vocal out in the type world (who probably influenced those here who have charged professing NTP's with having too much Te use)?
 

Azseroffs

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I just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly

you're saying that predicting the use of functions on the bases of actions beyond reasonable doubt is inaccurate.

but you would agree that actions and cognitive functions do have some correlation, and it's just not accurate to make assumptions of exactly which functions are being used.
 

simulatedworld

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Just curious; is that someone here, or someone vocal out in the type world (who probably influenced those here who have charged professing NTP's with having too much Te use)?

^_^
 

simulatedworld

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I just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly

you're saying that predicting the use of functions on the bases of actions beyond reasonable doubt is inaccurate.

but you would agree that actions and cognitive functions do have some correlation, and it's just not accurate to make assumptions of exactly which functions are being used.

No, I'm saying that cognitive functions are useless when considered as explanations of internalized mental processes.

A lot of people use them as just another labeling system of external behaviors, which is fine, but offers no more insight than MBTI's four letters in the first place and is therefore not really the same as the context in which Jung meant them.

Undoubtedly actions do have correlations with some sort of brain functions; I just question the ability of Jung's function system to accurately describe the internal motivations for them.

Typology can't tell you anything about yourself that you don't already know; it just organizes the information in a way that happens to be efficient.
 

Geoff

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Typology can't tell you anything about yourself that you don't already know; it just organizes the information in a way that happens to be efficient.

It is of use when it does something more than that : make predictions about you and your behaviour which you did not already know. A good example is shadow types (which one may not have faced in life, and yet still have them lurking underneath).
 

Venom

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That's funny--a certain self-described authority on the topic thinks I have an excess of Te, and yet here you are insisting that I need more. Thanks for proving my point about subjectivity of functional interpretation.

wow. someone seriously missed the irony i was going for (the reason why i seperated it from all of my analysis... :D )


Ummm....I don't want it to be more precise. That's exactly the opposite of my point, which (no offense), I think you missed. The point was that I think a lot of people expect an unrealistic level of precision from it, and it leads to overconfidence in amateur psychoanalysis.

I should have clarified. Im right there with you that its generally a mistake to try to externally type people based on functions. There was even a post asking about what functions were in use for playing "basketball" and i went on to show how one person playing basketball could be described using a myriad of functions combinations.

So we are in agreement up to that point. But whats wrong with people using functions to describe their own behavior?

we agree that there is no Te organ, no Te "pathway", and that externally typing behavior as "Te" is problematic. But if someone reads the description of Te and Fe and then decides "you know, that Te description REALLY fits the way i tend to think about what actions to take", what is psudoscientific about that? No in is claiming that its scientific when they describe their own processes as fitting rather well with the Te description. If it helps them describe how they relate to other TJs with 'more precision' (assuming the TJs are all reading a Te description and tend to see a "part" of themselves) than simply saying "TJ", then who cares?

You're using functions in the first way I described--a rehashing of MBTI letters. If you're only using them as descriptions/groupings of externalized behavior, then you don't really need them, because they don't really add anything new beyond the basic preferences described by the four two-letter dichotomies. It's just the same concept reworded.

People want more specificity. Simply looking at ENFJ and ENTJ and saying the difference is simply "feeling" doesnt quite tell the whole story. If you give the ENFJ and ENTJ a description of Fi and Fe, I would bet that most ENTJs will relate a lot more with Fi than Fe and the ENFJs will relate more to Fe than Fi. Clearly this gives more precision than simply saying the difference between them is "feeling". Its self reporting, which is significant simply because 'people' will pick one at non-random.

it doesnt have to be scientific. trust me, i agree with that a lot of psychology is bullshit (your talking to a biology major), but i see the functions as doing more good than harm in describing personality, as long as they arent over used in describing other people. The fact that we cant 'view' the true process as you imply, doesnt really matter. For the very fact that we cant view the true processes, is what makes 'self reporting' the best we got. When modern science gets better at descibing how peoples brain structures affect how they think and do, then we may have a reason to say that the functions are harmful.

this is all my opinion. Im ok with saying that. Functions arent scientific. they simply have a lot of utility in describing things.
 

