Talk:Jungian cognitive functions

Some post-cleanup thoughts
Liesldiesl (talk) 21:16, 23 June 2015 (UTC)liesldiesl
 * The functions in the grid are in the same order for both extroverted and introverted types; the order is wrong for the introverted types.  The correct order can be found here, for example:

11:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)Kolbjørn Brønnick
 * This article is not about "cognitive functions", but rather about personality and what is termed "cognitive style". Cognitive functions refer to concepts in cognitive psychology or cognitive neuroscience. I suggest that this article is renamed to a title that reflects its actual content.

--Bth 18:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * This could probably do with more discussion by someone who actually understands of what the whole business about the attitude of the tertiary actually means, and how you get from the "dichotomies" to intro/extra-verted versions of the four basic cognitive functions, since all four of them are included in just half of the dichotomies.
 * The title should really be singular by WP:MOS, but cognitive function (correctly, in my view) redirects to cognition, so I'm not sure whether that needs fixing.
 * I really don't like the sloppy use of "energy" in these sorts of things. It's a very well defined physical concept.
 * What do all the ?s in the Jung table mean? Did he just assert that auxiliary and inferior functions existed, but didn't go into detail?

What are these functions?
The article doesn't explain them, just sorts them into tables. 4.245.109.40 (talk) 22:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I added a new section to address that. [user:Malshafey (talk) 04:34, 19 April 2015 (UTC)Malshafey]

Question
"Myers interpreted Jung as saying that the auxiliary, tertiary, and inferior functions are always in the opposite attitude of the dominant."

Where does Jung ever discuss a tertiary function? And where does he say that the inferior functions are always in the opposite attitude of the dominant? I'm skeptical here. M^A^L (talk) 00:40, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Answer: Jung never said any function is the opposite attitude of the primary/dominant. The conscious side of a function always follows the general attitude of consciousness because the function itself in Jung's writing doesn't come with an attitude; it takes that of either consciousness or the unconscious depending on who it submits to. The unconscious side follows the opposing general attitude of the unconscious, which would dominate if a person had only developed one function. According to Jung, the functions are never differentiated in the opposing attitude, as he never said that attitudes of introversion and extraversion are specific to each function as Myers understood. You can refer to his book and verify.

--User:Malshafey

To the question of whether functions "always follows the general attitude of consciousness because the function itself in Jung's writing doesn't come with an attitude" I would reference Jung to assert the opposite.

First, he states that an Introverted Thinker would possess Extraverted Feeling: "Apart from the qualities I have mentioned, the undeveloped functions possess the further peculiarity that, when the conscious attitude is introverted, they are extraverted and vice versa. One could therefore expect to find extraverted feelings in an introverted intellectual,"

He also makes clear that the functions take attitudes, not just the person generally: "We then discover that no individual is simply introverted or extraverted, but that he is so in one of his functions."

Finally, he addreses whether it is people who are generally introverted or extraverted verses having specific functions which are introverted/extraverted. He states that it's the functions, not the whole person:

"I would like to stress that each of the two general attitudes, introversion and extraversion, manifests itself in a special way in an individual through the predominance of one of the four basic functions. Strictly speaking, there are no introverts and extraverts pure and simple, but only introverted and extraverted function-types, such as thinking types, sensation types, etc. There are thus at least eight clearly distinguishable types."

Taken together we see Jung saying that Introverted types possess extraverted functions, that it's the attitude of their dominant process that determines the general attitude, and that there are eight attitude-functions that he is describing, not merely more generalized introverted or extraverted types who happen to engage the 4 basic functions.

Clarity of thought (talk) 18:26, 18 June 2018 (UTC)Clarity of thought

Article Needs Some More Cleaning Up
'...the most developed function is referred to as the "dominant", with the remaining three filling the roles as "auxiliary" and "inferior" functions.'

