Interview With Dario Nardi!

[highlander]

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[highlander]

Do you ascribe to the belief that the top four functions always follow the specified order or do people sometimes possess a group or order that is outside the "norm" of the theory.

[AncientSpirits]

@AncientSpirits

Are you familiar are you with Gardner's idea/theory of multiple intelligences, and if so, do you see any potential/possible correlation with the Jungian cognitive processes that might be drawn? Or do you think Garnder's theory is incorrect?

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

Theory of multiple intelligences - Wikipedia

MI: You mean like this?
Unfortunately, the book is out of print for technical reasons: There's no PDF copy and the original InDesign document was is corrupted. Thus, printing more copies or even making an e-book available would require reconstructing the book. There are copies floating around. Maybe Google can be convinced to scan every page and post a version on their online library?!

To answer your question, I looked at the intersection of temperament and multiple intelligences, rather than the cognitive processes.

Another question, do you see any strong correlation between enneagram types and the Jungian processes? Is there a possibility for "odder" or less common/obvious pairings, say, an ESTP 4, or an ISFJ 8?

Also, Thank you for sharing these definitions of the processes. I think they're a bit more spot on than some of the stuff I've seen.

I'm aware there are some typical assignments, and some persons can be atypical, but it's not something I've concerned myself with.

Thanks! I composed them based on the brain insights.

[Tactical Turtleneck]

MI: You mean like this?
Unfortunately, the book is out of print for technical reasons: There's no PDF copy and the original InDesign document was is corrupted. Thus, printing more copies or even making an e-book available would require reconstructing the book. There are copies floating around. Maybe Google can be convinced to scan every page and post a version on their online library?!

To answer your question, I looked at the intersection of temperament and multiple intelligences, rather than the cognitive processes.



I'm aware there are some typical assignments, and some persons can be atypical, but it's not something I've concerned myself with.

Thanks! I composed them based on the brain insights.

I feel foolish that I didn't bother to check if you'd done any work on intelligences. Thank you for sharing that. Shame it is no longer in print.


Sorry to barrage you with questions but I have another one.

Why is it that INTPs' brains "light up" so much when embarrassed? Do you notice any outward signs of embarrassment in your studies of INTPs (i.e. extreme blushing)? Do any other types show similar results in your scans when experiencing embarrassment?

[Z Buck McFate]

Much in the way that Enneagram itself can interfere with "profiling" - for example, I often get "profiled" by online assessments as INTJ, yet my experience of other INTJs makes it pretty clear to me that I am not - the conflation of instinct variants with Fe/Fi has been discussed quite a bit in this forum. I'm not clear on whether your understanding of Enneagram is solid enough to confidently answer this, but assuming it is: do you have any opinion about how to clearly distinguish Fe from social instinct variant dominance? Or how to identify Fe in someone who is least social instinct variant?

Or maybe I should say, what is the difference between the information that gets processed with a Fe preference and the information that gets processed as a result of social instinct variant dominance? There's a sort of unconscious prioritization going on for both, wouldn't you say? I'm wondering how you'd define the difference exactly. And consequently, how would you say being least social instinct variant changes the way a Fe preference would unconsciously prioritize information?

[AncientSpirits]

Much in the way that Enneagram itself can interfere with "profiling" - for example, I often get "profiled" by online assessments as INTJ, yet my experience of other INTJs makes it pretty clear to me that I am not - the conflation of instinct variants with Fe/Fi has been discussed quite a bit in this forum. I'm not clear on whether your understanding of Enneagram is solid enough to confidently answer this, but assuming it is: do you have any opinion about how to clearly distinguish Fe from social instinct variant dominance? Or how to identify Fe in someone who is least social instinct variant?

Or maybe I should say, what is the difference between the information that gets processed with a Fe preference and the information that gets processed as a result of social instinct variant dominance? There's a sort of unconscious prioritization going on for both, wouldn't you say? I'm wondering how you'd define the difference exactly. And consequently, how would you say being least social instinct variant changes the way a Fe preference would unconsciously prioritize information?

I understand your question, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with the issue to answer it.

