Series G Secrets of Human Nature PeopleNology Nurture Psychology Instincts Desires Success Relationships Gregory Bodenhamer Mechanicsburg Pa 09112008

Human nature is the concept that there are a set of logical characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that all normal human beings have in common.[1] The branches of science associated with the study of human nature include sociology, sociobiology and psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology and developmental psychology. Philosophers and theologians have also carried out research on human nature. PeopleNology Nollijy Franklin University Research Institute Copyright 09/2008 NollijyUniversityPeopleNology@Gmail.com In pre-modern and non-scientific understandings of nature, human nature is understood with reference to final and formal causes. Such understandings imply the existence of a divine interest in human nature, and/or the existence of an ideal, "idea," or "form" of a human which exists independently of individual humans. According to the accepted modern scientific understanding, human nature is the range of human behavior that is believed to be normal and/or invariant over long periods of time and across very different cultural contexts. The existence of an invariable human nature is a subject of much historical debate, particularly in modern times. Most famously, Darwin gave a widely accepted scientific argument that humans and other animal species have no truly fixed nature. Before him, the malleability of man had been asserted by Jean Jacques Rousseau. Since the mid-19th century, the concept of human nature has been called into question by thinkers such as Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, a number of structuralists and postmodernists. The concept has also been challenged by views such as behaviorism, determinism, and the chemical model within modern psychiatry and psychology, which have tended to emphasize the idea that human beings might conceivably be explained as "matter in motion" in a way that is similar to the rest of nature. Recently the biologist E. O. Wilson formulated a scientific definition (see Sociobiology). There are a number of perspectives regarding the fundamental nature and substance of humans. These are by no means mutually exclusive, and the following list is by no means exhaustive: • Philosophical naturalism (which includes materialism and rationalism) encompasses a set of views that humans are purely natural phenomena; sophisticated beings that evolved to our present state through natural mechanisms such as evolution. Humanist philosophers determine good and evil by appeal to universal human qualities, but other naturalists regard these terms as mere labels placed on how well individual behaviour conforms to societal expectations, and is the result of our psychology and socialization. • Abrahamic religion holds that a human is a spiritual being which was deliberately created (ex nihilo) by a single God in his image, and exists in continued relationship with God. Good and evil are defined in terms of how well human beings conform to God's character or God's law. • Polytheistic or animistic notions vary, but generally regard human beings as • • citizens in a world populated by other intelligent spiritual or mythological beings, such as gods, demons, ghosts, etc. In these cases, human evil is often regarded as the result of supernatural influences or mischief (although it may have many other causes as well). Holistic, pantheistic, and panentheistic spiritual traditions regard humanity as existing within God or as a part of the divine cosmos. In this case, human "evil" is usually regarded as the result of ignorance of this universal Divine nature. Traditions of this kind include the Indian religions and other forms of Eastern philosophy, as also schools of western philosophy such as Stoicism, Neoplatonism, or Spinoza's pantheistic cosmology. Certain kinds of polytheism, animism, and monism have similar interpretations. Astrologers believe that a person's personality and many of the challenges they will face in life are determined by the placements of the planets, each representing a different aspect of their mental and physical nature, at the time of birth and use many different techniques to 'guesstimate' the issues that will unfold throughout their lives and the actions that can be taken to gain the best results. Free will and determinism The issue of free will and determinism underlies much of the debate about human nature. Free will, or agency, refers to the ability of humans to make genuinely free choices (in some sense). As it relates to humans, the thesis of determinism implies that human choices are fully caused by internal and external forces. • Incompatibilism holds that determinism and free will are contradictory (i.e. both cannot be true). Incompatibilist views can either deny or accept free will. • Incompatibilist views holding to free will include: • Libertarianism holds that the human perception of free choice in action is genuine, rather than seemingly genuine, so that some of our actions are performed without there being any compulsion by internal or external forces to do so (i.e., indeterminism). • Thomism holds that humans have a genuine experience of free will, and this experience of free will is evidence of a soul that transcends the mere physical components of the human being. • Incompatibilist views that deny free will include: • Determinism refers to the logic that humans, like all physical phenomena, are subject to cause and effect. Determinism also holds that our actions stem from environmental, biological, or theological factors. A common misconception is that all determinists are fatalists, who believe that deliberation is pointless as the future is already caused; when in fact most determinists hold the idea that we should deliberate on our actions and that deliberating on our actions is part of the complex interplay between cause and effect. • Predestination is the position that God orchestrates all the events in the universe, human and otherwise, according to his will; however he does it in a way that includes the free choices of humans. • Biological determinism and social determinism are the views that • human actions are determined by their biology and social interaction, respectively. The debate between these two positions is known as nature versus nurture. Compatibilism is the view that free will and determinism coexist. Compatibilist views include: • Human compatibilitism is the view that they are compatible because free will is merely the hypothetical ability to choose differently if one were differently disposed according to the physical factors of determinism. • Molinism is the view that God is able to predestine all events on Earth because he knows in advance what people will freely choose. • Contemporary compatibilists seek definitions of free will that permit determinism. Spiritual versus natural Another often-discussed aspect of human nature is the existence and relationship of the physical body with a spirit or soul that transcends the human's physical attributes, as well as the existence of any transcendent purpose. In this area, there are three dominant views: • The philosophical naturalist position is that humans are entirely natural, with no spiritual component or transcendent purpose. Subsets of the naturalist view include the materialist and physicalist positions, which hold that humans are entirely physical. However, some naturalists are also dualists about mind and body. Naturalism, combined with the natural and social sciences, views humans as the unplanned product of evolution, which operated in part by natural selection on random mutations. Philosophical naturalists do not believe in a supernatural afterlife. While philosophical naturalism is often assailed as an unacceptable view of human nature, it is promoted by many prominent philosophers and thinkers. The philosophical naturalist often will view religious belief as similar to superstition and as the product of unsound or magical thinking. • In contrast to materialism, there is the Platonic or idealist position. It can be expressed in many ways, but in essence it is the view that there is a distinction between appearance and reality, and that the world we see around us is simply a reflection of some higher, divine existence, of which the human (and perhaps also the animal) soul/mind or spirit may be part. In his Republic, Book VII, Plato represents humankind as prisoners chained from birth inside an underground cave, unable to move their heads, and therefore able to see only the shadows on the walls created by a fire outside the cave, shadows that, in their ignorance, the cave dwellers mistake for reality. For Plato, therefore, the soul is a spirit that uses the body. It is in a non-natural state of union, and longs to be freed from its bodily prison (cf. Republic, X, 611). • Between materialism and idealism lies the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose system of thought is known as Thomism. His thought is, in essence, a synthesis of Christian theology and the philosophy of Aristotle. Aristotle describes man as a "rational animal," i.e., a single, undivided being that is at once animal (material) and rational (intellectual soul). Drawing from Aristotelian hylomorphism, The soul is seen as the substantial form of the body (matter). The soul, as the substantial form, is what is universal, or common, to all humanity, and therefore, is indicative of human nature; that which differentiates one person from another is matter, which Aquinas refers to as the principle of individuation. The human soul is characterized as spiritual, immortal, substantial, and subsistent: it is the spiritual and vital principle of the human being, but is also dependent on the body in a variety of ways in order to possess these characteristics. Thus, no division is made between the "physical" and the "spiritual," though they are in fact distinct. This position differentiates Thomism from both materialism and idealism. Unlike idealism, it holds that the visible universe is not a mere shadow of a transcendent reality, but instead is fully real in and of itself. However, unlike materialism, Thomism holds that empiricism and philosophy, when properly exercised, lead inevitably to reasonable belief in God, the human soul, and moral objectivism. Thus, to a Thomist, it is obvious from the evidence that there is a God and an eternal soul. In addition to these traditional philosophical distinctions between the soul and body, recent adaptations in humanistic psychology attempt to explain the natural transcendent purpose of human life. Richard Shweder of the University of Chicago separated human morality into three components: the ethic of autonomy, the ethic of community, and the ethic of divinity. The idea of religious fundamentalist countries is to uphold the ethic of divinity, which consists of protecting the divinity that exists in each person, even if that means imposing religious and moral laws on people of other faiths. Abraham Maslow, one of the founders of humanistic psychology attempted to demonstrate that spiritual life can be rationally explained as a naturalistic meaning. He claims that 'peak experiences'moments of extreme self -transcendence, are the same amongst religious and secular people alike. Peak experiences make people see beyond the two dimensional world of self-advancement and try live a nobler life. Religions can thus be explained in a naturalistic sense as the coordination of transcendent ideas in order to maximize 'peak experiences'. State of nature State of nature refers to philosophical assertions regarding the condition of humans before social factors are imposed, thus attempting to describe the "natural essence" of human nature. • Views which see humans as inherently good: • According to John Locke, humans in the state of nature have perfect freedom to order their actions according to the laws of nature, without having to ask permission to act from any other person. People are of equal value, and treat each other as they would want to be treated. People only leave the state of nature when they consent to take part in a community in order to protect their property rights. [1] • According to Rousseau, humans in the state of nature are naturally good, and bad habits are the product of corrupting civilization; • Views which see humans as morally neutral: • According to Pelagius, humans in the state of nature are not tainted by original sin, but are instead fully capable of choosing good or evil. • According to social determinism and biological determinism, human • • behavior is determined by biological and social factors, so inherent human instincts are never truly to blame for actions generally considered "bad" nor truly credited with actions generally considered "good." Views which see humans as inherently bad: • According to Hobbes, humans in the state of nature are inherently in a "war of all against all," and life in that state is ultimately "nasty, brutish, and short." To Hobbes, this state of nature is remedied by good government. • According to the Christian doctrine of original sin, human beings are inherently corrupt creatures stained by the sin of Adam, and can only be redeemed by the grace of God through faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, whom they believe to be His morally perfect Son. In Christian theology, the virgin birth is believed to make this possible, as original sin is thought to pass from the seed of man. Catholicism, however, holds that the natures of both Jesus and His mother Mary, as a holy vessel for the Messiah, were uncorrupted by original sin. • According to Bertrand Russell moral evil or sin is derived from the instincts that have been transmitted to us from our ancestry of beasts of prey. This ancestry originated when certain animals became omnivorous and employed predation (killing and thievery) in order periodically to ingurgitate the flesh as well as the fruit and produce of other once-living things to support metabolism in competition with other animals for scarce food-animal and food-plant sources in the predatory environment in which we evolved. Thus, the simple fact that we humans must eat other life or else starve, die and rot is the probable primordial origin of contemporary and historical moral evil; i.e., the bad things we do to each other by lying, cheating, slandering, thieving and slaughtering. View which see humans as having a "wounded human nature" • According to the Catholic Church, human beings were created good but were wounded by their own free decision to sin. Human beings were in a state of "original holiness and justice," but lost these due to original sin, committed by Adam and passed on by him as a state of nature to his descendants. According to its Catechism of the Catholic Church, "human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence. Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle." (CCC 405) Morality There are a number of views regarding the origin and nature of human morality • Moral realism or moral objectivism holds that moral codes exist outside of human opinion -- that certain things are right or wrong regardless of human opinion on • • • • the topic. Objective morality may be seen as stemming from the inherent nature of humanity, divine command, or both. Moral relativism holds that moral codes are a function of human values and social structures, and hold no meaning outside social convention. Moral absolutism is the view that certain acts are right or wrong regardless of context. Moral universalism compromises between moral relativism and moral absolutism and holds that there is, or should be, a common universal core of morality. Amoralism is the view that the concepts of moral right and wrong do not have meaning. Purpose • • Materialism and philosophical naturalism hold that there is no external purpose to human life. Proponents of this view often adopt the philosophy of secular humanism. Teleology holds that there is inherent purpose to human existence. This purpose may arise from the inherent nature of humanity itself (what a human is "supposed to be," as in the case of objectivist philosophy), from mankind's relationship to the divine (what God wants humanity to be, as in the case of religion), or from both (as when the divine commands are seen as being in accord with the inherent nature of humanity and humanity's best interests). Nihilism argues that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. • Psychology and biology A long standing question in philosophy and science is whether there exists an invariant human nature. For those who believe there is a human nature, further questions include: • What determines/constrains human nature? • To what extent is human nature malleable? • How does it vary between people and populations? Since human behavior is so diverse, it can be difficult to find absolutely invariant human behaviors that are of interest to philosophers. A lesser (but still scientifically valid) standard for evidence pertaining to "human nature" is used by scientists who study behavior. Biologists look for evidence of genetic predisposition to behavioral patterns. Genetic predispositions can be influenced by the environment, so penetrance of genetically predisposed behavioral traits is not expected to reach 100 percent. A type of human behavior for which there is a strong genetic predisposition can be considered to be part of human nature. In other words, human nature is not seen as something that forces individuals to behave in a certain way, but as something that makes individuals more inclined to act in a certain way than in another. Psychologically, the term "human nature" can be related to Freud's concept of the id and the desires associated with such an aspect of personality. Tabula rasa John Locke's philosophy of empiricism saw human nature as a tabula rasa. In this view, the mind is at birth a "blank slate" without rules, so data is added, and rules for processing them are formed solely by our sensory experiences. The contrary view is seen in E. O. Wilson's sociobiology and the closely related theory of evolutionary psychology. Behavioral genetics The nature versus nurture debate. Behavioral genetics Human diversity Population genetics Arguments for invariance All individuals and all societies have a similar facial grammar. Everyone smiles the same, and the way we use our eyes to convey cognition or flirtatiousness is the same. Evaluations of facial attractiveness are consistent across races and cultures with a preference for symmetry and proportion which are explained by scientists as markers of health during physical development attributable to good genes or a good environment. Human females find male faces that are rated more masculine and aggressive, less feminine and sensitive, more attractive during ovulation, the stage of their menstrual cycle when women are most fertile.[3] No success has ever been scientifically demonstrated in re-assigning an individual's handedness. Although individuals may change their external behavior (picking up scissors with their right hand instead of the left, for instance), their internal inclination never changes. Even people who lose a limb, who physically do not possess the ability to pick up scissors with their left hand, will try to do so if they are 'left-handed.' The percentage of left-handers in all cultures at all times remains constant (because lefthandedness is a recessive trait). Newborn babies, far too young to have been acculturated to do so, have measurable behaviors such as being more attracted to human faces than other shapes and having a preference for their mother's voice over any other voice. In his book Human Universals[4] , Donald E Brown presents his case and identifies approximately 400 specific behaviors that are essentially invariant among all humans. Arguments for social malleability The Duke of Wellington is said to have become indignant upon hearing someone refer to habit as "second nature." He replied, "It is ten times nature!" William James likewise referred to habit as the fly-wheel of society. Habits, though, are by definition acquired, and different habits will be both the effect and the cause of very different societies. Different human societies have held very different moral codes. Thus, regardless of whether objective morality exists or not, humans are clearly capable of imposing a wide variety of different moral codes on themselves. Some have argued that the role for nurture comes not from the absence of impulses in human nature but from the plethora of such impulses -- so many, and so contradictory, that nurture must sort them out and put them into a hierarchy. Identical twins have identical genes, and therefore identical innate behavior. If all behavior were innate, one would expect identical twins to behave in perfectly identical ways all the time. However, this is clearly not the case. In particular, twins who grew up separated (and in different environments) show the greatest differences in behavior. Some believe there is no single universal law of behavior that holds true for all human beings. There are many such laws that apply to the majority of individuals (for example, the majority of individuals try to avoid dying), but there are always exceptions (some individuals commit suicide). Most animals, including humans, have an innate selfpreservation instinct (fear of injury and death). The fact that humans may override this basic instinct is seen as evidence that human nature is subordinate to the human mind, and/or various outside factors. However, this may not be entirely unique to the human mind, as certain animals are observed to willfully commit suicide. Finally, it has been noted that recent advancements in biology have opened the door to genetic manipulation. This means that we may soon have the possibility of altering our genes and therefore changing the instincts that are coded in those genes.[citation needed] Many influential schools of thought have defended particular conceptions of human nature, and integrated those conceptions into their other ideas. Among these are Platonism, Marxism and Freudianism. Plato Plato took a conception of reason and the examined life that he learnt from Socrates and built both a metaphysics and, more to our point, an anthropology around it. There was an intellectual soul, resident in the human head, and there was an appetitive beast, resident in the belly and genitals. The duty of the former is to keep the latter tamed and, in time, to welcome death as an escape from this uncomfortable co-habitation. In one disguise or another, Plato's dualism was immensely influential. It insinuated itself deeply into Christian theology — a process that began, perhaps, as early as the Gospel of John. Descartes' famous contrast between the soul that thinks and the body that is extended is a distinctive take on Plato, as is Kant's contrast between the noumenal and the phenomenal aspects of human nature. What all these views have in common is the following structure: "there exists an invariant human nature, and my theory discloses it better than other theories." This structure does allow for progress in history — because coming to know ourselves better is progress. But human nature itself, as the object of that knowledge, is considered a constant. Indeed, in Kantianism, human nature in the really-real sense can't be said to change because change requires time, and time is a feature only of the less-real, phenomenal, world. Hegel represents an important break with this Platonic hegemony. Building on his concept of the dialectic, everything is, so to speak, up for grabs: as humans come to know themselves better, the object of knowledge necessarily changes. Aristotle Plato's most famous student made some of the most famous and influential statements about human nature. • Man is a conjugal animal (Nicomachean Ethics), meaning an animal which is born to couple when an adult, thus building a household (oikos) and in more successful cases, a clan or small village still run upon patriarchal lines. • Man is a political animal (Politics), meaning an animal with an innate propensity to develop complex communities the size of a city or town (see division of labor). As a political animal, in contrast to his family and clan life, man thrives in his rationality - most fully in the making of laws and traditions. • Man is a mimetic animal (Poetics). In this case, Aristotle emphasizes human reason in its purest form. Man loves to use his imagination, and not only to make laws and run town councils. It is clear that for Aristotle, reason is not only what is most odd about humanity, but it is also what we were meant to achieve at his or her best. Much of Aristotle's position is still very much worth considering, but it should be mentioned that the idea that human nature was "meant" or intended to be something, has become much less popular in modern times. Rousseau Jean Jacques Rousseau, writing before the French Revolution, and long before Darwin, shocked Western Civilization by proposing that humans had once been solitary animals, and had learnt to be political. The important point about this was the idea that human nature was not fixed, or at least not anywhere near the extent previously suggested by philosophers. Humans are political now, but originally they were not. This broke important, and also politically dangerous ground, for the political events of the 19th and 20th century, wherein, to give the most shocking examples, totalitarianism and brain washing developed. He was an important influence upon Kant, Hegel and Marx, but he himself made it clear that he was partly developing the thought of Thomas Hobbes. Karl Marx Karl Marx's conception of human nature has been the subject of much misunderstanding. It is often believed that Marx denied that there was any human nature, and said that human beings are simply a blank slate, whose character will depend wholly upon their socialization and experience. It is true that Marx placed enormous importance on the view that people are influenced and, in part, determined by their environments. But at least in one stage of his development he had a very strong concept of human nature. In that stage, Marx discussed the concept of 'species-essence' (from the German Gattungswesen, sometimes also translated as 