I count two remaining functions, not three. Let me count them. 1. auxiliary 2. inferior

Where is the third remaining function in that sentence? M^A^L (talk) 13:02, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Answer: I did not write this, but inferior refers to the condition when the function is not developed. Inferior functions can usually be 2-4, depending on the person.

A differentiated type with auxiliary has one primary developed function, one auxiliary under-developed function, and two inferior undeveloped functions. --User:Malshafey

Someone is using the page to promote function axes???
Apparently someone deleted everything about Jung and left some Celebrity Types ideas that are based on Myers and others. It's a shame to see facts being hid and information added without reference.

User:Malshafey — Preceding undated comment added 14:37, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be me. We are talking about Jungian cognitive functions here: when I first discovered this page it was without the functions themselves. An article that doesn't contain a core part of the theory is one article that needs cleaning up.
 * On the note of having ideas from CelebrityTypes, well, I would consider CT to be a reliable source for Jungian ideas. Jung isn't the sole owner of this theory and many ideas have been refined and clarified from the original Psychological Types. I myself even added ideas from Jung's original writing for these functions and in no way am I trying to "promote" anything or hide facts. If that table was your creation then I suggest you place in it prose as I find it far too confusing placed within a table. Please assume good faith. Thanks, Myname is not dave (talk/contribs) 11:43, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Socionics
Should Model A from Socionics be added here, as well? EPM (talk) 14:29, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Disprove it with Big Five statistics
Jungian function theory says that if you score high on extraversion, high on openness and low on conscientiousness, you can only have a moderate preference for or against agreeableness because it correlates to 'thinking' or 'feeling' which would then be the auxiliary function. I would be surprised if someone could confirm the function order with some data of real big five tests taken. Openness equals Intuition Agreeableness equals Feeling Conscientiousness equals Judging Then you would just have to look at the test results and compare the scores of the dominant and auxiliary function.

And what's the difference between sensing and feeling anyway? You can feel bad emotions as a hit into the stomach. And when you're hungry, you get fear. Thought mistakes also feel like a hit in the stomach and slight migraine. Without psychosomatic reactions, i bet you would behave lobotomized. So feeling and sensing might be more like a circuit between the body and the mind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:C6:E73A:3C00:9449:340:611A:EB77 (talk) 17:10, 24 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I am sorry, someone else will probably answer your first (paragraph) question better - beside the point that I think this is a talk page to talk about the contrive of Wiki article rather than the accuracy of Jung's cognitive functions themselves. If you provided peer reviewed journal article to support your claim then it would be very welcome.
 * I can answer your second question, I guess: Jung differentiates the sensing and intuiting functions from feeling and thinking. It is a matter of terminology. The former ones are perceiving functions and the later ones are judging functions. You should very well know that Jung doesn't reduce one's psyche or cognitive conduct only to their physical/biological functions: he also takes into account one's relationship with subjective norm (the acceptance or rejection criterion), knowledge (e.g. the propositional knowledge), type one/two thinking etc. Your account on sensing and feeling is more of a description to what "perception" is in Psychology by Schachter.
 * Of course, at the end of the day, Jung thrived in the era when psychology was more on the side of philosophy, he drew his theories from long experience with his patients. Anyway, here's an interesting take on it  trying to connect it with hard science - I hope this helps and you might as well check the person (in the link)'s works on it, whether they are genuinely good research or bogus.
 * Handarii (talk) 13:11, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Multiple issues template
I inserted the multiple issues template due to the lead being not well formatted as well as other sections, where the formatting is out of place and doesn't follow the Wikipedia MOS at all, like the inline citations and quotes. The lead and other parts of the article, such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, have no citations, and the citations that are there seem inconsistently formatted. Loverthehater (talk) 22:42, 26 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I rewrote the lead, so I got rid of that banner. It could use expansion, but for now it's alright. Loverthehater (talk) 06:55, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Introverted sensation
Okay so the articles states that " Si is said to compare phenomena with past experiences (this has never been said by Jung himself; it is a common internet misconception)" but even though it says that it is a common internet misconception, the person who wrote this never seems to try to end that misconception in this paragraph. They just go on to utilize more internet misconceptions about introverted sensation, instead of actually citing Jung and what he said on the matter. Steph.st (talk) 13:42, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

