Myers Briggs Personality and Evolution of Leadership

16 MBTI personality types roughly correspond to different breeds of self domesticated human primates. Humans evolved to travel and feel comfortable in packs of 150-250. How has leadership among them evolved to the present day and what does it mean for the future of democracy?




Recently, I rather optimistically touched upon how direct democratic structures can emerge in the 21st century. One article covered the concept of a "virtual polis" that political scientist Robert Dahl brainstormed will be possible once communication technology advances enough (he wrote in the late 1980s). This polis will allow a randomly drawn jury duty type community of people to co-legislate in political units regardless of how large the population of the unit is. The other article touched upon possible groupings of people (the concept of "rogue NGOs" and some rogue think tanks) which may help organize the first virtual polis experiments and provide the organizing cadres, human talent, funding, and technological infrastructure.

Now it is time to take a more cynical look and list a few key problems with democracy in general so we can approach direct democratic architecture construction with the right tools in the future. Democratization isn't going away and such well rounded discussion is especially key in very large unwieldy states like China and India. China will first democratize the 80 million plus ruling party apparatus before moving on to allow pluralism in the general population (there are more Christians living in China than in USA, so if another large opposition party ever arises its characteristics may appear rather surprising to outside Western observers). India will have to deal with democratization at the lowest level that it currently lacks (the world's so called biggest democracy currently resembles Britain in late 19th century in terms of democracy for elites only).

The first major problem of course is that although democracy of 1 man 1 vote may exist, it does not provide results due to incredibly disproportionate amount of resources available to these men and women. A good analogy is voting within a large corporation where 1 man 1 vote obviously fails due to different number of shares per shareholder.

The second problem directly relates to the first in that the disproportionate resources allow advanced propaganda techniques to sway the 20% of population that is very suggestible, 60% of population that is semi-suggestible, and even parts of the 20% of population that is relatively immune to suggestion. It doesn't help that 80% of population is psychologically prone to status quo mentality, making the programming task all the easier.

everybody got a cutesy nickname

These two will need to be tackled head on without too many radical arbitrary solutions (like only giving college graduates the right to vote as well as professions critical to societal functioning like teachers, soldiers, social workers, police, engineers, medical personnel, etc).

The third problem is biological and is root cause of the first problem and the topic of present article. Human herds have, are, and will continue to be led by coalitions of aggressive, novelty seeking alpha males/females who drag the rest of the population behind them. Let's take a brief look at evolution of these leadership dynamics.

In simpler pre-agricultural world, detail oriented sensory experience was a lot more important than intuition. There are even theories that modern tight communication between left and right side of the brain is a relatively recent thing. Hunter gatherers lived in the moment and the Myers Briggs personality that fits them best is ESTP. Besides fitting the modern role of a soldier, ESTPs fit into caveman/tribal world neatly:

1) Heavy parietal lobe dominance for rapidly grasping and understanding tool use

2) Heavy extraversion to go outwards towards the world of food, prey, and mates and to be energized through heavy social interaction.

3) Right hemisphere dominance to rapidly switch attention from one spot to another to look out for danger and food/mating opportunities.

We can relatively safely say this is the oldest breed among us. Even emotionality of ESFPs and ESFJs is a more recent development during transition to less aggressive and more providing mating selection. Early social leadership thus probably had ESTPs use bursts of energy (which today would unfortunately be labeled by some silly "disorder" such as bipolar, borderline, manic, hypomanic, etc). The ESTP would gesticulate to others excitedly and then be the first one of the pack into the jungle. Although this breed would be on the cutting edge of the pack, the actual day to day organizing, consolidating, and leading of the pack would fall to more left hemisphere dominant and organized ESTJs. Development of left hemisphere comes with age, strong alpha parental role modeling, and discipline. Although all human babies are born with very powerful right hemisphere perception (P of 100) to learn as much as possible, inevitably the pack splits into roughly 50/50 left and right dominance.

So the pre-agricultural situation had ESTPs serve as a sort of Lewis and Clark/Columbus explorers who provided leadership by exploring brand new terrain while ESTJs provided leadership by consolidating the newly discovered terrain and marshalling the human resources of the pack to settle in it.

When a number of primate packs joined forces to engage in large scale warfare, this usually occurred when a super alpha emerged from one of the packs who provided leadership to alphas of other packs. In theory one could have a pack consisting of 150-250 alpha male leaders temporarily led in an alliance. We see examples of such tribal gatherings well into the modern times. It is hard to say whether ESTJs or ESTPs provided the most super alphas due to the complexity of such an alliance. Although it is possible that left handed/ambidextrous primates existed even back then as a sort of "bridging leaders" between alphas with left and right brain dominance.

When agriculture made human societies complex and allowed large scale primate domestication and enslavement, intuition became increasingly super important. Thus the best warriors and hunters and consolidators remained ESTPs and ESTJs but further up the hierarchy, ENTPs and ENTJs took over the leadership role. Once again, ENTPs explored new terrain, only this time in the arena of primate domestication and infrastructure development. Once new theoretical ground was broken, ENTJs led others to consolidate and make use of it. Lets use the example of Lewis and Clark again, only this time in the role of ENTPs. Here's an illustration. In earlier "caveman times", ESTPs would lead the pack of men to a new river when chasing after an animal and begin to cross the river without waiting while ESTJs would stop and figure out a way for everybody to systematically cross that river and then return to the river later as needed. As society transitions to post-nomadic exploitation farming society, we see a long line of ESTJ consolidators (who would now send out ESTP brothers to the frontier to defend it rather than be led by them) gradually father more and more ENTJs and ENTPs. The ENTPs would go forth and get packs of alphas excited about building or constructing something new like a large irrigation canal, a tall wall, a dam, etc. Like Lewis and Clark they would often be the restless early settlers of a new area and marshal ESTPs to scout it, measure it, and then proceed to device schemes for new construction. The ENTJs and their ESTJ right hand men would then undertake the boring task to fully develop and build the area to its full potential, defend it, expand it, etc.