'species being'). He believed that under capitalism, we are alienated - that is, divorced from aspects of our human nature. He envisaged the possibility of a society following capitalism which would allow human beings to fully exercise their human nature and individuality. His name for this society was 'communism'. However, it is worth bearing in mind that, since Marx's day, this term has been used with several different meanings, not all of which have been compatible with Marx's original usage. Marx's understanding of human nature did not only play a role in his critique of capitalism, and in his belief that a better society would be possible (as already indicated). It also informed his theory of history. The underlying dynamic of history, for Marx, is the expansion of the productive forces. In The German Ideology, Marx says that two of the three aspects of social activity which ground history is the tendency of humans to act to fulfill their needs, and thereafter, the tendency to generate new needs [3]. This human tendency, for Marx, is what drives the continuing expansion of productive power in human civilization. After The German Ideology, however, mention of 'species-essence' as such is virtually absent from Marx's writings. Some major interpreters of Marx, such as Louis Althusser, dismiss 'species-essence' as irrelevant to Marx's "later" writings, while others, such as Terry Eagleton, believe it continues to be an important concept in understanding Marx. The Austrian school The Austrian school of economics, in the years around 1871–1940, developed its own views largely in opposition to Marx, and in opposition to a group of historicist scholars. In the process, they developed a distinctive view of human nature. - In structural terms, their view returned to that of the thinkers mentioned in this survey prior to Hegel. Like Descartes or Kant, these thinkers believed that there exists an invariant human nature, but that progress is possible in history through the more complete understanding of that nature. They conceived of human nature in terms of bounded rationality and of the pursuit of marginal utility, and they believed that the pursuit of this utility in the marketplace would create a condition of spontaneous order that will be more rational than any alternative that might be planned, given the bounded rationality of any possible planners. Sigmund Freud During the same period of time, Austria also hosted the development of psychoanalysis. Its founder, Sigmund Freud, believed that the Marxists were right to focus on what he called "the decisive influence which the economic circumstances of men have upon their intellectual, ethical and artistic attitudes." But he thought that the Marxist view of the class struggle was a too shallow one, assigning to recent centuries conflicts that were, rather, primordial. Behind the class struggle, according to Freud, there stands the struggle between father and son, between established clan leader and rebellious challenger. In this spirit, Freud heavily criticized the Soviet Union, writing in 1932 that its leaders had made themselves "inaccessible to doubt, without feeling for the suffering of others if they stand in the way of their intentions." E.O. Wilson In his book 'Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge' (1998) Edward O. Wilson claimed that it was time for a cooperation of all the sciences to explore human nature. He defined human nature as a collection of epigenetic rules: the genetic patterns of mental development. Cultural phenomena, rituals etc. are products, not part of human nature. Artworks, for example are not part of human nature, but our appreciation of art is. And this art appreciation, or our fear for snakes, or incest taboo (Westermarck effect) can be studied by the methods of reductionism. Until now these phenomena were only part of psychological, sociological and anthropological studies. Wilson proposes it can be part of interdisciplinary research. The basic premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism. Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since man has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, man is able to transcend the dilemma of mortality through heroism, a concept involving his symbolic half. By embarking on what Becker refers to as an "immortality project" (or causa sui), in which he creates or becomes part of something which he feels will outlast him, man feels he has "become" heroic and, henceforth, part of something eternal; something that will never die, compared to his physical body that will die one day. This, in turn, gives man the feeling that his life has meaning; a purpose; significance in the grand scheme of things. From this premise, mental illness is most insightfully extrapolated as a bogging down in one's hero system(s). When someone is experiencing depression, their causa sui (or heroism project) is failing, and they are being consistently reminded of their mortality and insignificance as a result. Schizophrenia is a step further than depression in which one's causa sui is falling apart, making it impossible to engender sufficient defense mechanisms against their mortality; henceforth, the schizophrenic has to create their own reality or "world" in which they are better heroes. Becker argues that the conflict between immortality projects which contradict each other (particularly in religion) is the wellspring for the destruction and misery in our world caused by wars, bigotry, genocide, racism, nationalism, and so forth, since an immortality project which contradicts others indirectly suggests that the others are wrong. Another theme running throughout the book is that humanity's traditional "hero-systems" i.e. religion, are no longer convincing in the age of reason; science is attempting to solve the problem of man, something that Becker feels it can never do. The book states that we need new convincing "illusions" that enable us to feel heroic in the grand scheme of things, i.e. immortal. Becker, however, does not provide any definitive answer, mainly because he believes that there is no perfect solution. Instead, he hopes that gradual realization of man's innate motivations, namely death, can help to bring about a better world. Terror management theory (TMT) is a developing area of study within the academic study of psychology. Empirical support for TMT has originated from more than 175 published experiments which have been conducted cross-culturally both nationally and internationally (Solomon, 2004). It looks at what researchers claim to be the implicit emotional reactions of people when confronted with the psychological terror of knowing we will eventually die (it is widely believed that our awareness of mortality is a trait that is unique to humans). The theory was first developed in the late 1980s by Skidmore College psychology professor Sheldon Solomon, University of Arizona psychology professor Jeff Greenberg, and Colorado University at Colorado Springs psychology professor Tom Pyszczynski, who were graduate students at the University of Kansas at the time. The trio were inspired by the theories of Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death, 1973) and Freud, on how potent reminders of one's own ultimate death often provoke a belief in some form of mystical transcendence (heaven, reincarnation, spiritualism, etc.) Terror management theory attempts to provide a rationale for the motivational catalysts of human behavior when life is threatened. The theory builds from the assumption that the capability of self-reflection and the consciousness of one’s own mortality can be regarded as a continuous source for existential anguish. This "irresolvable paradox" is created from the desire to preserve life and the realization of that impossibility (because life is finite). Unlike other biological species, humans are aware of the inevitability of their own death. Culture diminishes this psychological terror by providing meaning, organization and continuity to people's lives. Compliance with cultural values enhances one's feeling of security and self-esteem, provided that the individual is capable of living in accordance with whatever particular cultural standards apply to him or her. The belief in the rightness of the cultural values and standards creates the conviction necessary to live a reasonable and meaningful life. This cultural worldview provides a base of making sense of the world as stable and orderly, a place where one rests their hopes on symbolic immortality (e.g., fame, having children, legacies of wealth or fortune) or literal immortality (e.g., the promise of a life in an afterworld). Our cultural world view is a "symbolic protector" between the reality of life and inevitability of death. Because of this men and women strive to have their cultural worldview confirmed by others, thereby receiving the community’s esteem. However, when one’s worldview is threatened by the world view of another, it often results in one’s self-respect being endangered as well. In such a situation people not only endeavour to deny or devalue the importance of others' world views, but try to controvert the ideas and opinions of others which may, as a consequence, escalate into a conflict (ie. religious holy wars). As a result, mortality salience increases stereotypic thinking and intergroup bias between groups. Two hypotheses have emerged from TMT research; the mortality salience hypothesis and the anxiety-buffer hypothesis. The mortality salience hypothesis says that if cultural worldviews and self-esteem provide protection from the fear of death, then reminding people of the root of that fear will increase the needs of individuals to value their own cultural worldview and self-esteem. The anxiety-buffer hypothesis provides the rationale that self-esteem is a buffer which serves to insulate humans from death. By doing so our self-esteem allows us to deny the susceptibility to a short-term life. Experiments supporting the two hypotheses above have been conducted in the US, Canada, Israel, Japan and the Netherlands. (Williams, Schimel and Gillespie, 2006). Developing from the analysis of authoritative leadership by Erich Fromm (1941) in Escape from Freedom, people in a state of emotional distress by nature are prone to the allure of charismatic leaders. Research has shown that people, when reminded of their own inevitable death, will cling more strongly to their cultural worldviews. The data appears to show that nations or persons who have experienced traumas (e.g. 9/11) are more attracted to strong leaders who express traditional, pro-establishment, authoritarian viewpoints. They will also be hyper-aware of the possibility of external threats, and may be more hostile to those who threaten them. Additional research indicates those who are raised by authoritarian parents tend to conform to authority more frequently than those who are not. This perpetuates the belief that culture worldviews are a product of the socialization process and those who are socialized through authority are more susceptible to conformity when their mortality is made salient. The theory gained media attention in the aftermath of 9/11, and after the re-election of President George W. Bush in the USA, Prime Minister Tony Blair in the UK, and John Howard in Australia. Terror management researchers have shown that making mortality salient to research participants will lead to such changes in behaviors and beliefs that seemingly protect worldview and encourage self-esteem striving. This mortality-salient state is usually induced by having participants write down the emotions that come to mind when thinking about death, and expanded by having participants write about what they think will happen as they die and after they die. Following this procedure a brief delay is provided. Past research indicates mortality salience effects are more pronounced following a brief delay. Nevertheless, these researchers have not yet demonstrated that this happens for the reason they propose, namely to alleviate unconscious fears of death. Direct tests of this hypothesis are likely to soon emerge in the scholarly literature. Fundamental to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the theory of psychological type as originally developed by C. G. Jung. :xiii Jung proposed the existence of two dichotomous pairs of cognitive functions: • The "rational" (judging) functions: Thinking and Feeling • The "irrational" (perceiving) functions: Sensing and Intuition Jung went on to suggest that these functions are expressed in either an introverted or extraverted form. :17 From Jung's original concepts, Briggs and Myers developed their own theory of psychological type, described below, on which the MBTI is based. Type The Myers-Briggs typology model regards personality type as similar to left or right handedness: individuals are either born with, or develop, certain preferred ways of thinking and acting. The MBTI sorts some of these psychological differences into four opposite pairs, or "dichotomies," with a resulting 16 possible psychological types. None of these types is "better" or "worse"; however, Briggs and Myers theorized that individuals naturally prefer one overall combination of type differences. 