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Conscious/Subconscious functions in MBTI

Agent Washington

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Hey, I just have a quick question. I know there's a theory about the last 4 functions being entirely subconscious, but the arrangement of the functions seem entirely arbitrary to me. Does Myerrs-Briggs actually incorporate the idea of subconscious functions, and to what extent?
 

Korvinagor

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Hm...isn't that usually in the realm of Socionics? About each type using eight functions.

I've heard vague mutterings in Myer-Briggs about so-called 'shadow functions', but they tend not to be mentioned much. Basically just one's functions but reversed in introversion/extroversion (e.g. Ni-Te-Fi-Se / Ne-Ti-Fe-Si). They apparently manifest extremely rarely, usually during times of stress.

Is that what you meant by them being subconscious?
 

Agent Washington

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Hm...isn't that usually in the realm of Socionics? About each type using eight functions.

I've heard vague mutterings in Myer-Briggs about so-called 'shadow functions', but they tend not to be mentioned much. Basically just one's functions but reversed in introversion/extroversion (e.g. Ni-Te-Fi-Se / Ne-Ti-Fe-Si). They apparently manifest extremely rarely, usually during times of stress.

Is that what you meant by them being subconscious?
Jungian cognitive functions - Wikipedia

kInda like this

I do prefer Socionics Model A at the moment because it seems to make more internal sense. Trying to suss out mbti's model feels really arbitrary to me.
 

Korvinagor

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Ah...

More recently, typologists such as John Beebe and Linda Berens have introduced theoretical systems in which all people possess eight functions—equivalent to the four functions as defined by Jung and Myers but in each of the two possible attitudes—with the four in the opposite attitude to that measured known as the "shadow functions", residing largely in the unconscious.

Hrm. I guess it depends on the model...? Seems rather ambiguous.
 

reckful

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If you're interested in reading about what I call the Real MBTI Model, see this post.

Not only don't the respectable districts of the MBTI include the so-called "shadow functions" (5th through 8th), they also don't include the tertiary and inferior functions in the form most often encountered at MBTI forums — i.e., the Harold Grant function stack, where INFP=Fi-Ne-Si-Te, and where INFPs and ESTJs may be dichotomy opposites, but ZOMG, they've actually got a lot in common cuz they're both "Fi/Te types" and "Ne/Si types."
 

GavinElster

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agentwashington said:
but the arrangement of the functions seem entirely arbitrary to me.

That theory is from Beebe, who is a Jungian analyst who likes to associate more with the MBTI than many others do. It isn't technically something pioneered by Myers. The rationale behind it is taking Jung's idea that the opposite function-attitude to the dominant is the weirdest to reckon with and applying it to every one of the four "standard" (according to Beebe) function-attitudes.

There's an archetype that marks the opposition between each counterpart, for instance dom-Ni/opposing Ne...all the way to inferior Se/demonic Si.

It's completely obvious to anyone who hasn't sort of "fallen for" these theories that these aren't just "given in nature" and are very human-constructed theories made to illustrate certain ideas. That said, their founders probably have "fallen for" them.
 

Agent Washington

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If you're interested in reading about what I call the Real MBTI Model, see this post.

Not only don't the respectable districts of the MBTI include the so-called "shadow functions" (5th through 8th), they also don't include the tertiary and inferior functions in the form most often encountered at MBTI forums — i.e., the Harold Grant function stack, where INFP=Fi-Ne-Si-Te, and where INFPs and ESTJs may be dichotomy opposites, but ZOMG, they've actually got a lot in common cuz they're both "Fi/Te types" and "Ne/Si types."

Yes that's why I have trouble finding more info about them that explains it in a way that actually makes sense, so to speak.

Hmmm

So, basically, what I got from the gist of your posts is that there's more consensus among MBTI experts regarding dichotomies rather than function stacks.

How do the dichotomies then tie in with the first two functions???
 

Agent Washington

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That theory is from Beebe, who is a Jungian analyst who likes to associate more with the MBTI than many others do. It isn't technically something pioneered by Myers. The rationale behind it is taking Jung's idea that the opposite function-attitude to the dominant is the weirdest to reckon with and applying it to every one of the four "standard" (according to Beebe) function-attitudes.

There's an archetype that marks the opposition between each counterpart, for instance dom-Ni/opposing Ne...all the way to inferior Se/demonic Si.

It's completely obvious to anyone who hasn't sort of "fallen for" these theories that these aren't just "given in nature" and are very human-constructed theories made to illustrate certain ideas. That said, their founders probably have "fallen for" them.

All theories are human-constructed. I just... kinda don't see the inductive/deductive/whatever reasoning that should ideally be present in any hypothesis regarding phenomena in these theories, you know?? But it's like. The main reason cognitive functions are interesting to me is because they could present a useful approach towards understanding the mind. Yet if the unconscious is so disregarded then what's the ... point ... of studying ... it
 

GavinElster

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agentwashington said:
How do the dichotomies then tie in with the first two functions???

