I think Jungian typology is more accurate than MBTI

[Soph11287]

Here is a quote from wikipedia I found interesting..

"According to Jung the dominant function is supported by two auxiliary functions. (In MBTI publications the first auxiliary is usually called the auxiliary or secondary function and the second auxiliary function is usually called the tertiary function.)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_type

This clarified a lot of confusion for me. I wasn't aware at first that MBTI was different from Carl Jung's original personality theory. Jungian Typology states that there is no Tertiary, instead there are two auxiliary functions. From personal experience I know this to be true. I'm an ISFP and I find that my Ni to be just as powerful of an influence in my life as the Se, they hold equal importance. This is why it took me so long to identify myself as the right type because I couldn't decide if I was a sensor or an intuitive.

I find Jung's approach much more holistic and all-encompassing than MBTI. People are multidimensional beings. To state that everyone has only one dominant function and one supporting function seems like a very narrow minded concept to me. Was it Isabel Briggs who came up with MBTI? My guess is she was probably someone who rarely saw the deeper side to things. Carl Jung was a genius, his theories were already perfect and didn't need to be rearranged. It's a shame that Jung's discoveries have been overshadowed, twisted and misinterpreted over the years. If Jung were alive right now he would be very upset and make sure to correct this mistake.

From wikipedia..

"those who study and follow Jung's theories (Jungians) are typically adamant that Myers is incorrect."

"His views on the primary and auxiliary functions both being of enough differentiation to be considered conscious"

"there is a significant difference between Jung and the MBTI regarding the orientation of the functions."

If any of you are having a hard time typing yourself I suggest you start looking at the three first functions of each type, that's the only way I was able to discover who I was.

 

[Eric B]

What really sets the order the "two auxiliaries" take is the ego states associated with them. http://www.typologycentral.com/foru...tive-functions/77084-ego-backbone-type-2.html
The ego itself chooses the dominant function and orientation. A "supporting" state chooses, for the sake of balance, a function of the opposite rationality (i.e. rational or irrational), and in the opposite orientation. Another state (that reflects the supporting state by being less mature, and generally "looking up" for support) then associates with the function and orientation opposite the supporting function. Since the resulting orientation is then the same as the dominant, the ego sometimes runs to this state in an overboard fashion, and it can even appear to eclipse the supporting state (and function). Hence, becoming like another "auxiliary".

So those are the "two auxiliaries". MBTI didn't explain them like this, but looking into other parts of Jung's theories (especially archetypes/complexes, which are what the ego states are), helps explain and harmonize it .

 

[highlander]

Here is a quote from wikipedia I found interesting..

"According to Jung the dominant function is supported by two auxiliary functions. (In MBTI publications the first auxiliary is usually called the auxiliary or secondary function and the second auxiliary function is usually called the tertiary function.)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_type

This clarified a lot of confusion for me. I wasn't aware at first that MBTI was different from Carl Jung's original personality theory. Jungian Typology states that there is no Tertiary, instead there are two auxiliary functions. From personal experience I know this to be true. I'm an ISFP and I find that my Ni to be just as powerful of an influence in my life as the Se, they hold equal importance. This is why it took me so long to identify myself as the right type because I couldn't decide if I was a sensor or an intuitive.

I'm not convinced there is any difference. MBTI is just an extension of Jung's work. I think you are probably misinterpreting what you are reading. I think Jung mostly talked about the dominant function. He talked about the inferior as well. He didn't get into much detail about auxiliary and tertiary functions. The important thing that MBTI did was to create 16 types, which reflects an ordering of dominant and auxiliary. They also referenced the inferior function in their work. If you don't believe in that then you don't believe in the 16 types, which is fine I suppose.

I find Jung's approach much more holistic and all-encompassing than MBTI. People are multidimensional beings. To state that everyone has only one dominant function and one supporting function seems like a very narrow minded concept to me. Was it Isabel Briggs who came up with MBTI? My guess is she was probably someone who rarely saw the deeper side to things. Carl Jung was a genius, his theories were already perfect and didn't need to be rearranged. It's a shame that Jung's discoveries have been overshadowed, twisted and misinterpreted over the years. If Jung were alive right now he would be very upset and make sure to correct this mistake.

From wikipedia..

"those who study and follow Jung's theories (Jungians) are typically adamant that Myers is incorrect."

"His views on the primary and auxiliary functions both being of enough differentiation to be considered conscious"

"there is a significant difference between Jung and the MBTI regarding the orientation of the functions."

If any of you are having a hard time typing yourself I suggest you start looking at the three first functions of each type, that's the only way I was able to discover who I was.

The reference of "those who study and follow Jung's theories (Jungians) are typically adamant that Myers is incorrect" and "there is a significant difference between Jung and the MBTI regarding the orientation of the functions" refers to the idea that the tertiary is in the opposite attitude of the dominant (introverted vs. extraverted). So for an INTJ, instead of the tertiary being Fi, it would be Fe under that thinking. I don't know anyone who really thinks that anymore. The commonly accepted interpretation is that the tertiary is in the same orientation as the dominant function.