9 In the same way that writing with the left hand is hard work for a right-hander, so people tend to find using their opposite psychological preferences more difficult, even if they can become more proficient (and therefore behaviorally flexible) with practice and development. The 16 different types are often referred to by an abbreviation of four letters, the initial letters of each of their four type preferences (except in the case of iNtuition), for instance: • ESTJ - Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judging • INFP - Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Perceiving And so on for all 16 possible type combinations. The four dichotomies Dichotomies Extraversion Introversion Sensing iNtuition Thinking Feeling Judging Perceiving The four pairs of preferences or dichotomies are shown in the table to the right. Note that the terms used for each dichotomy have specific technical meanings relating to the MBTI which differ from their everyday usage. For example, people with a preference for Judging over Perceiving are not necessarily more "judgmental" or less "perceptive". Nor does the MBTI instrument measure aptitude; it simply indicates for one preference over another. 3 Someone reporting a high score for Extraversion over Introversion cannot be correctly described as 'more' Extraverted: they simply have a clear preference. Point scores on each of the dichotomies can vary considerably from person to person, even among those with the same type. However, Isabel Myers considered the direction of the preference (for example, E vs. I) to be more important than the degree of the preference (for example, very clear vs. slight). Attitudes: Extraversion (E) / Introversion (I) The preferences for Extraversion (thus spelled in Myers-Briggs jargon) and Introversion are sometimes referred to as attitudes. Briggs and Myers recognized that each of the functions can show in the external world of behavior, action, people and things (extraverted attitude) or the internal world of ideas and reflection (introverted attitude). The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator sorts for an overall preference for one or the other of these. People with a preference for Extraversion draw energy from action: they tend to act, then reflect, then act further. If they are inactive, their level of energy and motivation tends to decline. Conversely, those whose preference is Introversion become less energized as they act: they prefer to reflect, then act, then reflect again. People with Introversion preferences need time out to reflect in order to rebuild energy. The Introvert's flow is directed inward toward concepts and ideas and the Extravert's is directed outward towards people and objects. There are several contrasting characteristics between Extraverts and Introverts: Extraverts desire breadth and are action-oriented, while introverts seek depth and are thought-oriented. The terms Extravert and Introvert are used in a special sense when discussing the MyersBriggs Type Indicator. Functions: Sensing (S) / iNtuition (N) and Thinking (T) / Feeling (F) Jung identified two pairs of psychological functions: • The two Perceiving functions, Sensing and iNtuition (thus spelled in MyersBriggs jargon to distinguish it from Introversion) • The two Judging functions, Thinking and Feeling According to the Myers-Briggs typology model, each person uses one of these four functions more dominantly and proficiently than the other three; however, all four functions are used at different times depending on the circumstances. Sensing and iNtuition are the information-gathering (Perceiving) functions. They describe how new information is understood and interpreted. Individuals who prefer Sensing are more likely to trust information that is in the present, tangible and concrete: that is, information that can be understood by the five senses. They tend to distrust hunches that seem to come out of nowhere. They prefer to look for details and facts. For them, the meaning is in the data. On the other hand, those who prefer iNtuition tend to trust information that is more abstract or theoretical, that can be associated with other information (either remembered or discovered by seeking a wider context or pattern). They may be more interested in future possibilities. They tend to trust those flashes of insight that seem to bubble up from the unconscious mind. The meaning is in how the data relates to the pattern or theory. Thinking and Feeling are the decision-making (Judging) functions. The Thinking and Feeling functions are both used to make rational decisions, based on the data received from their information-gathering functions (Sensing or iNtuition). Those who prefer Feeling tend to come to decisions by associating or empathizing with the situation, looking at it 'from the inside' and weighing the situation to achieve, on balance, the greatest harmony, consensus and fit, considering the needs of the people involved. Those who prefer Thinking tend to decide things from a more detached standpoint, measuring the decision by what seems reasonable, logical, causal, consistent and matching a given set of rules. As noted already, people with a Thinking preference do not necessarily, in the everyday sense, 'think better' than their Feeling counterparts; the opposite preference is considered an equally rational way of coming to decisions (and, in any case, the MBTI assessment is a measure of preference, not ability). Similarly, those with a Feeling preference do not necessarily have 'better' emotional reactions than their Thinking counterparts. Dominant Function Although people use all four cognitive functions, one function is generally used in a more conscious and confident way. This dominant function is supported by the secondary (auxiliary) function, and to a lesser degree the tertiary function. The fourth and least conscious function is always the opposite of the dominant function. Myers called this inferior function the shadow.84 The four functions operate in conjunction with the attitudes (Extraversion and Introversion). Each function is used in either an extraverted or introverted way. A person whose dominant function is extraverted intuition, for example, uses intuition very differently from someone whose dominant function is introverted intuition. Lifestyle: Judging (J) / Perception (P) Myers and Briggs added another dimension to Jung's typological model by identifying that people also have a preference for using either the Judging function (Thinking or Feeling) or their Perceiving function (Sensing or iNtuition) when relating to the outside world (extraversion). Myers and Briggs taught that types with a preference for Judging show the world their preferred Judging function (Thinking or Feeling). So TJ types tend to appear to the world as logical, and FJ types as empathetic. According to Myers75 , Judging types prefer to "have matters settled." Those types ending in P show the world their preferred Perceiving function (Sensing or iNtuition). So SP types tend to appear to the world as concrete and NP types as abstract. According to Myers75 , Perceiving types prefer to "keep decisions open." For Extraverts, the J or P indicates their dominant function; for Introverts, the J or P indicates their auxiliary function. Introverts tend to show their dominant function outwardly only in matters "important to their inner worlds".13 For example: Because ENTJ types are Extraverts, the J indicates that their dominant function is their preferred Judging function (Extraverted Thinking). ENTJ types introvert their auxiliary Perceiving function (Introverted iNtuition). The tertiary function is Sensing and the inferior function is Introverted Feeling. Because INTJ types are Introverts, the J indicates that their auxiliary function is their preferred Judging function (Extraverted Thinking). INTJ types introvert their dominant Perceiving function (Introverted iNtuition). The tertiary function is Feeling, and the inferior function is Extraverted Sensing. Whole type The expression of a person's psychological type is more than the sum of the four individual preferences, because of the way in which the preferences interact through type dynamics and type development (see below). Descriptions of each type can be found on the TypeLogic website. In-depth descriptions of each type, including statistics, can be found in The MBTI Manual (op cit). Historical development Katharine Cook Briggs began her research into personality in 1917, developing a fourtype framework: Social, Thoughtful, Executive, and Spontaneous. After the English translation of Jung's Psychological Types was published in 1923 (having first been published in German in 1921), she recognized that Jung's theory was similar to, yet went far beyond, her own. :22 Katharine Briggs' first publications were two articles describing Jung's theory, in the journal New Republic in 1926 (Meet Yourself Using the Personality Paint Box) and 1928 (Up From Barbarism). Katharine Briggs' daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, wrote a prize-winning mystery novel Murder Yet to Come in 1929 using typological ideas. She added to her mother's typological research, which she would progressively take over entirely. In 1942, the "Briggs-Myers Type Indicator" was created, and the Briggs Myers Type Indicator Handbook was published in 1944. The indicator changed its name to the modern form (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) in 1956. Differences from Jung Myers' and Briggs' most notable addition to Jung's original thought is their notion that a given type's fourth letter (J or P) is determined by how that type interacts with the external world, rather than by the type's dominant function. The difference becomes evident when assessing the functions of Introverts. :21-22 To Jung, a type with dominant Introverted Thinking would be considered "rational" (Judging). To Myers, however, that same type would be inwardly rational, but "irrational" (Perceiving) when interacting with the outer world. Expressed in MBTI letters, this difference would mean, for example, that a Jungian Introverted Thinker with iNtuition would be characterized as INTJ, while for Myers, the same type would be characterized as INTP. In the Myers INTJ, the perceiving function is dominant but used with the internal world. Noted psychologist H.J. Eysenck calls the MBTI a moderately successful quantification of Jung's original principles as outlined in Psychological Types. Format and administration of the MBTI The current North American English version of the MBTI Step I includes 93 forcedchoice questions (there are 88 in the European English version). Forced-choice means that the individual has to choose only one of two possible answers to each question. The choices are a mixture of word pairs and short statements. Choices are not literal opposites but chosen to reflect opposite preferences on the same dichotomy. Participants may skip questions if they feel they are unable to choose. Using psychometric techniques, such as item response theory, the MBTI will then be scored and will attempt to identify the preference, and clarity of preference, in each dichotomy. After taking the MBTI, participants are usually asked to complete a Best Fit exercise (see above) and then given a readout of their Reported Type, which will usually include a bar graph and number to show how clear they were about each preference when they completed the questionnaire. During the early development of the MBTI thousands of items were used. Most were eventually discarded because they did not have high midpoint discrimination, meaning the results of that one item did not, on average, move an individual score away from the midpoint. Using only items with high midpoint discrimination allows the MBTI to have fewer items on it but still provide as much statistical information as other instruments with many more items with lower midpoint discrimination. The MBTI requires five points one way or another to indicate a clear preference. Additional formats Isabel Myers had noted that people of any given type shared differences as well as similarities, and at the time of her death was developing a more in depth method to offer clues about how each person expresses and experiences their type pattern, which is called MBTI Step II. In addition to this, the Type Differentiation Indicator (TDI) (Saunders, 1989) is a scoring system for the longer MBTI, Form J , that includes the 20 subscales above, plus an additional factor of Comfort-Discomfort (which purportedly corresponds to the missing factor of Neuroticism), with seven additional scales indicating a sense of overall comfort and confidence versus discomfort and anxiety (guarded-optimistic, defiant-compliant, carefree-worried, decisiveambivalent, intrepid-inhibited, leader-follower, proactive-distractible), plus a composite of these called "strain". Each of these comfort-discomfort subscales also loads on one of the four type dimensions, e.g., proactive-distractible is also a judging-perceiving subscale. There are also scales for type-scale consistency and comfort-scale consistency. Reliability of 23 of the 27 TDI subscales is greater than .50; "an acceptable result given the brevity of the subscales" (Saunders, 1989). A "Step III" is also being developed in a joint project involving CPP, publisher of the whole family of MBTI works; CAPT (Center for Applications of Psychological Type), which holds all of Myers' and McCaulley's original work; and the MBTI Trust, headed by Katharine and Peter Myers. Step III will further address the use of perception and judgment by respondents.