Cognitive functions

[no_name]

I have been studying cognitive functions, first discovered by Carl Jung, and I am blown by them. I wanted to ask if anyone else here has had any experience with this? Which sources would you recommend for studying this further? How was it useful to you on your self improved journey? 

I would also like to hear any criticisms of these concepts? (Not mbti thought, I am interested in the functions themselves and not the tests) 

Discovering this has been as mind blowing, if not more, as SD. I am surprised that no one is talking about this and the concepts are still rather unpopular. 

Edited April 14, 2022 by no_name

[SriSriJustinBieber]

Yes interesting. It's a rabbit hole, so beware not to become too geeky about it and start seeing everything only through cognitive functions (it's okay if you have a period like that at first).

As for resources, here are a few in english (you probably know some of these already):

- Objective Personality on Youtube (if you don't check the oldest videos you will not understand much).

- The blog "Type in Mind"

- Sara MBTI on Youtube

- Casual Cognition on Youtube (oldest videos with the INTJ girl, I don't vouch for the recent ones)

- Carl Jung's description of the types in the book "Psychological Types" and in some interview you can find on youtube (in my opinion it's a bit outdated but still quite insightful)

- This longer list from Reddit

[no_name]

3 hours ago, SriSriJustinBieber said:

It's a rabbit hole, so beware not to become too geeky about it and start seeing everything only through cognitive functions

Could you elaborate on this? What would be some of the potential issues?

[SriSriJustinBieber]

23 minutes ago, no_name said:

Could you elaborate on this? What would be some of the potential issues?

Well, if you start filtering life or social interactions through any label, you can only extract from them the learning that this label has in store. Therefore, if you do this long enough, you start learning the same things over and over again, which means learning nothing new.

Edit: it's perfectly fine if you are doing that currently, maybe you have already guessed some of my cognitive functions by now

Edited April 14, 2022 by SriSriJustinBieber

[something_else]

4 hours ago, SriSriJustinBieber said:

Yes interesting. It's a rabbit hole, so beware not to become too geeky about it and start seeing everything only through cognitive functions (it's okay if you have a period like that at first).

It's funny, me and a fair few people I know have gone through a phase like this after discovering cognitive functions

[StarStruck]

This channel is my favorate on the topic

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr0wsqIKlulvUUspVwWHHeZ0KkdAhyaVd

Edited April 14, 2022 by StarStruck

[thisintegrated]

Although controversial, CS Joseph is probably the best MBTI YouTuber.

You can also learn Socionics for an alternate perspective.

[Carl-Richard]

There is a reason you don't learn about it in personality psychology ;D

[CultivateLove]

21 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

There is a reason you don't learn about it in personality psychology ;D

Like?

[thisintegrated]

31 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

There is a reason you don't learn about it in personality psychology ;D

Name a better alternative that they teach in psychology class.

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, CultivateLove said:

Like?

Jung didn't use a structured empirical methodology to come up with the functions, unlike say Cattel's 16PF and Big 5, which used factor analysis and the Lexical hypothesis. Rather, it was an idea based on his clinical experience and general knowledge.

Additionally, it's a typology ("types"), which is something personality psychology has moved away from. Personality is polygenetic (unlike say blue/brown eyes or male/female), which means that there exists a huge variation of personalities (like a spectrum). In other words, you can score higher or lower on a trait, but it's not either/or ('this' or 'that' type). The technical term for this is "normal vs. bimodal distribution".

 

2 hours ago, thisintegrated said:

Name a better alternative that they teach in psychology class.

If you're asking for a personality typology, then I couldn't name you one. If you're asking for a personality trait theory, then Big 5. The empirical data on that one is unmatched.

Separate from the typology aspect, I think Jung's cognitive functions are still useful as descriptions of cognition and behavior, like personality adjectives (just very precise ones). For example, instead of thinking of frequent use of Ti and Ne as an indication of the "INTP" type, you can just leave it at "frequent use of Ti and Ne".

[thisintegrated]

36 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Jung didn't use a structured empirical methodology to come up with the functions, unlike say Cattel's 16PF and Big 5 which used factor analysis and the Lexical hypothesis. Rather, it was an idea based on his clinical experience and general knowledge.

Additionally, it's a typology ("types"), which is something personality psychology has moved away from. Personality is polygenetic (unlike say blue/brown eyes or male/female), which means that there exists a huge variation of personalities (like a spectrum). In other words, you can score higher or lower on a trait, but it's not either/or ('this' or 'that' type). The technical term for this is "normal vs. bimodal distribution".

 

If you're asking for a personality typology, then I couldn't name you one. If you're asking for a personality trait theory, then Big 5. The empirical data on that one is unmatched.

Separate from the typology aspect, I think Jung's cognitive functions are still useful as descriptions of cognition and behavior, like personality adjectives (just very precise ones). For example, instead of thinking of frequent use of Ti and Ne as an indication of the "INTP" type, you can just leave it at "frequent use of Ti and Ne".

Big 5 is decent, but flawed.  I mean, no one can even decide how to actually use it in conversation.  You get stuff like this??

https://imgur.com/a/dTqV0Aa

Very few people are gonna casually make a list like this when introducing themselves.

 

And I've never heard anyone say e.g. "I'm an ocean", though you do hear "I'm an ENTP" all the time.  I think Big 5 would be on par with MBTI if it was more "usable".  But they should both be taught in psychology classes.

Edited April 14, 2022 by thisintegrated

[Carl-Richard]

15 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

Big 5 is decent, but flawed.  I mean, no one can even decide how to actually use it in conversation.  You get stuff like this??

https://imgur.com/a/dTqV0Aa

Very few people are gonna casually make a list like this when introducing themselves.