I think on this stuff you have to look at the time in which the comments where made vs. having a binary view on the philosophy. Jung had certain concepts that he theorized about. Myers/Briggs elaborated on those concepts and built them out further. After that, people like Beebe and Berens have built them out more.

It's sort of like Bill Gates who supposedly said "640K ought to be enough for anyone”. You could argue whether he really said it or not but the concept is the same. Henry Ford didn't talk about anti-locking brakes, airbags, turbocharged v6s, etc. because they weren't invented yet. It doesn't mean we're not driving cars anymore and we should call them something else.

Edit: Maybe a better analogy would be looking at different physicists over time. The ideas/concepts they developed over time built on each other. Top 10 physicists of all time. We don't think of people as Newtonians or Feynmanians.

 

[Eric B]

The tertiary being the same attitude as the dominant is originally the theory of Harold Grant. Quenk and other MBTI-related theorists remained ambivalent about it.
The way to understand this, is , once again, the ego states. There are four functions, and they are brought into awareness by the ego states, which will assign them their "position" and orientation. The Puer complex orients the tertiary to the dominant attitude, and apart from that, the tertiary would [along with the aux. and inferior] default to the attitude of the unconscious (which is opposite the dominant, and it's also the right or left brain alternative, in BTi theory, and the Trickster archetype in Beebe's theory).

 

[reckful]

Here is a quote from wikipedia I found interesting..

Wikipedia is not a very good source when it comes to Jung and Myers.

I'd say Jung made it pretty clear — in Psychological Types, and again 30 years later in Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy — that he thought that, for a typical person (or at least a typical person with a reasonably differentiated type), the auxiliary function tended to be predominantly conscious and the tertiary function tended to be predominantly unconscious. It's true that he expected the auxiliary function to be less conscious (and correspondingly less "differentiated") than the dominant function — but he referred to the dominant and auxiliary functions, together, as the "conscious functions," and the tertiary and inferior functions, together, as the "unconscious functions." (He also said that the tertiary function was typically "fused" with the inferior function and served, in essence, as the "auxiliary" to the inferior.)

Here's what he said in Psychological Types:

Closer investigation shows with great regularity that, besides the most differentiated function, another, less differentiated function of secondary importance is invariably present in consciousness and exerts a co-determining influence.
...
For all the types met with in practice, the rule holds good that besides the conscious, primary function there is a relatively unconscious, auxiliary function which is in every respect different from the nature of the primary function. The resulting combinations present the familiar picture of, for instance, practical thinking allied with sensation, speculative thinking forging ahead with intuition, artistic intuition selecting and presenting its images with the help of feeling-values, philosophical intuition systematizing its vision into comprehensible thought by means of a powerful intellect, and so on.

The unconscious functions likewise group themselves in patterns correlated with the conscious ones. Thus, the correlative of conscious, practical thinking may be an unconscious, intuitive-feeling attitude, with feeling under a stronger inhibition than intuition.

And here's a little bit of Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy:

If we think of the psychological function [sic] as arranged in a circle, then the most differentiated function is usually the carrier of the ego and, equally regularly, has an auxiliary function attached to it. The "inferior" function, on the other hand, is unconscious and for that reason is projected into a non-ego. It too has an auxiliary function. ...

In the psychology of the functions there are two conscious and therefore masculine functions, the differentiated function and its auxiliary, which are represented in dreams by, say, father and son, whereas the unconscious functions appear as mother and daughter. Since the conflict between the two auxiliary functions is not nearly as great as that between the differentiated and the inferior function, it is possible for the third function — that is, the unconscious auxiliary one — to be raised to consciousness and thus made masculine. It will, however, bring with it traces of its contamination with the inferior function, thus acting as a kind of link with the darkness of the unconscious.

So Jung allowed for the possibility of the tertiary function being "raised to consciousness," but emphatically didn't view that as the typical case.

As a related note, I'd say it's also pretty clear that Jung thought the function stack for an Fi-dom with an S-aux would be Fi-Si-Ne-Te, and if you're interested, you can read a long explanation in this two-part post.

The "tertiary function" that you think you make heavy conscious use of is Ni, but virtually nobody claims that Jung thought that the tertiary function (in a typical person) would have the same attitude as the dominant.

Fi-Se-Ni-Te is the Harold Grant function stack, and it's a function stack that, besides being inconsistent with both Jung and Myers, has no respectable validity and has never been endorsed by the official MBTI folks — and if you're interested, you can read more about that in this post (which I realize I already linked you to in another thread).

Was it Isabel Briggs who came up with MBTI? My guess is she was probably someone who rarely saw the deeper side to things. Carl Jung was a genius, his theories were already perfect and didn't need to be rearranged. It's a shame that Jung's discoveries have been overshadowed, twisted and misinterpreted over the years. If Jung were alive right now he would be very upset and make sure to correct this mistake.

You're way off here, and I've put some recycled reckful on Jung and Myers for you in the spoiler.

It's not hard to find MBTI forum posters who'll tell you that Jungian/MBTI type is basically all about the functions, and that the dichotomies mostly just deal with superficial stuff, and that you should think of them primarily as "letter codes" that need to be decoded to lead you to the deeper stuff.

