draelynn wrote:
So I do find 'Perceiving/Judging' to be a valid dicotomy. One suggests forethought - absorbing all there is to absorb from your surroundings before acting - the other is a static process based on information already known without consideration of new knowledge. While everyone does both, usually one style is more prevalent than the other. The guy who initiated this test was simply presenting it as a tool for employers to better understand the motivations of their employees. He was very clear that it wasn't a disgnostic tool. In fact, I asked about the corrolation of INTP to Asperger's during a break and he adamantly insisted that it was in no way used to diagnose anything. I only found out much later that, in fact, INTP is considered very Aspie. Some articles I've read have even suggested that only Aspies fit this type.
Although I'd have to investigate the validity of the classification system you propose (i.e. is it really one trait, or do different people go different ways depending on the situation, because of the relative strengths of other cognitive and emotional factors that vary according to context, such as curiosity, impatience, self-confidence and unconscious habit-following) I imagine that would be a fairly harmless belief to have. Minimalist approaches to personality typing aren't the ones I consider damaging. It's the more popular, no-knowledge-of-neuroscience-required approaches, that I've seen people use to argue against the diagnosis and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders like AS and ADHD.
The MBTI enthusiasts who are championing the neglect of children's medical and educational needs (including their own children) in this way don't leave the dichotomies at any single definition like you do. Most determine whether people are Ps or Js by behavioural manifestations such as organisation, obsessiveness, perseverence and close-mindedness. When someone seems uptight, obsessive AND disorganised and procrastinating (like many Aspies and ADDers), or vice versa, they get confused and enter into long discussions about which that person must be, because rather than each trait being caused by completely separate neurological phenomena, as in reality, they're all aspects of the same trait to them. That's why it's thought that most people aren't "strong" examples of any one type. To be strong example of a P or J type you'd have to happen to have a bunch of unrelated traits at once, that have arbitrarily been clumped together under one label.
18 Jun 2011, 1:11 pm