Around this time civilization becomes complex enough that some leisure time develops at leadership level and we start seeing more and more introverts appear on the scene.

You've guessed where this is headed.

21st century society is so complex now that previous leadership types (organized as loose, often openly antagonistic, alpha mafia clans if you look at it crudely) cannot fully run it anymore. Just as at some point we had an uneasy transition from ESTP explorer led packs to ENTP explorer led packs, INTPs are the best explorers of where society should be heading in terms of technology, interpersonal relations, etc. INTJs are the consolidators of their thought. Most macro level problems in the world today can be attributed to ENTJs remaining firmly in charge and INTPs being sidelined. At some point in the ancient world, ENTJs and ENTPs have figured out a way to allow ESTPs and ESTJs to remain as warrior figureheads (since detail orientation of parietal lobe makes their weapon ability second to none) while pulling the strings behind the scenes and then in the open. We're now reaching a point where INTPs and INTJs and various other introverts are doing the same to their extraverted excitable outward grasping primate cousins. Amount of introverts in the global herd has now risen to 30% in the Western world (along with rising corresponding propaganda!) and we even see stranger new breeds come on the scene every day. The whole autism phenomenon may be a new stage in evolution to navigate complex new technologies.

Intuition is a simple symbol manipulating system in the brain. Thus up to 6% of the herd today is often classified as "crazy" since ENTJs and ENTPs rapidly arrange data in new novel ways and then extrovertedly (and often excitedly!) act upon it. INTPs and INTJs have the same thing going on, only their lack acting on it makes them appear tame. At some point in the 21st century, INTPs will be able to become more extroverted using advanced pharmacology, genetics, cybernetics and then political power will swing in their favor for the first time. It will be an interesting development to watch as former ENTP explorers get publicly sidelined and outmaneuvered for the first time.

However, this transition will not be an easy one in a world of accelerating trends, when old timers hold on to their political posts for decades at a time in many parts of the world. Builders of direct democratic structures will have to take seriously into account biological inequality due to neural/brain diversity. As a starting point we will require a minimum of heavily modified proportional representation democracy as was suggested earlier to take into account biological herd pluralism. Then, every one of the 4 major Myers-Briggs groupings  (SJs, SPs, NFs, NTs) can have a political party where they will feel comfortable. Coalition can be forced upon proportional representation by constitutional limits on how much a party is represented in parliament (say a maximum ceiling of 40% representation always forcing a coalition government). There are many other tweaks that are possible. Even a sort of "psychological assembly line" is possible when it comes to crafting social policy in working groups by utilizing the talents of each breed.

Mind you, this is a starting point since even the party system has a host of its own problems as noted by one famous North African theorist:

"The existence of many parties intensifies the struggle for power, and this results in the neglect of any achievements for the people and of any socially beneficial plans. Such actions are presented as a justification to undermine the position of the ruling party so that an opposing party can replace it. The parties very seldom resort to arms in their struggle but, rather, denounce and denigrate the actions of each other. This is a battle which is inevitably waged at the expense of the higher, vital interests of the society. Some, if not all, of those higher interests will fall prey to the struggle for power between instruments of government, for the destruction of those interests supports the opposition in their argument against the ruling party or parties. In order to rule, the opposition party has to defeat the existing instrument of government."

We'll of course return to tackle the above issues. It may be time to start conceptualizing democracy as less of one giant hammer but a collection of scalpels working together.

21st Century Spirituality

Spiritual framework that will fill the vacuum of meaning in the Western world should be compatible with psychological diversity of human beings (their brain architecture). Hinduism may provide some insights on bridging the past with pre-singularity world of the future.



Every major socioeconomic transition creates a belief vacuum that is often rapidly filled with grassroots seeking of meaning. Western leaderships are still in the process of formulating a replacement for Christian, communist, nationalist, (and these days neoliberal) belief structures. This means that the following few decades will see a great burst of spiritual experimentation before world's elites successfully overcome their nihilism and agree on something to push from the top down. Until then, ordinary people will have their own parallel struggles with nihilism that go through various conventional attempts of physical escapism, hedonistic escapism, relying on emotional snakeoil salesmen, and escapism through embrace of older fads and norms (imitating the wealthier strugglers by indulging in eastern religions, new age, esoteric traditions, etc).

Something will emerge as dominant due to the sheer necessity of belief for the herd's survival. What complicates the matter is the great cultural and psychological splintering of the world due to mass communication and compartmentalization. Whatever dominant belief structure emerges, it must have both a unifying base for harmonious international/intercultural relations while allowing and enabling for the expression of the great pluralism of the world. Before anybody can say that procedural democratic functioning satisfies all of this, I would say that the belief structure should have a common goal in mind, something to look forward to (the next free and fair election doesn't exactly cut it emotionally). Monetary acquisition also appears rather ineffective against nihilism.

There are a number of grand semi-tangible goals that may step in as the time goes on (singularity, space exploration, world peace, etc). Grand goals are general enough that they don't stifle the seeking of smaller individual goals and don't infringe on the various journeys to get there.

When discussing spirituality and non-organized personal religious world systems, it is important to keep in mind the different emotional needs of various breeds of homo sapiens. (As in previous articles, I will use Myers-Brigg personalities as rough guides to neurologically diverse types of humans.) This automatically hints that although there may be thousands of ways to seek one's own unique spiritual fulfillment, the ways will tend to cluster based on brain architecture among almost 7 billion people. This clustering serves as a general midpoint between infinite ways of seeking and one singular way (which, if it existed, would be expressed spontaneously in a roughly identical organized religious format across the planet).