Basically, that part is speculation. I would say there's really no choice but to view the two as separate theories. If empiricism is your friend, then probably the best of all would be the five factor model. When it comes to the hard sciences, I'd say empiricism HAS to be the way to go. When it comes to the softer....not sciences, but fields, one has to figure out how much one is going to appeal to data and how much one isn't. It's impossible to work with the softer fields, almost by definition, with a sort of one-to-one correspondence between the math and the subject matter, because that's more or less the definition of being physical/physics-based.

Even the Big 5's starting point is *human-constructed* dictionaries, but it then extracts patterns regarding how those words seem to describe real people using a lot of hardcore data analysis.
It's about as removed from human construction as possible in this sort of domain, as far as I can tell. But the definition of soft to me basically tells us that there's always going to be some appeal to human choices in the models.
 

GavinElster

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agentwashington said:
All theories are human-constructed

OK sure, but the point is some of them seem to involve more human choices than others. The more physical a theory, the more you more or less are just mapping mathematical symbols to concrete objects, with really no choice as to what concrete, quantifiable objects you describe, because you're aiming for irreducibility of those objects.

With softer theories, you are studying complex combinations of these constituent objects. Thus, you have more choice as to what combinations you consider the building blocks of your theory. This shows up in personality theories, in that one can perform various rotation of the standard models, which are mathematically the same, but qualitatively different. At the very least, the Big 5 aims to limit the number of choices as much as possible by starting with some assumptions: that a complete reduction of the dictionary's descriptions of personality into the largest number of replicated, similar-sized dimensions is the closest we're going to get to a "canonical" theory of personality.
 

reckful

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How do the dichotomies then tie in with the first two functions???

Um... to quote from that post that I already linked you to (and I know it's longish, but you really ought to read the whooooole thing)...

As I'm always pointing out, the modern function descriptions you'll find in Thomson, Berens, Nardi, etc. differ in many ways (large and small) from Jung's original concepts, and appear to be a set of descriptions more or less jerry-rigged to match up reasonably well with the MBTI types they purportedly correspond with. (As one dramatic example, and as described at length in this post, the description of "Si" you'll find Thomson, Berens, Nardi and Quenk using bears little resemblance to Jung's "introverted sensation" and is instead a description made to match MBTI SJs. And you can read about the changes Myers made to Te in this PerC post.)

So... since "Ne" descriptions are set up to match NPs (extraverts and introverts both) reasonably well (since the IN_Ps are "Ne-aux" types) and "Ti" descriptions are set up to match TPs (extraverts and introverts both) reasonably well (since the E_TPs are "Ti-aux" types), it's not surprising that INTPs and ENTPs both read those modern Ne and Ti descriptions and feel like they relate reasonably well. (Although I can't help noting that, as discussed in the spoiler in this post, INTJs often relate pretty well to Ne and Ti descriptions as well....)

As a general matter, in other words... if you're looking at those modern cognitive function descriptions, and you're applying them to the types who purportedly have them as their dominant or auxiliary functions, you're likely to get quite a bit of piggybacked validity, because if an "Ne" description is largely made up of things that NPs tend to have in common, it's obviously going to be reasonably valid for NPs.

But none of that has anything to do with whether the functions — as components of a four-function "type dynamics" model — beat Reynierse's "category mistake" rap.​
 

Agent Washington

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Basically, that part is speculation. I would say there's really no choice but to view the two as separate theories. If empiricism is your friend, then probably the best of all would be the five factor model. When it comes to the hard sciences, I'd say empiricism HAS to be the way to go. When it comes to the softer....not sciences, but fields, one has to figure out how much one is going to appeal to data and how much one isn't. It's impossible to work with the softer fields, almost by definition, with a sort of one-to-one correspondence between the math and the subject matter, because that's more or less the definition of being physical/physics-based.

Even the Big 5's starting point is *human-constructed* dictionaries, but it then extracts patterns regarding how those words seem to describe real people using a lot of hardcore data analysis.
It's about as removed from human construction as possible in this sort of domain, as far as I can tell. But the definition of soft to me basically tells us that there's always going to be some appeal to human choices in the models.

Oh right! I think you mentioned this before and I just forgot about it. (The part about 2 separate theories.) I think that probably was why I formed a somewhat deep impression with your username; i.e. as "this guy probably has got interesting things to say" :D

To be fair, I don't exactly think empiricism is the be-all-and-end-all to understanding things, which is why I'm still here, but I really just want an interesting theory with internal logical integrity to kinda wrestle with. I'm not exactly finding that in MBTI as a dichotomy-based system, and I kinda don't see the reasoning for the stack system; if anything it seems kinda overly simple if we reduce it to conscious functions.
 