The whole article needs a major rewrite. In its current state it's not a summary of Jung's functions model but of MBTI misconceptions. Byankuren (talk) 03:47, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

The part about how Meyer interpret Jung is unclear.
First it says "Myers interpreted Jung as saying that the auxiliary, tertiary, and inferior functions are always in the opposite attitude of the dominant." Which sounds like an Ne-person would have introvertet inferior functions. But then in the table for their system the ENTP has Ne-Ti-Fe-Si. The third function there should have been introverted too.

My guess is that the system was changed later. If so, that should be stated who and why changed that part. (hope I didn't just miss that part) 90.232.176.18 (talk) 14:41, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

It should be embarrassing for anyone who takes Myers-Briggs seriously that this is hard to get explained. 2601:600:9B7F:803A:D57F:FC14:6E5C:95AE (talk) 18:43, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

The section about "Controversy over attitudes" needs revisions
This section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_cognitive_functions#Controversy_over_attitudes

I want to suggest 2 points:

1. I agree with a suggestion above that this sentence is misleading:

"Myers interpreted Jung as saying that the auxiliary, tertiary, and inferior functions are always in the opposite attitude of the dominant."

I think it's misleading, b/c, in the types table by Myers quoted in the article, the signs are flipped, not as mentioned in the above sentence. This used to confuse me a lot the first time I read it. (Later, after reading and understanding more about this topic, I realized that this statement is simply inconsistent).

2. This section's writing style is convoluted

Initially, I thought that the it wanted to say that Myers' interpretation is incorrect: that the Aux (the 2nd best function) should have the same attitude as the dominant one.

But at the end of this section, it concludes the opposites: "it is clear from his language that the functions are linked to the attitudes in the way that Myers, Beebe and Berens have adopted."

I suggest we remove the following paragraphs entirely:

Furthermore, the evidence given by Myers[9] for the orientation of the auxiliary function relies on one sentence from Jung:

"For all the types met with in practice, the rule holds good that besides the conscious, primary function there is a relatively unconscious, auxiliary function which is in every respect different from the nature of the primary function."[2]

And in using this phrase to set an opposing attitude for the auxiliary function, Myers disregarded that in Jungian language, functions are separate from their orientation, as orientation is a property of consciousness as a whole, and also disregarded the examples Jung gave immediately afterwards in the text that do not speak of attitude:

"From these combinations well-known pictures arise, the practical intellect for instance paired with sensation, the speculative intellect breaking through with intuition, the artistic intuition which selects. and presents its images by means of feeling judgement, the philosophical intuition which, in league with a vigorous intellect, translates its vision into the sphere of comprehensible thought, and so forth."[1]

And also disregards the context and language Jung used in speaking of the four functions:

"I distinguish these functions from one another because they cannot be related or reduced to one another. The principle of thinking, for instance, is absolutely different from the principle of feeling, and so forth."[1]

And then update the wording of the following para to connect it to the para before the deleted paras.

