Reckful vs. Inquisitor on Jung and MBTI - Derail from: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

[reckful]

As for why Jung is so important...find me another psychologist who is a greater genius and can explain where Jung went wrong. From what I've read of the other works on typology, they basically agree with what he said.

Well, let me introduce you to Isabel Myers.

Jung was a believer in the scientific approach, and Myers took Psychological Types and devoted a substantial chunk of her life to putting its typological concepts to the test 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'd gathered from thousands of subjects, and by the end of the 1950s (as McCrae and Costa have acknowledged), she had a typology (and an instrument) 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.

McCrae and Costa are the leading Big Five psychologists, and they've studied both Jung and the MBTI and noted — correctly — that Jung's typology erred in lumping various psychological characteristics together that decades of studies have shown are not significantly correlated. By contrast, after Myers was finished adjusting Jung's system to fit the data, she had a modified version whose dichotomies passed muster by the relevant scientific standards. As McCrae and Costa explain:

Jung's descriptions of what might be considered superficial but objectively observable characteristics often include traits that do not empirically covary. Jung described extraverts as "open, sociable, jovial, or at least friendly and approachable characters," but also as morally conventional and tough-minded in James's sense. Decades of research on the dimension of extraversion show that these attributes simply do not cohere in a single factor. ...

Faced with these difficulties, Myers and Briggs created an instrument by elaborating on the most easily assessed and distinctive traits suggested by Jung's writings and their own observations of individuals they considered exemplars of different types and by relying heavily on traditional psychometric procedures (principally item-scale correlations). Their work produced a set of internally consistent and relatively uncorrelated indices.

As further discussed in this PerC post, 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 simplified (and more "testable") implementation 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.

Here's a recycle from an INTPforum post that I think you've already read, with links to two more PerC posts about substantial differences between Jung's and Myers' versions of the types.

For anyone who thinks that the rejection of the functions that Reynierse advocates would represent a revolutionary shift as far as the "official" MBTI is concerned, I'd argue, to the contrary, that the MBTI has essentially been centered around the dichotomies from the beginning. Aside from the test instruments themselves, the analysis in Myers' Gifts Differing focuses substantially more on the dichotomies than the functions. Myers was a nobody who didn't even have a psychology degree — not to mention a woman in mid-20th-century America — and I assume that background had at least something to do with the fact that her writings tend to somewhat disingenuously downplay the extent to which her typology differs from Jung. So it's no surprise, in that context, that the introductory chapters of Gifts Differing, besides introducing the four dichotomies, also include quite a bit of lip service to Jung's conceptions — or, at least, what Myers claimed were Jung's conceptions — of the dominant and auxiliary functions. But, with that behind her, Chapters 4-7 describe the effects of the "EI Preference," the "SN Preference," the "TF Preference" and the "JP Preference," and those four chapters total 22 pages. Chapter 8 then describes the eight functions — and that chapter consists solely of a half-page table for each function, for a total of four pages. What's more, those four pages were simply Briggs' summaries of Jung's function descriptions, and Myers ignored (and/or adjusted) substantial portions of those in creating her own type portraits. (As one example, as discussed in this PerC post, Myers' IS_Js bear little resemblance to Jung's Si-doms. And for a detailed discussion of the surgery Myers performed on Jung's conception of Te, see this PerC post.)​

Anyway, why not worship everything [Jung] said? It was amazing. And what are these questionable ideas that he had regarding psychological types? You gotta read the foundational works first...

Just FYI, Jung broke with Freud in large part because he thought Freud wanted him (and others) to treat Freud's theories as a kind of religion, rather than having an appropriately sceptical and open-minded scientific attitude toward them. So in that respect, your inclination to "worship everything Jung said" is very much non-Jungian.

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Spoiler

Well, let me introduce you to Isabel Myers.

Jung was a believer in the scientific approach, and Myers took Psychological Types and devoted a substantial chunk of her life to putting its typological concepts to the test 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'd gathered from thousands of subjects, and by the end of the 1950s (as McCrae and Costa have acknowledged), she had a typology (and an instrument) 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.

McCrae and Costa are the leading Big Five psychologists, and they've studied both Jung and the MBTI and noted — correctly — that Jung's typology erred in lumping various psychological characteristics together that decades of studies have shown are not significantly correlated. By contrast, after Myers was finished adjusting Jung's system to fit the data, she had a modified version whose dichotomies passed muster by the relevant scientific standards. As McCrae and Costa explain:



As further discussed in this PerC post, 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 simplified (and more "testable") implementation 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.

Here's a recycle from an INTPforum post that I think you've already read, with links to two more PerC posts about substantial differences between Jung's and Myers' versions of the types.

For anyone who thinks that the rejection of the functions that Reynierse advocates would represent a revolutionary shift as far as the "official" MBTI is concerned, I'd argue, to the contrary, that the MBTI has essentially been centered around the dichotomies from the beginning. Aside from the test instruments themselves, the analysis in Myers' Gifts Differing focuses substantially more on the dichotomies than the functions. Myers was a nobody who didn't even have a psychology degree — not to mention a woman in mid-20th-century America — and I assume that background had at least something to do with the fact that her writings tend to somewhat disingenuously downplay the extent to which her typology differs from Jung. So it's no surprise, in that context, that the introductory chapters of Gifts Differing, besides introducing the four dichotomies, also include quite a bit of lip service to Jung's conceptions — or, at least, what Myers claimed were Jung's conceptions — of the dominant and auxiliary functions. But, with that behind her, Chapters 4-7 describe the effects of the "EI Preference," the "SN Preference," the "TF Preference" and the "JP Preference," and those four chapters total 22 pages. Chapter 8 then describes the eight functions — and that chapter consists solely of a half-page table for each function, for a total of four pages. What's more, those four pages were simply Briggs' summaries of Jung's function descriptions, and Myers ignored (and/or adjusted) substantial portions of those in creating her own type portraits. (As one example, as discussed in this PerC post, Myers' IS_Js bear little resemblance to Jung's Si-doms. And for a detailed discussion of the surgery Myers performed on Jung's conception of Te, see this PerC post.)​

Just FYI, Jung broke with Freud in large part because he thought Freud wanted him (and others) to treat Freud's theories as a kind of religion, rather than having an appropriately sceptical and open-minded scientific attitude toward them. So in that respect, your inclination to "worship everything Jung said" is very much non-Jungian.

You and I are going to disagree b/c the only thing that matters for you, as you've previously made clear, is the data and empirical research. Anything that does not fall into that category...you're going to discard it and treat it as suspect. There can be no resolution about this b/c I believe in the intrinsic validity of my own subjective impressions, and if the data doesn't accord with my subjective impressions, I'm not going to buy it. Conversely, no matter how many people tell you that they attribute one thing or another in themselves to the functions, you're never going to believe them either.

INTJs

While I appreciate your post, I don't care what McCrae and Costa concluded. Neither of them could hold a candle to Jung. Even if they didn't find empirical evidence for what Jung described, you're inclined to then decide to believe that Jung "erred" whereas I'm inclined to think they just didn't/couldn't find any evidence for it.

The main point of my post was none of us are really in a position to conclude who made what kind of mistake b/c none of us are experts on this material. We're all just amateurs. You seem to have done more research than most, but still...it's only opinion...It's my understanding there's a fairly large literature out there just on Psychological Types w/o including MBTI research. Then there's the whole concept of Archetypes, which I haven't even gotten to yet...The only thing I try to limit myself to is improving my understanding of what Jung and others actually proposed.

Lastly, with regards to the differences between introverts/extraverts, I think you're misinterpreting what Jung said in those quotes from page 90 in the book. Nowhere does the word "tradition" enter into the discussion. Actually that passage indicates Jung likely agreed with Myers' interpretation. He was just pointing out there that introverts are not as affected by their "relation to the object" as extraverts. So actually, just looking at that passage alone, you would have to conclude that introverts are more likely to be traditionalists (ie to focus on what is changeless) than extraverts in Jung's view. As for extraverts and mainstream cultural values, I don't see how you can conclude from that that Jung made a mistake and that he believed that extraverts were therefore "traditionalists." This may just be a question of semantics, but ISTJs may actually be one of the types that can find itself to be most at odds with "prevailing cultural values" if the individual was raised in a different environment...ie an ISTJ is not likely to abandon his or her "religion" whatever that may be. Case in point: technological progress has accelerated rapidly, extraverts are more likely to "get with" the changes according to Jung, but does that make them "traditionalists?" I would say quite the contrary. ISTJs are going to find it much more difficult to adapt to the changes, and this is in accordance with what Jung said about introverts.

 

[reckful]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

You and I are going to disagree b/c the only thing that matters for you, as you've previously made clear, is the data and empirical research. Anything that does not fall into that category...you're going to discard it and treat it as suspect. There can be no resolution about this b/c I believe in the intrinsic validity of my own subjective impressions, and if the data doesn't accord with my subjective impressions, I'm not going to buy it. Conversely, no matter how many people tell you that they attribute one thing or another in themselves to the functions, you're never going to believe them either.

INTJs

While I appreciate your post, I don't care what McCrae and Costa concluded. Neither of them could hold a candle to Jung. Even if they didn't find empirical evidence for what Jung described, you're inclined to then decide to believe that Jung "erred" whereas I'm inclined to think they just didn't/couldn't find any evidence for it.

The main point of my post was none of us are really in a position to conclude who made what kind of mistake b/c none of us are experts on this material. We're all just amateurs. You seem to have done more research than most, but still...it's only opinion...It's my understanding there's a fairly large literature out there just on Psychological Types w/o including MBTI research. Then there's the whole concept of Archetypes, which I haven't even gotten to yet...The only thing I try to limit myself to is improving my understanding of what Jung and others actually proposed.

Lastly, with regards to the differences between introverts/extraverts, I think you're misinterpreting what Jung said in those quotes from page 90 in the book. Nowhere does the word "tradition" enter into the discussion. Actually that passage indicates Jung likely agreed with Myers' interpretation. He was just pointing out there that introverts are not as affected by their "relation to the object" as extraverts. So actually, just looking at that passage alone, you would have to conclude that introverts are more likely to be traditionalists (ie to focus on what is changeless) than extraverts in Jung's view. As for extraverts and mainstream cultural values, I don't see how you can conclude from that that Jung made a mistake and that he believed that extraverts were therefore "traditionalists." This may just be a question of semantics, but ISTJs may actually be one of the types that can find itself to be most at odds with "prevailing cultural values" if the individual was raised in a different environment...ie an ISTJ is not likely to abandon his or her "religion" whatever that may be. Case in point: technological progress has accelerated rapidly, extraverts are more likely to "get with" the changes according to Jung, but does that make them "traditionalists?" I would say quite the contrary. ISTJs are going to find it much more difficult to adapt to the changes, and this is in accordance with what Jung said about introverts.

Sorry, fella, but this post of yours doesn't come close to making sense. There are opinions and there are facts, and you know what? As noted in my last post, Jung believed in that distinction, because notwithstanding his mystical streak, he believed in applying the scientific method to the extent that that was reasonably feasible.

In one of the articles included in the Collected Works edition of Psychological Types, Jung brought up astrology — along with several other "age-old" typologies — solely to dismiss it as unacceptable as a tool for psychological analysis. "As for the astrological type theory," Jung wrote, "to the astonishment of the enlightened it still remains intact today, and is even enjoying a new vogue." By contrast, Jung explained, "our scientific conscience does not permit us to revert to these old, intuitive ways of thinking. We must find our own answer to this problem, an answer which satisfies the needs of science."

You say I'm misinterpreting Jung on the issue of extraverts being more inclined to adopt mainstream cultural values and introverts being more inclined to reject the mainstream in favor of their own individualistic choices. But I've already quoted Jung on that subject twice in INTPforum posts that you yourself have read, and so the next spoiler is the third time, and hopefully it'll be the charm. (You're welcome.)

Spoiler

In 1923 — two years after Psychological Types was published — Jung gave a lecture (separately published in 1925) that's included in the Collected Works edition of Psychological Types. After some opening remarks on the shortcomings of past approaches to typology, here's how he began his discussion of extraverts and introverts:

f we wish to define the psychological peculiarity of a man in terms that will satisfy not only our own subjective judgment but also the object judged, we must take as our criterion that state or attitude which is felt by the object to be the conscious, normal condition. Accordingly, we shall make his conscious motives our first concern, while eliminating as far as possible our own arbitrary interpretations.

Proceeding thus we shall discover, after a time, that in spite of the great variety of conscious motives and tendencies, certain groups of individuals can be distinguished who are characterized by a striking conformity of motivation. For example, we shall come upon individuals who in all their judgments, perceptions, feelings, affects, and actions feel external factors to be the predominant motivating force, or who at least give weight to them no matter whether causal or final motives are in question. I will give some examples of what I mean. St. Augustine: "I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." ... One man finds a piece of modern music beautiful because everybody else pretends it is beautiful. Another marries in order to please his parents but very much against his own interests. ... There are not a few who in everything they do or don't do have but one motive in mind: what will others think of them? "One need not be ashamed of a thing if nobody knows about it."

[The previous examples] point to a psychological peculiarity that can be sharply distinguished from another attitude which, by contrast, is motivated chiefly by internal or subjective factors. A person of this type might say: "I know I could give my father the greatest pleasure if I did so and so, but I don't happen to think that way." Or: "I see that the weather has turned out bad, but in spite of it I shall carry out my plan." This type does not travel for pleasure but to execute a preconceived idea. ... There are some who feel happy only when they are quite sure nobody knows about it, and to them a thing is disagreeable just because it is pleasing to everyone else. They seek the good where no one would think of finding it. ... Such a person would have replied to St. Augustine: "I would believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." Always he has to prove that everything he does rests on his own decisions and convictions, and never because he is influenced by anyone, or desires to please or conciliate some person or opinion.

This attitude characterizes a group of individuals whose motivations are derived chiefly from the subject, from inner necessity.​

Here's an S/N item from the official MBTI: "In doing something that many other people do, does it appeal to you more to (S) do it in the accepted way, or (N) invent a way of your own?"

And the reason that's an S/N item on Form M of the MBTI is that it's among the small subset of items that have been found — based on decades of samples — to do the best job of clustering with the other items that tap into MBTI S/N characteristics.