[2] Precepts and ethics The following precepts are generally used in the ethical administration of the MyersBriggs Type Indicator: Type not trait: The MBTI sorts for type; it does not indicate the strength of ability. The questionnaire allows the clarity of a preference to be ascertained (Bill clearly prefers introversion), but not the strength of preference (Jane strongly prefers extraversion) or degree of aptitude (Harry is good at thinking). In this sense, it differs from trait-based tools such as 16PF. Type preferences are polar opposites: a precept of MBTI is that you fundamentally prefer one thing over the other, not a bit of both. Own best judge: Individuals are considered the best judge of their own type. While the MBTI questionnaire provides a Reported Type, this is considered only an indication of their probable overall Type. A Best Fit Process is usually used to allow the individual to develop their understanding of the four dichotomies, form their own hypothesis as to their overall Type and compare this against the Reported Type. In more than 20% of cases, the hypothesis and the reported type differ in one or more dichotomies: the clarity of each preference, any potential for bias in the report and, often, a comparison of two or more whole Types may then be used to help the subject determine his or her own Best Fit. No right or wrong: No preference or total type is considered 'better' or 'worse' than another - they are all, as in the title of the book on this subject by Isabel Briggs Myers, Gifts Differing. Voluntary: It is considered unethical to compel anyone to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It should always be taken voluntarily. Confidentiality: The result of the MBTI Reported and Best Fit type are confidential between the individual and administrator and, ethically, not for disclosure without permission. Not for selection: Because the MBTI measures preferences instead of aptitude - and because there are no right or wrong types - it is not considered a proper instrument for purposes of employment selection. Many professions contain highly competent individuals of different types with complementary preferences. Importance of proper feedback: Individuals should always be given detailed feedback from a trained administrator and an opportunity to undertake a Best Fit exercise to check against their Reported Type. Feedback can be given in person or, where this is not practical, by telephone or electronically. Applications of the MBTI The indicator is frequently used in the areas of career counseling, pedagogy, group dynamics, employee training, marketing, leadership training, life coaching, executive coaching, marriage counseling, Workers' compensation claims and personal development. Type dynamics and development The Sixteen Types ISTJ ISTP ESTP ESTJ The table organizing the sixteen types was created by Isabel Myers (an INFP). U.S.A. Population Breakdown ISTJ 11.6% ISFJ ISFP ESFP ESFJ INFJ INFP ENFP ENFJ INTJ INTP ENTP ENTJ ISFJ 13.8% INFJ 1.5% INTJ 2.1% ISTP 5.4% ESTP 4.3% ESTJ 8.7% ISFP 8.8% ESFP 8.5% ESFJ 12.3% INFP 4.3% ENFP 8.1% ENFJ 2.4% INTP 3.3% ENTP 3.2% ENTJ 1.8% Estimated percentages of the 16 types in the American population using inferential statistics. The figures above are from a random sampling of 3009 people culled from a total pool of 16,000 using the 1998 MBTI Form M. The individuals whose form results were used in this random sampling were not provided with the data to verify or question their accuracy. But these numbers do provide a working base on which to build further understanding and development of the model as extrapolated to larger populations. It should be noted that some types are more likely to take the MBTI than others (such as the INFP) and raw statistics prove unreliable because of this. The interaction of two, three, or four preferences is known as type dynamics. Myers and Briggs asserted that for each of the 16 four-preference types, one function is the most dominant and is likely to be evident earliest in life. A secondary or auxiliary function typically becomes more evident (differentiated) during teenage years and provides balance to the dominant. In normal development individuals tend to become more fluent with a third, tertiary function during mid life, while the fourth, inferior function remains least consciously developed. The inferior funciton is often considered to be more associated with the unconscious, being most evident in situations such as high stress (sometimes referred to as being in the grip of the inferior function). The sequence of differentiation of dominant, auxiliary and tertiary functions through life is termed type development. This is an idealized sequence which may be disrupted by major life events; for example, the death or serious illness of a parent during childhood is considered commonly to halt full development of the auxiliary function.[ The dynamic sequence of functions and their attitudes can be determined in the following way: • The overall lifestyle preference (J-P) determines whether the judging (T-F) or perceiving (S-N) preference is most evident in the outside world, i.e. which function has an extraverted attitude • For those with an overall preference for Extraversion, the function with the extraverted attitude will be the dominant function. For example, for an ESTJ type the dominant function is the judging function, Thinking, and this is experienced with an extraverted attitude. This is notated as a dominant Te. For an ESTP, the dominant function is the perceiving function, Sensing, notated as a dominant Se. • The Auxiliary function for Extraverts is the secondary preference of the Judging or Perceiving functions, and it is experienced with an introverted attitude: for example, the auxiliary function for ESTJ is Introverted Sensing (Si) and the auxiliary for ESTP is Introverted Thinking (Si). • For those with an overall preference for Introversion, the function with the extraverted attitude is the auxiliary; the dominant is the other function in the main four letter preference. So the dominant function for ISTJ is Introverted Sensing (Si) with the auxiliary (supporting) function being Extraverted Thinking (Te). • The Tertiary function is the opposite preference from the Auxiliary. For example, if the Auxiliary is Thinking then the Tertiary would be Feeling. The attitude of the Tertiary is the subject of some debate and therefore is not normally indicated, i.e. if the Auxiliary was Te then the Tertiary would be F (not Fe or Fi) • The Inferior function is the opposite preference and attitude from the Dominant, so for an ESTJ with dominant Te the Inferior would be Fi. Note that for Extraverts, the dominant function is the one most evident in the external world. For Introverts, however, it is the auxiliary function that is most evident externally, as their dominant function relates to the interior world. A couple of examples of whole types will help to clarify this further. Taking the ESTJ example above: • Extraverted function is a Judging function (T-F) because of the overall J preference • Extraverted function is dominant because of overall E preference • Dominant function is therefore extraverted Thinking (Te) • Auxiliary function will be the less dominant Perceiving function - introverted Sensing (Si) • Tertiary function is the opposite preference to the Auxiliary - iNtuition (N) • Inferior function is the opposite preference and attitude to the Dominant introverted Feeling (Fi) The dynamics of the ESTJ are found in the primary combination of Extraverted Thinking being their dominant function and Introverted Sensing being their auxiliary function: The dominant tendency to order the ESTJ's environment, to set clear boundaries, to clarify roles and timetables and to direct the activities around them is supported by the facility for using past experience in an ordered and systematic way to help organize themselves and others. ESTJs, for instance, may enjoy planning trips for groups of people to achieve some goal or to perform some culturally uplifting function. Because of their ease of directing others and their facility of managing their own time, they will engage all the resources at their disposal to achieve their goals. However, under prolonged stress or sudden trauma, ESTJs may overuse their Extraverted Thinking function and fall into "the grip" of their inferior function, Introverted Feeling. Though the ESTJ can seem insensitive to the feelings of others in their normal activities, under tremendous stress, they can suddenly express feelings of being unappreciated or wounded by insensitivity. Looking at the diametrically opposite four-letter Type, INFP: • Extraverted function is a Perceiving function (S-N) because of the P preference • Introverted function is dominant because of the I preference • Dominant function is therefore Introverted Feeling (Fi) • Auxiliary function is Extraverted iNtuition (Ne) • Tertiary function is the opposite of the Auxiliary, Sensing (S) • Inferior function is the opposite of the Dominant, Extraverted Thinking (Te) The dynamics of the INFP rest on the fundamental correspondence of Introverted Feeling and Extraverted iNtuition. The dominant tendency of the INFP is toward building a rich internal framework of values and toward championing human rights. They often devote themselves behind the scenes to causes such as civil rights or saving the environment. Since they tend to avoid the limelight, postpone decisions, and maintain a reserved posture, they are rarely found in executive-director type positions of the organizations that serve those causes. Normally, the INFP dislikes being "in charge" of things. When not under stress, the INFP radiates a pleasant and sympathetic demeanor; but under extreme stress, they can suddenly become rigid and directive, exerting their extraverted Thinking erratically. Every type - and its opposite - is the expression of these interactions, which give each type its unique "signature" that can be recognized. Correlations to other instruments Keirsey Temperaments David W. Keirsey mapped four 'Temperaments' to the existing Myers-Briggs system groupings SP, SJ, NF and NT; this often results in confusion of the two theories. However, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter is not directly associated with the official Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. ISITEJ ISIFEJ INIFEJ INITEJ Inspector Protector Counselor Mastermind ISETIP Crafter ESETIP Promoter ESITEJ Supervisor ISEFIP Composer ESEFIP Performer ESIFEJ Provider INEFIP Healer ENEFIP Champion ENIFEJ Teacher INETIP Architect ENETIP Inventor ENITEJ Field Marshal Big Five McCrae and Costa present correlations between the MBTI scales and the Big Five personality construct, which is a conglomeration of characteristics found in nearly all personality and psychological tests. The five personality characteristics are extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability (or neuroticism). The following study is based on the results from 267 men followed as part of a longitudinal study of aging. (Similar results were obtained with 201 women.) E-I S-N T-F J-P Extraversio n -.74 .10 .19 .15 Openness .03 .72 .02 .30 Agreeablen ess -.03 .04 .44 -.06 Conscientiousn ess .08 -.15 -.15 -.49 Neuroticis m .16 -.06 .06 .11 The closer the number is to 1.0 or -1.0, the higher the degree of correlation . These data suggest that four of the MBTI scales are related to the Big Five personality traits. These correlations show that E-I and S-N are strongly related to extraversion and openness respectively, while T-F and J-P are moderately related to agreeableness and conscientiousness respectively. The emotional stability dimension of the Big Five is largely absent from the original MBTI (though the TDI, discussed above, has addressed that dimension). These findings led McCrae and Costa, the formulators of the Five Factor Theory,[21] to conclude, "correlational analyses showed that the four MBTI indices did measure aspects of four of the five major dimensions of normal personality. The five-factor model provides an alternative basis for interpreting MBTI findings within a broader, more commonly shared conceptual framework." However, "there was no support for the view that the MBTI measures truly dichotomous preferences or qualitatively distinct types, instead, the instrument measures four relatively independent dimensions." Study of scoring consistency Split-half reliability of the MBTI scales is good, although test-retest reliability is sensitive to the time between tests. However, because the MBTI dichotomies scores in the middle of the distribution, type allocations are less reliable. Within each scale, as measured on Form G, about 83% of categorizations remain the same