Hungh3 (talk) 06:45, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

This article is in a poor state
The issues are an overreliance on Psychological Types- the large majority of the sources are itself and there is only a single secondary source on the functions and attitudes; entire unreferenced sections- MBTI, different models, "Controversy over attitudes" was OR before I removed a part of it; and most explanations are just quoting the book outright. This article may even be better off merged with Psychological Types. Dege31 (talk) 15:01, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose merging this article into Psychological Types. This article has, broadly, two parts: quotes and definitions of the functions from Jung's book Psychological Types, and systems which use, adapt, and modify them separately. There is no reason that the first part should not be in the article about the book, because it's just a summary. The second part is more problematic, because of the lack of literature on it by anyone outside of the circle. The noted exception is MBTI, which already has its own page. However, this page doesn't even correctly show Myers's model- every function should have the opposite of the dominant's attitude- check the MBTI Manual. It is actually Harold Grant's view, mistakenly placed there because it has been adopted by some, but more likely because it's more popular on the Internet. So we have material which really would better serve readers of the book article, which currently has no summary. Afterwards, unreferenced summaries of models by everyone who was inspired by the work and claims to be the correct interpretation or continuation of Jung; for some reason, the page also does not mention that they do not all use the same definitions and have different views of the functions, not just the model. I believe it is a case of synthesis, so it should not be its own article. Dege31 (talk) 12:48, 25 April 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree, if there are little third-party sources regarding the functions by themselves then I don't believe that it should be a standalone article. I will try to see if there are external sources other than typologists (Myers, Beebe, etc) to expand the article. If not, then that makes for a better case for its merge. Nup2192 (talk) 18:35, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I'm rushing to put in my two cents so I will elaborate later, but I seriously disagree with merging this with any kind of "types" article.

If anything the article needs ti be expanded and the hypothetical systems (which definitely need more rigor) should be moved to their own page. Literate Birb (talk) 17:50, 6 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose: the merger makes no sense. There is indeed scope for more articles rather than fewer; there is no shortage of reliable sources which analyse these matters in detail. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:15, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Scope is not given as a reason for the proposed merge, so I disagree with this reasoning.
 * Coverage is mostly in interpretation of Jung's work. I guess an article can be written from Psychological Types, and the work of Meier, von Franz, van der Hoop... as it at least forms the same school, but the overarching concern is a lack of secondary coverage: so, it would have to satisfy NFRINGE. The inclusion of later theorists I think is a case of synthesis, as MBTI and derived frameworks do not use the same conceptions of Psychological Types. Dege31 (talk) 15:39, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't give scope as a reason for opposing the merge, either. I mentioned it to agree with Literate Birb, that expansion would make more sense than merging. Literate Birb states that the other systems need to be moved out, and they're probably right about that (the material seems out of place in the article, unless linked to Jung by WP:RS) - indeed, it seems you agree with that point also ("later theorists..."), so that would be a good place to start if you want to improve the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:48, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Jung is one of the main inspirations for MBTI, but of course it is a unique development. I agree, but this still means a merge would be apt per NFRINGE. It seems out of place because, in regards to this topic, you have the original work, then the immediate Jungians, then the MBTI where some focused on dichotomies and some on the functions. So this topic combines the MBTI function analyses and Jung's work, because many involved, like Brownsword, believed it culminates into one picture of type, but this is not notability conferred from secondary sources. This is all treated equally on this page because of the Internet typology community, although Wikipedia's principles are different. So, without any secondary analysis, this is all problematic per guidelines on fringe theories and synthesis. Dege31 (talk) 16:23, 23 October 2022 (UTC) Either way, even if it just focused on one thing, like the immediate Jungian work(and a rename would be needed to remove the "Jungian cognitive functions" neologism), it still has to comply with NFRINGE. Dege31 (talk) 16:26, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

The Future of this article
Okay, I am going to take point on organizing this mess but I need you guys to bear with me. I am currently going through some stuff that requires my real world attention but I will be actively working on this even when there's not evidence to show that. No, I am not going to supersede anyone's work but I will lay out the arguments that I can make as I can make them. Suffice to say I believe this is an important article and that the distinction which distinguishes the functions from modern topology or even just a footnote in Jung's analytical psychology is extant. It's just gonna take some time to sus out.

Please do not go ahead with efforts to trim or merge this article at this time. I will move the bulk of the uncited data to the talk page as soon as we're in consensus but it's fine to leave it online for now.

I will make an update as soon as I analyze the page. Literate Birb (talk) 00:43, 7 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I hope you will make an update soon. Dege31 (talk) 18:50, 5 October 2022 (UTC)