What's more, and as McCrae and Costa noted (see my last post), the decades of MBTI test results have also established that there's no significant correlation between the MBTI E/I and S/N dichotomies. So... there's tons of, yes, data at this point that pretty clearly indicates that an MBTI extravert is no more likely than an introvert to say they'd rather do something "in the accepted way" than "invent a way of your own." And that indicates that Jung was, yes, wrong to believe that the same hardwired "introversion" that tended to make someone relatively private and unsociable would also tend to make them liable to reject a value for no other reason than because adopting that value would mean following the herd. "I would believe the Gospel," Jung's introvert explains, "if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it."

Contrary to what Jung believed, we know today that if you've got an ISTJ and an ENTP, and their types are all you know about them, and you're asked to bet on which one's values and beliefs reflect a more mainstream/traditional mix and which one's reflect a more individualistic/unconventional mix, it would be foolish to bet on the ISTJ.

And again, Jung believed in applying the scientific method — including in the field of psychology — to the extent possible, and hence in rejecting/revising theories that were found to be contradictory to the facts. Here he is (from Memories, Dreams, Reflections) talking about why he broke with Freud:

There was no mistaking the fact that Freud was emotionally involved in his sexual theory to an extraordinary degree. When he spoke of it, his tone became urgent, almost anxious, and all signs of his normally critical and skeptical manner vanished. ...

I can still recall vividly how Freud said to me, "My dear Jung, promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. That is the most essential thing of all. You see, we must make a dogma of it, an unshakeable bulwark." ... First of all, it was the words "bulwark" and "dogma" that alarmed me; for a dogma, that is to say, an indisputable confession of faith, is set up only when the aim is to suppress doubts once and for all. But that no longer has anything to do with scientific judgment; only with a personal power drive.

This was the thing that struck at the heart of our friendship. I knew that I would never be able to accept such an attitude. ...

When ... Freud announced his intention of identifying theory and method and making them into some kind of dogma, I could no longer collaborate with him; there remained no choice for me but to withdraw.

You said that "even if [McCrae and Costa]" — or Myers, I presume — "didn't find empirical evidence for what Jung described, you're inclined to then decide to believe that Jung 'erred' whereas I'm inclined to think they just didn't/couldn't find any evidence for it." Buuut there's a very important distinction to be made between theories whose relation to the applicable data (either a scarcity of data or inconclusive data) means they should be considered to have "not yet proven or disproven" status, and theories that have been resoundingly contradicted by study after study after study after study. And at this point, Jung's theoretical notion that a shy person will be more likely to be a rejecter of majority values (because both characteristics are typical of introverts) has been contradicted by decades of MBTI and Big Five studies both.

And speaking of the Big Five data, the Openness to Experience items on the leading Big Five test (the NEO-PI-R) include:

• I believe we should look to religious authorities for decisions on moral issues.
• I consider myself broad-minded and tolerant of other people's lifestyles.

And like the comparable MBTI S/N data, years of Big Five data has pretty well established that, contrary to what Jung thought, an introvert is no less likely than an extravert to "look to religious authorities" for their values, and no more likely to approve of people who make unconventional lifestyle choices.

You say, "none of us are really in a position to conclude who made what kind of mistake b/c none of us are experts on this material. We're all just amateurs. You seem to have done more research than most, but still...it's only opinion." But that's essentially just meaningless know-nothingism, at two levels. First, again, to assert that a theory that has been consistently contradicted by an ample body of studies remains a matter of "only opinion" is to essentially reject the scientific method — which Jung certainly didn't do. And second, the fact that you and I may be "amateurs" certainly doesn't mean we're not capable of reading about the scientific status of theories (and the applicable data) and making intelligent distinctions between well-supported theories and astrology.

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Sorry, fella, but this post of yours doesn't come close to making sense. There are opinions and there are facts, and you know what? As noted in my last post, Jung believed in that distinction, because notwithstanding his mystical streak, he believed in applying the scientific method to the extent that that was reasonably feasible.

Evidence please. The "mystical streak" was not just a "streak," it formed the core of who he was. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see an ounce of experimental data in Psychological Types. In fact, I believe the furthest Jung ever went in that direction was "case studies." He valued observation and experience, not experiments.

Spoiler

In one of the articles included in the Collected Works edition of Psychological Types, Jung brought up astrology — along with several other "age-old" typologies — solely to dismiss it as unacceptable as a tool for psychological analysis. "As for the astrological type theory," Jung wrote, "to the astonishment of the enlightened it still remains intact today, and is even enjoying a new vogue." By contrast, Jung explained, "our scientific conscience does not permit us to revert to these old, intuitive ways of thinking. We must find our own answer to this problem, an answer which satisfies the needs of science."

This certainly doesn't count as evidence that Jung had a scientific mindset. And you're cherry-picking and taking all of that out of context. He said that merely to show that creating a theory of types is something that people have been trying to do for a very long time, but given the scientific age that he lived in, astrology was no longer acceptable as a type theory. Here's what he says a few lines later:

Spoiler

I must bow to the charge that my way of solving the problem is the outcome of my personal prejudice. I can only point happily to old Columbus, who, following his subjective assumptions, a false hypothesis, and a route abandoned by modern navigation, nevertheless discovered America.

...it should not be forgotten that science is not the summa of life, that it is actually only one of the psychological attitudes, only one of the forms of human thought.

...Although science has granted us insight into the irregularities and disturbances of the psyche, thus meriting our profound respect for her intrinsic intellectual gifts, it would nevertheless be a grave mistake to impute to her an absolute aim which would incapacitate her from being simply an instrument. For when we approach the actual business of living from the side of the intellect and science, we immediately come up against barriers that shut us out from other equally real provinces of life. We are therefore compelled to acknowledge that the universality of our ideal is a limitation, and to look round for a Spiritus rector which, bearing in mind the claims of a fuller life, can offer us a greater guarantee of psychological universality than the intellect alone can compass...

...If psychology remains for us only a science, we do not penetrate into life-we merely serve the absolute aim of science...

...Because the contemporary scientific attitude is exclusively concretistic and empirical, it has no appreciation of the value of ideas, for facts rank higher than knowledge of the primordial forms in the which the human mind conceives them. This swing towards concretism is a comparatively recent development, a relict of the enlightenment. The results are indeed astonishing, but they have led to an accumulation of empirical material whose very immensity is productive of more confusion than clarity...

...Instead of reverence for "eternal" ideas, the empiricist has an almost religious belief in facts. It makes to difference, psychologically, whether a man is oriented by the idea of God or by the idea of matter, or whether facts are exalted into the determinants of his attitude...It is also a phenomenon of a our present cultural epoch that science is dominated by the object and religion by the subject...

...Many of the allegedly scientific outpourings of our own day owe their existence to this wrong orientation [extraverted thinking]...

...But anyone who has probed more deeply into the nature of psychology, demanding something more of it as a science than that it should confine itself to the narrow limits of the scientific method, will also have realized that an experimental method will never succeed in doing justice to the nature of the human psyche, nor will it ever project anything like a true picture of the more complex psychic phenomena...

...And yet the concept of feeling does express something characteristic that, though not susceptible of quantitative measurement, nevertheless palpably exists...

...In order to escape the ill consequences of this overvaluation of the scientific method, one is obliged to have recourse to well-defined concepts. But in order to arrive at such concepts, the collaboration of many workers would be needed, a sort of consensus gentium. Since this is not within the bounds of possibility at present, the individual investigator must at least try to give his concepts some fixity and precision, and this can best be done by discussing the meaning of the concepts he employs so that everyone is in a position to see what in fact he means by them...

...At bottom attitude is an individual phenomenon that eludes scientific investigation. In actual experience, however, certain typical attitudes can be distinguished in so far as certain psychic functions can be distinguished...

...Since every scientific theory contains an hypothesis, and is therefore an anticipatory description of something still essentially unknown, it is a symbol...

...But in the case of psychology there is the peculiar condition that, in the making of its theories, the psychic process is not merely an object but at the same time the subject. Now if one assumes that the subject is the same in all individual cases, it can also be assumed that the subjective process of theory-making, too, is the same everywhere. That this is not so, however, is demonstrated most impressively by the existence of the most diverse theories about the nature of complex processes. Naturally every new theory is ready to assume that all other theories were wrong, usually for the sole reason that its author has a different subjective view from his predecessors. He does not realize that the psychology he sees is his psychology, and on top of that is the psychology of his type. He therefore supposes that there can be only one true explanation of the psychic process he is investigating, namely the one that agrees with his type.

To say that Jung appreciated science is not far-fetched, but to say that he favored the scientific method in his own work is not justified in any way. What mattered to him was personal experience and observation. If you want to ascribe to him that he was very scientifically-minded in the way that we understand it today...I think you're mistaken. He tosses around the word "scientific" but there's actually very little that's scientific about the way he goes about building his case in the way that we understand it today.

Read the section starting at paragraph 580 in Psychological Types. It's an excellent summary of the disagreement we are having right now. Also the bolded section is the crux of the issue here regarding our disagreement.

You say I'm misinterpreting Jung on the issue of extraverts being more inclined to adopt mainstream cultural values and introverts being more inclined to reject the mainstream in favor of their own individualistic choices. But I've already quoted Jung on that subject twice in INTPforum posts that you yourself have read, and so the next spoiler is the third time, and hopefully it'll be the charm. (You're welcome.)

No you're not wrong about what he said, but I am picking on you for taking that one quote, and then saying that Jung thought that extraverts were bigger "traditionalists" than introverts, and that Myers finally got it right when she discovered with the MBTI that ISTJs are the true traditionalists. In Jung's mind, it's clear that introverts were always more likely to be "traditionalists" than extraverts because of the fact that introverts as Jung described them were more likely to latch onto "eternal" images. He didn't make a mistake. Saying that he did is unwarranted.

Spoiler

In 1923 — two years after Psychological Types was published — Jung gave a lecture (separately published in 1925) that's included in the Collected Works edition of Psychological Types. After some opening remarks on the shortcomings of past approaches to typology, here's how he began his discussion of extraverts and introverts:

f we wish to define the psychological peculiarity of a man in terms that will satisfy not only our own subjective judgment but also the object judged, we must take as our criterion that state or attitude which is felt by the object to be the conscious, normal condition. Accordingly, we shall make his conscious motives our first concern, while eliminating as far as possible our own arbitrary interpretations.

Proceeding thus we shall discover, after a time, that in spite of the great variety of conscious motives and tendencies, certain groups of individuals can be distinguished who are characterized by a striking conformity of motivation. For example, we shall come upon individuals who in all their judgments, perceptions, feelings, affects, and actions feel external factors to be the predominant motivating force, or who at least give weight to them no matter whether causal or final motives are in question. I will give some examples of what I mean. St. Augustine: "I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." ... One man finds a piece of modern music beautiful because everybody else pretends it is beautiful. Another marries in order to please his parents but very much against his own interests. ... There are not a few who in everything they do or don't do have but one motive in mind: what will others think of them? "One need not be ashamed of a thing if nobody knows about it."

[The previous examples] point to a psychological peculiarity that can be sharply distinguished from another attitude which, by contrast, is motivated chiefly by internal or subjective factors. A person of this type might say: "I know I could give my father the greatest pleasure if I did so and so, but I don't happen to think that way." Or: "I see that the weather has turned out bad, but in spite of it I shall carry out my plan." This type does not travel for pleasure but to execute a preconceived idea. ... There are some who feel happy only when they are quite sure nobody knows about it, and to them a thing is disagreeable just because it is pleasing to everyone else. They seek the good where no one would think of finding it. ... Such a person would have replied to St. Augustine: "I would believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it." Always he has to prove that everything he does rests on his own decisions and convictions, and never because he is influenced by anyone, or desires to please or conciliate some person or opinion.

This attitude characterizes a group of individuals whose motivations are derived chiefly from the subject, from inner necessity.​

I'm not sure why you're re-posting this...Your point seems to be that because Jung said that extraverts base much of what they say, do, and think on external factors that they are "traditionalists" and that because introverts according to Jung buck the current trend, they are not "traditionalists." The confusion here is in the word "tradition." If you believe "tradition" = current social norms/values, then you would be correct, the problem is that this is not always the case.

Here's an S/N item from the official MBTI: "In doing something that many other people do, does it appeal to you more to (S) do it in the accepted way, or (N) invent a way of your own?"

And the reason that's an S/N item on Form M of the MBTI is that it's among the small subset of items that have been found — based on decades of samples — to do the best job of clustering with the other items that tap into MBTI S/N characteristics.

Don't take issue with this. It was an excellent discovery.

What's more, and as McCrae and Costa noted (see my last post), the decades of MBTI test results have also established that there's no significant correlation between the MBTI E/I and S/N dichotomies. So... there's tons of, yes, data at this point that pretty clearly indicates that an MBTI extravert is no more likely than an introvert to say they'd rather do something "in the accepted way" than "invent a way of your own." And that indicates that Jung was, yes, wrong to believe that the same hardwired "introversion" that tended to make someone relatively private and unsociable would also tend to make them liable to reject a value for no other reason than because adopting that value would mean following the herd. "I would believe the Gospel," Jung's introvert explains, "if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel it."

Contrary to what Jung believed, we know today that if you've got an ISTJ and an ENTP, and their types are all you know about them, and you're asked to bet on which one's values and beliefs reflect a more mainstream/traditional mix and which one's reflect a more individualistic/unconventional mix, it would be foolish to bet on the ISTJ.

Again, he wasn't wrong. You're being awfully picky...and taking all that stuff out of context. He merely pointed out that introverts tend to be guided more by their own compass (subjective factors) as opposed to extraverts, who are guided more by external, objective factors (prevailing ideas, culture, trends, physical circumstances, etc.) The MBTI has not invalidated this idea at all contrary to what you're proposing. Again, I point out to you the case of the ISTJ who has been raised in a certain environment and then transplanted into another vs. the ENTP facing the same situation. An ISTJ will not get with the current trend very easily compared to the ENTP, who will likely find the newness of everything to be exhilarating. You're right that this cannot be reduced to only I/E differences, but it's clear that Jung no mistakes.

Spoiler

And again, Jung believed in applying the scientific method — including in the field of psychology — to the extent possible, and hence in rejecting/revising theories that were found to be contradictory to the facts. Here he is (from Memories, Dreams, Reflections) talking about why he broke with Freud:

He broke with Freud b/c they disagreed on the nature of the unconscious, not because Freud was unscientific and Jung was. The problem with Freud for Jung was that Freud's theories on psychology reduced everything to biological instinct, and he refused (in typical ISTJ fashion...at least I believe Freud seems to have been ISTJ) to alter his views on this ie he was dogmatic about it. Jung believed that biological instinct was only a part of the picture, not the whole thing.