And I've never heard anyone say e.g. "I'm an ocean", though you do hear "I'm an ENTP" all the time.  I think Big 5 would be on par with MBTI if it was more "usable". 

What you're really saying is that it's not Big 5 that is flawed – it's communication that is flawed. That is true. Accurate communication is tedious, which is why people write books.

 

21 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

But they should both be taught in psychology classes.

It is "taught" in psychology classes, in the sense that it's briefly mentioned in the introductory personality curriculum and explained why it's not up to par with other theories (by bringing up the points I've mentioned). The reason it's a popular model is because it's rather normatively neutral (no one type is particularly "negative"), which is why companies like to use it, and like you said, it's easy to communicate.

[thisintegrated]

6 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

What you're really saying is that it's not Big 5 that is flawed – it's communication that is flawed. That is true. Accurate communication is tedious, which is why people write books.

 

It is "taught" in psychology classes, in the sense that it's briefly mentioned in the introductory personality curriculum and explained why it's not up to par with other theories (by bringing up the points I've mentioned). The reason it's a popular model is because it's rather normatively neutral (no one type is particularly "negative"), which is why companies like to use it, and like you said, it's easy to communicate.

It's unusable in casual conversation.  That's why it never took off, and never will, and is a failure.

MBTI doesn't consider any types to be better than others.

There are no "other theories".  We've already covered basically all of them.  If universities had some sort of "secret super-cognitive-models", we'd know about them.  There's just MBTI, and a few others psychology nerds like to research for entertainment.

Edited April 14, 2022 by thisintegrated

[Carl-Richard]

13 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

It's unusable in casual conversation.  That's why it never took off, and never will, and is a failure.

Is it a scientific failure, or is it a failure of laymen vocabulary?

 

13 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

MBTI doesn't consider any types of be better than others.

True. That's what I said

 

13 minutes ago, thisintegrated said:

There are no "other theories".  We've already covered basically all of them.  If universities had some sort of "secret super-cognitive-models", we'd know about them.  There's just MBTI, and a few others psychology nerds like to research for entertainment.

What I said is there are many personality models that are more empirically and structurally sound than MBTI. There are also many domains of personality psychology (the cognitive domain is one out of seven) and many highly useful models (e.g. many in the evo-bio and emotion domain). It's all superceded by Big 5 though in terms of empirical backing.

[thisintegrated]

16 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Is it a scientific failure, or is it a failure of laymen vocabulary?

 

True. That's what I said

 

What I said is there are many personality models that are more empirically and structurally sound than MBTI. There are also many domains of personality psychology (the cognitive domain is one out of seven) and many highly useful models (e.g. many in the evo-bio and emotion domain). It's all superceded by Big 5 though in terms of empirical backing.

Imagine if suddenly there was a competitor to Apple and Android phones, and it was better and cheaper in every way.  Wouldn't matter, as there are too many apps and refinements already made to the Apple and Android ecosystems.  The smarter thing for a competitor to do would be to try to become part of either one, and work to make the existing stuff better.

MBTI is Apple, Socionics is Android, and Big 5 is something no one's ever heard of, and never will, no matter how much money you pumped into the Big 5.  Time and effort would be better spent working for MBTI, and making the thing that everyone already uses better.

It's a mistake putting resources into reinventing the wheel.  Even if you learn Big 5 or something obscure at university, you'll still end up using MBTI at home, and that's what you'll end up mastering without trying.  Learning Big 5 is just a pointless uphill struggle.

Edited April 15, 2022 by thisintegrated

[no_name]

4 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Jung didn't use a structured empirical methodology to come up with the functions, unlike say Cattel's 16PF and Big 5, which used factor analysis and the Lexical hypothesis. Rather, it was an idea based on his clinical experience and general knowledge.

I know that factor analysis sounds fancy but this is just basic stats ?. I don’t see how big 5 is useful as well. I don’t see why they can’t make a similar study on cognitive functions. I think cognitive functions are just harder to understand and there aren’t enough resources. 

[no_name]

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Additionally, it's a typology ("types"), which is something personality psychology has moved away from. Personality is polygenetic (unlike say blue/brown eyes or male/female), which means that there exists a huge variation of personalities (like a spectrum). In other words, you can score higher or lower on a trait, but it's not either/or ('this' or 'that' type). The technical term for this is "normal vs. bimodal distribution".

Carl Jung was the one who discovered cognitive functions. Then Myers and Briggs decided to use these functions in a more practical way and created the 16 personality types and the test. Even though they worked off Carl Jung’s work, MBTI is quite different from the original theory.

Cognitive functions focus on two areas only - perceiving information and making decisions. While these two variables cannot 100% describe someone’s “personality”, psychology and social sciences are not and will never be exact science.

Also, I don’t think you understand statistics and probability theory, it doesn’t make sense what you’re saying.

[Carl-Richard]

@thisintegrated

You're making it sound like personality theory is something people do and not scientists do ? 

 

2 minutes ago, no_name said:

Also, I don’t think you understand statistics and probability theory, it doesn’t make sense what you’re saying.

I tried to dumb it down instead of screaming into the void like I did the last 3 times I talked about this. So much for ease of communication ?

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, no_name said:

Carl Jung was the one who discovered cognitive functions. Then Myers and Briggs decided to use these functions in a more practical way and created the 16 personality types and the test. Even though they worked off Carl Jung’s work, MBTI is quite different from the original theory.

Then you can tell Thisintegrated to stop using the two interchangeably. I simply went along with it.