But reckful's here to tell you that those people have been taken for a ride. Not even Jung himself prioritized the so-called "cognitive functions" in the way that a lot of those confused forumites do. In fact, Jung spent more of Psychological Types talking about the things he thought extraverts had in common and introverts had in common than he spent talking about all eight of the functions put together; and in the Foreword to a 1934 edition of the book, he bemoaned the fact that too many people were inclined to view Chapter 10 (his function descriptions) as the essence of the book, while noting that he'd stuck those at the back of the book for a reason.

And in any event, and regardless of what Jung's perspective was, it's been close to 100 years since Psychological Types was published, and a lot of studies have been done since then — and it shouldn't surprise you to hear that the modern MBTI reflects countless adjustments and improvements to Jung's original concepts. Mystical streak notwithstanding, Jung was a believer in the scientific approach, and Isabel Myers took Psychological Types and devoted a substantial chunk of her life to putting its typological concepts to the test in a way that Jung never had, and in accordance with the psychometric standards applicable to the science of personality. Myers adjusted Jung's categories and concepts so that they better fit the data she gathered from thousands of subjects, and by the start of the 1960s (as the leading Big Five psychologists have acknowledged), she had a typology that was respectably tapping into four of the Big Five personality dimensions — long before there really was a Big Five. And twin studies have since shown that identical twins raised in separate households are substantially more likely to match on those dimensions than genetically unrelated pairs, which is further (strong) confirmation that the MBTI dichotomies correspond to real, relatively hard-wired underlying dimensions of personality. They're a long way from being simply theoretical — or pseudoscientific — categories with no respectable evidence behind them.

You may have heard that Myers "dumbed down" Jung for "the masses," or turned Jung's typology into crude stereotypes for testing or job-placement purposes, or bla bla bla, but those are just uninformed memes that get passed around the Great Internet Forum Echo Chamber. If it wasn't for Myers, chances are pretty good that few of us would ever have even heard of Psychological Types, which was largely ignored until Myers did the necessary data-gathering to figure out how the personality characteristics that Jung had focused on actually clustered in real people.

Jung included what's arguably the lion's share of the modern conception of S/N (the concrete/abstract duality) in his very broad notion of what E/I involved. But Myers discovered that there are abstract extraverts (ENs) and concrete introverts (ISs), and that there's no significant correlation between Myers' (statistically supportable) versions of E/I and S/N. Jung said extraverts tend to subscribe to the mainstream cultural views of their time, while introverts tend to reject mainstream values in favor of their own individualistic choices. But Myers discovered that a typical ISTJ is significantly more likely to be a traditionalist than a typical (more independent-minded) ENTP. Jung said an extravert likes change and "discovers himself in the fluctuating and changeable," while an introvert resists change and identifies with the "changeless and eternal." But Myers discovered that it was the S/N and J/P dimensions that primarily influenced someone's attitude toward change, rather than whether they were introverted or extraverted.

And so on. The appropriate way to view the Myers-Briggs typology is not as some kind of "dumbed down" — or simplified (or more "testable") — version of Jung's original typology. Instead, it's fairer to say that the Myers-Briggs typology is basically where Jung's typology ended up after it was very substantially modified — not to mention expanded — to fit the evidence. And if you're interested, you can read quite a lot about the scientific respectability of the MBTI — and about several other issues often raised by people claiming to "debunk" the MBTI — in a couple of the posts linked at the end of this one.

Buuut contrary to what some of the function aficionados would have you believe, the scientifically respectable side of the MBTI is the dichotomy-centric side — and the dichotomies differ greatly from the so-called "cognitive functions" in that regard. The functions — which James Reynierse (in "The Case Against Type Dynamics") rightly characterizes as a "category mistake" — have barely even been studied, and the reason they've barely been studied is that, unlike the dichotomies, they've never been taken seriously by any significant number of academic psychologists. Going all the way back to 1985, the MBTI Manual described or referred to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 MBTI studies, and as I understand it, not one of the many study-based correlations reported in the manual were framed in terms of the functions. The third edition of the MBTI Manual was published in 1998 and, as Reynierse notes in that same article, it cited a grand total of eight studies involving "type dynamics" (i.e., the functions model) — which Reynierse summarizes as "six studies that failed, one with a questionable interpretation, and one where contradictory evidence was offered as support." He then notes: "Type theory's claim that type dynamics is superior to the static model and the straightforward contribution of the individual preferences rests on this ephemeral empirical foundation."

And contrary to the notion that a function-centric perspective offers more richness and depth than a (properly framed) dichotomy-centric perspective, and as further discussed in one of the posts linked at the end of this one, it's actually the dichotomy-centric perspective that's richer and more flexible.

If you're interested in reading more about that Harold Grant function stack, and about the relationship between the dichotomies and the functions, the place of the functions (or lack thereof) in the MBTI's history, and the tremendous gap between the dichotomies and the functions in terms of scientific respectability, you might want to consider having a cup of coffee and working your way through some or all of the following posts:

• The unbearable bogosity of the "tandems."
• Myers (rightly) left the functions behind.
• Piggybacked validity.
• The dichotomy-centric framework isn't the limited one.
• Debunking the MBTI "debunkers."
• More about the scientific respectability of the MBTI.