You are most definitely going out on a limb to say the least that Jung believed in applying the scientific method as we know it today. One has to wonder what, exactly, Jung meant by "scientific" because his version is completely unlike what we have come to expect of science in our day. If you think that makes him wrong...that is your opinion and nothing more, no matter how badly you would like his perspective on psychology to resemble yours, which it didn't.

Spoiler

You said that "even if [McCrae and Costa]" — or Myers, I presume — "didn't find empirical evidence for what Jung described, you're inclined to then decide to believe that Jung 'erred' whereas I'm inclined to think they just didn't/couldn't find any evidence for it." Buuut there's a very important distinction to be made between theories whose relation to the applicable data (either a scarcity of data or inconclusive data) means they should be considered to have "not yet proven or disproven" status, and theories that have been resoundingly contradicted by study after study after study after study. And at this point, Jung's theoretical notion that a shy person will be more likely to be a rejecter of majority values (because both characteristics are typical of introverts) has been contradicted by decades of MBTI and Big Five studies both.

And speaking of the Big Five data, the Openness to Experience items on the leading Big Five test (the NEO-PI-R) include:

• I believe we should look to religious authorities for decisions on moral issues.
• I consider myself broad-minded and tolerant of other people's lifestyles.

And like the comparable MBTI S/N data, years of Big Five data has pretty well established that, contrary to what Jung thought, an introvert is no less likely than an extravert to "look to religious authorities" for their values, and no more likely to approve of people who make unconventional lifestyle choices.

Again, you are really lambasting Jung based almost exclusively from what I can tell on that one little tidbit in the book where he gives a very generalized picture (for the benefit of readers) of the differences between introverts and extraverts. It's complete nonsense to do that, and actually I've noticed INTJs frequently try to destroy theories that don't have empirical backing by exploiting any tiny inconsistency they can potentially find. This is a case of that, and I'm not sure you're even aware of it. But...that's why having these debates online can sometimes be helpful to see the limitations of one's point of view. I am grateful you pointed out all the data on this, but I think you're going too far now...

The trick here is also to define what "majority values" means. This is why you shouldn't ascribe so much importance to the test data. It's certainly informative and interesting, but those question items are very crude...Leaving out what "majority values" means, I certainly don't look to religious authorities for decisions on moral issues for instance, and also consider myself "broad-minded." I can't imagine most people consider themselves to be "narrow-minded."

That said, even though I am an INTP, I live my life according to principles established long ago (Buddhism, Ayurveda). I don't consider those to be "religious authorities." For me "religious authorities" means priests, monks, the Catholic Church, and so forth. Does that suddenly make me an ISTJ? Obviously not. The point is that the questions themselves lead to certain answers, but the answers you get do not paint a complete picture. I am very "traditional" if you consider "tradition" to mean "old stuff" but I am very "non-traditional" if you consider "tradition" to mean modern values...

Of course, my subjective impressions don't mean diddly to you b/c a single data point is absolutely worthless for you as we've previously established, and the only thing that counts is reams of data, data, data...Jung was clear that he thought this was a very "narrow" way of looking at the world...

Spoiler

You say, "none of us are really in a position to conclude who made what kind of mistake b/c none of us are experts on this material. We're all just amateurs. You seem to have done more research than most, but still...it's only opinion." But that's essentially just meaningless know-nothingism, at two levels. First, again, to assert that a theory that has been consistently contradicted by an ample body of studies remains a matter of "only opinion" is to essentially reject the scientific method — which Jung certainly didn't do. And second, the fact that you and I may be "amateurs" certainly doesn't mean we're not capable of reading about the scientific status of theories (and the applicable data) and making intelligent distinctions between well-supported theories and astrology.

Consistently contradicted? Come on reckful. Now you're equating Psychological Types to astrology? Actually, it seems you really do feel that way at heart. Am I wrong? You can look at the data all you want, but the instant that you start claiming that Carl Jung was wrong and MBTI was right, is the moment you should realize you've probably gone a little bit off the deep end...MBTI is exclusively concerned with observable traits and behavior. So is the Big 5. The fact that you think this is the only thing that counts is precisely what Jung railed against. Read every last one of those quotes I so painstakingly transcribed...

 

[reckful]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Consistently contradicted? Come on reckful. Now you're equating Psychological Types to astrology? Actually, it seems you really do feel that way at heart. Am I wrong? You can look at the data all you want, but the instant that you start claiming that Carl Jung was wrong and MBTI was right, is the moment you should realize you've probably gone a little bit off the deep end...MBTI is exclusively concerned with observable traits and behavior. So is the Big 5. The fact that you think this is the only thing that counts is precisely what Jung railed against. Read every last one of those quotes I so painstakingly transcribed...

Your latest post is little more than strawman stew, spiced up with a lot of semantic quibbling about what it means to be a "traditionalist."

Jung got a lot wrong and a lot right in Psychological Types, and my "consistently contradicted" characterization was a reference to certain aspects of personality that he said clustered together (because they were common to introverts, or to extraverts) and that decades of data have shown do not correlate.

I didn't liken Psychological Types as a whole to astrology. I took issue with your assertion that it wasn't appropriate to point to data and claim that, with respect to whether various aspects of personality tended to correlate (for example), one typology's claims in that regard had been amply supported and another typology's claims had been amply contradicted, because (as you put it) "it's only opinion." When I said...

But that's essentially just meaningless know-nothingism, at two levels. First, again, to assert that a theory that has been consistently contradicted by an ample body of studies remains a matter of "only opinion" is to essentially reject the scientific method — which Jung certainly didn't do. And second, the fact that you and I may be "amateurs" certainly doesn't mean we're not capable of reading about the scientific status of theories (and the applicable data) and making intelligent distinctions between well-supported theories and astrology.

... I was speaking generally about the difference between theories that had proven to be consistent with the evidence (to the extent of that consistency) and theories had proven to be inconsistent (to the extent of that inconsistency) — not tossing Psychological Types as a whole into the trash bin.

As a final note: you say the MBTI is "exclusively concerned with observable traits and behavior" and that I "think this is the only thing that counts" — and that is beyond ludicrous. Have you actually read Gifts Differing — or any halfway-respectable MBTI source, for that matter? In the spoiler is another dose of recycled reckful (from PerC) for you.

Spoiler

In my experience, it's not uncommon to read internet forum posts that contrast two or more personality typologies (Jung vs. MBTI, MBTI vs. Keirsey, MBTI vs. Big Five, MBTI vs. enneagram, etc.) and take the position that, on top of whatever other differences there may be, the typologies are really, in effect, operating at what you might call different levels. Jung and/or the functions are about how you think and the MBTI is about behavior. The enneagram is about motivations and the Big Five is about traits. Jung/MBTI is about personality and Keirsey/temperament is about roles. And so on.

I think framing the various typologies in this way is largely a mistake. My view is that there are a limited number of actual human temperament dimensions — and by "temperament" I mean the aspects of personality that tend to be (not saying they're totally immune to change) relatively stable through a person's life — and that every personality typology that's worth my attention is tapping into some or all of them, each in its own imperfect way. When all is said and done, I think everything that's worthwhile in each of them will end up lining up with (and/or usefully supplementing) what the other typologies have to say about those real underlying dimensions.

At the end of the day, all of the typologies I've mentioned in this post deal, at their core, with internal temperament dimensions and the various ways they end up being typically manifested both internally (by way of values, motivations, thinking processes, attitudes, emotional responses, etc.) and externally (through speech and behavior). ... Psychological Types is full of colorful (and often somewhat over-the-top) descriptions of behavior that Jung considered typical of his types. In Gifts Differing, Myers noted that, "since the more superficial aspects of type are often the easiest to report, many trivial reactions are useful for identification, but these are merely straws to show which way the wind blows. ... It would be a mistake to assume that the essence of an attitude or of a perceptive or judging process is defined by its trivial surface effects or by the test items that reflect it or by the words used to describe it" — and Myers' descriptions of the preferences and the types emphasized values, attitudes and other internal characteristics at least as much as what she saw as the typical resulting external manifestations.

The idea that Keirsey's focus is somehow more behavioral than Myers or other MBTI sources also doesn't have much truth to it. In the introduction to Please Understand Me II, as part of his explanation for why he steers clear of the cognitive functions, Keirsey himself states (more misleadingly than accurately) that his work is somehow more solidly based on observation of what people actually say and do — rather than on "speculation" about "people's mental make-up." But if you actually read Please Understand Me II and compare Keirsey's descriptions with the descriptions in Myers, Thomson or any other popular MBTI source (or Jung, for that matter), you'll find that the mix of internal and external really isn't all that different. Here's a passage from Keirsey's INTJ description, for example:

Their point of view is pragmatic, skeptical, relativistic, focused on spatial intersections and intervals of time. They base their self-image on being ingenious, autonomous, and resolute. They would if possible be calm, they trust reason, are hungry for achievement, seek knowledge, prize deference, and aspire to be wizards of sicence and technology. Intellectually, they are prone to practice strategy far more than diplomacy, tactics and especially logistics.

Their "point of view," their "self-image," their "trust" in reason and "hunger" for achievement, their "aspiration" to be wizards: this is pretty much all about an INTJ's internal values/motivations/etc., no? And this is pulled from his introductory summary. Keirsey goes on to discuss each of those internal aspects in greater detail, and has similar discussions of the "self-image" and "aspirations" and etc. of each of the sixteen MBTI types.

As for the Big Five, I wouldn't say it's any more rightly characterized as "lists of adjectives" than any of the others and, in any case, adjectives can just as readily be used to describe underlying internal values and motivations as resulting external manifestations — and, in the case of the Big Five, they are. Just looking at Wikipedia's summaries, you'll find Openness to Experience, for example, described in terms of "appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, curiosity, and variety of experience," "the degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity and a preference for novelty and variety a person has," and "the extent to which a person is imaginative or independent, and [has] a personal preference for a variety of activities over a strict routine"; and Agreeableness described in terms of "a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic," and a "general concern for social harmony," and a tendency to "value getting along with others" and "have an optimistic view of human nature."

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Your latest post is little more than strawman stew, spiced up with a lot of semantic quibbling about what it means to be a "traditionalist."

Denial is not a river in Africa.

Jung got a lot wrong and a lot right in Psychological Types, and my "consistently contradicted" characterization was a reference to certain aspects of personality that he said clustered together (because they were common to introverts, or to extraverts) and that decades of data have shown do not correlate.

One tiny little inconsistency with the MBTI data in a very broad description of introverts/extraverts does not equal "a lot wrong." You're going overboard.

I didn't liken Psychological Types as a whole to astrology. I took issue with your assertion that it wasn't appropriate to point to data and claim that, with respect to whether various aspects of personality tended to correlate (for example), one typology's claims in that regard had been amply supported and another typology's claims had been amply contradicted, because (as you put it) "it's only opinion." When I said...

​

... I was speaking generally about the difference between theories that had proven to be consistent with the evidence (to the extent of that consistency) and theories had proven to be inconsistent (to the extent of that inconsistency) — not tossing Psychological Types as a whole into the trash bin.

1) You asserted Jung was scientific. He's not. 2) You tried to use one little line about astrology taken out of context to support your claim that Jung was scientific. Fail. 3) You cited Jung's break with Freud as being due to Jung's scientific proclivities. Fail again. 4) As Jung said, approaching psychology exclusively from the domain of experimental data is "narrow." You think that's false. I think it's true.

As a final note: you say the MBTI is "exclusively concerned with observable traits and behavior" and that I "think this is the only thing that counts" — and that is beyond ludicrous. Have you actually read Gifts Differing — or any halfway-respectable MBTI source, for that matter? In the spoiler is another dose of recycled reckful for you.

I have read Gifts Differing. The fact that you think that MBTI paints a solid picture of the internal landscape is astounding to me. It's. Just. A. Test. Very crude. Very limited. Without Jung, there never would have been Isabel Myers and we wouldn't even be talking today. Some of his ideas may not all have empirical evidence supporting them, but does that make them false? You say yes. I say no. And if you can ask someone about their values, that by definition makes it observable. Ask anyone if the only thing going on inside them is their values, and they'll wonder if you need a head CT. That's why Jung is right. He didn't limit himself. You are. He was open to using many different avenues in psychology ("Feeling, Sensation, Intuition). You're obviously not. I struggle to understand why you confine yourself to the empirical research. It's like you don't even value your own subjective impressions. You don't even want to go there.

That's why I say there can be no resolution to this disagreement we're having because it's the very embodiment of what Jung discussed. I am never going to start valuing MBTI data above typological theory, and you're never going to place the theory above the data. I thought you might find value in my point of view, that you're blinded by your attachment to the numbers, but you're as dismissive as any INTJ I've ever encountered when it comes to this kind of thing. Flat out denial.

The descriptions in Psychological Types are amorphous and hard to quantify, and yet they hit on truths that "nevertheless palpably exist" in Jung's words. The bottom line is that Jung didn't need a test to confirm what he knew from experience to be true. You tell me: How is the MBTI going to make my life better? I get a bunch of dichotomies...and then what? For it to be useful I need to understand the mechanism at play behind the 4 letters: INTP. Does MBTI give me that? No. It only describes constellations of probable measurable factors. Does reading Psychological Types illuminate the process? Yup. The MBTI also doesn't get at the unconscious either, because it's by definition beyond conscious awareness, but that's at least half of the picture from Jung's standpoint.

At the end of the day, the MBTI is a useful starting point. But that's where it ends. If you really are interested in making it useful, you have to learn about the theory concerning the mental processes that operate behind the scenes and why those mental processes are constructed the way they are, which Jung does. Then and only then does the test have value because if you understand the type, you can understand how they're likely to approach any given situation, and explain it to yourself and to them cogently.

 

[reckful]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

I have read Gifts Differing. The fact that you think that MBTI paints a solid picture of the internal landscape is astounding to me. It's. Just. A. Test. Very crude. Very limited.

Not. Even. Close.

The MBTI is not "Just. A. Test." The MBTI is a four-dimension personality typology. And it reflects a lot of Jung, but it also differs from Jung's original concepts in many ways, both large and small. And those differences are (mostly at least) rightly viewed as improvements to Jung, and that's largely because Myers' changes (including her many expansions) to Jung's original ideas reflected the many things she learned by putting Jung's ideas to the test — in accordance with the psychometric standards applicable to the modern science of personality — and finding out what aspects of personality really cluster together.

