I might've posted something on this before, but this is now; different people and opinions. Plus, I'm sure I didn't do a poll.
People are born a type.
Functions are determined by an individual's upbringing and environment.
I might've posted something on this before, but this is now; different people and opinions. Plus, I'm sure I didn't do a poll.
Why isn't there a choice for 'some combination of both'? I'm sure it isn't exclusively due to environment/upbringing, but I also think its unlikely that environment/upbringing does not play any role
So, uh, how about you are born with instinctual characteristics regarding your perceptual capabilities/inclinations which are either fostered or punished by your surrounding environment? A perfect development keeping with your instinctual self is hardly possible, so the extent to which you are challenged creates psychological obstacles that are in turn dealt with varying levels of success (or, alternately, suppression into the unconscious). Thus we have people who grow to be who they always were, and others who lose themselves in the muddle of a world telling them who they should be or what they should want.
So, uh, yeah. How bout that?
Moonlight will fall
Winter will end
Harvest will come
Your heart will mend
I have absolutely no evidence for this theory, but I bet it's actually almost entirely nurtured in a sense. But not in the sense that type is changeable practically. I guess I'm going to go all Locke tabula-rasa on your arse and guess that we all come into the world without functional preference but by sheer accident stumble across some function or another that we use successfully. And with that comes pleasure, so we start using that function more often than others, and hone it moreso than others. If that's the case, after a point it would be very inefficient to try to be another type, so we tend to focus on our strengths rather than weaknesses (when possible). So I might make a sucky SLE or whatever, but I could try to be one if I wanted to. The opportunity cost (I'm doing economics HW in another window) of being SLE would be not-being-whatever-type-I-am, where my true skills lie. If this were D&D, it would like focusing all of my stats on Intelligence as a Wizard and then going Barbarian. As I said though, that's purely speculation.
Another thing I've thought about is how each type sort of has its own general philosophy, and perhaps that is how type is derived. I'm not sure if that's a byproduct or a cause, or something else, but hey, I'm just rambling haphazardly, so what does it matter?
Edit: I'm not saying SLEs are Barbarians, the two examples were completely unrelated, but it is still kind of funny that it played out that way.
Originally Posted by Logos
Retired from posting and drawing Social Security. E-mail or PM to contact.
I pity your souls
I really like imfd95's post
As a shorthand response, may not just be genetic, there's evidence to show personality/temperament develops in the womb. Usually as people get older they become more natural in their skin, gradually shaking off whatever their upbringing tried to make them, so upbringing seems to be limited in correlation. Ie does a leopard change it's spots.
I don't think it makes sense that our personalities are nurtured because if that were the case, how is it we all fit so neatly into 16 types? Why would we all happen to be these certain combinations of functions? Why wouldn't it be more of a potluck? Couldn't there be some of us running around who for example are equally proficient in Fe and Te - saying that we were exposed to circumstances that made it necessary for us to be strong in both? And if our personalities are indeed nurtured, then what it is the cut-off date when our personalities are considered 'formed'? Is there a cut-off date? And being that our experiences never fail to affect us in some way, at what point would they be said to start affecting our behaviour and not our innate personalities? Or maybe our personalites just continue to evolve the longer we live - being that our experiences will always have a profound effect on our lives - in which case there's no point in typing.
"Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast."
I think we can be well-rounded even by focusing on our strongest functions, given that functions can be applied to a wide array of different activities. Sure, there will always be some blind spots but not excessively detrimental to making a person "well rounded"
Anyway, my opinion is that temperament (EJ IJ IP EP) is inborn, wheras the functions used can be a byproduct of the environment.
Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit
Actually, I think type is a constant, but sub type (if it exists) would be influenced by environment.
Sure, but personally I've seen other examples of the same phenomenon. For instance, there's a family I've known all my life:
LSI father
SEI mother
SLI son
ESI daughter (3 years younger)
This combination was particularly negative for the ESI, with parents who couldn't provide Te and whose low focus on Ne made them see her as "chronic underachiever".