 

[Thor]

We've done comparisons between the type descriptions posted by Carl Jung and the descriptions taken forward by Isabella Briggs and our neojungian typology model, and we've found that the neojungian model (which is based on neuroscience) correlates more to the MBTI than to Carl Jungs theories. Carl Jungs definition of Intuition is for example somewhat correlated to neurological processes in the default-mode network, the network we believe is most closely related to Feeling. The MBTI is much more consistent in it's typing, Carl Jung himself was never really able to self-identify as any type, and he knew his own model better than anyone else. The MBTI appears more consistent. I would still recommend anyone check out the original theory because it's fascinating, Jung is a great writer, it's really captivating writing, and there's alot you can learn there, but I do believe Isabella Briggs has done a good job with the original theory. Beebes eight function model was a really good addition aswell.

A mistake people use when they read Jung is they think Ni correlates to N*J, when Ni to Carl Jung just meant *Introverted intuitive* - i.e a person who was both introverted, and intuitive. J and P did not exist in Carl Jungs model. Which just goes to show you the MBTI is much more refined than Jungs theories which were never able to gain any scientific or popular momentum.

 

[INTP]

Jung said that there are two auxiliarys because in his view they often were both as developed, he did say that there is sometimes a third function position(when one of the auxiliarys has developed more than other). I think his view stems mainly from him dealing with neurotics and possibly because in that time people werent often as developed mentally as we are now.

I should also mention that in jungs view all functions than dom are opposite from doms I/E, so based on purely jungian model, you are not even using N in introverted attitude, but extraverted.

 

[indra]

Jung is super sexy.

Most people aren't.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Here is a quote from wikipedia I found interesting..

"According to Jung the dominant function is supported by two auxiliary functions. (In MBTI publications the first auxiliary is usually called the auxiliary or secondary function and the second auxiliary function is usually called the tertiary function.)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_type

Just a caveat...

Wikipedia is a great resource, really great, but it's only great if you use it as a portal to other sources. It's great because articles [should] contain citations, and you can fact-check the article itself with said sources whilst also using the citations to delve deeper into a topic.

Never make the mistake of accepting anything on wikipedia without heavy scrutiny. Factual errors and conjecture abound, despite most authors attempts to keep it as objective and factual as possible. Also, as in many encyclopedia articles, sometimes the essence of a topic or subject is "lost" or misworded, often leading to mass misconceptions--in some cases this is simply a result of the author trying to keep the article as concise as possible. Also, despite many wikipedia editors' best efforts to remain unbiased, you will find many failing; consider that someone who is writing or editing an article about Jungian theory will likely be a proponent of that theory, so we should assume their article might place said theory in a more favorable light while doing the opposite for opposing theories (albeit in a very subtle manner that may not be readily apparent even to the author)

Again, a great resource (one of my favorite sites, in fact) and I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong or misinformed, but always keep this in mind.

 

[Bush]

and I've put some recycled reckful on Jung and Myers for you in the spoiler.

It's not hard to find MBTI forum posters who'll tell you that Jungian/MBTI type is basically all about the functions, and that the dichotomies mostly just deal with superficial stuff, and that you should think of them primarily as "letter codes" that need to be decoded to lead you to the deeper stuff.

But reckful's here to tell you that those people have been taken for a ride. Not even Jung himself prioritized the so-called "cognitive functions" in the way that a lot of those confused forumites do. In fact, Jung spent more of Psychological Types talking about the things he thought extraverts had in common and introverts had in common than he spent talking about all eight of the functions put together; and in the Foreword to a 1934 edition of the book, he bemoaned the fact that too many people were inclined to view Chapter 10 (his function descriptions) as the essence of the book, while noting that he'd stuck those at the back of the book for a reason.

And in any event, and regardless of what Jung's perspective was, it's been close to 100 years since Psychological Types was published, and a lot of studies have been done since then — and it shouldn't surprise you to hear that the modern MBTI reflects countless adjustments and improvements to Jung's original concepts. Mystical streak notwithstanding, Jung was a believer in the scientific approach, and Isabel Myers took Psychological Types and devoted a substantial chunk of her life to putting its typological concepts to the test in a way that Jung never had, and in accordance with the psychometric standards applicable to the science of personality. Myers adjusted Jung's categories and concepts so that they better fit the data she gathered from thousands of subjects, and by the start of the 1960s (as the leading Big Five psychologists have acknowledged), she had a typology that was respectably tapping into four of the Big Five personality dimensions — long before there really was a Big Five. And twin studies have since shown that identical twins raised in separate households are substantially more likely to match on those dimensions than genetically unrelated pairs, which is further (strong) confirmation that the MBTI dichotomies correspond to real, relatively hard-wired underlying dimensions of personality. They're a long way from being simply theoretical — or pseudoscientific — categories with no respectable evidence behind them.