Some of his ideas may not all have empirical evidence supporting them, but does that make them false? You say yes. I say no.

On the contrary, I specifically distinguished between ideas that hadn't really been proven or disproven and ideas that had been contradicted by reasonably large bodies of evidence.

You tell me: How is the MBTI going to make my life better? I get a bunch of dichotomies...and then what? For it to be useful I need to understand the mechanism at play behind the 4 letters: INTP. Does MBTI give me that? No. It only describes constellations of probable measurable factors. Does reading Psychological Types illuminate the process? Yup. The MBTI also doesn't get at the unconscious either, because it's by definition beyond conscious awareness, but that's at least half of the picture from Jung's standpoint.

Uh huh. So... if I've got rich (albeit not perfect; there's lots of room for improvement and further development) descriptions from MBTI sources of what introverts tend to be like — inside and outside: values, attitudes, motivations, visceral responses, characteristic behaviors, etc. — and NFs tend to be like, and INTPs tend to be like and so on, and if many of those descriptions are actually richer and more accurate than what Jung had to say about the corresponding categories, those descriptions still aren't "useful" unless we properly understand that the reason introverts are introverted (for example) is that they project, uh, negative contents from their unconscious onto the people and things of the outside world, which in turn causes them to falsely perceive that those people and things are charged with negative energy ("libido," man, w00t!), which in turn causes them to feel threatened by those people and things, and fear them, and strive to "withdraw libido from the object ... to prevent the object from gaining power over [them]"...

Yeah, baby. Unless we understand those underlying libido psychodynamics — assuming they even have much correspondence with what's actually going on inside, which there's not much reason to believe, frankly — then we don't really understand anything "useful" about introverts, do we? I don't know why people like Myers even bother writing their books.

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Not. Even. Close.

The MBTI is not "Just. A. Test." The MBTI is a four-dimension personality typology. And it reflects a lot of Jung, but it also differs from Jung's original concepts in many ways, both large and small. And those differences are (mostly at least) rightly viewed as improvements to Jung, and that's largely because Myers' changes (including her many expansions) to Jung's original ideas reflected the many things she learned by putting Jung's ideas to the test — in accordance with the psychometric standards applicable to the modern science of personality — and finding out what aspects of personality really cluster together.

Your opinion. Not mine.

On the contrary, I specifically distinguished between ideas that hadn't really been proven or disproven and ideas that had been contradicted by reasonably large bodies of evidence.

The only real "error" you found was potentially in that very general description of basic introvert/extravert tendencies. You extrapolate from there that Jung "got a lot wrong." It's bullshit. I haven't seen you come up with any truly significant mistakes that Jung made and that the MBTI got right. It seems like you use that as a supporting point/rationale for why you believe the MBTI was an "improvement" over Jung's ideas.

Uh huh. So... if I've got rich (albeit not perfect; there's lots of room for improvement and further development) descriptions from MBTI sources of what introverts tend to be like — inside and outside; values, attitudes, motivations, visceral responses, characteristic behaviors, etc. — and NFs tend to be like, and INTPs tend to be like and so on, and if many of those descriptions are actually richer and more accurate than what Jung had to say about the corresponding categories, those descriptions still aren't "useful" unless we properly understand that the reason introverts are introverted (for example) is that they project, uh, negative contents from their unconscious onto the people and things of the outside world, which in turn causes them to falsely perceive that those people and things are charged with negative energy ("libido," man, w00t!), which in turn causes them to feel threatened by those people and things, and fear them, and strive to "withdraw libido from the object ... to prevent the object from gaining power over [them]"...

Yeah, baby. Unless we understand those underlying libido psychodynamics — assuming they even have much correspondence with what's actually going on inside, which there's not much reason to believe, frankly — then we don't really understand anything "useful" about introverts, do we? I don't know why people like Myers even bother writing their books.

You're obviously being sarcastic but you pretty much nailed it. For anyone who's interested in learning about their "dark side" so to speak, as well as the mechanics of the individual functions, the MBTI is not going to provide much help in understanding that. Like you said, it's all about dichotomies.

It's funny you should say "there's not much reason to believe" that stuff about the unconscious when it was a core part of his ideas. You like the MBTI data, but everything else apparently remains suspect for you.

Bottom line: you're not comfortable with taking Jung's ideas and running with them ie trying to verify for yourself if what he said makes any sense based exclusively on your own personal observations of yourself and others. You need the data to feel comfortable with this whole thing. Fundamentally, I don't need the data. I think it's interesting. Potentially illuminating. Definitely worth looking into, but it's not a replacement for personal experience. I don't care what the MBTI says if it doesn't accord with what I've experienced. So far (thankfully) that hasn't been the case.

For me personally, what I've read about MBTI research (which I'll admit is significantly less than what you've obviously explored) never helped me understand the negative aspects of my personality, nor did it give me an understanding of why I am apparently suited to various INTP fields like architecture, computer science, academia, etc. It wasn't until I read Jung that I understood the principles that underlie these findings. For instance, I had no idea that the more I would cloister myself and miss out on social interaction, the more I was repressing Fe, and this resulted in all kinds of negative fantasies and ideas popping into my head for seemingly no damn reason whatsoever. That principle of various environmental stressors (be it insufficient social interaction, work stress, relationship problems, etc.) causing the inferior to "act out" is something I didn't grasp when I read MBTI descriptions, but I finally got it when I read Jung and other type dynamics authors. Feel free to correct me here if I'm wrong, I'm sure there are studies relating MBTI to stress, but do any of them describe why? IOW, the psychological mechanics behind it?

It doesn't help to know that many other INTPs suffer from the same issues unless I also know what to do about it. Understand?

 

[reckful]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

What i don't get about reckful, though, is why MBTI would matter if Big 5 has all of it and more. That appears to me a legit point of criticism.

People who say why pay attention to the MBTI when there's the Big Five are either underestimating the MBTI, overestimating the Big Five, or both. McCrae and Costa (the leading Big Five psychologists) long ago acknowledged that the MBTI passed muster in the validity and reliability departments, and that each typology might have things to teach the other — and they weren't wrong.

I talk quite a bit about the Big Five vs. MBTI issue in my long Another MBTI "Debunking" Post (at PerC), and I'm going to go ahead and recycle a couple of pertinent excerpts in this post. (The recycled stuff is the indented stuff.)

Contrary to what anybody may have read in uninformed sources, the validity and reliability of the official MBTI have been found to be basically on a par with the leading Big Five test (the NEO-PI-R).

Here's some recycled reckful on the reliability issue:

The idea that the Big Five is substantially superior to the MBTI in the test/retest reliability department is another canard that periodically pops up in these kinds of articles. And claims to that effect are often accompanied by statistics that confuse retest rates on single dimensions with retest rates for a complete four-letter type.

I once corrected a forum poster who'd noted that the MBTI "has a test-retest rate of some 60%, meaning two out of every five people get different results when retaking the test," while the NEO-PI-R's "levels of consistency are incredibly high (N= .92, E= .89, O= .87, A= .86, C= .90)." In my reply, I explained:

That 60% MBTI statistic relates to a retest standard that says you got a different result if any one of the four dimensions is different. That corresponds to an average test-retest rate of 88% for the individual dimensions.

If you apply the same test-retest standard to those Big Five statistics you gave us, you get .92 * .89 * .87 * .86 * .90 = a 55% test-retest rate (or 60% if you leave out Neuroticism).​

It's probably also worth noting that if you assume (as previously discussed) that most or all of the MBTI and Big Five dimensions exhibit something like a normal distribution, and if you assume (accordingly) that a large portion of the population is in or near the middle on at least one dimension, and if you add to that the many potential sources of error in self-assessment personality tests — from the fact that personality type is a relatively young science and psychologists are quite a long ways from nailing down exactly what the temperament dimensions consist of, to flaws in particular tests (including items that tap into more than one dimension), to multiple kinds of misunderstanding and other human error on the part of the individuals taking the test — it would strain credibility if the test-retest statistics for any personality typology didn't indicate a significant percentage of cases where at least one of the dimensions came out with a different preference on retesting, and one letter change is all it takes to constitute an MBTI retest "failure."

As a final note, it should also be kept in mind that a typical MBTI test-taker is someone with little or no familiarity with the typology who simply takes the MBTI test along with a group of fellow employees or students. It's reasonable to assume that, to the extent that a person actually has four reasonably-well-defined preferences, they're likely to come up with a result that's considerably more accurate if, rather than just accepting the test result, they spend some time reading about the preferences and the types — which is something the MBTI Manual (among other sources) has always encouraged people to do.​

And the MBTI really doesn't belong in a substantially different category than the Big Five when it comes to validity, either. Here's a second excerpt from that linked post:

Here's a 2003 study that summed up the MBTI's relative standing in the personality type field this way:

In addition to research focused on the application of the MBTI to solve applied assessment problems, a number of studies of its psychometric properties have also been performed (e.g., Harvey & Murry, 1994; Harvey, Murry, & Markham, 1994; Harvey, Murry, & Stamoulis, 1995; Johnson & Saunders, 1990; Sipps, Alexander, & Freidt, 1985; Thompson & Borrello, 1986, 1989; Tischler, 1994; Tzeng, Outcalt, Boyer, Ware, & Landis, 1984). Somewhat surprisingly, given the intensity of criticisms offered by its detractors (e.g., Pittenger, 1993), a review and meta-analysis of a large number of reliability and validity studies (Harvey, 1996) concluded that in terms of these traditional psychometric criteria, the MBTI performed quite well, being clearly on a par with results obtained using more well-accepted personality tests.

...and the authors went on to describe the results of their own 11,000-subject study, which they specifically noted were inconsistent with the notion that the MBTI was somehow of "lower psychometric quality" than Big Five (aka FFM) tests. They said:

In sum, although the MBTI is very widely used in organizations, with literally millions of administrations being given annually (e.g., Moore, 1987; Suplee, 1991), the criticisms of it that have been offered by its vocal detractors (e.g., Pittenger, 1993) have led some psychologists to view it as being of lower psychometric quality in comparison to more recent tests based on the FFM (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1987). In contrast, we find the findings reported above — especially when viewed in the context of previous confirmatory factor analytic research on the MBTI, and meta-analytic reviews of MBTI reliability and validity studies (Harvey, 1996) — to provide a very firm empirical foundation that can be used to justify the use of the MBTI as a personality assessment device in applied organizational settings.

Is the MBTI taken less seriously in academic circles than the Big Five? No question. Is at least some of that difference the result of misinformation (as the Bess/Harvey/Swartz study notes) and prejudice arising from the fact that the MBTI was developed outside the academy? Yep.

Are there various ways in which the Big Five can currently be said to be superior to the MBTI? Yes, there are, and not the least of those is the fact that the MBTI doesn't include the Neuroticism dimension. But McCrae and Costa (the leading Big Five psychologists) long ago acknowledged that each typology might have things to learn from the other, and the MBTI has some serious advantages of its own (as further discussed in the first linked post) for a layperson who's simply interested in getting a handle on the nature of the four personality dimensions that the MBTI is tapping into.

And maybe the most important point to stress on the "MBTI vs. Big Five" issue is that, for an ordinary person, there's really no need to choose one or the other. Assuming — as I do, and as McCrae & Costa do, and as Reynierse does — that the real underlying temperament dimensions that the MBTI is dealing with (in its imperfect way) are the same as four of the dimensions that the Big Five is dealing with (in its imperfect way), I don't see any reason not to look to respectable Big Five sources and respectable MBTI sources (as I do) for interesting data and possible insights into the nature of those dimensions.

As a final note, though, the scientifically respectable side of the MBTI is the dichotomy-centric side. There's really no body of respectable support for the INFP=Fi-Ne-Si-Te "cognitive functions" model (and its related "type dynamics"), and anyone who wants to read more from me about that can find quite a lot to chew on in this post.

 

[reckful]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

The only real "error" you found was potentially in that very general description of basic introvert/extravert tendencies. You extrapolate from there that Jung "got a lot wrong." It's bullshit. I haven't seen you come up with any truly significant mistakes that Jung made and that the MBTI got right. It seems like you use that as a supporting point/rationale for why you believe the MBTI was an "improvement" over Jung's ideas.

Honestly, Inquisitor, time after time you say things about what I've said (and not said) that seems to indicate that you forget my posts within a few minutes of reading them. Which is fine if you're not going to reply to them, but tiresome when you repeatedly post off-target replies.

Our whole back-and-forth on Jung's take on E/I and following the herd, etc. got kicked off when you responded to one sentence of a paragraph in this post that listed several things Jung "got wrong" (and it was far from an exhaustive list), including his conflation of concrete/abstract with E/I (as discussed in a long post linked to in that post).

Please try a little harder.

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Honestly, Inquisitor, time after time you say things about what I've said (and not said) that seems to indicate that you forget my posts within a few minutes of reading them. Which is fine if you're not going to reply to them, but tiresome when you repeatedly post off-target replies.

Our whole back-and-forth on Jung's take on E/I and following the herd, etc. got kicked off when you responded to one sentence of a paragraph in this post that listed several things Jung "got wrong" (and it was far from an exhaustive list), including his conflation of concrete/abstract with E/I (as discussed in a long post linked to in that post).

Please try a little harder.

Let's agree to disagree.

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Honestly, Inquisitor, time after time you say things about what I've said (and not said) that seems to indicate that you forget my posts within a few minutes of reading them. Which is fine if you're not going to reply to them, but tiresome when you repeatedly post off-target replies.

Our whole back-and-forth on Jung's take on E/I and following the herd, etc. got kicked off when you responded to one sentence of a paragraph in this post that listed several things Jung "got wrong" (and it was far from an exhaustive list), including his conflation of concrete/abstract with E/I (as discussed in a long post linked to in that post).

Please try a little harder.

So reckful, this back-and-forth we had upset me, and in my typical INTP fashion, having poor access to understanding my own emotions. I had to sleep on it before I realized why I was upset about you'd said. This whole discussion got started off because I said:

From what I've read of the other works on typology, they basically agree with what he said.

In my mind, other works on typology meant what other Jungian scholars had written because MBTI is not really a "work" on typology in my mind, it's a test, or a body of research based on a test if you will.

Now that I have clarified that bit, I would like to give you my observations of why you seem to run into disagreements online regarding this issue. I read many of your posts on PerC this morning (at least 1.5 hours worth).