Nocapszy

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Even just skimming I can assure you that you're wrong.
 

heart

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It is of use when it does something more than that : make predictions about you and your behaviour which you did not already know. A good example is shadow types (which one may not have faced in life, and yet still have them lurking underneath).

Agree with the above. Learning about shadow Te has been very, very helpful for me.

I disagree about cognitive functions being useless. I think they are the only truly helpful thing about typology and only really helpful for the individual.
 

Nocapszy

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So where does this cognitive function thing come in? How do we make the leap from grouping behaviors and using them to predict similar behaviors in similar situations to actually explaining the internal cognitive processes
You've missed the point. Again.
I've explained this explicitly once before, but I suppose I'll try once more.

Cognitive processes don't predict.
Cognitive processes don't explain internal processes.

They only name them. When we observe, and then we analyze, the product will fit into one of those 8 boxes. If it fits into two, then actually, you've got two smaller behaviors, each of which fits into one of the 8 boxes.

It's nothing but a name.
Until you understand that, you can never advance.

I know I'm on your ignore list ;) but for everyone who is reading, you're welcome.
 

Venom

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You've missed the point. Again.
I've explained this explicitly once before, but I suppose I'll try once more.

Cognitive processes don't predict.
Cognitive processes don't explain internal processes.

They only name them. When we observe, and then we analyze, the product will fit into one of those 8 boxes. If it fits into two, then actually, you've got two smaller behaviors, each of which fits into one of the 8 boxes.

It's nothing but a name.
Until you understand that, you can never advance.

I know I'm on your ignore list ;) but for everyone who is reading, you're welcome.

Is Sparrow ENTP? (just curious) :D



oh and ya, i found your post helpful.
 

mlittrell

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super LOL (@thread)

EDIT:

i actually agree with the first post for the most part. MBTI has its place but it is misused big time on these forums (for example, the last thead i was in was "who is the most evil type"...wtf is that?). the reason you (poster) may see MBTI as the way you do (it is NOT sophisticated name calling, its a model for the human cognition, which, admittedly, cannot and should not be limited to 8 letters...but it has a ton of application in the field of neuroscience or anything related to the brain. there are proven links between chemicals in your brain and type, so it does have relevance.) is because this forum does not consist of neuroscientists or phd psychologists, just a bunch of people that are trying to understand a (simple) system with very little documentation on its uses and actual applications. if you want REAL information on MBTI an its applications, go to keirsey's personal forum. keirsey's son actually posts on there and answers questions.

and sorry for putting you down typoc... i still love (most of) you guys.
 

simulatedworld

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Agree with the above. Learning about shadow Te has been very, very helpful for me.

I disagree about cognitive functions being useless. I think they are the only truly helpful thing about typology and only really helpful for the individual.

Actually, yeah, I think you're right that they are helpful for the individual, since you can understand the subjective experiences of one person: yourself.

This post was referring mainly to the extension of cognitive functions to try and explain the subjective experience of others, which is pushing it too far, imo.


super LOL (@thread)

EDIT:

i actually agree with the first post for the most part. MBTI has its place but it is misused big time on these forums (for example, the last thead i was in was "who is the most evil type"...wtf is that?). the reason you (poster) may see MBTI as the way you do (it is NOT sophisticated name calling, its a model for the human cognition, which, admittedly, cannot and should not be limited to 8 letters...but it has a ton of application in the field of neuroscience or anything related to the brain. there are proven links between chemicals in your brain and type, so it does have relevance.) is because this forum does not consist of neuroscientists or phd psychologists, just a bunch of people that are trying to understand a (simple) system with very little documentation on its uses and actual applications. if you want REAL information on MBTI an its applications, go to keirsey's personal forum. keirsey's son actually posts on there and answers questions.

and sorry for putting you down typoc... i still love (most of) you guys.

Can you link to some of the studies proving links between brain chemicals and MBTI type?