You may have heard that Myers "dumbed down" Jung for "the masses," or turned Jung's typology into crude stereotypes for testing or job-placement purposes, or bla bla bla, but those are just uninformed memes that get passed around the Great Internet Forum Echo Chamber. If it wasn't for Myers, chances are pretty good that few of us would ever have even heard of Psychological Types, which was largely ignored until Myers did the necessary data-gathering to figure out how the personality characteristics that Jung had focused on actually clustered in real people.

Jung included what's arguably the lion's share of the modern conception of S/N (the concrete/abstract duality) in his very broad notion of what E/I involved. But Myers discovered that there are abstract extraverts (ENs) and concrete introverts (ISs), and that there's no significant correlation between Myers' (statistically supportable) versions of E/I and S/N. Jung said extraverts tend to subscribe to the mainstream cultural views of their time, while introverts tend to reject mainstream values in favor of their own individualistic choices. But Myers discovered that a typical ISTJ is significantly more likely to be a traditionalist than a typical (more independent-minded) ENTP. Jung said an extravert likes change and "discovers himself in the fluctuating and changeable," while an introvert resists change and identifies with the "changeless and eternal." But Myers discovered that it was the S/N and J/P dimensions that primarily influenced someone's attitude toward change, rather than whether they were introverted or extraverted.

And so on. The appropriate way to view the Myers-Briggs typology is not as some kind of "dumbed down" — or simplified (or more "testable") — version of Jung's original typology. Instead, it's fairer to say that the Myers-Briggs typology is basically where Jung's typology ended up after it was very substantially modified — not to mention expanded — to fit the evidence. And if you're interested, you can read quite a lot about the scientific respectability of the MBTI — and about several other issues often raised by people claiming to "debunk" the MBTI — in a couple of the posts linked at the end of this one.

Buuut contrary to what some of the function aficionados would have you believe, the scientifically respectable side of the MBTI is the dichotomy-centric side — and the dichotomies differ greatly from the so-called "cognitive functions" in that regard. The functions — which James Reynierse (in "The Case Against Type Dynamics") rightly characterizes as a "category mistake" — have barely even been studied, and the reason they've barely been studied is that, unlike the dichotomies, they've never been taken seriously by any significant number of academic psychologists. Going all the way back to 1985, the MBTI Manual described or referred to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 MBTI studies, and as I understand it, not one of the many study-based correlations reported in the manual were framed in terms of the functions. The third edition of the MBTI Manual was published in 1998 and, as Reynierse notes in that same article, it cited a grand total of eight studies involving "type dynamics" (i.e., the functions model) — which Reynierse summarizes as "six studies that failed, one with a questionable interpretation, and one where contradictory evidence was offered as support." He then notes: "Type theory's claim that type dynamics is superior to the static model and the straightforward contribution of the individual preferences rests on this ephemeral empirical foundation."

And contrary to the notion that a function-centric perspective offers more richness and depth than a (properly framed) dichotomy-centric perspective, and as further discussed in one of the posts linked at the end of this one, it's actually the dichotomy-centric perspective that's richer and more flexible.

If you're interested in reading more about that Harold Grant function stack, and about the relationship between the dichotomies and the functions, the place of the functions (or lack thereof) in the MBTI's history, and the tremendous gap between the dichotomies and the functions in terms of scientific respectability, you might want to consider having a cup of coffee and working your way through some or all of the following posts:

• The unbearable bogosity of the "tandems."
• Myers (rightly) left the functions behind.
• Piggybacked validity.
• The dichotomy-centric framework isn't the limited one.
• Debunking the MBTI "debunkers."
• More about the scientific respectability of the MBTI.

You probably don't need flattered like this -- but if you don't already, you should have some sort of blog here or some website where you keep these sorts of writings. And [MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION] should sticky the hell out of it. It's all good stuff, and it'd make a good resource for TypoC and others.

 

[Bush]

My own personal -- but likely totally wrong -- perspective is that MBTI plugged an extension cord to Jung's outlet, then deliberately tangled it the hell up. Thanks for making Jung more accessible, Isabel; but.. you know, that straight cord would've been better.

MBTI claims to tease out a function stacking, right? If its ultimate goal is to tease out such a stacking, why mash together four Clarity of Preference scales to come up with a stacking, rather than test for the stacking directly? Nardi at least took a stab at that approach.

"Congratulations! We measured up some ways of dealing with the world, and you're TeSi. You shove your thinking out there in the world primarily, and you deal with sensate internally. That means that [...]

Wanna know how the test works? Well, we evaluated all of that directly. Here, have some links that describe what Te and Si are."​

is just as accessible as, if not more than,

"Congratulations! We measured up four dichotomies, and you're ESTJ. This means that you shove your thinking out there in the world primarily, and you deal with sensate internally. This means that [...]

Wanna know how the test works? Well, the 'J' indicates that you extravert your Judgment, and the way you Judge is determined by that third dichotomy. If it were a 'P', well, we'd refer to that second dichotomy instead. And if that 'E' were an 'I', we'd say that that STJ is all ass-backwards. You'd still extravert Thinking, yeah, but you don't care about that as much as you care about Sensing inside.