First off, the positive. You are extremely well-read. That's refreshing in an online community that is rife with people just giving their opinions without backing it up with reference to the literature or to scientific evidence. You clearly are passionate about proving the validity of the MBTI as well as its value. You stay true to the facts and try to do them justice.

The problem that you run into is when you say "Jung got a lot wrong." I'm not being nitpicky here either b/c I read your previous posts and you also label him as doing a "poor job IMHO" in certain areas. Thing is, I really didn't have a problem with you saying that Myers "expanded and improved on Jung." It's true she did do that. And if you had stuck to that and simply pointed out the "potential differences" between Myers/MBTI and Jung, I would have been fine with that as well. But because Jung is one of my heroes and reading Psychological types was such an illuminating experience in and of itself for me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, what you say is tantamount to shitting all over what I consider to be one of the greatest thinkers of all time. I would venture that this is also why other people take issue with what you say. Not to mention the extreme dismissiveness of other people's valid bones of contention (Incadescent Abyss, PaladinX for example).

In addition, the foundation for your belief that "Jung got a lot wrong" is very shaky. We can approach this from two directions. 1) We assume that since Myers and Jung used similar words ("abstract" and "concrete" for example), they both meant the exact same things and had the same exact conception of what those words meant or 2) The words meant slightly different things for them or they meant the same thing but were used differently. You don't seem to be open even 1% to #2 when there are so many potential problems inherent in interpretation of historical works, translation being just one of them.

After reading your posts, I am in agreement with you that if we accept #1, you are correct, but if we accept #2 (and I'm apparently not the first to raise this objection to your argument), your position that "Jung did a poor job and got a lot wrong" becomes very debatable at the least.

That's why I said, I think you're going overboard b/c you're sticking so closely to the words themselves that you're not willing to leave room for the possibility that Jung actually understood the same things as the MBTI later discovered. At best, I think it's fair to conclude that there appears to be a very small area of potential difference between MBTI descriptions of type and Jungian ones.

When I read Jung's descriptions, I interpreted the ones on E/I as not so much emphasizing that sensation was bound up with E and intuition with I, but that E was concerned primarily with adjusting to the maximum to the surrounding environment, and I building as far as possible a protective barrier to shield oneself from it. Nowhere did I get from reading Jung that he thought that E was only found together with S and that I was only found together with N. What I got from the reading was that Jung thought that E/I individuals are always going to have philosophical differences because E leads some to favor/value only facts (objects), and I leads others to favor only ideas (abstractions). S and N were different animals entirely because the former dealt with "sense impressions" while N dealt with "possibilities stemming from those sense impressions." If we equate "sense impressions" with "concretism" and "facts", then I think your interpretation is accurate, but I don't think that's what Jung was aiming at in his descriptions. "Sensation" vs "intuition" seems to be completely different in his mind from concretism/abstraction.

In fact, if we think about Jung's description of Si, the bit about "no proportional relation exists between object and sensation but one that is apparently quite unpredictable and arbitrary" is quite accurate regarding ISTJs in my experience. They are extremely impractical when it comes to hands-on endeavors. And I think this is what Jung meant. He also says that Si doms are rarely artists, that they are generally calm/impassive. Again both true in my experience.

If I understand correctly, you go on to argue that because of the quote above, Jung believed that Si-doms (aka ISTJs and ISFJs) had poor attention to detail and that they actually don't in reality given MBTI research. But this can be seen in a different light: It is true that ISTJs have excellent attention to detail...but only in certain domains. You listed the example of the ISTJ pharmacist. Again I would also feel comfortable being served by such a person, but how about an ISTJ mechanic? Also requires excellent attention to detail, but the details in question are not as much about following an established set of protocols, which are fundamentally abstractions, but about diagnosing/finding a problem in the physical world, which are absolutely "concretistic" in nature. Turns out, despite the fact that ISTJs have S, T and J, they make poor "craftsmen." You wouldn't expect this result given the MBTI's definitions of S, T, and J, but change the I/E dimension, and suddenly (ESTJ) the individual has much better dexterity and tactical intelligence.

Bottom line is that if I were you, since you seem so intent on bringing clarity online regarding the MBTI/Jung, I would stay away from any condemnation of Jung and his ideas and stick to elucidating "differences" between them.

**BTW, McCrae & Costa who you appear to hold in the utmost esteem are not Jungian scholars, and any interpretation they make is not likely to hold much water. They were pointing out potential inconsistencies using the same exact rationale that you did: "the language and words have the same definitions and the same exact meaning, therefore Jung's descriptions are not supported by the evidence." But his words were far more of a descriptive attempt than a definitive scientific finding. You, McCrae & Costa appear to be treating it as such, when I showed you in a previous post that Jung clearly was not a very big fan of science or at the very least, he was very guarded about the whole enterprise of exclusively using empiricism to expand our understanding of psychology.

 

[reckful]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

In addition, the foundation for your belief that "Jung got a lot wrong" is very shaky. We can approach this from two directions. 1) We assume that since Myers and Jung used similar words ("abstract" and "concrete" for example), they both meant the exact same things and had the same exact conception of what those words meant or 2) The words meant slightly different things for them or they meant the same thing but were used differently. You don't seem to be open even 1% to #2 when there are so many potential problems inherent in interpretation of historical works, translation being just one of them.

After reading your posts, I am in agreement with you that if we accept #1, you are correct, but if we accept #2 (and I'm apparently not the first to raise this objection to your argument), your position that "Jung did a poor job and got a lot wrong" becomes very debatable at the least.

That's why I said, I think you're going overboard b/c you're sticking so closely to the words themselves that you're not willing to leave room for the possibility that Jung actually understood the same things as the MBTI later discovered. At best, I think it's fair to conclude that there appears to be a very small area of potential difference between MBTI descriptions of type and Jungian ones.

In the Introduction to Psychological Types, Jung confessed that, as reflected in several of his previous publications on the types, he'd previously believed that Thinking was part of Introversion and Feeling was part of Extraversion — i.e., that all introverts were thinking types and all extraverts were feeling types — and that he'd only recently figured out that T/F was a separate dimension.

Buuut as McCrae & Costa noted (as previously quoted in this thread), his I/E-T/F mashup was far from the only example of Jung's inclusion of too many aspects of personality in his overbroad conceptions of what extraversion and introversion entailed. And the most fundamental mistake he made along those lines — and one that he had emphatically not corrected at the time he wrote Psychological Types — was arguably his conflation of E/I and concrete/abstract.

And unlike a number of issues involving Jung's types, this really isn't a matter on which reasonable people can disagree. I've already linked you to a PerC post on the subject, but I'm going to go ahead and recycle it (and slightly expand it) here.

Jung spent more of Psychological Types talking about the personality characteristics he thought extraverts tended to have in common and introverts tended to have in common than he spent talking about all eight of the functions put together — and he loaded up both extraversion and introversion with quite a few characteristics that decades of MBTI (and Big Five) studies have firmly established don't statistically cluster together in real-life people. And among those characteristics was the difference between people who are more interested in the "facts" (extraverts, as Jung saw it) and people who are more interested in "abstractions" and "theories" (introverts, per Jung).

For Jung, the core inner dynamic that caused introversion in the first place involved a projection of negative unconscious contents by the introvert onto the people and things of the external world, which in turn caused the introvert to falsely perceive that those people and things were charged with negative energy (libido), which in turn caused the introvert to feel threatened by those people and things, and fear them, and mount a defense which took the form of, among other things, (1) avoidance, and (2) a process of "abstraction" by which the introvert reduced people and things to their abstract qualities, thereby (as Jung saw it) "withdrawing libido from the object ... to prevent the object from gaining power over him."

In the first chapter, describing the ways in which several of the bitterest doctrinal controversies in the early Christian church reflected the E/I divide, Jung wrote that beneath those controversies "lies the great psychological schism. The one position attaches supreme value and importance to the sensuously perceptible; ... the other maintains that the chief value lies with the abstract and extra-human."

"The man who is oriented to the idea [— i.e., the introvert —] apprehends and reacts from the standpoint of the idea," Jung explained. "But the man who is oriented to the object [— i.e., the extravert —] apprehends and reacts from the standpoint of sensation. For him the abstract is of secondary importance, since what must be thought about things seems to him relatively inessential, while for the former it is just the reverse."

And the same abstract/concrete dichotomy is also reflected in Jung's conceptions of the introverted and extraverted forms of each function, with the introverted form being oriented toward the inner world of abstract ideas, values, etc. and the extraverted form being oriented toward the physical world. For example: As further discussed in this PerC post, Jung described a Te-dom's thinking as "concretistic," and hence overly tied down by the "facts" and "objective data" at the expense of abstract "interpretation" of the facts. And conversely, and as further described in this PerC post, Jung described Ti-doms as highly abstract thinkers who, as a result, were prone to be overly dismissive of the facts and end up concocting theories that bore no substantial relation to reality.

Chapter 8 of Psychological Types was titled, "The Type Problem in Modern Philosophy," and revolved around William James's round-up of "tough-minded" and "tender-minded" philosophers. Jung explained that many of the fundamental differences in their philosophies stemmed from their psychological types, and in particular, whether they were introverted or extraverted. As far as Jung was concerned, extraverted philosophers were what he called "empiricists," because they had "the temperament that favours concrete thinking," while introverted philosophers were the "abstract thinkers" who were interested in "abstract ideas" rather than "facts." And I've put some of his discussion in the spoiler.

Spoiler

From Chapter 8 of Psychological Types (with bolding by me), here's Jung describing the characteristic differences between extraverted philosophers ("empiricists") and their "concrete" extraverted thinking and introverted philosophers and their "abstract" introverted thinking:

When the empiricist attributes a resistant substantiality to his concrete thinking, from the abstract point of view he is deceiving himself, because substantiality or hardness is a property of external facts and not of empirical thinking. Indeed, the latter [i.e., Te] proves to be singularly feeble and ineffective; far from holding its own in the face of external facts, it is always running after them and depending on them, and, in consequence, hardly rises above the level of a purely classifying or descriptive activity. ... A series of concrete representations conditioned by sensuous perceptions is not exactly what the abstract thinker would call thinking, but at best only passive apperception. ...

The temperament that favours concrete thinking and endows it with substantiality is thus distinguished by a preponderance of sensuously conditioned representations as contrasted with active apperception, which springs from a subjective act of the will and seeks to organize such representations in accordance with the intentions of a given idea. In a word, what counts for this temperament is the object: the object is empathized, it leads a quasi-independent existence in the ideational world of the subject, and comprehension follows as a kind of after-thought. It is therefore an extraverting temperament, for the thinking of the extravert is concretistic. Its stability lies outside in the empathized object, which is why James calls it "tough." For anyone who espouses concrete thinking, i.e., the representation of facts, abstract thinking must appear feeble and ineffective, because he measures it by the stability of concrete, sense-bound objects. For the man who is on the side of abstraction, it is not the sensuously determined representation but the abstract idea that is the decisive factor. ...

Just as concrete thinking is dominated and guided by sensuously conditioned representations, abstract thinking is dominated by "irrepresentable" primordial images lacking specific content. They remain relatively inactive so long as the object is empathized and thus made a determinant of thought. But if the object is not empathized, and loses its dominance over the thinking process, the energy denied to it accumulates in the subject. It is now the subject who is unconsciously empathized; the primordial images are awakened from their slumber and emerge as operative factors in the thinking process, but in irrepresentable form, rather like invisible stage managers behind the scenes. They are irrepresentable because they lack content, being nothing but activated functional possibilities, and accordingly they seek something to fill them out. They draw the stuff of experience into their empty forms, representing themselves in facts rather than representing facts. They clothe themselves with facts, as it were. Hence they are not, in themselves, a known point d'appui, as is the empirical fact in concrete thinking, but become experienceable only through the unconscious shaping of the stuff of experience. The empiricist, too, can organize this material and give it shape, but he models it as far as possible on a concrete idea he has built up on the basis of past experience.​

And... we now know that Jung was wrong to associate introversion and an abstract orientation, on the one hand, and extraversion and a concrete orientation, on the other hand. There are abstract extraverts (ENs) and concrete introverts (ISs), and no significant statistical correlation at all between Myers' (statistically supportable) versions of E/I and S/N.

And your argument that the "concrete facts" and "abstract ideas" that Jung was talking about in those quotes was an essentially different thing from the concrete/abstract component of the modern S/N dimension is, not to put too fine a point on it, just silly. The S/N items on the official MBTI include "If you were a teacher, would you rather teach (S) fact courses, or (N) courses involving theory?" and "Which word appeals to you most? (S) facts or (N) ideas" and "Which word appeals to you most? (S) concrete or (N) abstract." And there isn't a single E/I item that has anything remotely resembling a concrete/abstract flavor.

What's more, virtually all the leading MBTI theorists are in agreement with Myers' transplantation of concrete/abstract from E/I to S/N — including the ones whose approach is more function-centric than dichotomy-centric. For example:

• Lenore Thomson notes that "Sensation gives us an appreciation for objective facts and circumstances, as perceived by the senses, [and] excellent powers of observation," while "Intuition gives us an appreciation for the larger picture or underlying pattern, beyond the reach of the senses," with the result that N's tend to be uninterested in "facts and details."
  
• Linda Berens explains that sensing "is a process of becoming aware of sensory information and often involves responding to that sensory information without any judgment or evaluation of it. ... In the Sensing process, the focus is on the actual experience, the facts and the data," while intuition "is a process of becoming aware of abstract information, like symbols, conceptual patterns, and meanings."
  
• Berens and Nardi associate S with "tangible information" and N with "conceptual information" and specifically associate Ne with "Interpreting situations and relationships" and "becoming aware of patterns, implications and meanings," and Ni with "current perceptions sparking insights into complex situations," "becoming aware of universal meanings and symbols" and "noticing whole patterns or systems."

A-a-and it shouldn't surprise anybody to hear that the Big Five factor (Openness) that appears to be tapping into the same real underlying personality dimension as MBTI S/N is also characterized partly in terms of whether people are drawn to "abstract ideas" and "flights of fancy" or prefer to be more "realistic."

The Openness items on the NEO-PI-R test include:

• I often enjoy playing with theories or abstract ideas.
• I find philosophical arguments boring. [reverse-scored]
• I have a lot of intellectual curiosity.
• I try to keep all my thoughts directed along realistic lines and avoid "flights of fancy". [reverse-scored]
• I enjoy concentrating on a fantasy or daydream and exploring all its possibilities, letting it grow and develop.

