Brain types

Last updated

Brain typing is a system developed by Jonathan P. Niednagel that applies elements from neuroscience, physiology, and psychology to estimate athletic ability. [1] It is based on the psychological typology of Carl Jung and the later work of Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. [2] Currently, no controlled experiments have been done to assess the effectiveness of Brain Typing (though there are anecdotal reports of both successes and failures, along with a pilot study on blood samples conducted in conjunction with Divyen H. Patel of Genome Explorations [3] ), and as a result the American Psychological Association considers Brain Typing a pseudoscience. [4]

Contents

What separates brain typing from Jungian typology and its offshoots, such as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and socionics, is its emphasis on motor skills. Each of the sixteen brain types is said to specialize in certain regions of the brain responsible for varying degrees of mental and motor skills. Niednagel believes the types are inherited, possessing a genetic basis. The brain types website and books also explain how it differs from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in that it believes the ENTP/FCIR type is by far the most common of the sixteen types, whereas some other types presumed as common in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, such as the ISTJ/BEIL, are actually only about 3% of the populace according to their estimates.[ citation needed ]

Brain types have been criticized by the American Psychological Association as not valid and built for commercial purposes only.

History

Niednagel began to develop Brain Typing in the late 1970s and 1980s while coaching youth soccer, basketball, and Little League baseball. He observed that children with similar personalities also tended to have similar motor skills. Niednagel began to receive more attention for his work in the 1990s, particularly in the arena of professional sports. [5] An event related to brain typing was Niednagel's prediction in 1998 that Peyton Manning would become a star quarterback in the National Football League (NFL), and that the similarly hyped Ryan Leaf would perform poorly in the league. [5] His prediction came true as Peyton Manning has become one of football's best quarterbacks while Ryan Leaf is remembered as one of the worst busts in football draft history. Not all of Niednagel's predictions have been as clear cut, as he is careful to qualify his projections. His success rate has gained him a following, and allowed him to apply his work in professional sports for nearly 20 years.

Despite the effort and study that Niednagel has put into Brain Types, it has yet to be validated via scientific journals or publications. He has conducted and continues to engage in genetic testing with private biotech companies in the search for irrefutable validation on a genetic level. However, although Brain Typing began as a way to assess athletes and athletic ability, Niednagel has since broadened his field to include advice for relationships, parenting, business, education, spirituality from a conservative Reformed Calvinist perspective, and health issues, including weight loss.

Brain types and motor skills

Niednagel divides the types into four basic motor skill groupings using his own terminology (originally derived from Jung/Myers) which he believes is more precise: EA, EI, CA, and CI. EA, or 'Empirical-Animate' types (FEAL, FEAR, BEAL, BEAR), are said to excel in the region of the brain responsible for gross motor skills. EI, or 'Empirical-Inanimate' types (FEIL, FEIR, BEIL, BEIR) are thought to possess the best fine motor skills of the four groups. CA, or 'Conceptual-Animate' types (FCAL, FCAR, BCAL, BCAR), excel in the auditory cortex, which is responsible for controlling the mouth and various hearing/language skills. CI, or 'Conceptual-Inanimate' types (FCIL, FCIR, BCIL, BCIR), are believed to excel in the cerebral cortex, where abstract levels of reasoning occur, along with the diaphragm region, responsible for voice production and breathing.

Commercialization and criticism

Educational society and members of American Psychological Association criticize Brain Types as not valid and built for commercial purposes only. [4] Mr. Niednagel, a lay-scientist of 30 years, with a bachelor's degree in Business Finance from California State University, Long Beach, says his method is the most accurate (in applying the Jungian/Myers model) and verifiable. He believes that, when he has had the time, he has had 100% accuracy rate in assessing and localizing brain functioning on the basis of "eyeballing" and then analyzing body language, posture, motor activity, and speech. These claims, however, remain disputable. Current knowledge of the use of fMRIs, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and electroencephalography to monitor brain waves and brain function makes the idea of having the ability to look at someone and determine features of their brain far too simplistic.

Terry Sandbek, primary contact of the Sacramento Skeptics Society, in his publication Brain Typing: The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading criticized the validity of Brain Types and claimed "how closely the Brain Typing of Jonathan P. Niednagel fits as a pseudoscience". [1]

Related Research Articles

Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telepathy</span> Psychic ability

Telepathy is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and has remained more popular than the earlier expression thought-transference.

Socionics, in psychology and sociology, is a pseudoscientific theory of information processing and personality types. It incorporates Carl Jung's work on Psychological Types with Antoni Kępiński's theory of information metabolism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myers–Briggs Type Indicator</span> Non-scientific personality questionnaire

The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a pseudoscientific self-report questionnaire that claims to indicate differing "psychological types". The test attempts to assign a binary value to each of four categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. One letter from each category is taken to produce a four-letter test result representing one of sixteen possible types, such as "INFP" or "ESTJ".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personality test</span> Method of assessing human personality constructs

A personality test is a method of assessing human personality constructs. Most personality assessment instruments are in fact introspective self-report questionnaire measures or reports from life records (L-data) such as rating scales. Attempts to construct actual performance tests of personality have been very limited even though Raymond Cattell with his colleague Frank Warburton compiled a list of over 2000 separate objective tests that could be used in constructing objective personality tests. One exception, however, was the Objective-Analytic Test Battery, a performance test designed to quantitatively measure 10 factor-analytically discerned personality trait dimensions. A major problem with both L-data and Q-data methods is that because of item transparency, rating scales, and self-report questionnaires are highly susceptible to motivational and response distortion ranging from lack of adequate self-insight to downright dissimulation depending on the reason/motivation for the assessment being undertaken.

The Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) is a pseudoscientific self-assessed personality questionnaire. It was first introduced in the book Please Understand Me. The KTS is closely associated with the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI); however, there are significant practical and theoretical differences between the two personality questionnaires and their associated different descriptions.

Psychological functions, as described by Carl Jung in his book Psychological Types, are particular mental processes within a person's psyche that are present regardless of common circumstances. This is a concept that serves as one of the foundations for his theory on personality type. In his book, he noted four main psychological functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. He introduced them with having either an internally focused (introverted) or externally focused (extraverted) tendency which he called "attitude". He also categorizes the functions as either rational or irrational.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Keirsey</span> American psychologist

David West Keirsey was an American psychologist, a professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of several books. In his most popular publications, Please Understand Me and the revised and expanded second volume Please Understand Me II (1998), he laid out a self-assessed personality questionnaire, known as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, which links human behavioral patterns to four temperaments and sixteen character types. Both volumes of Please Understand Me contain the questionnaire for type evaluation with detailed portraits and a systematic treatment of descriptions of temperament traits and personality characteristics. With a focus on conflict management and cooperation, Keirsey specialized in family and partnership counseling and the coaching of children and adults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabel Briggs Myers</span> American writer (1897–1980)

Isabel Briggs Myers was an American writer who co-created the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) with her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs. The MBTI is one of the most-often used personality tests worldwide; over two million people complete the questionnaire each year. Isabel Briggs Myers typed herself as an INFP (Mediator)

John Beebe is an American psychiatrist and Jungian analyst in practice in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katharine Cook Briggs</span> American writer (1875–1968)

Katharine Cook Briggs was an American writer who was the co-creator, with her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers, of an inventory of a widely popular personality type system known as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

The Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test is a psychological test used by mental health practitioners that assesses visual-motor functioning, developmental disorders, and neurological impairments in children ages 3 and older and adults. The test consists of nine index cards picturing different geometric designs. The cards are presented individually and test subjects are asked to copy the design before the next card is shown. Test results are scored based on the accuracy and organization of the reproductions.

In psychology, personality type refers to the psychological classification of individuals. In contrast to personality traits, the existence of personality types remains extremely controversial. Types are sometimes said to involve qualitative differences between people, whereas traits might be construed as quantitative differences. According to type theories, for example, introverts and extraverts are two fundamentally different categories of people. According to trait theories, introversion and extraversion are part of a continuous dimension, with many people in the middle.

Career assessments are tools that are designed to help individuals understand how a variety of personal attributes, impact their potential success and satisfaction with different career options and work environments. Career assessments have played a critical role in career development and the economy in the 20th century. Individuals or organizations often use assessment of some or all of these attributes, such as university career service centers, career counselors, outplacement companies, corporate human resources staff, executive coaches, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and guidance counselors to help individuals make more informed career decisions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enneagram of Personality</span> Model of the human psyche used as a personality typology

The Enneagram of Personality, or simply the Enneagram, is a model of the human psyche which is principally understood and taught as a typology of nine interconnected personality types.

Psychological evaluation is a method to assess an individual's behavior, personality, cognitive abilities, and several other domains. A common reason for a psychological evaluation is to identify psychological factors that may be inhibiting a person's ability to think, behave, or regulate emotion functionally or constructively. It is the mental equivalent of physical examination. Other psychological evaluations seek to better understand the individual's unique characteristics or personality to predict things like workplace performance or customer relationship management.

The Jungian Type Index (JTI) is an alternative to the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Introduced by Optimas in 2001, the JTI was developed over a 10-year period in Norway by psychologists Thor Ødegård and Hallvard E: Ringstad. The JTI was designed to help capture individuals' preferred usage of the psychological functions identified by Carl Jung in his book Psychological Types, such as thinking vs feeling and sensing vs intuition.

Psychological typologies are classifications used by psychologists to describe the distinctions between people. The problem of finding the essential basis for the classification of psychological types—that is, the basis of determining a broader spectrum of derivative characteristics—is crucial in differential psychology.

True Colors is a personality profiling system created by Don Lowry in 1978. It was originally created to categorize at risk youth into four basic learning styles using the colors blue, orange, gold and green to identify the strengths and challenges of these core personality types.

Knowledge of human nature is the ability to correctly assess the behavior or character of people based on a first impression, and to gauge how they think and predict how they will act.

References

  1. 1 2 Sandbek, T., Brain Typing: The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading
  2. ↑ ESPN, Outside the Lines, Episode 121 (interview transcript).
  3. ↑ Divyen H. Patel, "Brain Types Testimonials", "Brain Types", 2011.
  4. 1 2 The University of Georgia mailing list
  5. 1 2 Martin Spieler et al., "Predicting Athletic Success: Factors Contributing to the Success of NCAA Division I AA Collegiate Football Players", The Online Journal of Sports Psychology, 2007.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.