Another one (I also know them very well):
LIE father
ESI mother
EII son
Where the disagreements are precisely on the EII's lack of interest in Se matters (ie giving low priority to making money).
And some others.
The point I'm making is that, according to my experience, there seem to be a lot of people who can't be conditioned into becoming like their parents.
My personal impression is that types are either inborn or defined irreversibly at a very, very early stage in life.
, LIE, ENTj logical subtype, 8w9 sx/sp
Originally Posted by implied
Yeah, I see what you're getting at. But say that this Fi-base-favouring person grew up in an environment in which the use of Te was discouraged - well surely that would have to be a strong deterrent to Te dual-seeking.
On some persons - so do you think it's possible that some people may never 'stabilise' - e.g. a person who is constantly subjected to changing circumstances?
I agree. In my family irrational behaviour was strongly discouraged, and yet 3 out of 4 of us are irrational.
"Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast."
That's a bit too much of a devil's advocate position. Or, rather: if you accept such positions, then socionics makes no sense. Otherwise (if socionics makes sense), Fi-base implies that a person is Te-dual-seeking as well as it implies Ti-role. There's no separation.say for example -- something in my brain makes me really favor Fi-base in myself. but that there's nothing inherent in there to make me Te-dual seeking.
Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit
Well yeah I agree that socionics wouldn't make sense if such situations do/did exist. My point was (I think ) that if our personalities are shaped exclusively by our environments and experiences, then why the hard and fast rules? Why must Fi-base imply Te-dual seeking? But yeah - I am taking a devil's advocate postion.
"Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast."
From my POV, it's because of a systemic "internal coherence". If Fi is Ti dual seeking, then Fe must be dual seeking of something else, otherwise the system it's not symmetrical anymore because somebody has dual relations with two different types? So one "change" would render necessary changes in all the other positions; in the end, somebody would end up being in the "Te dual seeking position" in every case. We can choose to call it "Fi" or "Fe", however the properties of the type and the relationships between the two types wouldn't change at all.
Now if you're speaking instead about specific instances in which a person is typed as Fi type and instead seems to be Fe-dual seeking - I'd say this only means that in the socionics "language" that person is a Ti type. It's just a matter of labels.
you can attach the labels you want to things that happen in real life, but it really won't change the fact that they happen, will it? You can say that if somebody is dual of Fe types he'll be a Fi type. This won't change the group of people we refer to (that in socionics are named Ti-dominants)whether or not these things are always in sync -- as the system progresses dynamically: that's another issue. implication in a model is a lot different from causality in real life,.
Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit
It doesn't imply hard and fast rules exist. However what we see in everyday life (intertype relations) is that there appears to be hard and fast rules. It's just an observation of what we see when we study what sort of people are more likely to get on with each other. If there were no pattern we wouldn't objectively observe any pattern.
That's daft!! Actually a good point. But then, I suppose it's more credible that there's some sort of personality framework in our DNA - given that our bodies are so ordered in every other way.... Whereas experiences can be so random and .... blah blah blah blah blah blah. I'm going to shut up now.
"Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast."
Chopin asked, why, if our personalities are exclusively shaped by our environment, there should be hard and fast rules. I thought this suggested that she thought that if we were born with our personalities then there is some reason to justify hard and fast rules, and I want to know what that reason is (apologies if I've read too much into what you said)
Edit: woops, looks like she answered my question just then. Nah I thought it might be something like that, and to be honest, I don't think its such a stupid reason
Yeah, that's why I think socionics should be better based on behavior. I don't even think wants are type related.
We should see if this is realistic or just an hypothesis.2) the original anecdote was where one operation implied IFj and another operation implied nothing. (in early stages of development neutral preferences are plausible.)
Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit
I think i've touched on this before, but as we are social creatures, from an evolutionary perspective it would make sense for our socialness to have some sort of 'rules' or pattern. Structure even.
@hellothere, sorrythere () I thought it was an open question
I'm sceptical.
As a fan of Locke, I like this theory. Parts of it at least.
Because Augusta decided so. Why is it any more unlikely that we should fit into sixteen types through being nurtured than it is unlikely that there are only sixteen styles of newborn human beings?
Who knows? Maybe the types are all subjective, in the sense that we can't say that there's a definitive, objective, discrete distinction in functional preference. Like we can only say that something is more than , more than , more than , etc.
JRiddy
—————King of Socionics—————
Ne-ENTp 7w8 sx/so
hmmm, i thought the smiley face would show that i was joking
JRiddy
—————King of Socionics—————
Ne-ENTp 7w8 sx/so
There could be some combination of factors.
But I voted "born with" because babies have such distinct personalities, and the kids I've known since babyhood displayed at least their basic personalities from birth.
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.-Mark Twain
You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
I'm still wrestling with it to be honest. I'm comfortable operating amidst a high degree of ambiguity. Clearly, most things about a person are some combination of nature and nuture. I'm inclined to emphasize nature over nurture because I don't like behavioral psychology. (especially B. F. Skinner. What an ass.)
Actually, I think it's most likely that we are born with type predilections that are reinforced through the benefits of specialization. Essentially, we are reinforced to become better at what we're good at, in most instances, because the marginal cost (in terms of brain power) of generalization is very high. There's little economy of scope available to most individuals. Think Ricardian trade dynamics and specialization of labor.
JRiddy
—————King of Socionics—————
Ne-ENTp 7w8 sx/so
Inherited. Innate, in-born. You can't change who people are at their very core. Believe me, people have tried to change me and I've tried to change them. Doesn't work. I guess certain experiences will bring different sides out of you, and people are still complex but come on, a fish simply can't fly.
Haha. That's unnatural fish cruelty though. =)
Everything is learned. A lamp must learn its shape. Learning and being biological are synonyms. Everything is learned. How does one think if there is no data to think about? Something that is possible is that our DNA strands have intelligence. Over years and years of evolutions, our DNA strands have learned what to learn and how to learn it.
I've never understood the concepts of living v.s. non living. Everything reacts to the environment. Its just that our system is a complex system of reactions that keeps building upon itself.
Model X Will Save Us!
*randomwarelinkremoved
not reading any of the thread:
I have never seen anything that leads me to believe types are nurtured into being.
I have seen, extensively, how people have had to adjust to fit in, or alter themselves to survive, basically. These alterations can be detrimental to the person's natural well being, and/or have various other side effects and consequences.
I've seen SEIs try to be more this way or that way to appease their partner. But in the end the are themselves and never change. I've seen an ESE go from being sporadic and outgoing to more balanced and reserved, after finally settling down and finding a dual. Those are personal examples I've seen very clearly, I'm sure things like that happen all the time.
But in all my seeings of personal experience, I have never seen anything that made me think someone had a major shift in psychological type (this includes, quadra, temperment, or functional ordering). And I caution that those who do should first be wary that they, themselves, were misinformed or misunderstood the person's type to begin with - that is to say, the error is their own viewpoint. This is something I have done a few times, but I realized it was my own misunderstanding, and, as I have said, it was never that someone had a change of type.
Furthermore, I have not ever seen anything that supported a change of subtype, even.
Last edited by UDP; 04-24-2008 at 11:21 PM. Reason: clarity
Posts I wrote in the past contain less nuance.
If you're in this forum to learn something, be careful. Lots of misplaced toxicity.
~an extraverted consciousness is unable to believe in invisible forces.
~a certain mysterious power that may prove terribly fascinating to the extraverted man, for it touches his unconscious.
I think that you are born with your type, but the subtype is determined by enviroment and such stuff.
Beta extrovert from NF club.