And as with the MBTI data, the Big Five data shows that an introvert is not significantly more likely than an extravert to say they enjoy "theories" and "abstract ideas" (and vice versa). There are just as many abstract/theoretical-minded extraverts as introverts.

But again, if it's Jung's perspective you're talking about, there's no question that to Jung, whether a person tended to view "facts" or "theories" as of primary importance went to the heart of the E/I divide. And that was not a minor mistake, and it distorted not only many of his descriptions of extraverts and introverts, but also many of his descriptions of the extraverted and introverted functions.

... notably including Si (discussed in the next post)...

 

[reckful]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

In fact, if we think about Jung's description of Si, the bit about "no proportional relation exists between object and sensation but one that is apparently quite unpredictable and arbitrary" is quite accurate regarding ISTJs in my experience. They are extremely impractical when it comes to hands-on endeavors. And I think this is what Jung meant. He also says that Si doms are rarely artists, that they are generally calm/impassive. Again both true in my experience.

If I understand correctly, you go on to argue that because of the quote above, Jung believed that Si-doms (aka ISTJs and ISFJs) had poor attention to detail and that they actually don't in reality given MBTI research. But this can be seen in a different light: It is true that ISTJs have excellent attention to detail...but only in certain domains. You listed the example of the ISTJ pharmacist. Again I would also feel comfortable being served by such a person, but how about an ISTJ mechanic? Also requires excellent attention to detail, but the details in question are not as much about following an established set of protocols, which are fundamentally abstractions, but about diagnosing/finding a problem in the physical world, which are absolutely "concretistic" in nature. Turns out, despite the fact that ISTJs have S, T and J, they make poor "craftsmen." You wouldn't expect this result given the MBTI's definitions of S, T, and J, but change the I/E dimension, and suddenly (ESTJ) the individual has much better dexterity and tactical intelligence.

Bottom line is that if I were you, since you seem so intent on bringing clarity online regarding the MBTI/Jung, I would stay away from any condemnation of Jung and his ideas and stick to elucidating "differences" between them.

The only people capable of arguing that Jung's Si descriptions and modern descriptions of IS_Js match up reasonably well are people so desperate to believe that Jung had essentially (and correctly) figured it all out back in 1921 that they're willing to read black as white and night as day if that's what it takes.

As with the concrete/abstract issue, I've previously linked you to a PerC post on the issue, but since that apparently didn't do the job, and since it's a post I often link/refer to, I'm going to go ahead and pull it into this thread (slightly revised).

-------------------------------------------------------

There's no denying that one of the results of Myers' changes to Jung is that each of her 16 type descriptions differs (to varying degrees) from Jung's description of the cognitive function (and function-dom) that purportedly corresponds to that type. And if I wanted to pick a single cognitive function where Myers' conception of the corresponding types departed the most from Jung, I'm pretty sure I'd pick introverted sensation.

As Jung saw it, Si-doms were awkward, touchy eccentrics, detached from reality, who inhabited "a mythological world, where men, animals, railways, houses, rivers, and mountains appear partly as benevolent deities and partly as malevolent demons." Not only does Jung's portrait bear little resemblance to a typical IS_J, I think anyone not inclined to treat Jung with too much reverence would have to agree that Jung's portrait bears little resemblance to any significantly numerous group of normal-range people who've ever walked the face of the earth.

In describing what he referred to as "the reality-alienating subjectivity of this type," Jung said that an Si-dom "has an illusory conception of reality," and that the relation between the actual physical world and the Si-dom's perceptions of it is "unpredictable and arbitrary." Both because of that and because, in Jung's view, the Si-dom's thinking and feeling functions "are relatively unconscious and, if conscious at all, have at their disposal only the most necessary, banal, everyday means of expression," Jung said that not only is it typical for Si-doms to be unable to really communicate their views to the world in understandable ways — an Si-dom also typically "fares no better in understanding himself."

Jung said the main hope for an Si-dom to be able to communicate his thoughts to others was through art — in which case, although others would then be able to get a better glimpse of the Si-dom's soul, the "irrationality" of the Si-dom's perspective would also be "extraordinarily striking" — but alas, Jung also noted that artistic Si-doms were the exception rather than the rule, with the result that, "as a rule, [the Si-dom] resigns himself to his isolation."

Myers abandoned the vast majority of Jung's strange, collective-unconscious-dominated conception of what Si involved in creating her portraits of IS_Js — based on many years of typing and gathering correlational data with respect to thousands of subjects.

Far from suffering from a "reality-alienating subjectivity" that caused their relation to the real world to be "unpredictable and arbitrary," Myers portrayed IS_Js as among the most down-to-earth and realistic of all the types. She called them the "most practical of the introvert types," and said "they have a complete, realistic, practical respect both for the facts and for whatever responsibilities these facts create. Sensing provides the facts, and after the introverts' characteristic pause for reflection, their judgment accepts the responsibilities."

Far from being uncommunicative eccentrics who more grounded and productive people would be prone to view as (in Jung's words) "the most useless of men," Myers viewed IS_Js as having the kinds of personality characteristics that tend to make them model employees in many respects. To quote the brief capsule descriptions at the myersbriggs.org website:

ISTJ

Quiet, serious, earn success by thoroughness and dependability. Practical, matter-of-fact, realistic, and responsible. Decide logically what should be done and work toward it steadily, regardless of distractions. Take pleasure in making everything orderly and organized — their work, their home, their life. Value traditions and loyalty.

ISFJ

Quiet, friendly, responsible, and conscientious. Committed and steady in meeting their obligations. Thorough, painstaking, and accurate. Loyal, considerate, notice and remember specifics about people who are important to them, concerned with how others feel. Strive to create an orderly and harmonious environment at work and at home.

My parents are both IS_Js, and I've dealt with quite a few others, and I have to say that I find that Myers' take captures them far better than Jung's. And the thing is, not only am I far from alone in finding that Myers' (and Keirsey's) IS_J — and SJ — descriptions are more accurate (not to mention richer and more insightful) than Jung's, but the people who agree with me (on the accurate part at the least) include every reasonably well-known cognitive functions theorist I've ever read — including Thomson, Berens, Nardi and Quenk.

Lenore Thomson notes that Sensation gives all S-doms "an appreciation for objective facts and circumstances, as perceived by the senses, [and] excellent powers of observation"; and she says Si-doms "count on established facts and concrete results" and particularly excel at "accumulat[ing] information — names, dates, numbers, statistics, references, guidelines, and so forth," and that Si "prompts [them] to reconcile [their] new impressions with the ones [they've] already stored." She also notes that Si-doms "consider it a point of honor to discharge their responsibilities, to be on time, and to keep their word"; and are "reassured by a defined place in a larger group." They "make it their business to know how things are supposed to work ... and they're concerned that others take these operating standards seriously as well." So Thomson's Si-doms are basically Myers' IS_Js, not Jung's Si-doms.

Linda Berens (who also makes use of Keirsey's SJ descriptions in her multifaceted approach) and Dario Nardi also describe Si-doms in ways that are essentially consistent with Myers and inconsistent with Jung. Berens explains that sensing — for Se-doms and Si-doms both — "is a process of becoming aware of sensory information and often involves responding to that sensory information without any judgment or evaluation of it. ... In the Sensing process, the focus is on the actual experience, the facts and the data."

Here's an "ISTJ snapshot" from Berens and Nardi: "Theme is planning and monitoring, ensuring predictable quality. Thorough, systematic, and careful. See discrepancies, omissions and pitfalls. Talents lie in administrating and regulating. Dependable, realistic, and sensible. Want to conserve the resources of the organization, group, family, or culture and persevere toward that goal. Thrive on planning ahead and being prepared. Like helping others through their roles as parent, supervisor, teammate, and community volunteer."

Similarly, Naomi Quenk explains: "Introverted sensing types are careful and orderly in their attention to facts and details. They are thorough and conscientious in fulfilling their responsibilities. ... They are typically seen as well grounded in reality, trustworthy, and dedicated to preserving traditional values and time-honored institutions. With their focus on the reality of the present, they trust the evidence of their senses, and rely on carefully accumuated past and present evidence to support their conclusions and planned courses of action. ... They tend to take a skeptical, critical attitude to information that has not been verified by the senses and are likely to distrust people who are careless about facts, sloppy about details, and favor imagination and novelty over accuracy and solid substantiation."

Again, Quenk's Si-doms are basically Myers' IS_Js. In terms of the relationship of an Si-dom to sensory data and reality in general, Quenk's conception of introverted sensation — like Myers' and Thomson's and Berens' and Nardi's — comes closer to resembling the opposite of Jung's Si-dom than matching Jung's conception.

And again, as you undoubtedly know, Thomson, Quenk, Berens and Nardi are the most well-known MBTI theorists whose approaches are centered more around the cognitive functions than the dichotomies. I assume it goes without saying that all the well-known authors who follow the MBTI's dichotomy-centric approach — like Keirsey and Kroeger & Thuesen — offer IS_J profiles that match Myers' IS_J descriptions far more than Jung's Si-dom description, so I'll spare you quotations from them.

So... if you're a true believer in Jung's original Si-dom descriptions, and think they capture MBTI ISTJs reasonably well (as you indicated), I'm afraid you don't have much company.

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

The only people capable of arguing that Jung's Si descriptions and modern descriptions of IS_Js match up reasonably well are people so desperate to believe that Jung had essentially (and correctly) figured it all out back in 1921 that they're willing to read black as white and night as day if that's what it takes.

I never said that Jung had "figured it all out." Only that it was incorrect to say that "he got a lot wrong." And as you'll see from what I've written below, only someone who is "desperate" to find an inconsistency between the theory and the data would interpret Jung as you have, ie incorrectly.

For the record, I appreciate and value what other MBTI authors have written, and in fact I read those authors before I approached Jung, but I found his descriptions added a deeper dimension to what they said that significantly expanded my understanding of ISTJs.

First of all, you didn't address any of my points, as usual you just spouted "recycled reckful" at me. I think you should take your own advice and make sure you read everything I wrote to you, because contrary to what you might think, you don't have all the answers on this, just your own interpretation. You made some interesting points, but your conclusion does not do Jung justice.

Let's go over your post line by line:

As Jung saw it, Si-doms were awkward, touchy eccentrics, detached from reality, who inhabited "a mythological world, where men, animals, railways, houses, rivers, and mountains appear partly as benevolent deities and partly as malevolent demons." Not only does Jung's portrait bear little resemblance to a typical IS_J, I think anyone not inclined to treat Jung with too much reverence would have to agree that Jung's portrait bears little resemblance to any significantly numerous group of normal-range people who've ever walked the face of the earth.

This is your interpretation reckful. It's the foundation of your argument, and I'm sorry, but that is just not how Jung portrays Si-doms. You take a lot of things out of context and zero in on a few token phrases to make your point. First of all, and as you yourself correctly pointed out, Jung approaches the types as a clinician first and foremost and seeks to understand both the "normal" version and the "sick" version. He usually devotes equal amounts of time to both, but I think that with the IS_J, he actually spent more time dealing with the "sick" case. You have to understand that his objective is to look deeply into this type's mind and expose its inner workings as opposed to describing the commonly observable traits of Si-doms. Incidentally, what MBTI authors have written about this type would be fairly useless to a clinician. His business was healing the psyche, and as far as Si-doms are concerned, and based on my experience living with an ISTJ father for 20 years, he absolutely nailed it.

The other MBTI authors that you mentioned are not very concerned with the medical aspect of type and seek mainly to describe observable traits. I would bet that if you spoke with Linda Berens, Thomson, Myers, etc. they would tell you that they deliberately stepped away from this description not because they disagreed with it and thought Jung "got it wrong" but because it was frankly too inaccessible to the general public, and didn't focus enough on typical traits and behavior. You're not going to get any argument from me that their descriptions are more straightforward than his and certainly easier to understand.

Let's go over what I think is a more valid interpretation of what Jung says:

Introverted sensation apprehends the background of the physical world rather than its surface.

We could say that introverted sensation transmits an image which does not so much reproduce the object as spread over it the patina of age-old subjective experience and the shimmer of events still unborn. The bare sense impression develops in depth, reaching into the past and future, while extraverted sensation seizes on the momentary existence of things open to the light of day.

It is an irrational type because it is oriented...simply by what happens...the introverted type is guided by the intensity of the subjective sensation excited by the objective stimulus...Did there exist an aptitude for expression in any way proportional to the intensity of his sensations, the irrationality of this type would be extraordinarily striking...But since this is the exception, the introvert's characteristic difficulty in expressing himself also conceals his irrationality.

The first quote shows that Jung believes the Si type to be fairly oblivious to the surface of the physical world. Again, as I argued in my earlier post, and if you really did grow up with IS_J types, you will agree with me that this type is extraordinarily impractical when it comes to hands-on problem-solving. While it's true that this type is excellent (realistic, practical, methodical) when it comes to hair-splitting analysis of legal doctrines or tax codes, these are not physical in nature; put a broken X(insert anything physical here) and they will be utterly lost, doggedly trying to fix it without success.

The second quote is I believe part of the foundation for Keirsey's labeling this type as "Guardians." It's my interpretation from this quote that anytime an Si-dom encounters an object, they basically overlay on top of it their past subjective experience. At least, I think it's fair to say that that is a major part of the psychological mechanics at play here for Jung. The bit about the future is likely related somehow to Jung's belief in the collective unconscious, ie that we are all somehow linked together. If there's anything in what he said that could be construed as "wrong" from an empirical standpoint, that would be it.

The third quote indicates that Jung thought it was very unlikely that Si-doms had any aptitude for artistic expression, (Did there exist...) or at least an aptitude that was proportional to the intensity of the subjective sensations at play within them. Again this was Jung's hypothesis. I'm inclined to believe him, based on what I've seen (ISTJs are not very expressive either in words or art) but you have every right to be skeptical of it. In either case, there's no way to verify it. Continuing on:

What will make an impression and what will not can never be seen in advance, and from outside....

...when the influence of the object does not break through completely, it is met with well-intentioned neutrality, disclosing little sympathy yet constantly striving to soothe and adjust....

He may be conspicuous for his calmness and passivity or for his rational self-control...

The too low is raised a little, the too high is lowered, enthusiasm is damped down, extravagance restrained, and anything out of the ordinary reduced to the right formula.

