External Factors Internalized Into MBTI

[meme duchess]

I've been thinking about this for a while as it's been an idea that's lingered around briefly from post to post but finally went to the level of being curious enough to make a thread about it. Have any of you pondered on the idea about how many external factors from childhood may have had a potential effect on your type? I realize that the original theory revolves around the idea of your Myers Briggs type being "fixed" from birth (correct me if I'm wrong) but there's just so much to consider in terms of the relationship between the two. Chances are I may also be unnecessarily complicating it but it's difficult to determine what could be considered cause and the effect here: is your type affecting what you do or is what you do affecting your type? While I think both can happen, the latter seems like it would be more of a possibility in childhood but a lot happens around that time that could end up that I feel could subconsciously take an affect. Hope that made sense. If it didn't, I'm willing to clarify anything I said. Otherwise, I'm interested in hearing any personal stories you guys may have about how this theory personally relates back to you, or just general thoughts about the theory itself. That is, the theory revolving around the relationship between who you are naturally and the severity of outside factors and how much it would take for your usage of functions to quite possibly change permanently because of said factors.

 

[Venkish]

the original theory revolves around the idea of your Myers Briggs type being "fixed" from birth

Personality Changes With Age

Study: Your Personality Can Change (and Probably Should)

Our Personalities Are Constantly Changing Although We Think Otherwise | TIME.com

Personality is NOT static.

But I'm glad you created this thread, because this has been a major source of confusion for me.

Before school started, I was a demanding, bratty child. I had choked an elderly man in a department store because he annoyed me; I would wake up my parents demanding a happy meal late into the night, etc.

Something must have happened because starting in late elementary school, I became a sort of sensitive, effeminate pansy. I followed the rules, always did my work on time, and sucked up to the teachers.

It took me many negative experiences to realize that being that way (emulating my mother, who I didn't notice was fked up until much later in life) got me nowhere. Being nice just means that people say a few kind words at your grave. So what?

Now, I don't really care about much. Or at least, I'm unsure how to feel about things.

The problem with tests is that they do not take into account psychological problems, environment, etc.

If you're pissed off at the world, you'll type differently than you would with an optimistic attitude.

And honestly, you can be any type you want to be. I don't care if an MIT graduate in Jungian psychology disagrees with me; they're wrong. A person can choose their personality.

 

[spirilis]

It's going back to the old Nature vs Nurture problem. To some extent, our Jungian "type" may be considered fixed and our personality "evolves within" it as we get more familiar with the outlying functions that don't define our type.
[MENTION=3521]Eric B[/MENTION] (by way of Beebe) has a framework of regarding the typological functions as primarily playing out in our ego's various archetypal complexes or grips, and IIRC that's not something easy to "change" over time since the underpinnings are often difficult to grasp consciously without therapy.

I lean more towards nature here vs nurture, but I can imagine our early years may be characterized by substantial plasticity in all things including typological identification.

 

[spirilis]

That said, one situation where external factors may demonstrate their role is when one moves to a different culture, even a different country. The dynamics of how one's accumulated strengths play out with the stressors of a new culture may slightly alter one's effective ego-archetype associations, although this is purely conjecture on my part. It would highly illustrate the role of external factors in shaping our type, and show how our minds are not so self-contained as we seem to assume they are at times.

 

[Aleph]

- - - Updated - - -

This is not technical but maybe you'll find this interesting. On this page they have a cognitive function test for children. The result determines the dominant function. The rest will develop when the children is more than 12 years old, they say. I don't know if it's true and I'd like to know if it's reliable, but it seems interesting and the description was very fitting at least for me, more than the one I read in the book "Nurture By Nature" .

 

[INTP]

I actually wrote like 3 page essay on personality psychology exam about how introversion/extraversion of a person is affected on environment. The essay was supposed to be a type of essay where i was pondering on some issue of that sort, without giving any definite answer.
It has been proven that when measured by big 5 there is slight variation of traits over time, but its definition of I/E isnt exactly the same as it is in MBTI.
I had one example on the essay about an extravert by nature having his extraverted traits suppressed by family and environment. Sure the person wont act like your typical extravert, but does that mean that the person actually is an introvert now? Well it depends on the definition of I/E, and the definition varies based on the system. More behavioristic systems would say that the person did turn into an introvert, but MBTI is not a behavioristic model. Even tho the test asks some question based on behavior, but the test isnt even meant to give you a type, but to give an indication of what type you resemble and typing is done by professional to find the 'best fit type'.

Anyways the studies showing that personality does change over time are studying trait theories, like big 5. Its entirely different to say that your extraversion on big 5 has changed by 20 points than to say that your turned from INFP to lets say an ESTP. Not to mention that with MBTI you can take such things into account as persona etc. that are not about the real personality, but the social mask that does change from situation to situation.

Personally i dont think that MBTI type changes(you might get different scores from the test tho, but it doesent mean anything really), however you do develop lower functions over time, so that the type sort of balances, like T type learning to use F also, but not turning into F type. However when you look at personality from big 5s perspective, there can be some variation on individual traits. Like shrooms for example have been shown to increase the persons openness to experience(which correlates with MBTIs intuition to some extend) a bit for a long time. But again if you look at MBTIs perspective on this, its not that shrooms make S turn into N type, but shrooms do increase the use of intuition, because it helps stuff from the unconscious to come on the surface, which is essentially what MBTI intuition is.

It's going back to the old Nature vs Nurture problem.

This problem has been solved like over 10 years ago, solution is nature via nurture or in other words nature through nurture. Meaning that persons nature or dna is activated based on the environment that the person lives in.