Studies of Jungian typology: III. Personality and marriage

Jung's theory of psychological types provided the conceptual framework for a study of personality characteristics implicated in marital relationships. Partners in 20 couples completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and a series of open-ended questions describing their marital relationships. As predicted, (a) type similarity was more characteristic than type dissimilarity, particularly on sensation-intuition and thinking-feeling preferences, (b) sensation-intuition preferences were reflected in perceptions of qualities valued in self and spouse, (c) thinking-feeling preferences were significantly related to reported satisfaction in marriage, and (d) intuitives were more open to changes in the relationship than were sensing types. Marital problems were highly diverse, and were not related in any clear way to type patterns in individuals or dyads.     

Picture interpretation and Jungian typology

This study examined a Jungian picture interpretation schema, which utilizes a specific quadrant method. This proposed schema, which is used in training at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich, attaches significance to specific areas of a drawing. The upper left of a drawing is associated with the father; the lower left with the unconscious; the lower right with the mother; and the upper right with the future. Three questions served as the foci of this study: Is the schema valid? Do certain types within Jung's personality theory respond better than others to the schema? Does the schema work best when it elicits a strong affective response from the person who created the picture? Subjects took one of two tests: a space domain test, or a colour associative test. The results revealed only two significant effects: a positive association (in the space domain test) between unconscious material with the unconscious quadrant and a negative association (in the colour associative test) of mother material with the mother quadrant. These results suggest that the Jungian quadrant schema used to interpret drawings is invalid and of minimal practical utility. Other methods of picture interpretation are discussed as well as suggestions for future research that would be helpful to this field.     

Myers‐Briggs typology and Jungian individuation

Myers‐Briggs typology is widely seen as equivalent to and representative of Jungian theory by the users of the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and similar questionnaires. However, the omission of the transcendent function from the theory, and the use of typological functions as its foundation, has resulted in an inadvertent reframing of the process of individuation. This is despite some attempts to integrate individuation and typology, and reintroduce the transcendent function into Myers‐Briggs theory. This paper examines the differing views of individuation in Myers‐Briggs and Jungian theory, and some of the challenges of reconciling those differences, particularly in the context of normality. It proposes eight principles, drawn mainly from Jungian and classical post‐Jungian work, that show how individuation as a process can be integrated with contemporary Myers‐Briggs typology. These principles show individuation as being a natural process that can be encouraged outside of the analytic process. They make use of a wide range of opposites as well as typological functions, whilst being centred on the transcendent function. Central to the process is the alchemical image of the caduceus and a practical interpretation of the axiom of Maria, both of which Jung used to illustrate the process of individuation.     

Jungian personality typology and the recall of everyday and archetypal dreams

Hypotheses concerning the relations among personality types, neuroticism, and the recall of archetypal dreams were derived from Jungian theory. Dream records were obtained from a nonclinical population in two stages: first, recall of the most recent, most vivid, and earliest remembered dreams (N = 146), and then dream recall on awakening, over an average of 23 nights, from 30 of the first-sample subjects. A total of 697 dreams was recorded. Subjects also completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, and a Dreaming Questionnaire. Dream archetypality was rated in accordance with procedures of H. Y. Kluger. The distribution of archetypal dreams across earliest (n = 106), most vivid (n = 105), and most recent (n = 102) dream types matched Kluger's earlier results. The dream diary recall data showed that Jungian intuitives, as measured via Myers-Briggs continuous scores, recalled more archetypal dreams; introverts, as measured via Myers-Briggs continuous scores, recalled more everyday dreams; high EPI neuroticism scorers recalled fewer archetypal dreams. The results support several propositions of Jungian personality theory.     

A typology of family social environments.

A sample of 100 families measured on ten dimensions of their social environments was subjected to cluster analysis to develop an empirically based taxonomy of families. Six distinctive clusters of families were indentified: Expression-Oriented, Structure-Oriented, Independence-Oriented, Achievement-Oriented, Moral/Religious-Oriented and Conflict-Oriented. The clusters showed systematic differences in background characteristics such as size, ethnic minority composition, drinking patterns, and family disturbance and incongruence. Some evidence that certain clusters of families are composed of different sub-clusters was presented. An empirically derived taxonomy of the social environments of families may help to understand how different family environments are linked to different family outcomes.     

Discourse, action, rhetoric: from a perception to an action paradigm in social psychology

This article provides a personal account of how discursive social psychology has been used to understand social and political change in South Africa and to reflect on the strengths and limitations of the approach. While celebrating the shift from the perception paradigm to the genuinely social constructionist focus on discursive interaction, the article also argues for an expanded focus on embodied action.     

The influence of action observation on action execution: Dissociating the contribution of action on perception,perception on action,and resolving conflict

For more than 15 years, motor interference paradigms have been used to investigate the influence of action observation on action execution. Most research on so-called automatic imitation has focused on variables that play a modulating role or investigated potential confounding factors. Interestingly, furthermore, a number of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have tried to shed light on the functional mechanisms and neural correlates involved in imitation inhibition. However, these fMRI studies, presumably due to poor temporal resolution, have primarily focused on high-level processes and have neglected the potential role of low-level motor and perceptual processes. In the current EEG study, we therefore aimed to disentangle the influence of low-level perceptual and motoric mechanisms from high-level cognitive mechanisms. We focused on potential congruency differences in the visual N190 ? a component related to the processing of biological motion, the Readiness Potential ? a component related to motor preparation, and the high-level P3 component. Interestingly, we detected congruency effects in each of these components, suggesting that the interference effect in an automatic imitation paradigm is not only related to high-level processes such as self-other distinction but also to more low-level influences of perception on action and action on perception. Moreover, we documented relationships of the neural effects with (autistic) behavior.     

Self-concept, social anxiety, and interpersonal perception skills

The Interpersonal Perception Task videotape provided a criterion variable to test hypotheses about social information processing skills of socially anxious subjects. Results from 68 undergraduates show negative correlations between both shyness social anxiety and nonverbal decoding scores, and positive correlations between shyness and measures of test anxiety. Results are interpreted in light of cognitive conceptions of social anxiety and its role in decoding nonverbal communication.     

Inclusive and exclusive modes of thinking: Studies of prediction, preference, and social perception during parliamentary elections

The 1999 Israeli multi-party parliamentary election was used for studying the effects of inclusive and exclusive modes of thinking. In three experiments, we tested a theoretical framework whose major elements are the justification process, a distinction between middling and clearcut options, and the use of inclusion and exclusion threshold criteria. In Studies 1-2, respondents were asked to predict either of which parties would win seats in the parliament (inclusion) or which parties would fail to win seats in the parliament (exclusion). In Study 2, respondents were also asked to use inclusive or exclusive modes to indicate their preferences and in Study 3, they were asked to make either inclusive or exclusive judgments about the platforms of two extreme political parties. We found consistent discrepancies between the outcomes of inclusion and exclusion processes, such that choice sets generated in exclusion were larger than those generated in inclusion. A second major finding was the option effect, namely, the discrepancies between the two modes of thinking were larger for middling than for clearcut options. The third main finding was an expertise effect: the less knowledgeable respondents exhibited greater discrepancies than did the more knowledgeable ones. Our theoretical framework accounts for the inclusion-exclusion discrepancy, the option effect, and the expertise effect. We discuss the implications of these findings for judgment and choice in social settings and also for the understanding of question-form effects in opinion surveys—in particular, the allow-forbid effect.