when retested within nine months, and around 75% when retested after nine months. About 50% of people tested within nine months remain the same overall type and 36% remain the same after nine months. For Form M (the most current form of the MBTI instrument) these scores are higher (see MBTI Manual, p. 163, Table 8.6). Criticism Validity Neither Katharine Cook Briggs nor Isabel Briggs Myers had any scientific qualifications in the field of psychometric testing. :xiii Furthermore, Carl Jung's theory of psychological type, which the MBTI attempts to operationalize, is not based on any scientific studies. Jung's methods primarily included introspection and anecdote, methods largely rejected by the modern field of psychology. The statistical validity of the MBTI as a psychometric instrument has also been subject to criticism, in particular, the dichotomous scoring of dimensions. For example, some researchers expected that scores would show a bimodal distribution with peaks near the ends of the scales, but found that scores on the individual subscales were actually distributed in a centrally peaked manner similar to a normal distribution. A cut-off exists at the center of the subscale such that a score on one side is classified as one type, and a score on the other side as the opposite type. This fails to support the concept of type--the norm is for people to lie near the middle of the subscale. Nevertheless, "the absence of bimodal score distributions does not necessarily prove that the 'type'-based approach is incorrect." It has been estimated that between a third and a half of the published material on the MBTI has been produced for conferences of the Center for the Application of Psychological Type (which provides training in the MBTI) or as papers in the Journal of Psychological Type (which is edited by Myers-Briggs advocates). It has been argued that this reflects a lack of critical scrutiny. Estimations on the research related to the most utilized tool published in fifty years (e.g. 40 million administrations) is affected by the popularity of the instrument. Unlike other personality measures, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory or the Personality Assessment Inventory, the MBTI lacks validity scales to assess response styles such as exaggeration or impression management.[citation needed] Reliability Some researchers have interpreted the reliability of the test as being low, with test takers who retake the test often being assigned a different type. According to surveys performed by the proponents of Myers-Briggs, the highest percentage of people who fell into the same category on the second test is only 47%. Furthermore, a wide range of 39% - 76% of those tested fall into different types upon retesting weeks or years later. When people are asked to compare their preferred type to that assigned by the MBTI, only half of people pick the same profile. Critics also argue that the MBTI lacks falsifiability, which can cause confirmation bias in the interpretation of results. Utility Although the proportion of different personality types varies between different careersthe relevance of the MBTI for career planning has been questioned, with reservations about the relevance of type to job performance or satisfaction, and concerns about the potential misuse of the instrument in labelling individuals. Skepticism Skeptics criticize the terminology of the MBTI as being so vague as to allow any kind of behavior to fit any personality type, resulting in the Forer effect, where an individual gives a high rating to a positive description that supposedly applies specifically to them. However, the descriptions offered for the 16 psychological types are often quite detailed and specific, unlike the "vague and general personality descriptions" that characterize the Forer effect. For example, David Keirsey examined how the four temperaments differ in terms of language use, intellectual orientation, educational and vocational interests, social orientation, self image, personal values, social roles and even characteristic hand gestures. Keirsey went on to describe the hierarchy of intellectual roles played by each of the four types within each temperament, resulting in sixteen unique descriptions which, unlike the Forer effect, rely not on the universal traits that make human beings the same, but on the specific traits that make human beings different from one another. • • • • • • • • • • • Big five personality traits DISC assessment Enneagram of Personality False dilemma Family therapy Holland Codes Keirsey Temperament Sorter List of tests Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) Personality psychology Psychometrics Psychosexual development Psychosocial development Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious Psychic apparatus Id, ego, and super-ego Libido • Drive Transference • Ego defenses • Resistance Important figures Sigmund Freud • Carl Jung Alfred Adler • Otto Rank Anna Freud • Margaret Mahler Karen Horney • Jacques Lacan Ronald Fairbairn • Melanie Klein Harry Stack Sullivan Erik Erikson • Nancy Chodorow Susan Sutherland Isaacs Ernest Jones • Heinz Kohut Important works The Interpretation of Dreams Beyond the Pleasure Principle Civilization and Its Discontents Schools of thought Self psychology • Lacanian • Object relations Interpersonal • Relational Ego psychology Even though Erikson always insisted that he was a Freudian, he is better described as a Neo-Freudian. Subsequent authors have described him as an "ego psychologist" studying the stages of development, spanning the entire lifespan. Each of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development are marked by a conflict, for which successful resolution will result in a favourable outcome, for example, trust vs. mistrust, and by an important event that this conflict resolves itself around, for example, meaning of one's life. Favourable outcomes of each stage are sometimes known as "virtues", a term used, in the context of Eriksonian work, as it is applied to medicines, meaning "potencies." For example, the virtue that would emerge from successful resolution. Oddly, and certainly counter-intuitively, Erikson's research suggests that each individual must learn how to hold both extremes of each specific life-stage challenge in tension with one another, not rejecting one end of the tension or the other. Only when both extremes in a life-stage challenge are understood and accepted as both required and useful, can the optimal virtue for that stage surface. Thus, 'trust' and 'mis-trust' must both be understood and accepted, in order for realistic 'hope' to emerge as a viable solution at the first stage. Similarly, 'integrity' and 'despair' must both be understood and embraced, in order for actionable 'wisdom' to emerge as a viable solution at the last stage. The Erikson life-stage virtues, in the order of the stages in which they may be acquired, are: hope - Basic Trust vs. Mistrust - Infant stage. Does the child believe its caregivers to be reliable? will - Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt - Toddler stage. Child needs to learn to explore the world. Bad if the parent is too smothering or completely neglectful. purpose - Initiative vs. Guilt - Kindergarten - Can the child plan or do things on his own, such as dress him or herself. If "guilty" about making his or her own choices, the child will not function well. Erikson has a positive outlook on this stage, saying that most guilt is quickly compensated by a sense of accomplishment. competence - Industry vs. Inferiority - Around age 6 to puberty. Child comparing self worth to others (such as in a classroom environment). Child can recognise major disparities in personal abilities relative to other children. Erikson places some emphasis on the teacher, who should ensure that children do not feel inferior. fidelity - Identity vs. Role Confusion - Teenager. Questioning of self. Who am I, how do I fit in? Where am I going in life? Erikson believes that if the parents allow the child to explore, they will conclude their own identity. However, if the parents continually push him/her to conform to their views, the teen will face identity confusion. love (in intimate relationships, work and family) - Intimacy vs. Isolation - Young adult. Who do I want to be with or date, what am I going to do with my life? Will I settle down? This stage has begun to last longer as young adults choose to stay in school and not settle. caring - Generativity vs. Stagnation - the Mid-life crisis. Measure accomplishments/failures. Am I satisfied or not? The need to assist the younger generation. Stagnation is the feeling of not having done anything to help the next generation. wisdom - Ego Integrity vs. Despair - old age. Some handle death well. Some can be bitter, unhappy, dissatisfied with what they accomplished or failed to accomplish within their life time. They reflect on the past, and either conclude at satisfaction or despair. On Ego Identity versus Role Confusion, Ego identity enables each person to have a sense of individuality, or as Erikson would say, "Ego identity, then, in its subjective aspect, is the awareness of the fact that there is a self-sameness and continuity to the ego's synthesizing methods and a continuity of one's meaning for others". (1963) Role Confusion however, is, according to Barbara Engler in her book Personality Theories (2006), "The inability to conceive of oneself as a productive member of one's own society" (158). This inability to conceive of oneself as a productive member is a great danger; it can occur during adolescence when looking for an occupation. A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence. This amounts to the assertion that the outer manifestation (existence) of an entity is more determinative than its inner being (essence). Asserting that "existence precedes essence" is a rebellion against the Platonic Ideas, the Forms, which in Plato's philosophy are the true reality behind appearances of things in the world. When it is said that man defines himself, it is often perceived as stating that man can "wish" to be something - anything, a bird, for instance - and then be it. According to Sartre's own account, however, this would rather be a kind of bad faith. What is meant by the statement is that man is (1) defined only insofar as he acts and (2) that he is responsible for his actions. To clarify, it can be said that a man who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, defined as a cruel man and in that same instance, he (as opposed to his genes, for instance) is defined as being responsible for being this cruel man. Of course, the more positive therapeutic aspect of this is also implied: You can choose to act in a different way, and to be a good person instead of a cruel person. Here it is also clear that since man can choose to be either cruel or good, he is, in fact, neither of these things essentially. To claim, then, that existence precedes essence is to assert that there is no such predetermined essence to be found in man. Instead, what one finds if one searches, is the concrete lived life of each individual. As Sartre puts it in his Existentialism is a Humanism: "man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards." Existentialism tends to focus on the question of human existence and the conditions of this existence. What is meant by existence is the concrete life of each individual, and his concrete ways of being in the world. Even though this concrete individual existence must be the primary source of information in the study of man, certain conditions are commonly held to be "endemic" to human existence. These conditions are usually in some way related to the inherent meaninglessness or absurdity of the earth and its apparent contrast with our pre-reflexive lived lives which normally present themselves to us as meaningful. A central theme is that since the world "in-itself" is absurd, that is, "not fair," then a meaningful life can at any point suddenly lose all its meaning. The reasons why this happens are many, ranging from a tragedy that "tears a person's world apart," to the results of an honest inquiry into one's own existence. Such an encounter can make a person mentally unstable, and avoiding such instability by making people aware of their condition and ready to handle it is one of the central themes of existentialism. Albert Camus, for instance, famously claimed that "there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." Aside from these "psychological" issues, it is also claimed that these encounters with the absurd are where we are most in touch with our condition as humans. Such an encounter cannot be without philosophical significance, and existentialist philosophers derive many metaphysical theories from these encounters. These are often related to the self, consciousness and freedom as well as the nature of meaning. Dread Dread, sometimes called angst, anxiety or even anguish is a term that is common to many existentialist thinkers. Although its concrete properties may vary slightly, it is generally held to be the experience of our freedom and responsibility. The archetypal example is the example of