Working with MBTI typology, we see that the number of spiritual path clusters can range from 4 major vague ones to up to 32 ultra defined ones. Interestingly enough, Maslow's description of self-actualization can provide hints when a certain type of human is on the right spiritual path.

In addition to satisfying a) "what a man can be he must be" 
self-actualizing individuals experience a higher frequency of  

b) "The mystic experience, the oceanic feeling...`peak' experiences or times of intense emotions in which they transcend self. During it, they experience feelings of ecstasy, awe, and wonder with feelings of limitless horizons opening up, feelings of unlimited power and at the same time feelings of being more helpless than ever before. The experience ends with the conviction that something extremely important and valuable has happened so that the person is to some extent transformed and strengthened by the experience that has a carry-over into everyday life."

This definitely sounds like emotional fulfillment typically associated with spiritual experience or awakening. We can conclude that natural abilities of a certain psychological type coming together in a highly pleasurable and empowering way is one of the signs that one is on the right spiritual path. Obviously there may also be an environmental aesthetic triggers such as a certain landscape or a strong sensory overload. The self-actualization trigger however is unique to a specific breed of human and leads to interesting as well as troubling conclusions.

If a naturally aggressive quick reflex human is more likely to get his or her peak/mystic state on the battlefield or the sports arena, then high energy/violent competition becomes a spiritual path. This may strike one as odd considering the popular cultural association of spirituality with calm and gentle INFP/INFJ new agers. But wait there's more. Intuitive thinkers (NTs) may fill the spiritual vacuum from helping along technological progress, intuitive feelers (NFs) from idealism, SFJs from caring for others, and so on. The domineering personality types could thus be on their spiritual emotionally satisfying path when exploiting/commanding fellow human beings.

What emerges is an intuitively common sense yet somewhat unpleasant throwback to the polytheism (or polyspirituality) of the ancients. Certain warlike deities that one wouldn't invite to a dinner party have been a constant throughout every region of the globe. Yet it seems polytheism or polyspirituality are the most compatible with reality of a pluralistic human society. This is in part demonstrated by the great amount of force and time that was necessary to eliminate polytheism in the western world and the remarkable perseverance of polytheism on the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism has survived (although in a very distorted corrupted form) 3 major attacks against it so far:

1) Indian elites becoming Buddhist and pushing it from the top down (a form of psychological therapy for the wealthy who are not fulfilled through hedonistic indulgence).

2) Long term rule by Muslim invaders who otherwise successfully converted large swaths of Eurasian landmass.

3) Long term occupation by Christian Western forces who brought along different materialist economic thought systems as well

click to enlarge

Part of the explanation of this incredible durability is that Hinduism took into account the psychological differences that exist within a population and provided the emotionally satisfying theistic outlets for these differences. Regardless of your personality, you can find a deity right for you. In addition, Hinduism did unify the deities into one harmonious cloth, allowed for addition of new ones, and appears the most compatible with the increasingly popular transhumanist trends in the Western world. Transhumanists and singularitarians are notorious for being excited over the great potential diversity of forms that may be possible in the future.

I am not suggesting that Hinduism should be the cure for the Western world (as it succumbs to nihilism and confusion over the failure of its economic structure). I am saying that it may provide some insights on how to combine the secular goal based singularitarian thinking (a.k.a. rapture for atheists) with an emotionally satisfying framework for physiologically diverse individuals ("we all have an important role to play in bringing about the future by following our own  semi-unique spiritual path"). Even the aggressive and domineering personality types can be made useful on the road to the singularity through compartmentalizing their competitive natures via some socially safe release valve. As people in the West succumb to aimlessness, it is not too late to start thinking about an emotionally fulfilling and innovative bridge from the past to the future (before the rich, spiritual charlatans, or cultural reactionaries provide one for us).

Myers Briggs Personality and Social Policy Formation

The first attempt at systematically utilizing most of the Myers-Briggs types in crafting policy that affects the whole human herd


The last article touched on the need to prevent certain predatory psychological types from having disproportionate influence on policy making. Now it is time to discuss how one would go about integrating the talents and opinions of diverse neural breeds of humans to obtain optimal consensus when advising on the rules of the game for any given society.

Lets say we want to have a psychologically diverse advisory council to help out the traditional branches of government. They are diverse to better represent our neurologically pluralistic society (where majority of personality types are dramatically underrepresented in key decision making bodies presently).

Lets say each type is represented by 5 acute and highly qualified (via some meritocratic test and previous experience) individuals of each MBTI type (minus the clinical psychopaths). This means dozens of individuals whose personality types are relatively specialized and single sided in their functioning (50+ on each letter).

Their hypothetical job is to formulate a policy in regards to some new social/technological phenomenon. How should their collaboration be structured?

Some would say that it's sufficient to put them
all into one large room and utilize normal negotiation as well as the delphi method and rounds of direct secret voting to reach agreement. However such arrangement would be the equivalent of various departments within a company merging together to help produce a final product. Lack of compartmentalization may sound lofty on paper but produces the ridiculous sheer chaos of diverse specializations (engineers, marketers, accountants, quality control specialists, etc) negotiating and debating each other simultaneously. Similarly, one cannot just lump all the key MBTI groups into a single space and have them encroach on each others talents without properly conceptualized mechanisms.

The task now is to compartmentalize our large group and create a sort of an advisory factory. The following is one such initial attempt but it comes from just one personality type (myself). Ultimately a diverse MBTI group can formulate on how it should function in a more systemic manner.