And that means that your function ordering is TeSi. Maybe. I don't even know anymore. Had that damn 'P' popped up instead, you'd have a completely different function ordering. But we somehow maintain Ti and Se are totally different than Te and Si. Here are some links that describe Te and Si, or Ti and Se, or whatever."​

I mean, at the very surface, one could look at each of those four dichotomies and be done with the whole thing. But the very next step that most resources -- even the managerial or businessy ones -- take is to start describing the cognitive functions anyway.

 

[highlander]

You probably don't need flattered like this -- but if you don't already, you should have some sort of blog here or some website where you keep these sorts of writings. And [MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION] should sticky the hell out of it. It's all good stuff, and it'd make a good resource for TypoC and others.

That's a good idea.

I would be happy to sticky it. Great idea. [MENTION=18736]reckful[/MENTION]

 

[Eric B]

My own personal -- but likely totally wrong -- perspective is that MBTI plugged an extension cord to Jung's outlet, then deliberately tangled it the hell up. Thanks for making Jung more accessible, Isabel; but.. you know, that straight cord would've been better.

MBTI claims to tease out a function stacking, right? If its ultimate goal is to tease out such a stacking, why mash together four Clarity of Preference scales to come up with a stacking, rather than test for the stacking directly? Nardi at least took a stab at that approach.

"Congratulations! We measured up some ways of dealing with the world, and you're TeSi. You shove your thinking out there in the world primarily, and you deal with sensate internally. That means that [...]

Wanna know how the test works? Well, we evaluated all of that directly. Here, have some links that describe what Te and Si are."​

is just as accessible as, if not more than,

"Congratulations! We measured up four dichotomies, and you're ESTJ. This means that you shove your thinking out there in the world primarily, and you deal with sensate internally. This means that [...]

Wanna know how the test works? Well, the 'J' indicates that you extravert your Judgment, and the way you Judge is determined by that third dichotomy. If it were a 'P', well, we'd refer to that second dichotomy instead. And if that 'E' were an 'I', we'd say that that STJ is all ass-backwards. You'd still extravert Thinking, yeah, but you don't care about that as much as you care about Sensing inside.

And that means that your function ordering is TeSi. Maybe. I don't even know anymore. Had that damn 'P' popped up instead, you'd have a completely different function ordering. But we somehow maintain Ti and Se are totally different than Te and Si. Here are some links that describe Te and Si, or Ti and Se, or whatever."​

I mean, at the very surface, one could look at each of those four dichotomies and be done with the whole thing. But the very next step that most resources -- even the managerial or businessy ones -- take is to start describing the cognitive functions anyway.

I too once thought measuring function-attitudes directly was a better idea. The Singer-Loomis is another instrument that supposedly does that (and allows any combination).

But Jung framed the theory in terms of four “natural” (whole or not divided by orientation) functions, and then went into attitude via the dominant function. It was the ego that was introverted or extraverted, and simply oriented its dominant function into the preferred attitude. This was what Myers picked up, and then devised the J/P system to point to the attitudes. They weren't thinking of “the functions” as these eight solid things, as we often do.

She also started out trying to create another system similar to DISC or Social Styles, and J/P came in handy for that, as they tell you what will figure in interactions with other people more. (Hence them being used prominently in Keirsey and Berens theories).

Trying to measure eight items ends up creating more confusion than measuring four, as it's more to define (and definitions end up imperfect), and so more room for Forer effects or misunderstandings, as we actually saw with Keys 2 Cognition and especially the other one someone created on PerC.

 

[reckful]

You probably don't need flattered like this -- but if you don't already, you should have some sort of blog here or some website where you keep these sorts of writings. And [MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION] should sticky the hell out of it. It's all good stuff, and it'd make a good resource for TypoC and others.

My own personal -- but likely totally wrong -- perspective is that MBTI plugged an extension cord to Jung's outlet, then deliberately tangled it the hell up. Thanks for making Jung more accessible, Isabel; but.. you know, that straight cord would've been better.

MBTI claims to tease out a function stacking, right? If its ultimate goal is to tease out such a stacking, why mash together four Clarity of Preference scales to come up with a stacking, rather than test for the stacking directly? Nardi at least took a stab at that approach.

Thanks for the thumbs-up.

If you look at the list of linked posts at the end of that long post of mine that you quoted, you'll see that the second one is:

Myers (rightly) left the functions behind.

As that post explains at some length, what Myers really discovered, after putting Jung's original notions to the test, was that the four dichotomies were what type is really about. And various dichotomy combinations are associated with noteworthy aspects of personality as well, but there's nothing special about the ones that purportedly correspond to the "cognitive functions."

The official MBTI test doesn't use the dichotomies because, even though the functions are for real, the dichotomies are somehow, paradoxically, more testable. The official MBTI test uses the dichotomies because the dichotomies are what's real, and the functions are a "category mistake."

And there's a lot more about all that in those linked posts.