Agent Washington

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Um... to quote from that post that I already linked you to (and I know it's longish, but you really ought to read the whooooole thing)...

As I'm always pointing out, the modern function descriptions you'll find in Thomson, Berens, Nardi, etc. differ in many ways (large and small) from Jung's original concepts, and appear to be a set of descriptions more or less jerry-rigged to match up reasonably well with the MBTI types they purportedly correspond with. (As one dramatic example, and as described at length in this post, the description of "Si" you'll find Thomson, Berens, Nardi and Quenk using bears little resemblance to Jung's "introverted sensation" and is instead a description made to match MBTI SJs. And you can read about the changes Myers made to Te in this PerC post.)

So... since "Ne" descriptions are set up to match NPs (extraverts and introverts both) reasonably well (since the IN_Ps are "Ne-aux" types) and "Ti" descriptions are set up to match TPs (extraverts and introverts both) reasonably well (since the E_TPs are "Ti-aux" types), it's not surprising that INTPs and ENTPs both read those modern Ne and Ti descriptions and feel like they relate reasonably well. (Although I can't help noting that, as discussed in the spoiler in this post, INTJs often relate pretty well to Ne and Ti descriptions as well....)

As a general matter, in other words... if you're looking at those modern cognitive function descriptions, and you're applying them to the types who purportedly have them as their dominant or auxiliary functions, you're likely to get quite a bit of piggybacked validity, because if an "Ne" description is largely made up of things that NPs tend to have in common, it's obviously going to be reasonably valid for NPs.

But none of that has anything to do with whether the functions — as components of a four-function "type dynamics" model — beat Reynierse's "category mistake" rap.​

... Hmm... So.... it's because functions have been altered to match the descriptor?
 

GavinElster

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agentwashington said:
but I really just want an interesting theory with internal logical integrity to kinda wrestle with

Then you're probably best off with socionics.

That said, the MBTI (technically Grant, although it is the most widely cited one) functions stack as far as reasoning goes is pretty straightforward, even if not empirical: take the idea that your main two function-attitudes are compensated by their complementary ones, and use Myers' idea about the top two function-attitudes alternating.

The part you mention about unconscious: there's some difference between Beebe and Jung here. Beebe seems to view the 4 opposing function-attitudes as corresponding to shadow/unconscious, whereas Jung actually would have worked with a simpler idea, namely top two function-attitudes conscious/bottom two not. Jung's was not an 8 function-attitude theory, it was a 4 function theory with two attitudes.

I'm not an empiricist by any means, either, I'm only committed to rationality. I think being rational is ultimately about not mis-estimating one's certainty and not mis-applying a theory where it doesn't work. That means that you can play with more purely axiomatic frameworks, but you have to always remember that you defined these out of logical aesthetic, not out of the "brute facts." What this means is you have to commit to the idea that your types are going to probably be more specialized and fit a few people very well, but the broadest trends in how personality traits cluster together will still be covered in more empirical models.
 

Agent Washington

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Then you're probably best off with socionics.

That said, the MBTI (technically Grant, although it is the most widely cited one) functions stack as far as reasoning goes is pretty straightforward, even if not empirical: take the idea that your main two function-attitudes are compensated by their complementary ones, and use Myers' idea about the top two function-attitudes alternating.

The part you mention about unconscious: there's some difference between Beebe and Jung here. Beebe seems to view the 4 opposing function-attitudes as corresponding to shadow/unconscious, whereas Jung actually would have worked with a simpler idea, namely top two function-attitudes conscious/bottom two not. Jung's was not an 8 function-attitude theory, it was a 4 function theory with two attitudes.

I'm not an empiricist by any means, either, I'm only committed to rationality. I think being rational is ultimately about not mis-estimating one's certainty and not mis-applying a theory where it doesn't work. That means that you can play with more purely axiomatic frameworks, but you have to always remember that you defined these out of logical aesthetic, not out of the "brute facts." What this means is you have to commit to the idea that your types are going to probably be more specialized and fit a few people very well, but the broadest trends in how personality traits cluster together will still be covered in more empirical models.

Ey yah, that's a very reasonable take on rationality, I think. It's being realistic even while looking at other various means of evaluating and acquiring knowlege

I think I'll look more into socionics

Where do you look for your papers? muse/jstor? Are there any sources that's somewhat okay that's not behind a pay wall? :(
 

Zeego

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As a general matter, in other words... if you're looking at those modern cognitive function descriptions, and you're applying them to the types who purportedly have them as their dominant or auxiliary functions, you're likely to get quite a bit of piggybacked validity, because if an "Ne" description is largely made up of things that NPs tend to have in common, it's obviously going to be reasonably valid for NPs.

Exactly! This is actually what I was trying to say with this post a while ago, but you worded it much better than I did.
 
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