Different Worlds

There's often an assumption that other people think the same, or at least in a similar way, as we do. In fact, although we all live in the same world we see it in very different ways. These differences aren't just between countries. A middle-class office worker has a very different view of the world than a street kid, even though they may pass each other on the pavement. What was called 'the generation gap' in the '60s was actually a cultural divide, as different as people from different countries.

The psychologist Carl Jung broadly grouped people into different psychological types. Isabel Briggs Myers (1897-1979) and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs developed this into what is now called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Broadly, the categories are

extraversion/introversion
sensate/intuitive
thinking/feeling
judging/perceiving

From these groups a person can be put into one of 16 psychological profiles. According to this theory, people with widely different profiles perceive the world in very different ways. One of the reasons why the Briggs-Myers team were so keen on developing their theory was that they hoped that by being aware of their profile, people would be cognisant of the differences between different way of perceiving the world. For example, according to Jung, "Thinking, roughly speaking, tells you what [something] is. Feeling tells you whether it is agreeable or not, to be accepted or rejected". This difference in sensing the world around can make for huge problems in communication. Similar problems arise with the difference between the introverted and the extraverted mind.

I've mentioned previously ('The Quintessential Element') about the four elements of the human psyche and these relate to Jung's types. People have an element that is in the forefront of their makeup and another that is less prominent. For example, someone may predominantly use their rationality to solve problems, but may also operate emotionally. Myers-Briggs found similar results.

The Sceptics are, not surprisingly, sceptical about this. But then they are probably Briggs-Myers ESTJ types.