the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back," one senses the lack of anything that predetermines you to either throw yourself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom. It is also claimed, most famously by Sartre, that dread is the fear of nothing (no thing). This relates both to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one's actions (related to the absurdity of the world), and to the fact that, in experiencing one's freedom, one also realises that one will be fully responsible for these consequences; there is no thing in you (your genes, for instance) that acts and that you can "blame" if something goes wrong. Of course, most of us only have short and shallow encounters with this kind of dread, as not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, our lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread), but that doesn't change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action. It is also worth noting that Søren Kierkegaard, in his The Concept of Dread, maintains that dread, when experienced by the young child in facing the possibility of responsibility for his actions, is one of the main forces in the child's individuation. As such, the very condition of freedom can be said to be a part of any individual's self. Bad faith Bad faith is seen as any denial of free will by lying to oneself about one's self and freedom. This can take many forms, from convincing oneself that some form of determinism is true, to a sort of "mimicry" where one acts as "one should." How "one" should act is often determined by an image one has of how one such as oneself (say, a bank manager) acts. This image usually corresponds to some sort of social norm. This doesn't mean that all acting in accordance with social norms is bad faith: The main point is the attitude one takes to one's own freedom, and the extent to which one acts in accordance with this freedom. A sign of bad faith can be something like the denial of responsibility for something one has done on the grounds that one just did "as one does" or that one's genes determined one to do as one did. Exactly how one lies to oneself is hard to get a hold of. Sartre denies the subconscious the power to do this, and he claims that the person who is lying to him/herself has to be aware that he/she is lying - that he/she isn't determined, or this "thing" he/she makes him/herself out to be. Freedom The existentialist concept of freedom is often misunderstood as a sort of liberum arbitrium where almost anything is possible and where values are inconsequential to choice and action. This interpretation of the concept is often related to the insistence on the absurdity of the world and that there are no absolutely "good" or "bad" values. However, that there are no values to be found in the world in-itself doesn't mean that there are no values: Each of us usually already has his values before a consideration of their validity is carried through, and it is, after all, upon these values we act. In Kierkegaard's Judge Vilhelm's account in Either/Or, making "choices" without allowing one's values to confer differing values to the alternatives, is, in fact, choosing not to make a choice - to "flip a coin," as it were, and to leave everything to chance. This is considered to be a refusal to live in the consequence of one's freedom, meaning it quickly becomes a sort of bad faith. As such, existentialist freedom isn't situated in some kind of abstract space where everything is possible: Since man is free, and since he already exists in this world, it is implied that his freedom is only in this world, and that it, too, is restricted by it. What isn't implied in this account of existential freedom, however, is that one's values are immutable; a consideration of one's values may cause one to reconsider and change them (though this rarely happens). A consequence of this fact is that one is not only responsible for one's actions, but also for the values one holds. This entails that a reference to "common values" doesn't "excuse" the individual's actions, because, even though these are the values of the society he is part of, they are also his own in the sense that he could choose them to be different at any time. Thus, the focus on freedom in existentialism is related to the limits of the responsibility one bears as a result of one's freedom: The relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of interdependency, and a clarification of freedom also clarifies what one is responsible for. The Other and The Look The Other (when written with a capitalised "o") is a concept more properly belonging to phenomenology and its account of intersubjectivity. However, the concept has seen widespread use in existentialist writings, and the conclusions drawn from it differ slightly from the phenomenological accounts. The experience of the Other is the experience of another free subject who inhabits the same world as you do. In its most basic form, it is this experience of the Other that constitutes intersubjectivity and objectivity. To clarify, when one experiences someone else, and that this Other person experiences the world (the same world that you experience), only from "over there," the world itself is constituted as objective in that it is something that is "there" as identical for both of the subjects; you experience the other person as experiencing the same as you. This experience of the Other's look is what is termed the Look (sometimes The Gaze). While this experience, in its basic phenomenological sense, constitutes the world as objective, and yourself as objectively existing subjectivity (you experience yourself as seen in the Other's Look in precisely the same way that you experience the Other as seen by you, as subjectivity), in existentialism, it also acts as a kind of limitation of your freedom. This is because the Look tends to objectify what it sees. As such, when one experiences oneself in the Look, one doesn't experience oneself as nothing (no thing), but as something. Sartre's own example of a man peeping at someone through a keyhole can help clarify this: At first, this man is entirely caught up in the situation he is in; he is in a pre-reflexive state where his entire consciousness is directed at what goes on in the room. Suddenly, he hears a creaking floorboard behind him, and he becomes aware of himself as seen by the Other. He is thus filled with shame for he perceives himself as he would perceive someone else doing what he was doing, as a Peeping Tom. Another characteristic feature of the Look is that no Other really needs to have been there: It is quite possible that the creaking floorboard was nothing but the movement of an old house; the Look isn't some kind of mystical telepathic experience of the actual way the other sees you (there may also have been someone there, but he could have not noticed that you were there, or he could be another Peeping Tom who just wants to join you). Reason as a problematic defense against anxiety Emphasizing action, freedom, and decision as fundamental, existentialists oppose themselves to rationalism and positivism. That is, they argue against definitions of human beings as primarily rational. Rather, existentialists look at where people find meaning. Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them rather than what is rational. The rejection of reason as the source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the feelings of anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical freedom and our awareness of death. Kierkegaard saw rationality as a mechanism humans use to counter their existential anxiety, their fear of being in the world: "If I can believe that I am rational and everyone else is rational then I have nothing to fear and no reason to feel anxious about being free." Like Kierkegaard, Sartre saw problems with rationality, calling it a form of "bad faith", an attempt by the self to impose structure on a world of phenomena — "the other" — that is fundamentally irrational and random. According to Sartre, rationality and other forms of bad faith hinder us from finding meaning in freedom. To try to suppress our feelings of anxiety and dread, we confine ourselves within everyday experience, Sartre asserts, thereby relinquishing our freedom and acquiescing to being possessed in one form or another by "the look" of "the other" (i.e. possessed by another person - or at least our idea of that other person). In a similar vein, Camus believed that society and religion falsely teach humans that "the other" has order and structure. For Camus, when an individual's "consciousness", longing for order, collides with "the other's" lack of order, a third element is born: "absurdity". The Absurd The notion of the Absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it. This meaninglessness also encompasses the amorality or "unfairness" of the world. This contrasts with "karmic" ways of thinking in which "bad things don't happen to good people"; to the world, metaphorically speaking, there is no such thing as a good person or a bad thing; what happens happens, and it may just as well happen to a good person as to a bad person. This contrasts our daily experience where most things appear to us as meaningful, and where good people do indeed, on occasion, receive some sort of "reward" for their goodness. Most existentialist thinkers, however, will maintain that this is not a necessary feature of the world, and that it definitely isn't a property of the world in-itself. Because of the world's absurdity, at any point in time, anything can happen to anyone, and a tragic event could plummet someone into direct confrontation with the Absurd. The notion of the absurd has been prominent in literature throughout history. Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky and many of the literary works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus contain descriptions of people who encounter the absurdity of the world. Arguably, the most extensive existentialist study of "the absurd" was done by Albert Camus in his classic essay The Myth of Sisyphus. Atheistic existentialism Theistic existentialism Absurdism Nihilism 1. There is such a thing as "meaning" or "value" to be found in life Yes Yes Yes No 2. There is inherent meaning in the universe (either intrinsic or from God) No Maybe, but humans must have faith to believe there is Maybe, but humans can never know it No 3. Individuals can create meaning in life themselves Yes, it is essential that they do Yes, it is essential that they do Yes, but it is not essential No, because there is no such meaning to create 4. The pursuit of intrinsic or extrinsic meaning in the universe is a futile gesture Yes, and the pursuit itself is meaningless No, and the pursuit itself may have meaning Yes, but the pursuit itself may have meaning Yes, and the pursuit itself is meaningless 5. The pursuit of constructed meaning is a futile gesture No, thus the goal of existentialism No, thus the goal of existentialism Maybe Yes The basic mechanics of the human mind reflect a process of pattern matching or rather recognition. In a "moment of reflection", new situations and new experiences are judged against recalled ones and judgements are made. In order to make these judgements, the intellect maintains present experience and sorts relevant past experience. It does this while keeping present and past experience distinct and separate. The intellect can mix, match, merge, sift, and sort concepts, perceptions, and experience. This process is called reasoning. Logic is the science of reasoning. The awareness of this process of reasoning is access consciousness (see philosopher Ned Block). The imagination performs a different function. It combines the reasoning intellect with your feelings, intuitions and emotions, especially hope. This is magical or irrational thinking, depending on your point of view. Thinking can be modeled by a field (like a mathematical representation of an electro-magnetic field, but with each point in the field a point of consciousness) . Patterns are formed and judgements are made within the field. Some philosophers (panpsychists/panexperientialists - see wikibook on consciousness) believe the entire field is conscious in and of itself, a consciousness field. They say consciousness creates thinking, thinking and other brain processes do not create consciousness. Other scientists (for ex. Bernard Baars) think of it as a workspace. No scientist claims to understand how we are conscious. Other philosophers (ex. Thomas Nagel) have said they do not have a clue as to how we are aware of our thinking. Use of models, symbols, diagrams and pictures. Use of abstraction to simplify the effort of thinking. Use of metasyntactic variables to simplify the effort of naming. Use of iteration and recursion to converge on a concept. Limitation of attention to aid concentration and focus on a concept. Use of peace and quiet to aid concentration. Goal setting and goal revision. Simply letting the concept percolate in the subconscious, and waiting for the concept to re-surface. Talking with like-minded people. Resorting to communication with others, if this is allowed. Working backward from the goal. Desire for learning. Many of these biases are studied for how they affect belief formation, business decisions, and scientific research. • Bandwagon effect — the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink and herd behaviour. • Base rate fallacy — ignoring available statistical data in favor of particulars. • Bias blind spot — the tendency not to compensate for one's own cognitive biases. • Choice-supportive bias — the tendency to remember one's choices as better than they actually were. • Confirmation bias — the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. • Congruence bias — the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, in contrast to tests of possible alternative hypotheses. • Conservatism bias — the tendency to ignore the consequence of new evidence. (Related to base rate fallacy.)