All of that discussion relating to the unconscious that you find so obtuse that precedes these quotes lays the groundwork for this conclusion. As you can see, Jung clearly did not think of Si-doms as "awkward, touchy, eccentrics." If anything, it's actually quite the opposite, he thinks they are extraordinarily "innocuous" and that this is the real reason why they sometimes run into problems with other people because they appear in fact too ordinary, too calm, and too passive, and therefore become targets of others who are more "domineering and aggressive."

Again, in my experience, all of this holds true. My ISTJ father is the absolute embodiment of this, and if you adopt my personal interpretation of what Jung said here, it meshes quite nicely with what other MBTI authors wrote about this type. And I believe his description actually is much more profound because it's possible to discern the underlying mental landscape of this type.

When its [the object's]influence does succeed in penetrating into the subject-because of its special intensity or because of its complete analogy with the unconscious image-even the normal type will be compelled to act in accordance with the unconscious model. Such action has an illusory character unrelated to objective reality and is extremely disconcerting. It instantly reveals the reality-alienating subjectivity of this type.

Admittedly, this is a bit hard to access, but I believe Jung is actually referring to the inferior (Ne) here due to his use of the words "unconscious model." What he's saying is that when a situation arises in the environment that somehow penetrates deeply enough, it's going to trigger Ne and lead to some very strange reactions. To give you an example, and you may have had a different experience, but every time my ISTJ father was faced with traveling somewhere new (ie encountering lots of new and unfamiliar territory), it was an extraordinarily stressful experience, and he would become unusually irritable, petuous, argumentative, whiny, etc. Basically acting like child. You could plainly see that for him, he was suddenly transported into an alternate universe full of "ambiguous, shadowy, sordid, dangerous possibilities lurking in the background." As he traveled more extensively though, his stress levels declined significantly b/c past experience had shown him that his fears were unjustified.

Contrast this with me (INTP), I always get a thrill out of going somewhere new and I never get stressed out. Recently on a white-water rafting trip, there was a 20-something ISTJ librarian and out of our group, she was the only one who was terribly nervous about going on the river and told everyone that she had imagined all kinds of nasty scenarios before going on the trip. Textbook inferior Ne. Everyone else in the group was either excited, or a little nervous, but definitely not to the same degree.

In general, this type can organize his impressions only in archaic ways, because thinking and feeling are relatively unconscious and, if conscious at all, have at their disposal only the most necessary banal, everyday means of expression. As conscious functions, they are wholly incapable of adequately reproducing his subjective perceptions. This type, there is uncommonly inaccessible to objective understanding, and he usually fares no better in understanding himself.

You're interpreting this bit incorrectly. We're talking about "subjective sense impressions" and not objective facts/details. And once again, Jung nails it. I've lived with my ISTJ father for 2 decades, and I still feel like the guy is a bit of a mystery to me. For a long time I thought he just didn't like to share very much with us about his thoughts/feelings/etc. Now I know better. He doesn't really understand himself very well either. He doesn't know how to express his feelings in words or in art, typically refrains from doing so ("As a rule he resigns himself to his isolation and the banality of the world, which he has unconsciously made archaic") and even when pressed, he's only capable of very basic descriptions, like "I feel sad" or "I'm frustrated" and I'll only get that if I ask him directly "How do you really feel?"

Now to the contentious part:

From an extraverted and rationalistic standpoint, these types are indeed the most useless of men.

[Paragraph 653]

Above all, his development alienates him from the reality of the object, leaving him at the mercy of his subjective perceptions, which orient his consciousness to an archaic reality, although his lack of comparative judgment keeps him wholly unconscious of this fact. Actually he lives in a mythological world, where men, animals, locomotives, houses, rivers, and mountains appear either as benevolent deities or as malevolent demons...

If I understand correctly, this is your biggest bone of contention in terms of how MBTI and Jung characterize IS_Js. Admittedly, at first blush, it would appear that Jung has made an enormous mistake in his characterization of IS_Js, as all the ones that I know are indeed very productive members of society, and actually many are extremely good at what they do (making particularly good judges, lawyers, physicians, software programmers, etc.).

Buuut, this has to be interpreted in a certain context. After 1915, Jung broke with Freud and underwent a long period of isolation. Sometimes seeing patients, but other times cloistering himself in his little castle tower and refusing all visits for days on end. Given that ISTJs have now been discovered by MBTI to be one of the most "grounded, and practical [in certain ways]" of all types (and productive to boot!), it may seem strange that Jung made these pronouncements, but not if you consider the fact that his only interaction with these types was probably exclusively reserved to the sick ones. We have to wonder, given their typical proclivities, what percent of IS_Js are mentally ill? Unfortunately, I could not find a reliable statistic on this. Perhaps you know? But I would bet the number is low. Nevertheless, if we assume this paragraph was written with primarily the sick ones in mind, Jung once again gets it right:

But as soon as the unconscious becomes antagonistic, the archaic intuitions come to the surface and exert their pernicious influence, forcing themselves on the individual and producing compulsive ideas of the most perverse kind. The result is usually a compulsion neurosis, in which the hysterical features are masked by symptoms of exhaustion.

Guess what that sounds like? Yup, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

Admittedly, and you're free to correct me on this, but Jung's description in that paragraph sounds an awful lot like schizophrenia to me as well, and I found several articles online that found correlations between the I, S, F, T, and J dimensions and this illness. I don't know very much about the research on this, but just from the quick cursory searching that I did online, there does seem to be some correlation between the IS_J types and both of those illnesses.

Now if you still want to claim after all of that that "Jung got it wrong" I think that's a very crude conclusion given the fact that Jung was such a hermit during this time of his life and only interacted with mental cases ie people who definitely were not normal. His assessment of sick IS_Js appears to be on the mark when seen in this light.

 

[reckful]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

The first quote shows that Jung believes the Si type to be fairly oblivious to the surface of the physical world. Again, as I argued in my earlier post, and if you really did grow up with IS_J types, you will agree with me that this type is extraordinarily impractical when it comes to hands-on problem-solving. While it's true that this type is excellent (realistic, practical, methodical) when it comes to hair-splitting analysis of legal doctrines or tax codes, these are not physical in nature; put a broken X(insert anything physical here) and they will be utterly lost, doggedly trying to fix it without success.

Not only is this spectacularly inconsistent with my own experience with IS_Js, I'd say it's spectacularly inconsistent with the IS_J profiles you'll find in any of the reasonably well-known MBTI sources — and that's dichotomy-centric sources and function-centric sources both. And I quoted Myers, Quenk, Thomson, Berens and Nardi in my previous post.

It's my interpretation from this quote that anytime an Si-dom encounters an object, they basically overlay on top of it their past subjective experience.

Jung's view wasn't that the Si-dom just "overlaid" their collective-unconscious-based archetypes "on top" of their observations of the object. He said that, for an Si-dom, the actual people and things of the outside world were basically just "stimuli" that triggered perceptions of primordial archetypes in the collective unconscious. He said that a typical Si-dom mistakenly assumes that those subjective impressions actually correspond to reality, when in fact the relation between the real world and his perceptions are "quite unpredictable and arbitrary" — and as a rule, "his sensations are totally different from reality." As Jung explained, "Subjective perception is markedly different from the objective. What is perceived is either not found at all in the object, or is, at most, merely suggested by it."

As Jung saw it, the direct, concrete sensations initially received by the Si-dom's five senses got headed off at the pass (if you will) by second-order perceptions of unconscious archetypes that the sense impressions somehow triggered — with the result that, as far as the Si-dom's consciousness was concerned, those transmogrified perceptions corresponded to what was actually out there in the real world.

And again, Jung also said that the Si-doms' "reality-alienating subjectivity" and "illusory conception of reality" rendered them — from the standpoint of practical results, and together with their mystical Ni-dom cousins — the "most useless of men."

And also again, the notion that this description corresponds reasonably well to modern IS_J descriptions — or to the nature of the S/N and J/P items that get someone typed as an IS_J in the first place (assuming you're talking about a psychometrically respectable typing) — is just silly. Whether you're looking at Myers or other official MBTI sources, or at Quenk, Thomson, Berens or Nardi, you'll find IS_Js portrayed as among the most down-to-earth, realistic and practical of the types, and very much in tune with the "facts" and "details" of their physical surroundings.

As you can see, Jung clearly did not think of Si-doms as "awkward, touchy, eccentrics."

Here's Jung:

The predominance of introverted sensation produces a definite type, which is characterized by certain peculiarities. ... Did there exist an aptitude for expression in any way proportional to the intensity of his sensations, the irrationality of this type would be extraordinarily striking. This is the case, for instance, when an individual is a creative artist. But since this is the exception, the introvert's characteristic difficulty in expressing himself also conceals his irrationality. On the contrary, he may be conspicuous for his calmness and passivity, or for his rational self-control. This peculiarity, which often leads a superficial judgment astray, is really due to his unrelatedness to objects. ...

If no capacity for artistic expression is present, all impressions sink into the depths and hold consciousness under a spell, so that it becomes impossible to master their fascination by giving them conscious expression. In general, this type can organize his impressions only in archaic ways, because thinking and feeling are relatively unconscious and, if conscious at all, have at their disposal only the most necessary, banal, everyday means of expression. As conscious functions, they are wholly incapable of adequately reproducing his subjective perceptions. This type, therefore, is uncommonly inaccessible to objective understanding, and he usually fares no better in understanding himself.

Above all, his development alienates him from the reality of the object, leaving him at the mercy of his subjective perceptions, which orient his consciousness to an archaic reality, although his lack of comparative judgment keeps him wholly unconscious of this fact. Actually he lives in a mythological world, where men, animals, locomotives, houses, rivers, and mountains appear either as benevolent deities or as malevolent demons. That they appear thus to him never enters his head, though that is just the effect they have on his judgments and actions. He judges and acts as though he had such powers to deal with; but this begins to strike him only when he discovers that his sensations are totally different from reality. If he has any aptitude for objective reason, he will sense this difference as morbid; but if he remains faithful to his irrationality, and is ready to grant his sensations reality value, the objective world will appear a mere make-believe and a comedy. Only in extreme cases, however, is this dilemma reached. As a rule he resigns himself to his isolation and the banality of the world which he has unconsciously made archaic.

You pulled some of that out of context and said see, reckful, Jung didn't think Si-doms were "eccentric"; Jung said they often appeared "innocuous" and "calm" and "passive" — but what Jung said was (and you surely knew this) that yes, Si-doms often appear that way to others because they find themselves unable to communicate their real perspectives and so they conceal their eccentricity, which as Jung explains, "often leads a superficial judgment astray."

If I understand correctly, this is your biggest bone of contention in terms of how MBTI and Jung characterize IS_Js. Admittedly, at first blush, it would appear that Jung has made an enormous mistake in his characterization of IS_Js, as all the ones that I know are indeed very productive members of society, and actually many are extremely good at what they do (making particularly good judges, lawyers, physicians, software programmers, etc.).

Buuut, this has to be interpreted in a certain context. After 1915, Jung broke with Freud and underwent a long period of isolation. Sometimes seeing patients, but other times cloistering himself in his little castle tower and refusing all visits for days on end. Given that ISTJs have now been discovered by MBTI to be one of the most "grounded, and practical [in certain ways]" of all types (and productive to boot!), it may seem strange that Jung made these pronouncements, but not if you consider the fact that his only interaction with these types was probably exclusively reserved to the sick ones. We have to wonder, given their typical proclivities, what percent of IS_Js are mentally ill? Unfortunately, I could not find a reliable statistic on this. Perhaps you know? But I would bet the number is low. Nevertheless, if we assume this paragraph was written with primarily the sick ones in mind, Jung once again gets it right:

But as soon as the unconscious becomes antagonistic, the archaic intuitions come to the surface and exert their pernicious influence, forcing themselves on the individual and producing compulsive ideas of the most perverse kind. The result is usually a compulsion neurosis, in which the hysterical features are masked by symptoms of exhaustion.

Guess what that sounds like? Yup, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

Admittedly, and you're free to correct me on this, but Jung's description in that paragraph sounds an awful lot like schizophrenia to me as well, and I found several articles online that found correlations between the I, S, F, T, and J dimensions and this illness. I don't know very much about the research on this, but just from the quick cursory searching that I did online, there does seem to be some correlation between the IS_J types and both of those illnesses.

Now if you still want to claim after all of that that "Jung got it wrong" I think that's a very crude conclusion given the fact that Jung was such a hermit during this time of his life and only interacted with mental cases ie people who definitely were not normal. His assessment of sick IS_Js appears to be on the mark when seen in this light.

So... you're saying Jung's Si descriptions substantially got it wrong as far as normal-range IS_Js are concerned, buuut hey, Jung "was such a hermit during this time of his life and only interacted with mental cases," so it's understandable that he had a very distorted view... and so... that means it's wrong to say he "got it wrong."

Alrighty then.

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Not only is this spectacularly inconsistent with my own experience with IS_Js, I'd say it's spectacularly inconsistent with the IS_J profiles you'll find in any of the reasonably well-known MBTI sources — and that's dichotomy-centric sources and function-centric sources both. And I quoted Myers, Quenk, Thomson, Berens and Nardi in my previous post.

It's inconsistent because all of those profiles seem to borrow mostly from the MBTI descriptions, as you correctly pointed out, and the MBTI labels them as being very practical, which they are in the sense of rationally following directions (ISTJs), but if you look at "physical practicality" of ISTJs, there really is no question that unless they've got 1) instruction manual/set of protocols in front of them or 2) plenty of past experience doing a particular task, they're going to feel lost. I'm absolutely positive about this one. I think if you're willing to actually think about it for a second, you'll see it's true...I would even go so far as to say that any job that leaves IS_Js without much guidance and/or a clear set of instructions is bound to be a living hell for them because they'll have nothing to go on...

Spoiler

Jung's view wasn't that the Si-dom just "overlaid" their collective-unconscious-based archetypes "on top" of their observations of the object. He said that, for an Si-dom, the actual people and things of the outside world were basically just "stimuli" that triggered perceptions of primordial archetypes in the collective unconscious. He said that a typical Si-dom mistakenly assumes that those subjective impressions actually correspond to reality, when in fact the relation between the real world and his perceptions are "quite unpredictable and arbitrary" — and as a rule, "his sensations are totally different from reality." As Jung explained, "Subjective perception is markedly different from the objective. What is perceived is either not found at all in the object, or is, at most, merely suggested by it."

