So informing is a form of expression? It seems that the only real world difference at that level would be one person who expressed themselves informing and another person who expressed themselves by directing things.
What they actually directed their attention towards would be the same I would think.
Directing and Informing are really more about
response than expression. (I/E is really expression). The original factors of temperament (of which Interaction Styles are another form of) were expressiveness and responsiveness (under many different terms).
And D/Inf are not to be taken but so literally. It's just one behavioral
tendency manifestation of the responsiveness dimension. Other ways it is described is people vs task focus.
It is an interesting fact that Dr.Keirsey's personal facebook profile indicates that he has no formal training in the social sciences, philosophy, history, political science or any other academic discipline that is concerned with the study of human nature. As you may see below, all of his academic credentials are in Computer science.
David Keirsey | Facebook
That's the
son, David M. Keirsey, and not the father, David W. Keirsey, who is the author of the theory. (David M has even expressed it differently, such as adding the "rings of a tree" illustration). The father is
much older than graduating high school in the 60's.
The trouble with Keirsey's method is that he makes assertions about large groups of people without citing empirical research in sociology to substantiate the relevant claims. The views of the champion of folk typology stand in sharp contrast with that of Jung who focused primarily on the description of mental processes rather than behaviors. Indeed, only by describing cognitive tendencies can one justify a typological inference without conducting carefully controlled empirical investigations. Since Keirsey rejected Jungian methodology, the burden of sociological proof is on him.
In my own discussion with Lenore thomson (who also rejects Keirseyan temperament theory for similar reasons), I'm coming to understand things better, and have recently gathered that the distinctions she makes are:
limbic system--emotions; {invests survival based choices with}--outside conscious control--
temperament (affective), "the body", concrete responses to immediate experience,
archetypal complexes manifest undifferentiated functions
frontal cortex--conscious choice/rational decision making, (
cognitive), sense of self {self-awareness}, "the psyche", activities that have individual meaning for us in a particular place and time,
differentiated function builds connections
These are connected by emotionally freighted images. Ego forms by building cognitive connections backwards from cortex towards limbic.
Functions represent different ways of building these neurological connections. They do not supply knowledge for different activities; just different approaches to its acquisition, different ways of investing emotional energy
Ego-identity: a central hub with an operating charter. Undifferentiated functions are perfectly capable of reaching consciousness, but only in so far as they're linked to the "operating charter" of the network.
Else, it remains conflated with one of the archetypal complexes, at the limbic level of emotional response, and we experience it concretely, which is to say that when the instinctual complex associated with it becomes activated, we *feel* it emotionally. (Thus, Beebe's eight function model tells us how we're likely to interpret the archetype's agenda, given the function we've differentiated).
In other words, "temperament" starts out as a limbic reaction that all sentient beings have (such as "fight or flight"). So there aren't "four temperaments"; just one, really. It is in humans that the
limbic system was supplanted by the controls of the frontal cortex. It's with the cortex, that the cognitive connections form, differentiating personality type. The one that best equips us to accomplish the biological tasks of youth is the one that differentiates as our dominant. So she will (like SW) downplay the "behavioral" (or "affective") aspects of personality in favor of the cognitive.
Interesting dichotomy. Though, it should be noted out that according to Berens, only Interaction Style is "affective", while the Keirsyeyan groups are a different category called "conative". Though I don't know if that makes a difference. Conative might be regarded as just another kind of affective.
I do love it when we all get together like this, Papa Keirsey would be proud.