We begin by putting the groups into 4 clusters:

1) One to formulate the goals, principles, and broad outline of policy with corresponding moral justification. The group's brains are right hemispheric and intuitive.
[conceptual / theoretic / moral]

2) One to formulate innovative and broad practical implementation of the outlined goals utilizing the latest in research. The group's brains are left hemispheric and intuitive.
[organizational / practical / pragmatic]

3) One to to test the plan for loopholes, patch up sections to better fit with day to day reality, and to provide broad guidelines on effective enforcement. The group's brains are detail oriented and left hemispheric.
[quality controlling / non-abstract / technical]

4) One to market and communicate the plan effectively to greatest amount of people (both policy makers and general public) through various mediums. The groups brains are right hemispheric and detail oriented.
[communicative / artistic / affective]

This may seem like reinvention of the wheel to those familiar with the Hindu varna system of psychological castes. It differs greatly however through hemispheric compartmentalization within the brain. Therefore unlike the Hindu insistence on some sort of rare idealized warrior/philosopher/manager on the top, it's much easier to achieve the same effect from compartmentalized group work.

In essence it would go like this (refer to the previous article on psychopathy for the reason to balance decision making during each step of the way with emotional empathic individuals):

1) Goal making cluster

5 INFPs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 INTPs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 ENFPs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 ENTPs reach consensus amongst themselves

Then > Secondary consensus is reached amongst NFPs and amongst NTPs >
Then > Final consensus is reached between all NPs.

2) Organizational Implementation Cluster

5 INFJs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 INTJs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 ENFJs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 ENTJs reach consensus amongst themselves

Then > Secondary consensus is reached amongst NFJs and amongst NTJs >
Then > Final consensus is reached between all NJs.

3) Quality Control Cluster

5 ISFJs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 ESFJs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 ISTJs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 ESTJs reach consensus amongst themselves

Then > Secondary consensus is reached amongst SFJs and amongst STJs >
Then > Final consensus is reached between all SJs.

4) Marketing Communicative Cluster

5 ISFPs reach consensus amongst themselves
5 ESFPs reach consensus amongst themselves

Then > Final consensus is reached between all SPs.

What about STPs!?

Not to worry. I'm not excluding STPs or not considering them very useful. They are very capable in regards to mechanical problem solving, detail intensive visual collaborative work, and hands on improvisation. It is very possible that they can be integrated into both the third and fourth cluster and have a vital function there. Also, they probably can have key roles in advising councils which focus more on things like civil engineering, ergonomics, and various technologies.

Of course the 4 clusters do not exist in a vacuum and some two way communication between them is essential for integrity of the finished product. This is just the first attempt at utilizing most of the breeds within the human herd in crafting policy that affects the whole herd. It is only fair.

Screening Psychopaths in Government

Before any meaningful societal reform is possible, a screening method has to be applied to separate the predatory 1% from levers of power. The time is ripe to filter psychopaths out of key socioeconomic functions



The time is ripe for a worldwide effort to formulate simple standardized procedures to filter acutely psychopathic individuals from positions of economic, political, and social leadership. This is the very first step necessary before we start implementing policies for international recovery of the real physical economy. This is due to the fact that meaningful reform will simply not be possible with highly unempathic clinical intraspecies predators remaining in charge of socioeconomic management.

Lets look at the numbers. Clinical psychopaths are only 1% of population yet are disproportionately represented in prisons (over 20%) and on Wall Street (close to 10%). Government functions are less studied but should be comparable to if not higher than business. In addition to these numbers there are subclinical psychopaths (who have just enough empathy, emotional understanding, and narcissism to be a career politicians) and highly unemotional introverts (non-psychopathic schizoid strategists). This makes for a total % of people often working against the general population at 6%+. Thus there is a predatory core within a predatory core with clinical types influencing the others within 6% in unhealthy ways and counteracting the influence of over 90% of the population.

I have written previously that Myers-Briggs Personality Test is a good way to identify personality types most likely to be the human herd's biological predators. ENTPs/ENTJs with Thinking function of 100 would be most likely to be clinical psychopaths and ENTPs/ENTJs with a T of 70-80+ would be most likely to be subclinical (helpers and ambassadors to the "human" world). ESTJs and ESTPs with a hyper strong T and lack of emotion are of course also dangerous but their lack of intuition prevents them from climbing and thriving within institutional power hierarchies as effectively. If one is to accept the theory that ADHD prone people (extroverted Ps) are genetic remnants from the pre-agricultural hunter gather days (when their physiology and psychological traits helped in food acquisition and tribal defense) then the notion of creative intrahuman hunt takes a new more literal meaning.

The brilliant psychological theorist and author Andrew M. Lobaczewski has formulated and described the process of how psychopathic individuals gradually infiltrate socioeconomic institutions and movements. His groundbreaking book "Political Ponerology" (here's my review and summary of it) emphasizes that the human herd must develop an immune system type screening mechanisms to identify psychopaths, educate the vast majority of the population about their influence, and to prevent these individuals from being in charge of key things like the economy and social policy. Total lack of conscience and empathy for the general population should be an obvious disqualifier when hiring a policy maker. This will gradually begin to reduce frequency of events like famines, wars, and overall misery from economic mismanagement and stagnation.

There are already methods to screen psychopaths such as combination of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, seeing body's reaction to fear and emotional stimuli (galvanic skin reaction, heart rate, and respiration rate), and brain scans that show if certain parts of the brain light up or don't when presented with emotional input. All the up to date tests must be combined into an integrated package that is standardized with key countries of the world. The overall test must be constantly augmented with continuous research. Recently, President Medvedev has supported psychopath screening in the police forces to reduce instances of police brutality and mismanagement. This is a solid first step that other countries should look at and implement on a wide scale.

Screening must begin gradually yet forcefully and after sufficient amount of people have been educated on the danger of psychopathy in societal management (or mismanagement as is often the case in declining society that has been thoroughly infiltrated). We don't want a knee jerk violent reaction from top psychopathic officials and theorists if they feel they are being rapidly cornered out of their privileges and wealth. Therefore the process will most likely begin with screening entry level hierarchical members who will then gradually displace the older intrahuman predators on the top as they retire.