[1] • Contrast effect — the enhancement or diminishing of a weight or other • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • measurement when compared with recently observed contrasting object. Déformation professionnelle — the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one's own profession, forgetting any broader point of view. Denial[verification needed] — the tendency to disbelieve or discount an unpleasant fact. Distinction bias — the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.[2] Endowment effect — "the fact that people often demand much more to give up an object than they would be willing to pay to acquire it".[3] Expectation bias — the tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agrees with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appears to conflict with those expectations.[4] Extreme aversion — the tendency to avoid extremes, being more likely to choose an option if it is the intermediate choice. Focusing effect — prediction bias occurring when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome. Framing — by using a too narrow approach or description of the situation or issue. Also framing effect — drawing different conclusions based on how data are presented. Hostility[verification needed] Hyperbolic discounting — the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, the closer to the present both payoffs are. Illusion of control — the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot. Impact bias — the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states. Information bias — the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action. Irrational escalation — the tendency to make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken. Loss aversion — "the disutility of giving up an object is greater than the utility associated with acquiring it".[5] (see also sunk cost effects and Endowment effect). Mere exposure effect — the tendency for people to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them. Moral credential effect — the tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice. Need for closure — the need to reach a verdict in important matters; to have an answer and to escape the feeling of doubt and uncertainty. The personal context (time or social pressure) might increase this bias.[6] Neglect of probability — the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty. Not Invented Here — the tendency to ignore that a product or solution already exists, because its source is seen as an "enemy" or as "inferior". • Omission bias — the tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions). • Outcome bias — the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made. • Planning fallacy — the tendency to underestimate task-completion times. • Post-purchase rationalization — the tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value. • Pseudocertainty effect — the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes. • Reactance — the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice. • Selective perception — the tendency for expectations to affect perception. • Status quo bias — the tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same (see also loss aversion, endowment effect, and system justification).[7] • Unit bias — the tendency to want to finish a given unit of a task or an item. Strong effects on the consumption of food in particular • Von Restorff effect — the tendency for an item that "stands out like a sore thumb" to be more likely to be remembered than other items. • Wishful thinking — the formation of beliefs and the making of decisions according to what is pleasing to imagine instead of by appeal to evidence or rationality. • Zero-risk bias — preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk. Many of these biases are often studied for how they affect business and economic decisions and how they affect experimental research. • Ambiguity effect — the avoidance of options for which missing information makes the probability seem "unknown". • Anchoring — the tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on a past reference or on one trait or piece of information when making decisions. • Attentional bias — neglect of relevant data when making judgments of a correlation or association. • Availability heuristic — estimating what is more likely by what is more available in memory, which is biased toward vivid, unusual, or emotionally charged examples. • Availability cascade — a self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or "repeat something long enough and it will become true"). • Clustering illusion — the tendency to see patterns where actually none exist. • Capability bias — The tendency to believe that the closer average performance is to a target, the tighter the distribution of the data set. • Conjunction fallacy — the tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general ones. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Gambler's fallacy — the tendency to assume that individual random events are influenced by previous random events. For example, "I've flipped heads with this coin five times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixth flip is much greater than heads." Hawthorne effect — refers to a phenomenon which is thought to occur when people observed during a research study temporarily change their behavior or performance (this can also be referred to as demand characteristics). Hindsight bias — sometimes called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect, the inclination to see past events as being predictable. Illusory correlation — beliefs that inaccurately suppose a relationship between a certain type of action and an effect. Ludic fallacy — the analysis of chance related problems with the narrow frame of games. Ignoring the complexity of reality, and the non-gaussian distribution of many things. Neglect of prior base rates effect — the tendency to neglect known odds when reevaluating odds in light of weak evidence. Observer-expectancy effect — when a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it (see also subject-expectancy effect). Optimism bias — the systematic tendency to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions. Ostrich effect - ignoring an obvious (negative) situation. Overconfidence effect — excessive confidence in one's own answers to questions. For example, for certain types of question, answers that people rate as "99% certain" turn out to be wrong 40% of the time. Positive outcome bias — a tendency in prediction to overestimate the probability of good things happening to them (see also wishful thinking, optimism bias, and valence effect). Primacy effect — the tendency to weigh initial events more than subsequent events. Recency effect — the tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events (see also peak-end rule). Disregard of regression toward the mean — the tendency to expect extreme performance to continue. Reminiscence bump — the effect that people tend to recall more personal events from adolescence and early adulthood than from other lifetime periods. Rosy retrospection — the tendency to rate past events more positively than they had actually rated them when the event occurred. Selection bias — a distortion of evidence or data that arises from the way that the data are collected. Stereotyping — expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual. Subadditivity effect — the tendency to judge probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts. Subjective validation — perception that something is true if a subject's belief • • demands it to be true. Also assigns perceived connections between coincidences. Telescoping effect — the effect that recent events appear to have occurred more remotely and remote events appear to have occurred more recently. Texas sharpshooter fallacy — the fallacy of selecting or adjusting a hypothesis after the data is collected, making it impossible to test the hypothesis fairly. Most of these biases are labeled as attributional biases. • Actor-observer bias — the tendency for explanations of other individuals' behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation (see also fundamental attribution error). However, this is coupled with the opposite tendency for the self in that explanations for our own behaviors overemphasize the influence of our situation and underemphasize the influence of our own personality. • Dunning-Kruger effect — "...when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, ...they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine."[8](see also Lake Wobegon effect, and overconfidence effect). • Egocentric bias — occurs when people claim more responsibility for themselves for the results of a joint action than an outside observer would. • Forer effect (aka Barnum Effect) — the tendency to give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. For example, horoscopes. • False consensus effect — the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them. • Fundamental attribution error — the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while underemphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior (see also actor-observer bias, group attribution error, positivity effect, and negativity effect). • Halo effect — the tendency for a person's positive or negative traits to "spill over" from one area of their personality to another in others' perceptions of them (see also physical attractiveness stereotype). • Herd instinct — Common tendency to adopt the opinions and follow the behaviors of the majority to feel safer and to avoid conflict. • Illusion of asymmetric insight — people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers' knowledge of them. • Illusion of transparency — people overestimate others' ability to know them, and they also overestimate their ability to know others. • Illusory superiority — perceiving oneself as having desirable qualities to a greater degree than other people. Also known as Superiority bias. • Ingroup bias — the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Just-world phenomenon — the tendency for people to believe that the world is "just" and therefore people "get what they deserve." Lake Wobegon effect — the phenomenon that a supermajority of people report themselves as above average in desirable qualities (see also worse-than-average effect and optimism bias). Notational bias — a form of cultural bias in which a notation induces the appearance of a nonexistent natural law. Outgroup homogeneity bias — individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups. Projection bias — the tendency to unconsciously assume that others share the same or similar thoughts, beliefs, values, or positions. Self-serving bias — the tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests (see also groupserving bias). Self-fulfilling prophecy — the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or not) confirm our beliefs. System justification — the tendency to defend and bolster the status quo. Existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective selfinterest. (See also status quo bias.) Trait ascription bias — the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while viewing others as much more predictable. Ultimate attribution error — Similar to the fundamental attribution error, in this error a person is likely to make an internal attribution to an entire group instead of the individuals within the group. Beneffectance — perceiving oneself responsible for desirable outcomes but not responsible for undesirable ones. (Term coined by Greenwald (1980)) (See Selfserving bias.) Consistency bias — incorrectly remembering one's past attitudes and behaviour as resembling present attitudes and behaviour. Cryptomnesia — a form of misattribution where a memory is mistaken for imagination. Egocentric bias — recalling the past in a self-serving manner, e.g. remembering one's exam grades as being better than they were, or remembering a caught fish as being bigger than it was False memory — confusion of imagination with memory, or the confusion of true memories with false memories. Hindsight bias — filtering memory of past events through present knowledge, so that those events look more predictable than they actually were; also known as the 'I-knew-it-all-along effect'. Suggestibility — a form of misattribution where ideas suggested by a questioner are mistaken for memory.