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V. Psychological Types
Eight basic psychological types emerge from the union of two attitudes and
four functions.
A. Attitudes
Attitudes are predispositions to act or react in a characteristic manner. The two basic attitudes are
introversion, which refers to people's subjective perceptions, and extraversion, which indicates an
orientation toward the objective world. Extraverts are influenced more by the real world than by their
subjective perception, whereas introverts rely on their individualized view of things. Introverts and
extraverts often mistrust and misunderstand one another.
B. Functions
The two attitudes or extroversion and introversion can combine with four basic functions to form eight
general personality types. The four functions are (1) thinking, or recognizing the meaning of stimuli; (2)
feeling, or placing a value
on something; (3) sensation, or taking in sensory stimuli; and (4) intuition, or perceiving elementary data
that are beyond our awareness. Jung referred to
thinking and feeling as rational functions and to sensation and intuition as irrational functions.
VI. Development of Personality
Nearly unique among personality theorists was Jung's emphasis on the second half of life. Jung saw middle
and old age as times when people may acquire the ability to attain self-realization.
A. Stages of Development
Jung divided development into four broad stages: (1) childhood, which lasts from birth until adolescence;
(2) youth, the period from puberty until middle life, which is a time for extraverted development and for
being grounded to the real world of schooling, occupation, courtship, marriage, and family; (3) middle life,
which is a time from about 35 or 40 until old age when people should be adopting an introverted attitude;
and (4) old age, which is a time for psychological rebirth, self-realization, and preparation for death.
B. Self-Realization
Self-realization, or individuation, involves a psychological rebirth and an integration of various parts of the
psyche into a unified or whole individual. Self-realization represents the highest level of human
development.
VII. Jung's Methods of Investigation
Jung used the word association test, dreams, and active imagination during the process of psychotherapy,
and all these methods contributed to his theory of personality.
A. Word Association Test
Jung used the word association test early in his career to uncover complexes embedded in the personal
unconscious. The technique requires a patient to utter the first word that comes to mind after the examiner
reads a stimulus word. Unusual responses indicate a complex.
B. Dream Analysis
Jung believed that dreams may have both a cause and a purpose and thus can be useful in explaining past
events and in making decisions about the future. "Big dreams" and "typical dreams," both of which come
from the collective unconscious, have meanings that lie beyond the experiences of a single individual.
C. Active Imagination
Jung also used active imagination to arrive at collective images. This technique requires the patient to
concentrate on a single image until that image begins to appear in a different form. Eventually, the patient
should see figures that represent archetypes and other collective unconscious images.
D. Psychotherapy
The goal of Jungian therapy is to help neurotic patients become healthy and to move healthy people in the
direction of self-realization. Jung was eclectic in his choice of therapeutic techniques and treated old people
differently than the young.
VIII. Related Research
Although Jungian psychology has not generated large volumes of research, some investigators have used
the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to examine the idea of psychological types. Some research suggests that
extraverts and introverts have different preferences in their choice of partners. Other researchers have
reported that personality type is related to academic performance and success.
IX. Critique of Jung
Although Jung considered himself a scientist, many of his writings have more of a philosophical than a
psychological flavor. As a scientific theory, it rates average on its ability to generate research, but very low
on its ability to withstand falsification. It is about average on its ability to organize knowledge but low on
each of the other criteria of a useful theory.
X. Concept of Humanity
Jung saw people as extremely complex beings who are a product of both conscious and unconscious
personal experiences. However, people are also motivated by inherited remnants that spring from the
collective experiences of their early ancestors. Because Jungian theory is a psychology of opposites, it
receives a moderate rating on the issues of free will versus determinism, optimism versus pessimism, and
causality versus teleology. It rates very high on unconscious influences, low on uniqueness, and low on
social influences.