Another key thing to consider is that although clinical psychopaths tend to be incompetent, the subclinical variety and the highly unempathic introverts (acute INTJs/INTPs who are not able to understand large swaths of humanity at the fundamental emotional level) often have extremely useful objectively derived theoretical and conceptual knowledge to contribute. Therefore, we cannot just crudely purge management of those 1% without a conscience along with a number of "psychopath-lites" and then draw some arbitrary line in the sand of how much emotion you need to participate. There would be chaos. The essential thing is to separate the clinical psychopaths from having influence on the semi-conscienceless/semi-psychopathic NTs (lites) and then formulate ways to compartmentalize the influence of the lites while making them useful to society.

Thus whereas 1% of population will gradually be separated from jobs in management over time (a less arbitrary line based on thorough international screening test), there should be mechanisms of taking and making use of the input of 1-5% of population who are lites (NTs with T in the 60-90 range). Efforts should be taken to avoid a scarlet letter type branding while diluting the physical influence of semi-conscienceless theoreticians through social direction/training. Their input must be taken (with a clear understanding of where it's coming from) and mixed with input of emotional idealistic theorists (such as INFPs/ENFPs) to make use of the practical parts (good) while dumping the inhumane parts (bad). An argument can be made that the Internet belongs to INTPs and INTJs since they are the most likely (disproportionately to their population) to participate in online forums and arguments. Their support is essential in the future in the struggle against predatory extroverts.

The separated predatory psychopathic 1% should not be mistreated but made useful in some other way so they do not form a criminal/revolutionary faction once not in control of key levers of power. This problem is an article in itself but the problem is a lot smaller than the one of having many of the 1% faction integrated into highest levels of business and government because they were born into wealth or conned their way to the top.

"Psychological Disorders": Just Maladaptive Qualities of Intense Myers Brigg Personality Types? Part 2

Are some MBTI types more likely to be labeled with certain "disorders" more than others? I suggest they do and list the connections that seem most obvious.




In part 1 of the discussion, I touched upon psychological disorders just being the neurotic aspects of different breeds of humans. Let's start the journey towards matching what Myers-Briggs breeds are more likely to get a certain "disorder" classification for one of their more extreme members. As a baseline, the MBTI types to be matched are acute ones (60 or more on each letter). Some disorders may require only one function to be abnormally (statistically) high such as 100 F. Therefore, not all acute MBTI types would necessary match disorder descriptions but those acute MBTI types within the already acute pool of their brethren. This is an incomplete and imperfect list that will be upgraded as the time goes on. It is to serve as a starting point for discussion.

Autism Spectrum

More likely among ISTPs -The high Sensing function of close to 100 seems key as the nerves leading to the eyeballs are thicker than in most people. Here is a great video of a speech by an autistic woman who explains that she "thinks" in images rather than symbolically. She humorously mentions that the introverted scientists/inventors/technicians in the audience are probably touching the boundary of autism in some cases and that helps them in their detail specific work. The high Introversion explains the super low interpersonal communication skills and avoidance of social situations that are energy draining for the autistic. The high T and emotionlessness explains the lack of close attachment to objects within the world during those rare times when the autistic person does decide to engage with the world (a blip of extroversion). The high P contributes to paralysis of action and super sensory overload. The brain is probably overcloked with video/audio inputs without a biological way to pleasingly utilize the data. The overall result is a person acting very much like somebody on dissociative drugs (capable of being closest to perfect robotic objective perception of the world without emotion clouding it).

Mood Disorders - Depressive and Bipolar (For emotional roller coasters to happen in the first place, one needs a super strong F function (again 90-100 range) to feel the extreme highs as well as the extreme lows. Other functions determine the specific mood disorder at work.)

Depression


More likely among ISFJs and ESFJs - Our current ENTJ/ENTP dominated society is very unfriendly to the self sacrificing SFJs. Rapid technological and cultural change, atomization of society and family by free market, and the dog eat dog interpersonal interactions are the most likely to have greatest negative impact on SFJs. Their helpfulness is not rewarded but ridiculed and duty bound SFJs are less likely to relax and party like their FP counterparts. Strong S makes them focus on their constant lack of affirmation by others in the here and now while the J contributes to an inflexible and emotionally charged moralistic system that is constantly seen by the S as being violated. Strong J also anchors the person in a depressed brooding mood with fewer interruptions into happier more elevated mode (see below).

Bipolar 

More likely among the ENFPs and ESFPs - Considering the manic extroverted phase of a bipolar person, the high E appears key contributor alongside the very high F. The high P contributes to rapid switching of moods and their uncontrollability (contrasted to long continuous brooding on a certain emotional plane by a strong J). The extroverted FP goes towards the world full of energy and inspiration but gets shot down by the cynical social environment. Acute sensitivity to criticism and a strong P to observe how such criticism is warranted from many angles creates a severe emotional collapse and withdrawal into depressive phase. The constant emotional switching adds to mental confusion and sense of lack of control. These are the people who love to party and are all over the place but face severe crashes when encountering an environmental obstacle. Extroversion must be maintained and not bottled up unhealthily.

ADHD

More likely among ENFPs, ESFPs, ENTPs, and ESTPs - Key appears to be constant switching of perceptive angles by a P over 60 and a strong extroversion that makes the person go towards the world and feel dulled when that desire is frustrated. Also appears to be just a common childhood exploration phase of toddlers and children of most MBTI types.

Schizoid Personality

More likely among ISTJs, INTJs and possibly INTPs - Schizoids are marked by social isolation, emotional coldness, and indifference to others. Very impaired social functioning, extreme loneliness, and grandiose visions of extroversion. The above characteristics are obviously caused by same strong I and T as in the autistic but the schizoids are not totally overburdened with a sensory overload. This allows them to be creative at times. Political Ponerology makes an interesting case that Schizoids (due to them spending lots of time alone looking at the fast moving world with often vengeful fantasies) write the literature and constructs that inspires subclinical and clinical psychopaths.