As Jung saw it, the direct, concrete sensations initially received by the Si-dom's five senses got headed off at the pass (if you will) by second-order perceptions of unconscious archetypes that the sense impressions somehow triggered — with the result that, as far as the Si-dom's consciousness was concerned, those transmogrified perceptions corresponded to what was actually out there in the real world.

Yes agreed.

You pulled some of that out of context and said see, reckful, Jung didn't think Si-doms were "eccentric"; Jung said they often appeared "innocuous" and "calm" and "passive" — but what Jung said was (and you surely knew this) that yes, Si-doms often appear that way to others because they find themselves unable to communicate their real perspectives and so they conceal their eccentricity, which as Jung explains, "often leads a superficial judgment astray."

Ok basically you're quibbling over the word "eccentric" and now saying that these types are only eccentric "inside" and that this is what you really meant all along and that this is what Jung meant. It's pretty clear that eccentric means "unconventional and slightly strange" and if you want to interpret his words that way...I guess that's really a matter of opinion. I read "innocuous" "calm" "passive" "known for rational self-control" as "extreme normality," which incidentally is an excellent description of IS_J types in my view. It's precisely the fact that they don't want to stray beyond ordinariness that could potentially lead one to label them as "eccentrics." That word always leads me to think about people that are very plainly/obviously strange though. I wouldn't ever think of someone matching Jung's description as "eccentric." Quite the opposite. More like a dud.

So... you're saying Jung's Si descriptions substantially got it wrong as far as normal-range IS_Js are concerned, buuut hey, Jung "was such a hermit during this time of his life and only interacted with mental cases," so it's understandable that he had a very distorted view... and so... that means it's wrong to say he "got it wrong."

Alrighty then.

You bet it's wrong to make an unqualified, blanket statement that "Jung got it wrong." This was an extremely important dimension of Psychological Types that you appear to have not considered as much as you should have.

The other part that I want to address regarding your views on E/I and S/N (and I read your posts, so don't throw more recycled reckful at me plz), is that Jung never would have created a separate S/N dimension if he thought that E always goes with S and I always goes with N.

Spoiler

As sensation is chiefly conditioned by the object, those objects that excite the strongest sensations will be decisive for the individual's psychology. The result is a strong sensuous tie to the object. Objects are valued in so far as they excite sensations...the sole criterion of their value is the intensity of the sensation produced by their objective qualities...

However, it is only concrete, sensuously perceived objects or processes that excite sensations for the extravert; those, exclusively, which everyone everywhere would sense as concrete [I read this to mean sight, sound, touch, taste, smell]. Hence the orientation of such an individual accords with purely sensuous reality.

[Here's the bone of contention] No other human type can equal the extraverted sensation type in realism. His sense for objective facts is extraordinarily developed. His life is an accumulation of actual experiences of concrete objects...highly-developed reality sense...His whole life is concrete enjoyment, and his morality is oriented accordingly...He may differentiate his sensation to the finest pitch of aesthetic purity...this type is a lover of tangible reality...[the object] cannot be anything except concrete and real...He is merely desirous of the strongest sensations...His love is unquestionably rooted in the physical attractions of its object...

It's 100% clear to me that extraverted sensation is rooted in the physical world for Jung. It has to do exclusively with the 5 senses and pursuing activities/objects that lead to the excitement and stimulation of the 5 senses.

Thing is, Myers makes a distinction between "facts" and "theory" for the S/N dichotomy but a "fact" can be quite "abstract" in its own right, and this can really complicate things if we're not careful with our definitions. As you'll see, further below it's really easy to get mixed up, and inconsistencies crop up if we assume Myers and Jung both used the same words in the exact same way, which they didn't. Let me clarify what I mean by "abstract facts."

My ISTJ father is an oncologist. He knows vast amounts of facts relating to cancer, various drugs, diseases, and so forth. Now, all of this knowledge would seem to fall under the category of "objective facts" for Jung because these things are not "theoretical," they exist in the real world. But actually, they do not "physically" exist. They are abstractions (labels) of events and physical objects. My father knows almost nothing about what a cancer tastes, sounds, smells, feels, or even looks like (except for on an X-ray, but he doesn't bother reading X-rays, he lets the radiologists do that...In fact, I bet that he actually would suck at reading X-rays unless it's something that is extremely obvious like a shattered leg).

But he does know a great deal about a particular disease's characteristics (symptoms, susceptibility to various drugs, growth times, locations). None of these can be said to be "concrete" or remotely "physical" in nature. They are bits of fundamentally abstract information. I think this is the correct way to interpret Jung's findings and it fits his model perfectly. That's why I emphasized the point about ISTJ impracticality, because seen from a purely physical perspective, they really don't know which way is up. Based on this, I agree with you that it is not intuitive from Jung's theory that normal ISTJs would be the workhorses of society, but if we take into account the clinical picture and the fact that most jobs are built around repetitively following a fundamentally "abstract" set of procedures and remembering "abstract" facts, the theory still holds water.

Moving on...

But wait... what about ENTJs? Oops. Concretistic thinkers? Not hardly. Tending to mostly favor conventional/traditional ideas "borrowed from outside"? Well, no, actually. And the main problem is that extraversion, as Jung conceived it, was what we today would think of as more of a combination of E and S. So Jung's "extraverted thinkers" weren't E_TJs; his description really only works (to the extent that it does) for ESTJs.

I take issue with that bolded sentence right there. Again "concretistic" has to do with directionality of thinking and not sensation. You keep harking back to that passage that Jung wrote about the differences between Te and Ti and pick out the part about "tradition" to argue that Jung believed E types were only found with S and never with N. I'll explain why this is likely not what Jung thought below. "Sense-perception" for Jung is definitely not the same as "sensation". It's easy to confuse the two, and I see why you would automatically do that, I actually did it too at first! But they are clearly a very different dimension because Se relates to the sensory stimulation that results from objects and Si relates to the result of the subjective factor. This is a subtle distinction, but it's not the same for Jung as "sense-perception." Se types are fundamentally motivated to seek out enjoyment of the senses, while Si types are not. Yet they are both S, and on the MBTI, they would both presumably choose this:

The following statements generally apply to me:
I remember events as snapshots of what actually happened.
I solve problems by working through facts until I understand the problem.
I am pragmatic and look to the "bottom line."
I start with facts and then form a big picture.
I trust experience first and trust words and symbols less.
Sometimes I pay so much attention to facts, either present or past, that I miss new possibilities.

as opposed to that:

The following statements generally apply to me:
I remember events by what I read "between the lines" about their meaning.
I solve problems by leaping between different ideas and possibilities.
I am interested in doing things that are new and different.
I like to see the big picture, then to find out the facts.
I trust impressions, symbols, and metaphors more than what I actually experienced
Sometimes I think so much about new possibilities that I never look at how to make them a reality.

Let me explain this further:

Spoiler

And Myers recognized that. After a short chapter in Gifts Differing where she dutifully provided four pages of tables summarizing Jung's conceptions of the cognitive functions (including, for Te, "Is fed from objective data — facts and borrowed ideas"; and "Depends upon the facts of experience and regards the abstract idea as unsubstantial and of negligible importance"), she went on to abandon those aspects of Jung's characterization in her own descriptions of E_TJs (except, to a limited extent, in her ESTJ description). Myers' description of ENTJs aptly notes that they "look at the world with intuition rather than sensing, so they are mainly interested in the possibilities beyond the present, obvious or known," singles out their "tolerance for theory" and "taste for complex problems" and says they're "likely to be expert at finding new solutions."

To Myers, E_TJs were "analytical and impersonal" types driven to "organize the facts — and everything else within reach." She said they're "decisive, logical, strong in reasoning power," "aim to govern their own conduct and other people's in accordance with thought-out conclusions," and "value truth in the form of fact, formula, and method."

Everything gets confusing very quickly here in terms of vocabulary. Myers associates the word "abstract" with intuition, whereas Jung associates it with introversion. In addition, Myers lumped "tradition" (a word related to Jung's descriptions of Te as well as being related to his ideas on S/N) in the category of sensation. As you correctly pointed out, Jung believes that Te types (extraverts) base their ideas "according to tradition or to the intellectual atmosphere of the time." Nevertheless, I'm going to argue that "objective data" for Jung has less to do with the sensations arising from "physical" reality (or subjectively for that matter) than directionality of thinking, which I think was his main thesis.**

Te: Outside--->Inside---->Outside
Ti: Inside--->Outside---->Inside

Incidentally, both ENTJs and ESTJs have this in common.

But it gets more muddled:

Here's Jung on Extraverted Intuition:

The intuitive is never to be found in the world of accepted reality-values, but he has a keen nose for anything new and in the making.

So now it becomes apparent that for Jung extraverts are "conventional and tough-minded" (according to McCrae & Costa) yet extraverted intuitive types "reject accepted reality-values." This is very confusing indeed. And I'd like to point out that McCrae & Costa did not discover this inconsistency when they said that.

But wait! If we look at the generalized description of extraverts/introverts at the beginning as a crude introductory description for the reader's benefit (which is what I've always believed and argued here), then we can ignore the whole bit about "joviality" and focus instead on directionality, which, I'm sure you'll agree figures far more prominently across the whole book.

So in conclusion, I don't think the words "tradition" or "intellectual atmosphere" of the time are the same as "values" for Jung. It's certainly possible in my experience for an ENTJ to get all of their ideas from without but to have different "values" than those around them. The distinction is subtle but significant... The way I read Jung's section on Te is an either/or choice between "tradition" and "prevailing intellectual atmosphere of the time."

**Incidentally, I agree with what Myers wrote about ENTJs. I spent two years living with one, and he became one of my best friends. Absolutely did not subscribe to prevailing cultural values, wore it as a badge of honor, and it's actually something that drew us together at the time. Buuut....if you don't accept prevailing cultural values, you have to value other things right? Guess what his were? Buddhism, Tai Chi, Martial Arts, primitive cultures and "old-school" cultural values. It doesn't get more traditional than that. So... I also am forced to agree with Jung's assessment on Te because directionality of thought was very much different between us (Ti vs. Te). He was exclusively focused on the external, and the intuitive aspect of him was subordinated entirely to external ends. Annnnd his ideas did in fact come from tradition, just not the ones prevailing in our day and age.

 

[OmoInisa]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Buuut....if you don't accept prevailing cultural values, you have to value other things right? Guess what his were? Buddhism, Tai Chi, Martial Arts, primitive cultures and "old-school" cultural values. It doesn't get more traditional than that.

Might this not have more to do with that introverted intuition? Little to do with thinking in my view, be it introverted or extroverted. Perhaps Ni would tend to latch on to timeless images that are further removed from one's immediate cultural and material condition that the timeless images that Si would tend to latch on to.

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Might this not have more to do with that introverted intuition? Little to do with thinking in my view, be it introverted or extroverted. Perhaps Ni would tend to latch on to timeless images that are further removed from one's immediate cultural and material condition that the timeless images that Si would tend to latch on to.

I'm not sure. But I forgot to mention that I also know another ENTJ well, and it's uncanny how similar they are in this regard. The other one worked as a whitewater rafting river guide/leader. He valued the traditions/customs of southwest Pueblo/Anasazi Indians.

A more or less direct quote from him at one point:

"Every time I come to these ancient places where they [Native Americans] lived, I get shudders thinking about it..."

It seems more like Fi to me. ENTJs don't really have conscious access to their own emotions or even personal values according to type dynamics theory, and they also don't necessarily adopt the values of the present day and age so it makes sense that they would find the values of a different time/place alluring especially if they feel somewhat at odds with present social values. Looking at that quote above, it almost seems child-like in its wonder, ie a little naive and not particularly rational either.

 

[OmoInisa]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

I'm not sure. But I forgot to mention that I also know another ENTJ well, and it's uncanny how similar they are in this regard. The other one worked as a whitewater rafting river guide/leader. He valued the traditions/customs of southwest Pueblo/Anasazi Indians.

A more or less direct quote from him at one point:

"Every time I come to these ancient places where they [Native Americans] lived, I get shudders thinking about it..."

It seems more like Fi to me. ENTJs don't really have conscious access to their own emotions or even personal values according to type dynamics theory, and they also don't necessarily adopt the values of the present day and age so it makes sense that they would find the values of a different time/place alluring especially if they feel somewhat at odds with present social values. Looking at that quote above, it almost seems child-like in its wonder, ie a little naive and not particularly rational either.

Yes. But this further supports the idea that NJs are more abstract and more otherworldly than SJs. It's not so much I/E at play there (beyond the fact that INJs would obviously be more persistently abstract/removed than ENJs. And it certainly isn't Te.

In my experience, NJs tend to be the ones tending most towards foreign and ancient spirituality/wisdom. SJs tend to be less so than any intuitives.

So I agree that introversion leads to greater abstraction than extroversion. However the effect us dwarfed by S/N.

To use an analogy: Se is like someone driving around in a car. Si is like someone sitting in a helicopter. Ni is like someone perched on a satellite in geostationary orbit.

 

[nanook]

>Ni is like someone perched on a satellite in geostationary orbit.

or maybe that is Ne and Ni is like being that sun

Spoiler

*nipple alert*

 

[Inquisitor]

Re: What is the difference between INTP and ENTP

Yes. But this further supports the idea that NJs are more abstract and more otherworldly than SJs. It's not so much I/E at play there (beyond the fact that INJs would obviously be more persistently abstract/removed than ENJs. And it certainly isn't Te.

In my experience, NJs tend to be the ones tending most towards foreign and ancient spirituality/wisdom. SJs tend to be less so than any intuitives.

So I agree that introversion leads to greater abstraction than extroversion. However the effect us dwarfed by S/N.

To use an analogy: Se is like someone driving around in a car. Si is like someone sitting in a helicopter. Ni is like someone perched on a satellite in geostationary orbit.

You would then have to explain why INTJs with dominant Ni do not feel the same inclination towards an interest in ancient spirituality/wisdom. If anything it's just the opposite from what I've observed. They don't give two shits about it, favoring scientific knowledge instead. If it doesn't have scientific backing, they're bound to dismiss it as quackery. INFJs OTOH would seem to be more accepting of that kind of thing...so F is once again at play there. It probably doesn't have much to do with I/E as you said, but the F component is the likely culprit. I have Fe in the inferior, and I've always been attracted to this kind of ancient cultural knowledge as well.

S/N basically just determines whether or not you are likely to be interested in what is here and now versus what could be.