I'm not interested in doing a blog for a lot of reasons. My little essays on this, that and the other aspect of the MBTI are steadily evolving, and many of my posts are plenty long as it is, without doing any further consolidation. I don't know that there's anybody currently posting on any MBTI-related forum who recycles and links to his own stuff as much as I do, so there's no risk of my perspectives getting lost in the mists of time.

And which parts of my posting history I want to try to steer people to in any particular new thread often involves a balancing act between the desire to link to more stuff because, you know, I think everybody should read everything I write and the wisdom to limit my linking to increase the odds that any particular reader of the new thread will actually spend the time that it takes to pull up and read the one or two or three posts I linked to (and that were presumably the most relevant ones to that thread).

And again, I'm constantly replacing older posts with supplemented/adjusted versions in any case, or recycling just selected parts of older posts, and etc.

 

[Seymour]

And which parts of my posting history I want to try to steer people to in any particular new thread often involves a balancing act between the desire to link to more stuff because, you know, I think everybody should read everything I write and the wisdom to limit my linking to increase the odds that any particular reader of the new thread will actually spend the time that it takes to pull up and read the one or two or three posts I linked to (and that were presumably the most relevant ones to that thread).

And again, I'm constantly replacing older posts with supplemented/adjusted versions in any case, or recycling just selected parts of older posts, and etc.

I made a wiki page from your spoiler section above. You should feel free to update and edit it over time as you see fit, if you prefer that to something more static (since forum posts are locked down after a certain date).

 

[Bush]

I too once thought measuring function-attitudes directly was a better idea. The Singer-Loomis is another instrument that supposedly does that (and allows any combination).

But Jung framed the theory in terms of four “natural” (whole or not divided by orientation) functions, and then went into attitude via the dominant function. It was the ego that was introverted or extraverted, and simply oriented its dominant function into the preferred attitude. This was what Myers picked up, and then devised the J/P system to point to the attitudes. They weren't thinking of “the functions” as these eight solid things, as we often do.

She also started out trying to create another system similar to DISC or Social Styles, and J/P came in handy for that, as they tell you what will figure in interactions with other people more. (Hence them being used prominently in Keirsey and Berens theories).

Trying to measure eight items ends up creating more confusion than measuring four, as it's more to define (and definitions end up imperfect), and so more room for Forer effects or misunderstandings, as we actually saw with Keys 2 Cognition and especially the other one someone created on PerC.

I didn't know that Myers thought the same way. Her rationale was at least defensible, but packaging it all up as a DISC-like system didn't exactly help. Still, not her fault.

I don't know how or when the function-attitudes began to be seen as isolated, unrelated entities. My second -- likely totally wrong -- perspective is that we treat, say, Fe and Fi as completely different entities and place undue focus on axes -- that, e.g. Te-Fi or Fe-Ti are the most meaningful divisions; that ISFJs are totally different in both thought and behavior than ISFPs, closer instead to ENTPs.

 

[Eric B]

MBTI laid the basis for focusing on eight function-attitudes, but the eight fixed items view probably came as a result of Harold Grant, as was mentioned, and people picking up his view. I know in the online type community, Berens/Nardi seems to be the most influential (being they paired Keirsey temperament back with JCF, and this is what we all in practice discuss), and they are influenced by John Beebe, and that whole circle all really focus on the eight as solid items. (Others are Hartzler and Haas & Hunziker). Using the Grant stack, you do end up with "ego-syntonic" tandems like the ones you mention, while the opposite tandem, is considered "shadow", following Beebe. (They've now even added names for these tandems).

(Also of note, the final Myers system is not the "DISC-like" system I referred to. She started out with four "styles", like "Marketable", "Sociable" [IIRC] etc. and then discovered Jung, and tried to work his ideas (introversion, etc) into hers, and this is what eventually fanned it out into the four dichotomies of MBTI).

 

[Doomkid]

A mistake people use when they read Jung is they think Ni correlates to N*J, when Ni to Carl Jung just meant *Introverted intuitive* - i.e a person who was both introverted, and intuitive. J and P did not exist in Carl Jungs model. Which just goes to show you the MBTI is much more refined than Jungs theories which were never able to gain any scientific or popular momentum.

the J and P tried to refine the model, but when you try to apply it to cognitive functions they are inconsistent.

the 'letters model' are useful if we ignore the functions, but when you try to mix both...

Carl Jung himself was never really able to self-identify as any type, and he knew his own model better than anyone else.

that doesn't mean anything, just means that in his model is easier to type other people than to type yourself, IMO that's kind of obvious, it's like trying to use your eyes to see your own eyes you need someone else or a mirror

 

[Paladin-X]

Here is a quote from wikipedia I found interesting..

"According to Jung the dominant function is supported by two auxiliary functions. (In MBTI publications the first auxiliary is usually called the auxiliary or secondary function and the second auxiliary function is usually called the tertiary function.)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_type

This claim is inaccurate.

This clarified a lot of confusion for me. I wasn't aware at first that MBTI was different from Carl Jung's original personality theory. Jungian Typology states that there is no Tertiary, instead there are two auxiliary functions. From personal experience I know this to be true. I'm an ISFP and I find that my Ni to be just as powerful of an influence in my life as the Se, they hold equal importance. This is why it took me so long to identify myself as the right type because I couldn't decide if I was a sensor or an intuitive.