Psychopathy

More likely among ENTJs, ENTPs - These are human herd's natural predators and feast on it if they get into power instead of improving it. The essential elements are a maximum high T of 100 for clinical psychopaths and a T over 60 for subclinical ones (the milder ones who have a foot in both the human world and the predatory world and who make natural politicians). This makes sure there is no emotional empathy for fellow homo sapien. They literally cannot feel the way others feel and this makes most people seem irrational and weak to them. The closest they have to emotion (that they confuse the concept with) is sexual arousal and aggression. The strong E makes them go towards the world and socialize intensely with their prey while the strong N intuition allows them to rapidly learn how to mimic their prey (smile, know what words with emotional meaning to say, etc). There is debate in literature about whether the psychopaths cluster on J (left brain) or P(right brain) side or whether it's but a continuum of psychopathy. Most likely it's a continuum with different specialization of labor among predators. They share all the same characteristics except for ENTJ being mindlessly goal driven regardless the human cost (the bully) whereas the ENTP is disorganized but better able to emulate/get along with different humans and creatively exploit that ability (the Con Artist). Their lack of emotional intelligence and desire for exploitative shortcuts makes them poor technocrats, manual laborers, and high tech specialists. The subclinical ones could be steered in the right direction and made productive members of the community. They have additional "disorder" characterizations of hypomania and narcissism.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

More likely among INTPs and INFPs - The key element seems to be a super high P that can create an overflow of perceptive data creating a pseudo-hallucination effect. An N of 100 and a P of 100 can easily create conspiracy theories that aren't there.

Borderline Personality Disorder

More likely among ESTPs - These very bored emotionless people (high P and T) live on the edge and thus make good soldiers or criminals. They don't have the intuition to be psychopaths and don't interact with too many diverse people as often since they wont get along. A super high E is key and makes them seek pursue entertainment in the here and now (S) that would be overwhelming to most.

This brings to a close the brainstorming secession. Once again, the article doesn't imply that each Myers Briggs type matches a cluster of descriptions that are labeled as a specific disorder. It does imply that among intense MBTI types, there exist even more intense minority within them whose behavior (if stressed/guided enough by society) matches certain disorder descriptions more often than others.

There are certainly overlaps that I failed to mention along with some types that were excluded (for now) such as ESTJ, INFJ, ISFP, and ENFJ.

Find out which type you are here. ;)

To be continued...

"Psychological Disorders": Just Maladaptive Qualities of Intense Myers Brigg Personality Types? Part 1

Intro to discussing similarities between widely known psych "disorders" and their descriptive counterparts in the "weaknesses" of Myers Briggs personality types. "Disorders" make as much sense as a poodle being found inadequate by standards of a bulldog



Before we begin, lets do an exaggerated analogy to our world. In a warrior society, a kind person who is a Buddhist (with good serotonin/dopamine production in his brain) would be diagnosed by warrior psychologists to suffer from "cowardice syndrome" and perhaps treated with liquor. Similarly in a kindly harmonious Buddhist society, an aggressive warrior would be diagnosed as having some sort of anti-social disorder and treated with whatever the monk psychiatrists deem proper.

In Myers Briggs personality typology descriptions, one can filter the most adaptive and maladaptive characteristics of each type. Assuming the type we're looking at is an acute one (say an ESTP with each letter being 60 or above), the so called "positives" and "negatives" can be extracted quickly. It then becomes very intuitively logical to think that some MBTI types are more likely to have some psychological "disorders" than others based on their default modes of being. All one has to do is match the descriptions of psych disorders with descriptions of MBTI types when they are not at their best and can't deal (say a stressed out low income and low education INFP in a country where ESTJs dominate culturally and expect everybody to be like them).

The reason why I put psych "disorders" into quote marks is that as hinted above, these maladaptive "conditions" appear to be (for the most part) physiological traits of different breeds of homo sapien when they are driven to the neurotic breaking point by social conditions. Negative psychology still dominates and only classifies conditions when they become the most apparent and severe. Usually that involves a certain breed of human being on a lower end of the socioeconomic scale who is compelled to seek help to continue functioning. Here is an in depth article dealing with the historically severe counterproductive nature of negative psychology versus the emerging field of positive psychology.

In other words,

1) The dominant culture/socioeconomic system of a country is often closely correlated to a few dominant Myers Briggs types (extroverted Ts usually)
2) Breeds that physiologically differ from the herd's ruling breeds are compelled to participate in a socioeconomic system (run by the rulers) that is incompatible with them
3) If people who are incompatible with their system are wealthy and connected, they have more coping mechanisms to deal with stressors and avoid/lessen activation of their MBTI type's "negative" neurotic qualities
4) Those breeds likely to seek help (and have their condition classified and codified as science) have had the positive qualities of their MBTI type suppressed and negative ones exaggerated by the neurosis causing social stressors. They are likely to be from the poorer less educated end of the proletariat class and thus have more on their plates daily while not being able to verbalize whats ailing them as well. Even if they are from the arrogant proletariat faction that fancies itself as "middle class", they are still likely to be misinformed about the fundamental structural nature of their neurosis and defer to the so called experts within the corporation dominated field of negative psychology.
5) All of this is exacerbated when the economic pie is shrinking instead of expanding (this means a reversal of industrialization rather than constant material renewal of an industrialized country)

To be continued...

