I think the complication Jason resides in the validity of “type.”
I think psychologists are reluctant to classify people as different types, because so much of the kinds of entities that are individual difference markers are dimensional rather than discrete.
However, people have played around with this, although not super popular. For example, folks will sometimes place two traits on an x and y axis, giving rise to four boxes. For example, some done this with the traits Extraversion and Neuroticism,
and called it trait well-being.
Hi Ex Lo Ne is Happy, Easygoing, relaxed
Hi N Lo E is Defensive, Sensitive, Distressed
Hi E Hi N is Emotional, Engaged, Reactive
Lo E Lo N is Even keeled, Unreactive
In terms of the unified theory, I do emphasize the “Self Quadrant” as a different kind of type than the “Other Quadrant”
Best,
G
From: nysa71 [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, February 4, 2018 8:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]; Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Formism and Personality Traits vs. Types
Hi Gregg,
Thanks for your response. To be clear, I was asking a more general question --- that is "trait" vs. "type", as such.
That is, not necessarily the "Big Five", (I was just using that as a predominant example), and not necessarily Jungian theory or the MBTI --- though, as a side note, one could take a Jungian perspective on type while rejecting MBTI, and vice-versa. Plus, there
are other "type" systems derived from Jungian theory besides MBTI, Socionics being the predominant example that comes to mind.
(I would be curious to read your thoughts, though, on the "value that can be gleaned" from MBTI.)
As you noted, there can be some "conceptual legitimacy" for "disordered types". But then it would seem reasonable to assume that there would equal "conceptual legitimacy" for "ordered types".
The psychiatrist takes a cluster of unhealthy traits to justify the concept of an unhealthy type. But if that's the case, why not take a cluster of healthy traits to justify the concept of a healthy type?
I guess it just strikes me as strange that the issue is framed as trait versus type, but rarely trait
and type, conceived in a complementary way instead of a "one-or-the-other" dichotomy. (Even McCrae & Costa found significant correlations between four of the Big Five and MBTI, suggesting to me that this is one example of the possibility that trait
and type, in principle, could be seen as complementary).
Traits deal with the "parts" of a person, while type deals with the "person-as-a-whole". Perhaps the underlying metaphysical issue (from a "Pepperian" view), is that trait theorists are implicitly coming at personality from an "analytic" perspective, (i.e.,
Formism and Mechanism), while type theorists are implicitly coming at personality from a "synthetic" perspective, (i.e., Contextualism and Organicism).
Come to think of it, (again, as an example), Jung did seem to come at personality from an Organicist angle (at least in some ways), with concepts like "differentiation" and "individuation", while MBTI seems more Contextualist, since there was a "pragmatic"
motivation behind it, (using it to help women find "suitable" jobs in the workplace during WWII).
Anyways, always curious to read your thoughts, (or anyone else's here, too!)
Have a good one,
Jason B
On Saturday, February 3, 2018, 10:58:04 AM EST, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi Jason,
Interesting question. Let me offer some brief thoughts as a clinical/personality psychologist.
You are correct that academic psychology is much more heavily invested in the Big Five than the Jungian theory of types. The reason is pretty
straightforward. The big five originally emerged largely from an “atheoretical” method, called the lexical hypothesis. The lexical hypothesis was the idea that if there are regular patterns of individual difference, those patterns should show up in adjectives.
And, indeed, this was largely found (i.e., a case could be made that there were five large clusters of individual difference). This then evolved into many different interpretations of trait theory.
Jungian type theory is not favored because the system as a whole is not really well suited to being a science of human psychology. In addition,
most personality researchers agree that individual differences are almost all dimensional in their structure. Although there certainly are interesting angles to be considered when it comes to types, most theorists and researchers do not find the MBTI typology
very convincing. I do believe that there is value to be gleaned from it, and I can explain how I related to it at some point. But I do agree with the critiques that the categories of the MBTI behave more like dimensions than dichotomies or types.
Now, jump over to psychopathology and the DSM. First and foremost, the DSM is a PSYCHIATRIC and thus biomedical document. It is modeled off of
biomedicine which tends to conceive of diseases as different types.
Most personality researchers were supportive of a change that was going to be made in the DSM 5, from a type view to a dimension view. The push,
described briefly here, was to create a dimension of dysfunctional tendencies in identity and relationship and have people be ranked. In terms of empirical/psychometric validity, this is almost certainly a “better view.” But, it was pushed back because
it opened up too many other issues.
And, I should note, as this blog describes, the personality disorder types do have some conceptual legitimacy.
Hope this clarifies some points.
G
From: tree of knowledge system discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of nysa71
Sent: Friday, February 2, 2018 8:39 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Formism and Personality Traits vs. Types
Hello ToK Society,
In our previous discussions of Formism, trait theory / type theory has been brought up.
Personality psychologists in academia typically favor trait theory, (particularly the "Big Five"), and typically reject type theory, (at least as far as I can tell). Trait theory dominates.
However, when you look at abnormal psychology, (particularly the DSM), it's implicitly a type theory...specifically,
a categorization of disordered personality types, no?
What's up with that? Why does "mainstream" psychology implicitly seem to be OK with type theory only in a negative sense? That is, perfectly fine with the notion of
unhealthy, disordered and maladaptive personality types while rejecting the notion of
healthy, ordered and adaptive personality types?
~ Jason Bessey
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