BigApplePi
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- Jan 8, 2010
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It has been asked if the MBTI is a legitimate scientific theory and if so, why hasn't academia acknowledged it? I'm not sure that is true. I have the impression some of academia likes it but it's not universally approved. Anyway tests are used for vocational aptitudes but many question their validity.
I have what may be a new way of explaining what's going on. My intuition looks for contradictions, so if you see any please post them. That includes questions if something is unexplained or not clear.
Here is how it goes. We all have the potential for any of the eight cognitive functions (CF's). In the beginning, infants possess only feeling and sensation and they are internal. Then externalities arise through growth. Intuition may arise next, follow by thinking. Thinking and intuition and outside world interest and awarenesses are advanced stages in humans appearing beyond infancy.
As the person develops they tend to specialize*. They find some CF's easier to use or more rewarding than others. Whether this is hardware (innate) or software (environmental) doesn't matter. What matters is once specialties arise they tend to stick. The reason for that is that they are immediately rewarding. In contrast changing to other CF's will be inhibited (1) by lack of experience with them and (2) by conflict with other existing CF's. Of all the possible CF's, two emerge** as primary. One to deal with who we are internally and the other to deal with the external world.
Then something new occurs. The four predominant CF's produce an emerging*** temperament. This is the primary temperament. For example, the familiar INTP on this Forum. This temperament is the personality's home base. Once established, it can encounter both internal and environmental changes impinging on this temperament. Then a secondary temperament may arise. For example an INTP released from other social pressures may discover the internet is a place to look outwardly, thus producing the behavior of an extrovert, an ENTP. An INTP who can firm up theory and lay claim to it by becoming a believer can treat it as external phenomena, taking on the secondary temperament of an INTJ. An INTP who is on occasion seduced by strong feelings lingering long enough can take on the temperament (secondary) of an INFP. An INTP who takes on specific interests close to the environment of a sensation nature can take on the temperament, however transient, of an ISTP.
It is these secondary temperaments that arise from time-to-time that lead one to doubt ones' primary temperament. For all we know, MBTI tests, the visual observations of Pod'Lair and other theories may be exposing a secondary temperament, not the primary. That a primary temperament exists and what it is can only be verified by statistical observation over time and space and by looking at the whole picture.
*The same way division of labor appears in society and sibling specialties arise in families.
**All four CF's are determined by the first two primaries.
***When I say "emerge" this is meant literally. Development brings into being what was not there before. The CF's occupy a lower level than the temperament which is at a higher level. The CF's themselves emerge from primeval unconsciousness. The point is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This whole is experienced as unified behavior tending toward stability.
I have what may be a new way of explaining what's going on. My intuition looks for contradictions, so if you see any please post them. That includes questions if something is unexplained or not clear.
Here is how it goes. We all have the potential for any of the eight cognitive functions (CF's). In the beginning, infants possess only feeling and sensation and they are internal. Then externalities arise through growth. Intuition may arise next, follow by thinking. Thinking and intuition and outside world interest and awarenesses are advanced stages in humans appearing beyond infancy.
As the person develops they tend to specialize*. They find some CF's easier to use or more rewarding than others. Whether this is hardware (innate) or software (environmental) doesn't matter. What matters is once specialties arise they tend to stick. The reason for that is that they are immediately rewarding. In contrast changing to other CF's will be inhibited (1) by lack of experience with them and (2) by conflict with other existing CF's. Of all the possible CF's, two emerge** as primary. One to deal with who we are internally and the other to deal with the external world.
Then something new occurs. The four predominant CF's produce an emerging*** temperament. This is the primary temperament. For example, the familiar INTP on this Forum. This temperament is the personality's home base. Once established, it can encounter both internal and environmental changes impinging on this temperament. Then a secondary temperament may arise. For example an INTP released from other social pressures may discover the internet is a place to look outwardly, thus producing the behavior of an extrovert, an ENTP. An INTP who can firm up theory and lay claim to it by becoming a believer can treat it as external phenomena, taking on the secondary temperament of an INTJ. An INTP who is on occasion seduced by strong feelings lingering long enough can take on the temperament (secondary) of an INFP. An INTP who takes on specific interests close to the environment of a sensation nature can take on the temperament, however transient, of an ISTP.
It is these secondary temperaments that arise from time-to-time that lead one to doubt ones' primary temperament. For all we know, MBTI tests, the visual observations of Pod'Lair and other theories may be exposing a secondary temperament, not the primary. That a primary temperament exists and what it is can only be verified by statistical observation over time and space and by looking at the whole picture.
*The same way division of labor appears in society and sibling specialties arise in families.
**All four CF's are determined by the first two primaries.
***When I say "emerge" this is meant literally. Development brings into being what was not there before. The CF's occupy a lower level than the temperament which is at a higher level. The CF's themselves emerge from primeval unconsciousness. The point is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This whole is experienced as unified behavior tending toward stability.