Myers Briggs Personality Type and Political Affiliation

Modern psychology and brain anatomy studies reinforce the need for proportional representation democracy. That is because roughly 80% of people have brains that predispose them towards protection of the status quo





We've all come across people who just seem incapable of modifying their perspective based on new data being presented. Most of us still mouth the words that additional education (or indoctrination/propaganda as is often the case) is what is needed since surely this person will turn around if his/her consciousness is sufficiently expanded with additional data backing your perspective. However, all too often deep inside we know that some people are "hopeless". This conclusion concerning failure of propaganda is reached from all over the political, cultural, and religious spectrum at one point or another. It thus becomes fashionable to outright dismiss "inconvertible" individuals and opposing zealots (on political and religious fringes of any given population) as nuts and crazies.

Personality theory in psychology allows us to better categorize individuals in society without resorting to name calling. Myers-Briggs typology in particular offers a better construct (compared to useless terms like conservative and liberal for example) to predict how an individual will act politically and socially. Myers-Briggs research combined with biology and brain scan techniques also offers us hints at understanding the underlining anatomical basis that predisposes a person to be either a disagreeable radical or a gentle follower.

There's been little relative popular attempts to scientifically explain why the bulk of the population is always a warzone between the extreme fringes. It's just assumed that it will always be this way just like there will always be criminals and extremely altruistic self-sacrificing givers. This assumption seems reasonable and obvious but gives rise to two other creeping and unsettling assumptions:

1)  The human population is relatively fixed along a bell curve type continuum. Perhaps this is better visually represented by a sphere with a number of spikes extending from it. The moderate population is the bulk of the sphere and the zealous "radical" factions (whose opinions differ dramatically from the statistical average) are the spikes extending from the sphere's surface (as well as into the interior to some degree which would represent silent sympathizers). It is irrelevant to label the spikes as extreme left, right, etc. All that is important is that a relatively fixed minority of the population (lets say 10-20% range) will be:

a) prone to modes of thought that are tangibly different from majority's

b) prone to action and lifestyle based on these thoughts

Authors like Friedrich Hayek for instance, observed that in 1920s Germany roughly a million workers swung their support between communists and Nazis based on who was winning. It was noted that the two seemingly opposing ideological parties clashed with one another the most because they were very often competing for recruits in the same psychological pool of young people. Considering how many overexcited Americans called both Bush and Obama the new "Hitler" in recent years, we can easily imagine how an aggressive drooling at the mouth anti-war protester from a big city could have been an equally excitable protester at a teabag rally if only he was born in a small town and into a different culture.

2) Since the ratio of intensely active people (prone to being perceived by population at large as "wingnuts"or criminals or radicals or genuinely informed and committed activists, etc) to more relaxed apathetic majority seems to be roughly fixed across all societies and globally as a whole, the explanatory basis for such a dynamic can only be biological. Just like there exist (and can further be bred) aggressive dogs and peaceful friendly dogs, there exist aggressive people, natural Buddhist-esque peaceful people, etc. A person who is an aggressive pit bull equivalent (and who wants to impose his views of the world onto others the most) would differ in his relatively extreme ideology depending on what part of the world he was socialized in. Psychiatry has shown us that people are born with different ratios of neurotransmitter production and quantitative as well as qualitative differences in the types of chemicals that affect their mood and cognition. We now understand that people differ a lot more in terms of brain architecture than they differ in terms of things like body type, skin color, fast twitch/slow twitch muscle ratio, etc.

The reason why these assumptions are unsettling is not because there is a degree of fatalism involved ("he will be a radical of one stripe or another no matter what" or "he will be socially lazy, shallow, apathetic, and uninvolved no matter what). Obviously with modern socialization methods and pharmaceutical modification (with psychological genetic and cybernetic modification to follow in near future), an individual can be shaped more than ever before by society and by himself. The assumptions are unsettling because if the broad direction of our views, opinions, and political/cultural/religious affiliations are largely physiologically determined at birth, then societal progress becomes enormously more difficult. Societal progress can be defined here as one zealot faction (that is seen by majority as the most "correct" in its socioeconomic policy perspectives and formulations of what humans should do next) dragging everybody else along behind it as has always occurred throughout history.

Obviously people will disagree on what constitutes progress (some actually thought arrival of Reagan was progress) but if majority of people are physiologically predisposed towards the status quo, progress of any sort becomes a lot harder in a democratic society. In the past, one intense dedicated fringe of the aristocratic elites dragged the other nobility along behind it (since majority of nobility would also have a soft apathetic bulk) and thus dragged the rest of the population behind it as well. We also had scenarios of power vacuum developing and one intense fringe political faction overpowering the others (as in the case of Bolshevik and French revolutions) and filling the leadership position to then drag the rest of the serfs behind it.

In today's democratic structure however, protection of the status quo is a lot more preserved since the moderate bulk of the population has a political voice and thus a way to provide the ruling elites with legitimacy. The moderate bulk of the elites now also has ever more sophisticated consent and perception manufacturing methods to influence the newfound voice of the majority. For a small number of dedicated activists, pushing society along towards desired version of progress against the forces of social inertia is now harder than ever. The powerful activists now need to sway both the fellow elites and the people simultaneously.

Let's finally get to the Myers-Briggs part of the article to see what we are now dealing with.

