The current model of the MBTI (Myer-Briggs Type Indicator) has been, in my opinion, one of the most convincing attempts at generalizing how axiological principles and emotions interact, such as to produce what is referred to as character. However, I would like to say that there are several questions which, if answered, might stand to dramatically improve how useful and falsifiable the model actually is. Therefore, I would like to impose a few goals, in order to explicitly show what my model does, that is different.
- Establishment of the validity of proposed delineations from psychological, evolutionary biological, and game theoretic perspectives.
- Further development of the theory of temperament and function, such as to explain the distributions in letter groupings.
- Relation of letters to predisposition toward pleasure and stress of various types, as well as the effects those types of pleasure and stress have on the other types.
- Development of a theory of context dependent typal gradience. (CDTG’ing from type to type, as per changes in external and internal context)
- The development of a theory of interpersonal interaction.
For, it is after we have accomplished these things, that we will better be able to establish why it is that we make the decisions we do, so that we can ensure that we have an overall beneficial effect on each other, as individuals, and member of the same species.
In any case, for a along while (2 years ago), I had been attempting to reduce the number of emotions a human being is able to feel, to a set of primitive emotions (though, as opposed to some, I also included anticipation and inhibition)
from which the, seemingly, extensive variety of feelings may be generated by mixing the primitives with varying intensities. In this sense, there is some basis set of emotions, and the rest of them are just vectors in the space over which the basis spans. However, I didn’t exactly have a formal method for deciding upon how any particular emotion should lead
However, when I learned about the MBTI, I realized that there might be a way to explain how axiology, temperance, and social forces guide the development of personality, and how personality responds to stimuli of various types. I thought that, if one is an extrovert or introverted, there should be reasons, both negative and positive, for why they go about behaving in the manner they do. Indeed, if each letter was associated with a type of negative an positive consequence, it would be sufficient explanation for it’s behavior, like a context sensitive massage/shock collar. Indeed, from this prospective, it seems clear that this serves the purpose of shaping our learning styles and, as such, the proportions of people who have such predispositions is maintained by the degree of reproductive success their actions have on the species as a whole (as is the case with homosexuality and bisexuality, in the case of bonobos). That is, the fact that there are so many SJ types is probably supported by the danger imposed by having a majority of people with characteristics commonly associated with NP types. That being said, the means by which society innovates toward a better future is by way of NP types. Hence, I seems as if SJ types enforce what is, while NP types generate what could be. In addition, the lower frequency NJ types are those that get changes implemented (which can be quite dangerous), and the SP types are those that attempt to show the importance of convention (less dangerous).