[AncientSpirits]

Why is it that INTPs' brains "light up" so much when embarrassed? Do you notice any outward signs of embarrassment in your studies of INTPs (i.e. extreme blushing)? Do any other types show similar results in your scans when experiencing embarrassment?

This isn't something I try to evoke. It just happened. I still know the former-student who got so embarrassed and launched me on a journey with this to figure it out a little deeper. There was actual blushing. I have a grand total of two examples of INTPs in this situation, so they're just case studies for a hypothesis. In the other case, there was an incident of clumsiness very soon after as well. Overall, I do have examples from other types of "overflow", often just different stuff, though with xxFJ types, it's easily T5 (left posterior temporal region). I've seen an ENFJ have a massive T5 overflow while getting very verbally and emotionally passionate about something (I don't recall what). She was plainly verklempt.

[AncientSpirits]

Do you ascribe to the belief that the top four functions always follow the specified order or do people sometimes possess a group or order that is outside the "norm" of the theory.

Great question. A huge can of worms! Tasty worms, so long as we apply "ketchup" (aka "comfort with uncertainty").

There continues to be a schism within the professional type community, though it's clearly swayed in one direction for a while now.

To clarify what we're talking about, by way of example for INFP:
Standard: Fi, Ne, Si, Te
Alternate: Fi, Ne, Se, Te
Other: Fi, ?, ?, ?

What is a person's "type" really, functionally? Minimally, does a person just have a dominant function, and everything else is there to balance out that one function? Or, minimally, does a person have a dominant+auxiliary pair, and the other 2 functions balance out that pairing? Or, beyond the dominant function, is there really a set order? Maybe it varies by person? Or maybe the set order is typical, but there are individuals, maybe 1%, 5% or 10%, whatever, who differ?

More abstractly, from a modeling POV, is the function-hierarchy a "prescriptive" model or a "descriptive" model? If it's descriptive, it should hold true, ideally up to the limits of error, say 95% of the time. Alternatively, if it's prescriptive, then people may be all over the place, but they're happier and healthier (more "functional") if they follow the hierarchy, whichever hierarchy that is.

I'm in the dom+aux camp, with the 3rd and 4th functions necessarily reflecting one's opposite type. Why am I in that camp? The reasons are multiple, and mostly practical, and I use it as a prescriptive model. That is, people are happier and healthier this way.

Mark Majors has been gathering and analyzing data from his Majors PTI tool and has presented at conferences on this very question. Mark helped developed MBTI Form M at CPP and then went his own way to develop the Majors PTI, which turned out to be a savvy business decision; plus as a professional statistician, the Majors PTI is second only to the MBTI in terms of statistical support, and from what I'm told, it outperforms the MBTI. Anyway, it looks like there is a hierarchy, it's a clear statistical pattern, but it's not true for every person. Of course, this is from assessment data; it's not a person-by-person in-depth investigation, so it's still questionable. What he has NOT resolved is whether the standard or alternate model is the right one! At first Mark said the alternate model won out, but when he shows audiences the data, it's a 1% difference, so he's yet unable, after thousands of data points, to fully answer the question.

On to Jung... Jung didn't really say there are 8 functions. He observed a preference for E or I that could be weak or strong, and he named 4 functions. A person has one of those 4 as dominant, as differentiated into consciousness. How that dominant function plays out in practice looks notably different depending on whether the person prefers E or I. So, INFJ and ENFP both have the same dominant function, iNtuiting, and all that differs is that INFJ is introverted and ENFP is extraverted. This is a slightly different framework than saying there are 8 distinct cognitive processes.

The difference may feel semantic, but I've kept it in mind while analyzing the brain data. And in fact, if I take all my NF subjects and factor their brain wiring data into 2 groups, INFJ and ENFP plainly fall into one group while INFP and ENFJ fall into another group. This is maybe 95% of subjects falling into their group... so maybe Jung's original take is actually correct? That said, there are many other aspects of the brain data, such as flow, that plainly point to 8 distinct cognitive processes. And all the 16 types factor so neatly.