The most widely used way to get a glimpse of people's underlining neural physiology has been the Myers-Briggs psychological questionnaire (one of the better versions found online for free can be found here). Over the past few decades, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has been utilized to collect enormous amounts of statistical data on personality types found within the human population. The statistical type breakdown (I am using a combination of 3 different sources on the %. Don't mind the catchy positive nicknames each type and group cluster has been given. What matters here is the number within a population.) so far has been as follows,

Protectors (SJ)	Population
ESTJ - Overseer, supervisor	11 - 11.6 - 13	= 11.8%
ESFJ - Supporter, provider	10 - 12.3 - 13	= 11.7%
ISTJ - Examiner, inspector	6 - 11.6 - 12	= 9.8%
ISFJ - Defender, protector	6 - 10 - 13.8	= 9.9%
All SJs		43.2%

Creators (SP)	Population
ESTP - Persuader, promoter	4.3 - 8 - 13	= 8.4%
ESFP - Entertainer, performer	8.5 - 9.5 - 13	= 10.3%
ISTP - Craftsman, mechanic	5 - 5.4 - 9	= 6.4%
ISFP - Artist, composer	6 - 8.8 - 9	= 7.9%
All SPs		33%

Intellectuals (NT)	Population
ENTJ - Chief, fieldmarshal	1.8 - 3 - 5	= 3.2%
ENTP - Originator, inventor	3 - 3.2 - 5	= 3.7%
INTJ - Strategist, mastermind	1 - 1.5 - 2.1	= 1.5%
INTP - Engineer, architect	1 - 2.5 - 3.3	= 2.2%
All NTs		10.6%

Visionaries (NF)	Population
ENFJ - Mentor, teacher	2.4 - 3 - 5	= 3.4%
ENFP - Advocate, idealist	2.1 - 5 - 5.5	= 4.2%
INFJ - Confidant, empath	1 - 1 - 1.5	= 1.2%
INFP - Dreamer, healer	1 - 2 -4.3	= 2.4%
All NFs		11.2%

Each of the personality types (the well defined strong ones at least who haven't self reported to be a mutt of 2 or more different personalities) can be seen as a specific brain type. As mentioned above, the physiological neural difference between 2 people of vastly dissimilar brain types is a lot more significant than how a person looks on the outside. That is because the brain type determines a mental and emotional predisposition of a person for the rest of his life. People classified as "bipolar" or "anti-social/sociopathic" for instance, have neural structures that will make them lean towards some things more than others during their entire lives.

click to enlarge

We can see from the statistical breakdown that SJ (left-brained people with parietal lobe strength) predominate in the overall population. The second biggest group are the SP (right-brained with parietal lobe strength). Together they are almost 80% of the population. The SJs tend to be conservative, authoritarian in outlook, conventional, focused on concrete "what is", and protective of the general society. They don't rock the boat too much and defer to tradition. The SPs tend to be fun loving, crafty, entertaining, and have uncanny ability to focus on "what is" (with their parietal lobe) in order to fix and modify it.

If you look at the cute nicknames given to different brain types, you can see that the human herd pretty much needs all of them if it is to evolve and survive. Some types are needed more than others in the great scheme of things. The SJ and SP groups for example are conveniently numerous. SJ population provides a great amount of soldiers, policemen, social workers, self sacrificing charity givers, accountants, and status quo protectors. In other words they keep the herd safe even if it means stagnating the herd through using their positions in the executive to slow down rapid change. SP group provides us with artisans who improve quality of life for the herd through provision of entertainers, artists, dancers, singers, and resourceful improvising mechanics. SPs can be said to exist to entertain SJs and keep them on their toes by having more fun than them.

It's easy to see how SJs lean republican and SPs lean democrat overall. The jokes that democrats have better sex lives than republicans begin to acquire an element of truth (considering the different approach left and right sides of the brain take in deciding on how to deal with the here and now). However, the two large groups are united by their concern with all things as they are in the now. That makes the two groups friendly and status quo leaning by default. An ESTJ born in Brooklyn may identify as a traditionalist democrat whereas an ESTJ born in West Virginia may identify as a traditionalist republican, but both are more likely to seek similar professions and get along if they hang out together. Brain type identification provides a lot more material to predict a person's behavior and views on the world than simple political identification.

The overall theme emerges that people with neural computers that predispose them to either protect the status quo or be apathetic about it (since they are busy pursuing hedonistic adventures) are the supermajority that are not as interested in "what can be" (as the less numerous NP and NJ groups tend to be). A point must be made here that not one group is more important than another and that even their numerical breakdowns seem amazingly appropriate. It would be turbulent for the herd to have for example, more ENTJs/INTJs than ISTJs/ESTJs since the problem with authority that NJs have (due to their desire to be the authority themselves) would create unsustainable infighting and not allow enough people who follow orders. Each brain type has a very key social niche and function and over thousands of years there evolved an intricate genetic balance and ratio. There are of course also multitudes of physiological "mutts" who are a hybrid of all and can't be "pigeonholed" (the most common complaint brought against psychological typology in general).

Interestingly enough, the Hindus have spent thousands of years evolving classification of human beings into 4 broad psychological varnas or classes. Each was considered as important as the other (all parts of the same body) with their own particular temperaments and duties.

Some brain types are literally made to create new theoretical constructs on how society should be organized and which steps it should take next (INTPs, ENTPs,). When balanced by the emotional consideration and input of INFPs and ENFPs (since strong T theorists are prone to being too rigidly rational and thus not take into consideration the emotional impact of their constructs) new paths for society can be developed that would be acceptable to SJs and SPs combined. However, as explained above, these people will always be outvoted and marginalized by politicians who mobilize the other more numerous groups. "Think of the children!" is a call to arms for ESFJs and ISFJs for instance whereas being tough on crime, national strength, and defeating foreign enemies is the bread and butter of ESTJs and ISTJs.

This dynamic reinforces the need for proportional representation in our system of governance. Proportional representation is practiced in most European Union countries to great effect. This way each brain type cluster can get a political party of their own. The marginalized 20% of the population can get representation and even serve as coalition kingmakers. New voices can be heard in the discourse. Today the 20% of population has to either join the big parties they don't like and "radicalize" them (seen by the tail wagging the dog phenomenon of militants dominating today's Republican party and driving moderates out of it) or abstain from the process thus depriving society of valuable input. In proportional representation, each batch of brain types seen as "radicals" can find a party to call home and really support. They would also have more political representation to vent out their frustration and to institutionalize their presence and views. Citizens can then pick and choose which vision of progress to support and which to leave behind.