Bolded parts I really agree with! Those were my main points: that MBTI has uses as a way to describe external behaviors, but that when we start trying to describe complex combinations of subconscious motivations for them in others, it gets really Freudian really quick, and that's a problem.

It gets really problematic when we abandon the basic four-letter descriptions and focus entirely on functions, because when combined with overconfidence in reading the functions of others, we can come to all kinds of ridiculous conclusions. When you place more faith in your ability to read the internal motivations of others than in those people's own descriptions of their behavioral preferences, you have a problem.

Heart is correct, though, that these internal motivation descriptions are useful for the self. I guess I needed an introvert to point that out ;)


wow. someone seriously missed the irony i was going for (the reason why i seperated it from all of my analysis... :D )

Haha ok. I guess I did miss it. Sounded pretty serious at the time, but I guess that's what happens with text/no tone of voice. (Hey look another example of miscommunication of intentions because text is such a limited communication medium!)




I should have clarified. Im right there with you that its generally a mistake to try to externally type people based on functions. There was even a post asking about what functions were in use for playing "basketball" and i went on to show how one person playing basketball could be described using a myriad of functions combinations.

Word, totally agreed.

So we are in agreement up to that point. But whats wrong with people using functions to describe their own behavior?

we agree that there is no Te organ, no Te "pathway", and that externally typing behavior as "Te" is problematic. But if someone reads the description of Te and Fe and then decides "you know, that Te description REALLY fits the way i tend to think about what actions to take", what is psudoscientific about that? No in is claiming that its scientific when they describe their own processes as fitting rather well with the Te description. If it helps them describe how they relate to other TJs with 'more precision' (assuming the TJs are all reading a Te description and tend to see a "part" of themselves) than simply saying "TJ", then who cares?

Nothing is wrong with that; my post was misleading on that front. I should have clarified; that's perfectly fine.

People want more specificity. Simply looking at ENFJ and ENTJ and saying the difference is simply "feeling" doesnt quite tell the whole story. If you give the ENFJ and ENTJ a description of Fi and Fe, I would bet that most ENTJs will relate a lot more with Fi than Fe and the ENFJs will relate more to Fe than Fi. Clearly this gives more precision than simply saying the difference between them is "feeling". Its self reporting, which is significant simply because 'people' will pick one at non-random.

I dunno, it'd be interesting to see some studies on that. The problem is that one's level of identification with the functional descriptions can clash with that of one's MBTI letters. Edgar, for instance, says Te is his strongest function, and yet his type is INTJ, because he considers himself socially introverted. How do you explain this inconsistency?

it doesnt have to be scientific. trust me, i agree with that a lot of psychology is bullshit (your talking to a biology major), but i see the functions as doing more good than harm in describing personality, as long as they arent over used in describing other people. The fact that we cant 'view' the true process as you imply, doesnt really matter. For the very fact that we cant view the true processes, is what makes 'self reporting' the best we got. When modern science gets better at descibing how peoples brain structures affect how they think and do, then we may have a reason to say that the functions are harmful.

this is all my opinion. Im ok with saying that. Functions arent scientific. they simply have a lot of utility in describing things.

Bolded part is spot on. That was really my main point. I think what I'm getting at here, whether I knew it upon writing the first post or not, was that internal functions are something so personally subjective that only the subject in question can really make an accurate determination as to what his internal motivations are. We can watch someone act and then speculate that he may be motivated by functions x and y, but if he responds by explaining to the contrary, it's time to give up and let it go.

Behaviors that are described as "probably Te" from an external standpoint are only described that way because we've heard people who behave that way self-describe as heavy Te users. This does not make it safe to associate all instances of this behavior in others with this particular function! (I think the catch phrase here is, "Correlation does not prove causation.") It all has to come from personal self-description; there's no way to really get into someone's head and make any sort of accurate determination about what internal functions are governing his behavior.

I think we're pretty much in agreement, though.
 

Nocapszy

no clinkz 'til brooklyn
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Is Sparrow ENTP? (just curious) :D



oh and ya, i found your post helpful.

He is indeed and you're welcome.

Let the record show that some people prefer mire and toil to paradise in exchange for the right to complain and criticize.
 