BTW, I tend to explain Type like this:

An able adult needs to both “perceive” and “decide” as well as operate in both the inner and outer worlds. Thus, minimally, we each rely on two processes: either Sensing or iNuiting to perceive plus either Thinking or Feeling to decide. Moreover, we need to use one process in an extraverted way and the other in an introverted way. Thus, for example, a person might prefer extraverted Intuiting (Ne) and introverted Feeling (Fi). Or a person might prefer introverted Sensing (Si) and extraverted Thinking (Te). These pairings minimally cover all the bases.

Yet, from the thousands of data points from my cognitive processes assessment at keys2cognition.com, I use something else!

To determine E or I:
E score = Se + Ne + Te + Fe
I score = Si + Ni + Ti + Fi
Whichever is higher wins out. So I'm following Jung's viewpoint here.

Then I look for which PAIR of functions, out of the 8 "allowed" by type, has the highest score.
So maybe Ni+Fe is the highest pairing, or maybe Ne+Ti is the highest or what not.

The assessment scores this way because I tried several scoring methods and this came closest to matching declared type. Maybe not the best reason, but it works, and is essentially a hybrid of what's discussed above.

Finally, when I work with people one-on-one, I give a bit of leeway. For example, by definition, ENFP is minimally Ne + Fi. But beyond that, most adults have several more moderately-develop functions. For introverts, I find 3 introverted functions and 1 or 2 extraverted functions are typical; vice versa for extraverts. So an ENFP might be Ne + Fi, with Fe and Te, plus some Si. But I've met some ENFPs who are Ne + Fi, with Fe and Se, or Te and Se, plus some Si. Or whatever. BTW, I find those less-usual ENFPs tend lead lives that are not so well "sorted", but are perhaps more interesting.... I use this model not because I believe it's true, but because it's a practical way to characterize and work with a person. To work with the ENFP "as if" Te or Fe or Se or whatever is also developed, even if at a deep psychical level, it's not true.

Actually finally, I should clarify that I distinguish "basic" and "advanced" use of a function. I really believe a ton of debate and confusion in the type community could be resolved by making a few simple distinctions like these:

[AncientSpirits]

Yes there is a little image button right above the post.that provides this wrapper automatically as well

Thanks. I went through and replaced those "attachment" posts with links to images I uploaded to the web :-).

[AncientSpirits]

@AncientSpirits

How would you type according to this when Si, Fi, Ti predominantly fit, and to a small extent Se, Fe and Ne fit, but otherwise no extraverted "function" really clicks? (Aside from looking at other clues like Temperaments etc). Is it necessary that there be function "stacks"?

The consensus among professional users of type (in the workplace etc), is that starting with the 8 cognitive processes to locate best-fit type is the least-likely avenue to success. Better to start with interaction styles + temperament, or the type preferences along with whole-type descriptions, then only get into the 8 processes for the purpose of development or to help clarify type.

Personally, I do start with the 8 cognitive processes, but only when I've done brain imaging with the person first. And when I do, I take an extra step by asking the person to identify what processes are/were emphasized in their environment: culture, upbringing, workplace.

For example, an ISFP came in. We did a brain imaging session, though I already knew him well enough to figure ISFP was likely. He's enneagram 4 wing 5 (rather than most ISFPs I meet, who are enneagram 9). Also, he's from Russia, age 30, and his uni degree is engineering. Presently, he's a newly-successful Hollywood actor. We went through a foldout that shows all 8 processes in front of him. I said (honestly), that the brain imaging results suggest certain processes as likely, but I'd like him to go through and read and rate them first. We then talked about which processes are encouraged in Russia, and in the army there and in engineering, and where his parents might fall. Filtering out Russian culture was a key step. He was debating between Fi, Fe, and Ti; and also Se and Si. (He could see some Te as well but understood on his own that it was aspirational and slowly developing). He realized that Si was Russian culture, and Fe came in terms of how he grew up. Moreover, Ti wasn't something he actually did or cared about, it was simply a product of university life. He had some difficulty at first owning up to aspects of Se. We went through his daily life, and that's when he saw it. He was taking for granted that he uses it. So he was able to settle on Fi with Se at the end.

I would suggest going through this process when trying to sort among the functions. It might also help to sort between basic and advanced use (see post above).