It's semantics really. MBTI's tertiary is the same thing as Jung's second auxiliary. Here's a post I made on the topic of the tertiary on another forum:

The confusion about the tertiary is because Jung referred to it as an auxiliary function. There is the dominant, two auxiliaries, and the inferior functions.

He mentions a "tertiary function" near the end of PT in the "Principal and Auxiliary Functions" section of chapter X:

For all the types met with in practice, the rule holds good that besides the conscious, primary function there is a relatively unconscious, auxiliary function which is in every respect different from the nature of the primary function. The resulting combinations present the familiar picture of, for instance, practical thinking allied with sensation, speculative thinking forging ahead with intuition, artistic intuition selecting and presenting its images with the help of feeling-values, philosophical intuition systematizing its vision into comprehensible thought by means of a powerful intellect, and so on.

The unconscious functions likewise group themselves in patterns correlated with the conscious ones. Thus, the correlative of conscious, practical thinking may be unconscious, intuitive-feeling attitude, with feeling under a stronger inhibition than intuition.

CW6 - Pg 406-407, Par669-670


He mentions it more clearly here:

If we think of the psychological functions as arranged in a circle, then the most differentiated function is usually the carrier of the ego and equally regularly, has an auxiliary function attached to it. The "inferior" function, on the other hand is unconscious and for that reason is projected into a non-ego. It too has an auxiliary function.

CW12 - Pg 106-7

FWIW, here is Jung treating an INTJ by going through auxiliary thinking to conflict with feeling to get to reality:

People with an overdevelopment of intuition which leads them to scorn objective reality, and so finally to a conflict such as I have described above, have usually characteristic dreams. I once had as a patient a girl of the most extraordinary intuitive powers, and she had pushed the thing to such a point that her own body even was unreal to her. Once I asked her half jokingly if she had never noticed that she had a body, and she answered quite seriously that she had not--she bathed herself under a sheet! When she came to me she had ceased even to hear her steps when she walked--she was just floating through the world. Her first dream was that she was sitting on top of a balloon, not even in a balloon, if you please, but on top of one that was high up in the air, and she was leaning over peeping down at me. I had a gun and was shooting at the balloon which I finally brought down. Before she came to me she had been living in a house where she had been impressed with the charming girls. It was a brothel and she had been quite unaware of the fact. This shock brought her to analysis.


I cannot bring such a case down to a sense of reality through sensation directly, for to the intuitive, facts are mere air; so then, since thinking is her auxiliary function, I begin to reason with her in a very simple way till she becomes willing to strip from the fact the atmosphere she has projected upon it. Suppose I say to her, "Here is a green monkey." Immediately she will say, "No, it is red." Then I say, "A thousand people say this monkey is green, and if you make it red, it is only of your own imagination." The next step is to get her to the point where her feeling and thinking conflict. An intuitive does with her feelings very much the same thing she does with her thoughts; that is, if she gets a negative intuition about a person, then the person seems all evil, and what he really is matters not at all. But little by little such a patient begins to ask what the object is like after all, and to have the desire to experience the object directly. Then she is able to give sensation its proper value, and she stops looking at the object from around a corner; in a word, she is ready to sacrifice her overpowering desire to master by intuition.

Introduction to Jungian Psychology, Notes of the Seminar on Analytical Psychology Given in 1925 -- C.G. Jung -- Pg 134-135

Here is Jung explaining the process of going from the Dominant to the Inferior:

You cannot get directly to the inferior function from the superior, it must always be via the auxiliary function. It is as though the unconscious were in such antagonism to the superior function that it allowed no direct attack. The process of working through the auxiliary functions goes on somewhat as follows: Suppose you have sensation strongly developed but are not fanatical about it. Then you can admit about every situation a certain aura of possibilities; that is to say, you permit an intuitive element to come in. Sensation as an auxiliary function would allow intuition to exist. But inasmuch as sensation (in the example) is a partisan of the intellect, intuition sides with the feeling, here the inferior function.Therefore the intellect will not agree with intuition, in this case, and will vote for its exclusion. Intellect will not hold together sensation and intuition, rather it will separate them. Such a destructive attempt will be checked by feeling, which backs up intuition.

Looking at it the other way around, if you are an intuitive type, you can't get to your sensations directly. They are full of monsters, and so you have to go by way of your intellect or feeling, whichever is the auxiliary in the conscious. It needs very cool reasoning for such a man to keep himself down to reality. To sum up then, the way is from the superior to the auxiliary, from the latter to the function opposite to the auxiliary. Usually this first conflict that is aroused between the auxiliary function in the conscious and its opposite function in the unconscious is the fight that takes place in analysis. This may be called the preliminary conflict. The knockdown battle between the superior and inferior functions only takes place in life. In the example of the intellectual sensation type, I suggested the preliminary conflict would be between sensation and intuition, and the final fight between intellect and feeling.

Introduction to Jungian Psychology, Notes of the Seminar on Analytical Psychology Given in 1925 -- C.G. Jung -- Pg 75-76