Eric B

ⒺⓉⒷ
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I dunno, it'd be interesting to see some studies on that. The problem is that one's level of identification with the functional descriptions can clash with that of one's MBTI letters. Edgar, for instance, says Te is his strongest function, and yet his type is INTJ, because he considers himself socially introverted. How do you explain this inconsistency?
That's actually possible with the Beebe model and the Nardi cognitive processes test.
If his auxiliary Te simply grew stronger than his dominant Ni, the Ni would still play a "lead" role, making him an introvert, and the Te would continue to play a "supporting" role even if it was stronger. The dominant introverted role would make him still socially introverted. The stronger support role would just shape his decision making.
 

mlittrell

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Actually, yeah, I think you're right that they are helpful for the individual, since you can understand the subjective experiences of one person: yourself.

This post was referring mainly to the extension of cognitive functions to try and explain the subjective experience of others, which is pushing it too far, imo.




Can you link to some of the studies proving links between brain chemicals and MBTI type?

Bolded parts I really agree with! Those were my main points: that MBTI has uses as a way to describe external behaviors, but that when we start trying to describe complex combinations of subconscious motivations for them in others, it gets really Freudian really quick, and that's a problem.

It gets really problematic when we abandon the basic four-letter descriptions and focus entirely on functions, because when combined with overconfidence in reading the functions of others, we can come to all kinds of ridiculous conclusions. When you place more faith in your ability to read the internal motivations of others than in those people's own descriptions of their behavioral preferences, you have a problem.

Heart is correct, though, that these internal motivation descriptions are useful for the self. I guess I needed an introvert to point that out ;)




Haha ok. I guess I did miss it. Sounded pretty serious at the time, but I guess that's what happens with text/no tone of voice. (Hey look another example of miscommunication of intentions because text is such a limited communication medium!)






Word, totally agreed.



Nothing is wrong with that; my post was misleading on that front. I should have clarified; that's perfectly fine.



I dunno, it'd be interesting to see some studies on that. The problem is that one's level of identification with the functional descriptions can clash with that of one's MBTI letters. Edgar, for instance, says Te is his strongest function, and yet his type is INTJ, because he considers himself socially introverted. How do you explain this inconsistency?



Bolded part is spot on. That was really my main point. I think what I'm getting at here, whether I knew it upon writing the first post or not, was that internal functions are something so personally subjective that only the subject in question can really make an accurate determination as to what his internal motivations are. We can watch someone act and then speculate that he may be motivated by functions x and y, but if he responds by explaining to the contrary, it's time to give up and let it go.

Behaviors that are described as "probably Te" from an external standpoint are only described that way because we've heard people who behave that way self-describe as heavy Te users. This does not make it safe to associate all instances of this behavior in others with this particular function! (I think the catch phrase here is, "Correlation does not prove causation.") It all has to come from personal self-description; there's no way to really get into someone's head and make any sort of accurate determination about what internal functions are governing his behavior.

I think we're pretty much in agreement, though.
your dead on about the functions. all they do is derive the 4 letters but they have very little application. as far as documentation, admittedly i do not have any, but if you look at neuroscience andn how they do things you see a direct correlation between MBTI and the brain. now, it isn't documented (well it might be, but it isn't public), but Dr. Eric Braverman has an entire clinic set up that helps people get in shape and get healthy, starting with the brain, and it is blatantly based on MBTI. his reviews are phenomenal and his system is very successful. he links NTs -> dopamine (frontal lobe) NFs -> acetylcholine (parietal lobe (as a side note, i find, personally, that many NFs get out of body experiences, this is caused partially in the parietal, that is obvously not documented)) SPs -> serotonin (temporal lobe) SJs -> GABA (occipital lobe) . i saw him speak on the subject and he said it is much much more complex than that but that for general reading purposes, he simplifies it (hes a self proclaimed INTJ). my friend called his clinic and acquired deeper information. *wink wink*. so ya, there is some truth to it, but it is just another tool in the toolbox and most people use it waaaay too much.
 
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