mbti: static or dynamic?

[miss fortune]

One thing that I've always found particularly irksome about the way that some people on this site view type is that they view it as immutable... something that you can be slapped with at the earliest possible age and then it sticks, like your face, for the rest of your life. They say that type doesn't change... how you see and process the world is a monolithic thing that can never be altered.

Does the actual living of life not come into context?

Even in a smaller and more insignificant manner context can be the key in how we perceive and process surroundings. Walking home late at night down a dark street in the bad part of town... your physical senses are heightened, waiting for the sound of footsteps or a rustling in the bushes. Listening to music can bring feelings to the forefront even if they are normally ignored or set to gather dust on the back shelves. Drugs or alcohol? They'll change how you view things as well and in some cases, such as abuse, will alter things for a good while... perhaps forever. Even the act of living, growing older and becoming more comfortable with ourselves and our roles in society brings changes. We're living, dynamic beings.

So why the static view of type? Are we not adaptable? Do we not change as we live?

Can anyone give me a really good reason why one's personality should be considered immutable?

 

[Galena]

Maybe there is a system of typology out there that was written with change in mind, but it's not one of the ones popular here. I don't know what system, but am curious now and will research.

I do know that if we could change types at least once in a lifetime, I for one would be wayyyyy easier to type.

 

[Totenkindly]

It depends on whether you think type is based on innate / early-rooted preferences or whether it's just behavior that is mutable.

To make a long story short, my personal experience based on a lot of time on the planet, raising my own kids, and dealing with people in various jobs and organizations is that we do have instinctive preferences, and that running against them -- while we're capable of growth and expansion and whatever else -- can create some pretty miserable experiences for both ourselves and those who have to deal with us. If preferences were not innate, people should be very sculptable across the board with no negative outcome, but that's not true in the long term, even if we can and do adapt as part of human survival.

However, I don't see type as an 'excuse' to avoid growth, be a jerk to others, or to sell oneself short. It just is what it is.

 

[miss fortune]

I can see the logic in some aspects of a person's personality or self being more static... I've never been particularly emotionally expressive or good at dealing with anyone's emotions (my own included), for an example. I can't see how one can say that every aspect would remain so though... especially with a typing process and what we know of ourselves at any given point in our lives.

To use my own history as an example, I spent 6 years getting as drunk as I possibly could get away with whenever possible because I wasn't comfortable anywhere. Some temporary brain damage goes along with that sort of behavior that takes a few years of not even touching anything to start to repair. Would I be typed by my traits before that, when I was still a young whippersnapper, during that time period, which I can't even remember very well, or at the present?

Or perhaps a person can be introduced to an activity or task at some point and realize that they're really fucking good at it... it's not something that they'd ever really thought about before or considered an aspect of themselves...

So many factors come into play that to call anything definite seems like a mistake

 

[Jaguar]

Maybe there is a typology out there that was written with change in mind

There is, and Carl Jung wrote it. But don't tell anyone.

 

[Galena]

There is, and Carl Jung wrote it. But don't tell anyone.

Lips = zipped.